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Speaking of expensive... Anyone remember Kai Wong? In earlier days of YouTube, he hosted a bunch of photography related videos on DigitalRevTV, out of Hong Kong. DRTV doesn't really exist anymore, but Kai maintains some degree of celebrity in the online photography world. He's got his own YouTube channel. I'm not subscribed and have never watched any of his videos (before today) but YT's algorithm has taken note that I have been consuming a fair amount of photography related material recently. (I've been doing a deep dive on TTArtisan glass, the OG Canon EF 15mm F/2.8 Fisheye -- more on that later -- and of course specific M42 mount lenses like different iterations of the Asahi Takumar 50mm F/1.4. I learned that my non-multicoated 7 element version is probably radioactive.) I guess that explains the giant orange hexagon, but I digress... Well, ol' Kai managed to get his hands on a vintage French-made cinema lens, the Som Berthiot Flor 55mm F/1.5. I don't know a thing about the Flor 55mm or Som Berthiot in general. I do know that cinema lenses tend to be several orders of magnitude more rare and expensive than ones designed for still frame. They were made in comparatively infinitesimal numbers and only a small fraction were sold to the general public. Additionally because motion picture cameras feed the film through vertically, many cinema lenses don't make an image circle sufficiently large to cover the 35mm film plane on a still camera. The Flor is one such lens and it can be adapted to fit Leica rangefinder bodies. Consequently a clean example goes for upwards of 60,000 British Pounds in the rare event where one comes up for sale. I'm not necessarily suggesting anyone watch (most) of this video. In spite of Kai's best efforts with his little handheld wireless mic, the sound quality is lacking. Add to that the rather thick accents of most of the subjects and it can be a challenge to figure out what they're talking about. The example shots taken with the Flor are ...fine, but nothing dazzling. I own a (not so) small army of manual focus primes. While none of them match the Flor's specific unsharpness and color transmission, I can get to an equally interesting optical space with fair number of my vintage lenses. I can't mount any of them to Leica body, however. (Which is mostly fine with me, I have never coveted a Lecia digital body, but I would certainly give an M6 with a 35mm Summicron a go.) I'll go a step further and say that if there was lens that offered identical optical performance to the Flor, but was made in much larger quantity by a less storied maker (Yashica, for example) it would sell for maybe $100 on eBay.

Finally! That's what I thought when reading Grahame's post announcing it

Yes, it's pricy. My eye is on the Fujifilm X-T50 but the phone will do for now.

You don't need another Camera, right @blessingx?

Reassuringly expensive, surely?

normally if you go from 120V to 240V you half the current draw power = current * voltage so you may have a problem. Assuming the amp did not blow fuses when set to 120V the same value fuse should not blow at 240V... fuses can weaken over time and they do vary considerably. EEV blog on you tube did some interesting experiments and found the fuses ratings to be at best a guestimate. With large variations in the fail current for fuses from the same batch. There are multiple versions of the DIY T2 and the choice of valves effects power consumption a little. My T2 consumes about 205W once warmed up (mostly modern T2 with tung-sol el34 and genalex 6922, kghssv psu). there is a high voltage delay built in to allow the tubes some warm up before applying high voltages. When the high voltage psu switches on it initially has to fill the filter caps and this makes short duration current surge of more than 4A. Assuming there is no short circuit in your high voltage rails and you have not wired up your transformer incorrectly, its this initial charge that's blown your fuse. I am currently running 5A slow and that been fine for many months. 4A slow blow might be ok too. Having said that I always specify my transformers with resettable thermal fuses built in for a bit of extra protection.

(Edited for pronouns) RIP to poet (and more) Andrea Gibson. I hadn't really listened to them, only HEARD OF them. But with their death, I watched and listened. And....they were STUNNING! I watch several of their talks/poems and often times I cry, for their pain & beauty. Examples:

Still trying to make sense of Sunny's murder and failing to do so. I knew her for just under 30 years. I actually remember the day I met her. It was August 31st, 1997, my first day at Bradford College. Also the day Princess Diana died. I've been a photographer for two decades at this point, but I have precious few photos of Sunshine. I had been meaning to catch up with her for years, but as tragically is so often the case, I kept putting it off. The last conversation I had with her was two years ago when her father passed. I sent her this photo: I look it in 2012 with the never-not-shit EF-75-300mm. I ran it though the Silver FX Pro plugin, which I favored at the time. Mark (Sunny's dad) was ...a piece of work, but certainly a character. In this shot he's a man in his element. The only photos I have of Sunny herself are from 2007 and 2008. I took this one on my back porch in October of 2007. When I remember is she had to leave early. That fall was marked by two things: some of the best foliage colors I've ever witnessed in scenic western MA, and the absolute peak of dubstep. Not brostep fart noises, but the original very sparse minimal reggae tinged sound that started in say 2003 and was dead by 2009. There was a big dubstep party that happned about two days after Sunny left. I did the lights and if memory serves, I DJ'd at the after party. Initially Sunny wanted to attend, but business in Maine called her back. Sunny was possibly the biggest extrovery I ever knew. She had no shortage of self confience. Yet she did not like having her picture taken. This shot and the following one are from July of 2008, just shy of 17 years ago. She wasn't pleased that I was pointing my SLR at her. As I have said many times, I always prefer portraits where the subject is reacting to anything but the camera. I mentioned the Silfer FX Pro plugin earlier. Prior to that, I used to make heavy use to two Photoshop scripts I found in the mid 00s. One was "holgafy" and the other was "lomofy." Both were more than a bit heavy handed, but I taught myself to reverse engineer and wrangle them a bit. I did to passes with said scripts on a photo of Sunny in 2007, but never published the edits. I found them yesterday while looking for photos of her. I don't particularly like either edit, but he lo-fi effects of the scripts take on an entirely new meaning in light of Sunny's passing. At the risk of repeating myself, if you have someone you haven't spoken to in entirely too long, do it today. There may not be a tomorrow.