Friday, March 19, 2010

Shit day!

I just been cut by a mini motor grinder, on my left hand index finger, really shit day!
now it hurts very much, but at least my finger did not leave me....
(28/03 add)
I did not mentioned that after my left hand been cut, the next day my right hand finger being cut by the same tool! how stupid I am! this time my wife did not comfort me, rather she shout at me, something like axxhole or things like that.
We Chinese had a saying :" bad luck never come alone", well, I do agree with that.
During these days all I can do is sitting before notebook, typing with two un-wounded fingers and grabing the mouse to hang around, waiting for wound be better.

That makes things worse, you know, sometimes when you are boring, you just can not stop wanting to buy something, to comforting yourself. I bought a Panasonic G1 camera body and a leica M to M43 adapter, now I got a full manual digital camera system! G1 body price drop so quick, it cost merely about the price of an adapter---US$220!

I always think that investing on digital camera is a totally money lose, since it becomes a trash within one or two years, and no one will take it even you give it away for free! So I do my best avoiding invest on digital things, best someone throw me an ex-expensive toy to me, treat me as a digital trash processor....

But I am happy with this body, even worth if you only use its spot metering function, as a spot meter.

And for my Leica M lenses, I found out that my 90mm lens is back to life again, thanks to this camera body, for I rarely use 90mm lens on my M6, in the reason of focus difficulty. But G1 makes it as a 180mm lens and is in SLR structure, focusing is a pleasure on it, that makes me feel an big extra bonus!

Today I am back to my worktable, this batch conversion is little schedule behind, sorry guys, I will do my best to catch up, at least not dragging too long...

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Emily fans are many!

I am working on front plate design, for fixing the ininity position, and for focus adjustments. Many mails came, give me valuable suggestions, I would like to thank all of your concern,  that makes me a little bit nervous, I will push myself, and my mechanist to do the job well, to keep fans happy!!
(16/03 added)
Just brought back the top plate for Emily, I did some modification---drilled hole for bubble level. Contributed idea by Walter, drilled hole on Byron top housing, I found that Emily should have one too.
bubble level is rather thick, but thanks to the plate, it is implanted quite well
Ok, what else we need?
Kids has just re-watched Harry Potter movies, said this camera should be named "Mad Eye Moody".
Worth to think about it.

And this Xenotar just taken off from barrel last night, glass is not perfect, some dust, but overall is good, not US$39K, only 0.3k!
And I don't know how to deal with this barrel tube, "photo-sonics inc" is what engraved, anyone provides me some info on this company? thank you.
Is there anyone willing to sell me a #2 shutter?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

New top plate for Emily

Besides tedious works on converting cameras, I took time mainly on developing Emily, WA 4x5 shooter, based on J66 body, almost the same as 110/B, except no Range finder on top, and no front door for rail, so it is a good candidate for wide angle.
All the same back system to Byron, Emily needs new bellows, new front lens plate, and a new top plate. The top plates just arrived, I installed it with two cold shoes, one for view finder, one for a tiny range finder, if uses want to.
 This is the position for about 47mm lens. Avoiding pig snout and helical focus ring which are popular seen on wide angle camera, I want to replace them by bellows and level, bellows is easy to me, but the level, that puzzeled me.

If I can successfully develop a mechanism, which can fix the lens on infinity position, and move the lens in 15mm range by adjusting level, then Emily will be a great WA camera for lenses wider than 90mm!

Then maybe I should sell the DIY kit, to convert your own J66 into WA camera, you can choose the color of cover you want, and I can get rid of those tedious works!!!

Monday, March 1, 2010

Byron will add bubble

Went to my mechanist today, with a cracked RF housing and a bubble, asked him to drill a 20mm dia. hole, he did, and we inserted the bubble, looked fine, but a little too near the edge, should move the hole backward little bit.
So from now on, unless client indicates he/she doesn't want the bubble, I will install one for each Byron, thanks to Walter's wonderful idea!