OneGuyFromBarlick

Looks to be doing the job, good stuff.

Anyone need a camera bag?

Have a look at this novelty...It might even make a smartphone useful!
`Oppo smartphone adds 60x microscope camera' LINK

That looks genuine and is quite amazing.
However, you and I Peter are connoisseurs of scams and if you see an advert for a £39 monocular that converts your camera into a super zoom camera, it's usually called 'Starscope', forget it, it's a scam and the adverts are all fakes.

There are a number of web pages that explain how to make your smartphone into a microscope camera. You buy one of those laser pointers, take out the lens, put it into a hole in some plastic sheet and then make a simple frame on which to fix the sheet, together with a way of raising and lowering it to get the focus right. Then lay your smartphone with the camera over the lens, adjust for focus and snap the pic. I've seen some very good photos of tiny water creatures taken this way. It would be interesting to know if the Oppo phone could be combined with that idea to get even more magnification!

Youngest offspring bought an Oppo phone to use until his two year O2 contract runs out (he'll get a new Samsung handset when it does). He's considering keeping the Oppo and changing to a SIM only contract, the Oppo doesn't seem to have the same stigma around it as the Huawei handsets.

`Smaller and better smartphone cameras are on the way' LINK
`...At Scope Photonics in Ontario, Canada, they want to create lossless zoom for all kinds of images, which means any photo enjoying a close-up will remain consistently sharp. Chief executive Holden Beggs and his team have been working on a type of technology harnessing liquid crystals, made popular by liquid-crystal display (LCD) screens found in living rooms and retail displays across the world. Scope Photonics has found a way to make liquid crystals "spin like tops" and reorganise themselves based on how light moves through them. The effect is to mimic a zoom lens system. So instead of a series of lenses, Scope's system can zoom in and out with just the one lens...'.

Whatever will they think of next! (As my mother used to say....)

I like the dramatic landscape pics in this...
`Amazon in pictures: Sebastião Salgado's last frontier' LINK

Interesting that he works in monochrome. ("There are only two kinds of snaps, good ones and colour." Anon.)

Been out on a photoshoot at Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham. It was good to photograph people, it's been a while. Did some promo shots for the relaunch of a local rock band.

I enjoy a visit to Gawthorpe Hall there's more detail there than meets the eye. My problem is that I'm so intent on the detail I don't take enough of the general view to show where its located. Result, lots of pictures of fancy lumps of stone but with no relationship to anything else. Ah Well !!!

plaques wrote: ↑13 Jun 2021, 07:47 Result, lots of pictures of fancy lumps of stone but with no relationship to anything else.

That happens to me too but for a different reason!
(Strange - that image is crisp on my PC but appears blurred on here and in the gallery..?)
Later...I downloaded the image shown in this post and it's 450 x 600 pixels and looks crisp at 100% in my photo software. But I have Firefox set to view on 120% for OG so that I can read the text OK, so I guess that's why its fuzzy for me in the post.

Big Kev wrote: ↑12 Jun 2021, 17:31 Been out on a photoshoot at Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham. It was good to photograph people, it's been a while. Did some promo shots for the relaunch of a local rock band.

They've not chosen the final images but here's a taster of what went on.

I think I like the old rocks more than the old rockers....... Sorry about that.

There's one there with hair on. This will never do. Tell him he'll never be a fashion icon with hair.

plaques wrote: ↑14 Jun 2021, 08:37 There's one there with hair on. This will never do. Tell him he'll never be a fashion icon with hair.

I believe drummers are exempt from fashion

plaques wrote: ↑14 Jun 2021, 08:37 There's one there with hair on. This will never do. Tell him he'll never be a fashion icon with hair.

He self-identifies as a bald man and I'll cancel you if you don't respect that!

Tizer wrote: ↑14 Jun 2021, 09:08

plaques wrote: ↑14 Jun 2021, 08:37 There's one there with hair on. This will never do. Tell him he'll never be a fashion icon with hair.

He self-identifies as a bald man and I'll cancel you if you don't respect that!

Well that's me told. Hair today and gone tomorrow. We all have our favourites.

That took me back Ken to an American Army Base near Colchester where Gene Krupa gave us a couple of spectacular solos.....

Some teenagers (including one of my relatives) are excitedly buying vinyl records - what comes around goes around, as they say (pun intended!).

I have just ordered a book online from World Books. One of the Dummies guides this one for the Canon Rebel T3i /EOS 600D. I have the manual but it takes a bit of wading through for all the functions on the camera. I have used a film SLR before but I need a refresher on what is what, lots more options on a DSLR beast. £7.79 with free delivery, can't be stung at that!

I have been watching an online tutorial on YouTube from a professional geographic photographer based in Australia. He covers all the bases in a nice structured way but it's hard to keep up in real time so to speak if you are copying even the basics as you have to find the same setting on your own camera. It should be easier with a book for reference as it only moves on when you turn the page. That's the theory anyway.

A combination of both methods will hopefully make the penny drop, and stick.

Good stuff Ian, the Dummies guides are very good. I have one for Apache NiFi I use for work.
I have the Photographer's Guide to Photoshop which is much easier to follow than actual Photoshop tutorials. It starts with a specific image and the author lists all the camera settings and then goes through a step by step process, with images, showing how he got to the finished image. It's been very useful.