stormy start for 2020?

I was going to post an early wrap of a rather dry December - but it appears the 31st could change that. We're about 1.4" short here, so Tuesday needs to be messy - and it just might happen.

Yes, more talk of an atmospheric river has begun, and New Year's Eve could be quite damp .. and a second tropical tap could arrive a couple of days after that. WxU shows 4+ inches through 1/7, and the NWS is showing at least 3" on this 7-day map ending 1/5.

These storms are nice for our local water supply and for keeping things green. They do little for snowpack though, as tropical freezing levels do little good around here. Snow on the summit of the volcanic peaks is pretty but that's a very small area compared to the amount of terrain we have at 4000 feet ±. We'll see what develops, as usual.

And maybe by the 10th 5th* or so

 we can get some NW flow 

off the ocean to bring snow 

to places it's supposed to go?

12/31 total: 2.21". And December ends at 108% of average, by an abnormal method!

* 1/4/20 p.p.s. - forecast at Government Camp ~3750'. 

Site is about 20-25% of normal right now, so 5' more would be very good news!

2020 gear

So we're done with another year, which strongly suggests I'm done buying things.
(No winning bids in hand right now, in other words.)

So what's on the shelf / in the bag going into 2020?

A bit of Pentax remains as the good light, bad weather option -

• K200d body, silver (CCD, wx-sealed midrange from ~12 years ago)
• DA∙L 18-50mm RE (sealed, silent focus, retracts to look like a thick prime)
• several primes from the past: 50/1.7, 100/2.8, 200/4 (+ a broken 24/2.8)
• Rikenon 70-150mm (MF) and 28-80mm Sigma (AF) zooms.

On the more active μ43 side - bodies first:

• Lumix GX7, silver (last of the pre-4k bodies, excellent fit for me)
• Oly EM∙10, silver (original em10, first body with live bulb/composite features)
• Lumix GX1, black (barely worth selling, plus even better fit for me!)
• Lumix GF2, pink (my wife's little favorite, with the 12-32mm on it)

And lenses - hmm let's make this a table since options are pretty thick in this bunch!

• Zooms - AF is covered with 12-40, 45-150 and adapted 70-300mm zooms.
• Primes - the wide end is covered with reasonably fast 7.5/15/20/30mm AF primes. Pentax primes take over at 50mm and beyond - plenty good enough with stabilized bodies (K200, GX7, EM10) and focus peaking on the μ43 bodies. 
• Macro can be handled with the slow-focusing AF Zuiko 35mm macro at 1:1 or via a 10mm extension tube on other primes, or at 1:2 max with the beastly 70-300 Zuiko.

The lenses near the bottom get very little use. That's OK for now. I also have T-PK adapters so the latter two can be used on the K200d as well.


p.s. It's always something. I forgot both the Lumix 14-42ii and Olympus 14-42 IIR in my list. Either could take over for the 12-40 and do an equivalent job, except for the wide end. The 14-42ii has image stabilization that's presumably better than the GX7 and not quite as good as the EM10; one could test these to death without proving that, I'm thinking!

I've also read a bit more about μ43 'standards' regarding in-cam jpeg (and raw) lens corrections. Point one is that YI claims their cameras do that too. Point two is that since TruePic VII (EM1.1, EM10) Lumix lenses are also corrected on Oly bodies. Point 3 is that every time I read about this the waters turn muddy in a real hurry, with every owner certain of what's true and every camera maker a bit less.. precise in their declarations. So definitely use salt to taste on this matter.

Bingo. Twice!

I've been putting low-ball bids on a 30mm macro from Lumix or Olympus. Not surprisingly I've lost.

I've been looking at this as the final prime lenses, and one that frees up two others (a nice 30mm/2.8 Sigma and a Zuiko 35/3.5 4Thirds macro). Swapping a native macro for both the 30 and 35mm could get me a lens that can work wonders at a distance and copy slides too.

Then today I tried out the 20mm Lumix with my 10mm extension tube.

This is a perfect slide-filling setup in 3:2 mode. No doubt it's not edge-to-edge perfect like a true macro, but hey how good are the 1970s-90s images that I am copying anyway? Was the film perfectly flat, did my lenses work to perfection?* And how many will sit large on my wall some day?

So my need for a true macro lens is reduced. The 35mm Zuiko was not a large investment, so it can be the shelf backup while the Sigma takes the more active role. Hm, I need to check that one with the 10mm x-tube as well, I suppose! [adjourns for 5 minutes]

Not bad considering that I am hand-holding camera and slide for an uneven focal plane, and pointing out the window for a very uneven light source. The slide's frame is barely visible along the edges, though some distortion is visible due to that. So three options are available, given a tripod and a good source of backlighting!


*Well, the smc-M40 pancake probably did, and the M24-50 was along much of the time.. so many fine shots are available to copy. 

the fire-hose awakens

An atmospheric river will bring some impressively wet conditions to the west coast..
Somewhere.

Today's forecast for Thu PM - Sat PM is shown here. Oregon and our corner of Wash. are definitely in the model's sights as of now! Being of tropical origins it doesn't bode too well for snowpack improvement.. but for rainfall deficits it is quite the change.

No doubt models will do some more fine-tuning in the coming days; we'll be here when reality arrives.

Update: stronger now!

Final score: 4.91 inches in five days, with 2.12" on the 20th. Another great forecast for a large storm almost a week in advance; maps were putting us very near the 5-inch line on the map.

another plan 'B'

First off: the K-5 has finally sold, and the silver lenses will accompany it. I shall miss it, but its overlaps with the μ43 gear were considerable and left it with less to do. The K200d and unsold 18-50re shown here cost ~$90 total and are explicitly the foul-weather CCD kit. No video and no images above iso1600 assure its niche status; it neither breaks my small budget nor threatens to take over the gear shelf.

My Plan B¹ was to find a nicely priced 25mm Lumix lens and let the 30mm Sigma depart. Two months later nobody requested the Sigma and no real deals (holiday or otherwise) showed on the 25. For less than its going price though, a used silver 20/1.7 appeared. Acquiring that would keep the 30 in play and make the adapted 35/3.5 macro less appealing as a carry-often option. I never owned a silver 20mm, which apparently is a v.2 copy instead of  the two-tone v.1 that I've owned in the past; it's not a big deal which version as only cosmetics really changed, but on a silver body the silver sounds nice And makes it clearly not the 14/2.5 when I find a tiny lens in the bag. So now on to plan B² - the 20mm is coming, and the 30/2.8 is back off the market and into the rotation.

Interesting how one rates the versatility of zooms vs. features of primes. A 14-30mm zoom doesn't exist at the speeds I will now carry*, but the 12-35mm f/2.8 costs and weighs more than my tiny trio. The GX7 allows panoramic shots to make the 14/2.5 useful for wider images, both cameras stabilize all three primes, and when lens one is attached the other two are much smaller in the bag.

* Yes the 12-32 Lumix covers that range well in a tiny body, but at much slower speeds (f/3.5-5.6 vs 2.5/1.7/2.8). I have the Yi 12-40 when convenience wins; it cost little after the M1 body sold, it's better corrected optically than nearly all major-brand μ43 zooms and it's 100g less than the three primes.

weak

Not a typical November in the PacNW, precip-wise:

Spokane	30% precipitation
Portland	28%
Seattle	25%
Coal Creek	25%

December started with a weak Bang - a whole 0.18 inch. Today it's sunny and dry, more of that tomorrow. Maybe a whole inch for the week after that.. maybe not.

At least a bit of snow fell on the mountains; gear up!

p.s. we did get a trace of snow overnight to begin December, break out the saucers!! :^p