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Couple of 800/11 + R5 except the cat was taken with the R6 All JPEGs, maybe I won't never get to editing these. (probably have some better shots, I just don't know where they are...) I would say f/11 is least of the worries. (With the AI noise reduction I probably wouldn't need to be nearly as careful with that anymore.) A lot of standing still and waiting involved in this (with occasional silent cursing). As it is either not the most interesting species to photograph, or the background is busy (not a fan of organising a scene but that's what professionals tend to do), or the lighting is not there (you can see, same bird getting close because the nest was in the shed I was photographing from, few days apart yet completely different lighting), the animal is far too intelligent to spot me from far away, subject is hard to find as the FOV is so tight, etc. But worst is when I do get lucky by getting close but I hit the minimum focusing distance of 6m (19.7 feet) and can't take a shot, zooms don't have this issue. Nevertheless, it is fun to use with animal eye-tracking, although limited AF area, had it twice, might buy it again for around 600$ used it is hard to ignore. Very good for video, too (preferably on a stable tripod, which I don't really have...) The 200-800/6.3-9 will push more of these on the used market, the 100-500/4.5-7.1 as well which is even more versatile for close-ups and landscapes (sold that as well). R8 with its more advanced AF with a bigger area and even lighter weight is actually better match for it than the R5 (and the Black Friday price of 1300$ for this body seems very attractive, I know I will try one eventually).

Fair warning: This is gonna be a long walk and it's going to make increasingly less sense as it goes along. This is the original Canon EF 50mm F/1.8: It is was only made for a short time between 1987 and 1990. It is, in my estimation, still the best 50mm for the EF system. The Mark II is the same optically, but it's got toylike build quality and a plastic mount. The EF 50mm F/1.4 (a lens I have used extensively since 2006) is ...fine. It's not as sharp, has more distortion, and a bigger PITA about focusing. The exotic EF 50mm F/1.0L is a collector's bauble that is astronomically expensive on the used market. It might as well be a Ferrari. The current EF 50mm F/1.2L is better than the 1.0, but still entirely too expensive, large and heavy. In case I'm not being clear, the 1.4, 1.2 and 1.0 fifties are optically inferior to the humble 1.8. I was fortunate to get my Mk I 50/1.8 from a friend who had just broken his EOS camera and gone back to film. I've jealously guarded it since '08 or so. I will be buried with it. The problem is, I don't have a lens hood for it. Now that I'm shooting full frame full time, I need a hood. Canon lens hoods are a dark science. After much searching, I'm more or less positive I need an ES-65 hood, in either Mk I, II, III iteration. The problem is that there's the new mirrorless 50mm F/1.8 STM that users an ES-65B hood. That damn thing (and Chinesium knock-offs) are everywhere. Finding a real McCoy ES-65 in decent shape and at an okay price has been a PITA. I found a couple reputable sellers on the 'Bay and I'm going to pick one up this weekend. This is a Janpol 55mm F/5.6 enlarger lens I got over the summer. It uses the M42 mount. The problem is that it doesn't focus, so I need an M42 helicoid adapter. Guessing what mm range I need is a shot in the dark. I actually DGAF if I can't hit infinity focus on the Janpol, but I'd prefer to have a workable focus range. This is Tamron "Adapt-a-matic" manual focus 135mm F/2.8 from the 1970s, photographed here with my 85mm F/1.8 (I was feeling lazy and used a modern lens for once.) This Tameron is part of their line of lenses that predated the their Adaptall series. The mount adapter is removable and different ones could be swapped in. The problem is that I have a ...Konika or something mount and I need Nikon F or M42. These adapters unimaginably rare these days. What I've read is the trick is to find an old lens with an adapter you want. I've seen a few on the 'Bay in various focal lengths (28mm and 200mm seem popular) and pick one up soonish. No, I have no idea how many 135mm primes I own at this point. They just fall in my lap. This is the Canon EF 600mm F/4L USM: It has been the industry standard wildlife photographer lens since 1988. There are a number of versions. The fist lacked image stabilization. The IS version arrived in '99. The IS Mk II came out in 2011, and the still-in-production III came out in 2018. It'll set you back a cool $13,000. Like most such super-teles, the Can 600mm is a fancy telescope to which one attaches a camera: If the 600 F/4 is not sufficiently insane, there's also the EF 800mm F/5.6L: (Bald guy not included.) It's a stop slower, but is the same bargain price of 13 grand. I have only recently begun to think of 800mm as anything other than silly, but it's really nice for moon photos and especially small critters. Also I went on a bender looking at photos taken with the old FD 800 and saw a lot of cool stuff. Lest one thing we've hit the limit for irrationality, there is also the Canon 1200mm. No, I don't mean the exotic 1200mm F/5.6. There's like 20 of those in total, and it's such a big deal when one comes up for sale the normie press covers it. Also they cost as much as a house. Even if I could magically afford one, I have an aversion to lenses that need to be manned by a crew like a mortar emplacement. No, what I'm talking about is the comparatively diminutive 1200mm F/8L: It's only available in the mirrorless RF mount, and costs a paltry $20,000 (roughly the rental cost of a weekend with the EF 1200mm I imagine.) I will admit, even for me the RF 1200 seems too much. Any critter that far away is no longer of interest to me. There's also the issue that the 1200, along with the 600 and 800 (not to mention the 400 and 500) are completely out of my budget and always will be. So why am I dedicating so much time and space to these things? Well... I now live full time right next to a pond. Since 2005 I've been photographing it: Taken with a PowerShot S60, 2005. Taken with an EOS 30D and EF-S 17-85mm, 2006. Taken with a dollar store camera and Kodak Gold 200, 2007. Taken with an EOS Rebel G, 35mm F/2, and Kodak Gold 200, 2007. Taken with Kodak BW400CN and a 17-40 in 2008. Taken with Velvia 50 and a 17-40L, 2008. I sometimes wonder, did I peak in '08? Taken with an IR-modified PowerShot G2 in 2009. Taken with an IR modified 5D classic and a 17-40L, 2013. Taken with a fricken iPhone, this past January. Taken with my 5D IV, which I've taken to calling "the 5D4" and one of my many silly manual lenses. In this case it was the Asahi Super Takumar 50/1.4. I don't actually like this photo too much, but it's been weirdly popular on Flickr. The point of all this is I live next to a mini nature preserve. I see ducks of the common mallard persuasion, as well as more exotic ones like hooded mergansers. I see black skimmers, who are the Blue Angels of the water bird world. They are so graceful as they fly over the pond it's amazing. I see "common" green herons, who are amazing birds only outclassed because they have to share space with a couple larger iterations. Chief among those is a solitary great blue heron who shows up every once in a while. He's such an animal I could probably write several paragraphs about him. I've also seen two white egrets, who are stunning for entirely different reasons (BRIGHT WHITE. HUGE.) So far, with the rarest exception, I have failed to photograph any of the above avians, as well as any of the ground based fauna. There's a host of reasons for this. I don't put in enough effort. I'm not attentive enough in watching the pond. I'm old, slow and clumsy by the standards of humans (and we we are a clumsy species as far as wildlife is concerned). Also I am completely lacking the right glass for the job. I do own two manual focus 300mms and a crappy 75-300mm autofocus lens. They are NOT up to the task of dealing with birds. As I mentioned paragraphs ago, I cannot afford any of the exotic Can L super-teles, now or ever. So where TF is this going? Full Retard, where else. This is the Canon RF600mm F/11 STM. It's $800. This the Canon RF 800mm F/11 STM, it's under $1000. These are not "normal" lenses at all. First off F/11 is comically slow, or was until we entered the high ISO mirrorless era. Also they lack apertures. At all. You cannot stop them down further than F/11. They are, as the kids say, weird AF. They're also the most economical way to get to the field of view necessary to capture small and easily spooked animals. Also they're all within my long term reach in a way that big stonking L glass never will be. I'm not saying I'm planning out a Canon R5 purchase next year with a 600 and 800mm side order, but I'm sure thinking about it. I'm thinking about it a lot.

I asked Dave, a slightly older person.

Yup - it is indeed a UltraWide SCSI. But it was also not uncommon to use this pin out to control a printer. The other end of that plug didn't look like that. - I'm old.

I'm pretty sure top left is not a printer cable. It looks like one end of late 90s UW SCSI to me. AI generated image of "average Corvette owner."

The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored Hayden Pedigo 2023 https://album.link/i/1671890098 Example: So I came across Hayden on a recent Tiny Desk, and I really liked the tunes, and the super clean technique. When it comes to guitar playing I am not a big fan of hearing the fingers slide on the strings, and that is pretty much absent for Hayden. The NPR post. There has also been some really good 70's Jazz. First Cuckoo Deodato 1975 https://album.link/i/1588155428 Example: I have really grown to appreciate Deodato's playing (piano) recently. And the smooth funk is juuuust right...

Quick update: purchased a Matrix Audio Mini-i pro 3 via Ebay for 400€. Good bang for the buck I suppose and option to upgrade the dac in de future.

I should really learn to read. A friend of mine pointed out to me that the Kodak I bought has the better Kodar 72mm lens that is not fixed focus. It in fact has a focus scale printed on the top of it. This makes it a significantly better camera than what I was describing above. With that said, the Duaflex III is not a true TLR. I was going to take some glamor shots of the lens I bought at the same time as the Kodak, but it's raining sideways here on scenic MV today. The truth is bad weather conditions can make for some amazing photos on MV, but I cannot be arsed to traipse out around in it right now. June of '05, just down the street from me. Taken with my trusty PowerShot S60 and re-edited in 2020. Same spot, same time. Unedited. The following day, at the EDG lighthouse. The day had been totally clear when I started out and the fog rolled in out of nowhere. Vineyard weather is like that. Back to the present day: This was a department store called Fligor's for decades. My grandparents used to buy me overpriced Lego sets here when I was a kid. I have fond memories of the stone wall meaning "Legos soon!" An (AFAIK) no longer used boat launch, with Chappaquiddick in the background. This is me trying to be less strict with the rule of thirds. There's a retired boomer who happily tools around in this Porsche 993. I am (not so) secretly jealous. Air cooled engines make such a neat noise that sounds nothing like other cars. Also I love that he has his surfboard strapped to it. The exact opposite of this vehicle is the veritable army of Posche-Utes with their distinctive but stupid quad LED headlights. I hate every single thing about the Cayenne. They're shitty SUVs. They're shitty Porsches. They're really shitty to have to share the road with on a tiny island with narrow roads. Also I swear the demographic that buys them are among the worst that.... [KNUCKLES. No more ranting!] The On Time ferry, shipping 2 oversized pickups and a dump truck from Chappy back to the "mainland" as they call it. Someone in another forum asked me where I was to get this "airborne" shot of the ferry, so here ya go: I was in Vineyard Haven around dusk (which comes at like 3:45 in the afternoon these days) and climbed up on to the lawn of the Martha's Vineyard museum, which is the best sited building on the entire island. It was originally a military hospital IIRC. The lawn is full of Canadian geese, and therefore a minefield of their droppings. I had to tread carefully to get this shot. I was honked at continuously for my efforts. From the parking lot of the Museum. I wanted to frame the tree, keep the harbor horizon flat, and not fall off the side of the embankment. I succeeded in at least one of these tasks. There's been couple trees in my yard that have stubbornly hung on to their fall colors. This one in particular was being an absolute showoff. Taken with my CZJ Sonnar, which I never fail to describe as the best of my 135mms for actually taking photos. Even if it has a pedestrian 6 blade aperture, it has a brilliant optical design. The color transmission speaks for itself. See how the OOF areas are what I call "painted." It's like a poor man's 85L. Not at all, actually, but it is a mighty fine lens. I like it enough that I make up reasons to use it. Taking photos of trees with a 135mm portrait lens is not something rational people do, but I have fun with it. Speaking of... More of the same, only entirely different. Taken from the edge of my driveway. I converted this shot to B&W with Luminar 4, which I find is better for the process than Photoshop. I did do some further edits in PS to get the levels where I liked them. There might be a tough too much negative space at the top of this photo, but I'm still pretty happy with it. Last light on a day much clearer than today. Taken with my '86 nifty fifty, which is the best walkaround lens I have until I get a new 35mm F/2 with a working AF motor.

Also, meta post here. Imgur finally made good on their threat to delete old images, and not in the way they said they would. In the spring of this year they said they were deleting all old images not associated with an imgur account. I've had an account since the site launched in 2010. I had uploaded something like 44,000 photos in that time. At least 20K are magically gone. This is what the first post in this thread now looks like: 🪦

I don't know where else to put this, so Self-described gay furry hackers breach one of the biggest nuclear labs in the US, and demand it begin researching 'IRL catgirls'