Knuckledragger

Haj bought an 85/1.8!

I used a hotshoe-to-PC-cord adapter to connect my IR-modified PowerShot G2 to a gigantic speedlite meant for large format film cameras. The flash was easily 4x the size of the camera. Unlike the current model G11, the 2001-vintage G2 had no trouble triggering the flash.

What Reks said, but also, do you have a blower? They are indispensable for DLSR owners. Check the mirror and the bottom of the pentaprism (which is located above the mirror when the camera is held in the horizontal shooting position) for specs. A micofiber cloth is very useful for cleaning the mirror and the exposed sides of the pentaprism. This is a decent blower, but you can probably get one locally: Amazon.com: Giottos AA1900 Large Rocket Blaster: Camera & Photo Avoid ones like this, they're no good: NP10091 Adorama Blower Brush - Small You can get microfiber cloths any place that sells glasses.

I'm gonna resist shopping any infamous Head-Fiers on to that cover.

The 85/2 looks to have pretty neutral bokeh, which is good. Out of branches are something of a bokeh torture test. If a lens exhibits strong nisen bokeh (rings) then it will render OOF branches as last parallel lines. The lens looks to be pretty contrasty and have good color transmission as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVqEwpxAYLI

Not smoking anything, but I just tried a Marlboro "Snus" packet that a friend gave me. It is unbelievably disgusting. You ever sample the syrup used to make fountain drinks? It was like that, made from aromatic pipe tobacco. It's one letter off from "anus" for a reason. :barf:

The father of a friend of mine just installed some gee-whiz video projector, which is quite a few cable feet from his receiver. He used two shorter lengths of HDMI cable (maybe 20' each?) and an HDMI repeater in the middle. I dunno what model he used, but was a little silver box that looked something like this one: Gefen Inc. - Repeater For HDMI 1.3

G/E!

The official tooth paste of H-C?

Shee-it. Tom Dickson, the "Will it blend?" guy has his own signature blender. It's $1000 and requires a dedicated 20 amp circuit(!) Blenders > Tom Dickson Extreme Blender - 20 Amp Convertible blender

Thanks. It's true, multiple-exposure HDR of moving water is a complete waste of time. I have tried it before on several occasions and got nothing but frustration for my efforts. I use Photomatix most of the time for HDR processing. It is an app that gets regular updates, and I'm not convinced that all of them have been improvements. That said, the support of pseudo-HDR-from-RAW has gotten much better over the years. Also, Photomatix now finally passes EXIF data through to the final image. It didn't for years, and when it first did, it chewed on it something fiece (F/7.9999 instead of F/8, WTF?) but now it works quite well. Best $100 I ever spent on software, TBH.

Damn, dude. That is the end of an era. As the proud owner of a tiny bit of HeadRoom technology, and headphone listener in general, I thank you for all you have done for the community and hobby as a whole. Godspeed on whatever pursuits you choose next.

I only have one digital body (Canon EOS 30D) and I have a bunch of adapters for it. Then Canon EF mount has one of the deepest flange depths of any autofocus 35mm lens system. There's quite a lot of adapters for mounting M42 and Nikon F mount lenses to EF bodies on the market. Most are made in China and sold on eBay, and they are not all created equal. The good ones cost $20-30 each. I got a set of lesser M42 adapters, 4 for $50, and I got what I paid for. One didn't work at all, and the other stopped working after about 6 months of light use. There's a Flickr group for using manual focus lenses on EF digital bodies: Flickr: EOS Cameras and Manual Lenses and I know there's one for Nikons as well. There's also the Manual Focus Forum, which has a vast array of information on the subject.

Speaking of Starcraft....

So Reks... In one thread or other (not this one) you mentioned that you had a bunch of old manual Nikkor primes that you inherited from your father. 135mm F/3.5, 85mm F/2, and 50mm F/1.4 (IIRC). Those are most likely all good-to-excellent optically, and have a tanklike construction. I don't know those particular lenses specifically, but I'd hazard a guess that the 135mm is going to be razor sharp even wide open, and have absolutely gorgeous bokeh. It was designed as a portrait lens, and will of course serve wonderfully in that capacity on a cropped sensor or full frame. [Warning: much lens nerdity ahead.] I have what a few of my friends characterize as an unhealthy obsession with 135mm primes. I have owned, uh, five of them. The three main ones I use are: