goodbye November

So we move on to December. 

Farewell November, we won't miss you much - a contentious election filled with mob-inciting rhetoric and false claims, and gruesome tallies worldwide as Covid-19 tightens its grip. Promising vaccines and a more open government hold promise for the future, but the present realities are harsh. A lot of people traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday, and we'll pay for that soon - especially with many regions reaching nearing hospital capacity for cases of any sort. Many speak of field hospitals to ease overcrowding, but that does not magically produce healthcare workers to staff those tents.

The chart here shows the Washington state Dept. of Health weekly numbers for our county; circles show the under-40 case count and the green dash is for age 40+. Yes the trend is down today, but next week could easily rebound since the most recent numbers likely are partly due to holiday recordkeeping. My mom is back in the protective cocoon of assisted-living lockdown, yet they had an active Covid case last week even so. Our holiday gathering was brought to us by internet conference, nice to have but a poor alternative to the typical Thanksgiving.

As to weather, we nearly had a normal November. It's the wettest month using our 30-year average but the last two were quite dry, and needed large doses later in the season to catch up. This time we received over 10 inches and hit 94% of average, so the half-inch deficit is nearly painless. December begins with a dry week though, and as our second-wettest month that could hurt. The la Nina conditions in the Pacific often show up closer to mid-winter with cool and wet conditions, so no alarm bells just yet. Hard to ring 'jingle bells' either this year though.

At least two vaccines may begin distribution in December, signaling a change in circumstance. Fingers crossed, and foreheads too, as we seek to pull out from these darkest days of Covid as well as approach the solstice. Hang in there, everyone.

flipping out

Kit mutation alert!

As I had planned but failed to execute three months ago, the 2021 kit will be big Oly/small Lumi. I ordered a used E∙M1b with 12k clicks a flash and 3 batteries, and a GX7b with its original accoutrements. The GX8 and ePL8 will now be going to more appreciative folks, and boxes of 'b's or 'ii's are coming soon :^)

Somehow, somewhere, this all makes sense. Sure it does.

What did I gain with this flip??  -  Good question! Let me see if it can be described in more detail.

In either case I have one small body with (my preferred) tilt touchscreen, and one high-end 20Mpx body with more capabilities, more inch³ for buttons and switches, and moisture seals. Going with the GX7.ii /gx85 I gain faster autofocus with DFD compared to the ePL8, I get the 4k features that allows the GX8 to depart, and I get charging via USB. This last has become a priority with both gx8 and epl8 dying at bad times recently; the gx7.ii has a short battery life but is absurdly easy to charge in the car, at home, or with the solar power-bank that I recently acquired. That will help - or at least it should, time will truly tell. On the down-ish side I lose the dedicated EV± from the GX8 (which I didn't like) and the AF/MF switch (which I will have to spend a precious button to replace).

superimposed, from camerasize.com

With the eM1.ii I get similar features to the GX8 - most of which I like, though the flipout screen is on both :^(. The 4k-photo features now descend to the smaller gx7.ii, and the eM1.ii takes over from the ePL8 with Oly's live time / composite features. Beyond that is a huge set of new features: top-notch sensor stabilization with stills and video, multi-shot hi resolution images, a different set of 4k video options, custom autofocus limiter (in body not lens!), and 400+ images per battery charge plus sleep modes and a possibility to add a battery grip.

Given the recent eM1.ii price drops on the used side, it's less of a reach than it was - but that assumes I can sell the two departing cameras at decent prices. Just before posting them, two others posted GX8 bodies to the virtual market, so I'll be dangling my bait in a different pond until at least one of those is gone. Inevitably this will (had better) make sense!

November begins

 Time change, Halloween and a Blue Moon all fell this weekend, with Election Day immediately after. And then - the storms!

The jet stream that favored us with a few nice days has brought cool sunshine to us. At election time it goes zonal, bringing storms straight into our area. Looks like three inches in seven days, and given that the first two are dry that's pretty impressive. Not much snow from zonal flow in November, but it's a rare year when Thanksgiving finds any ski areas open so this counts as normal.

November has been a curious month around here for precipitation. The 30-year average has this as the wettest month, twice the amount of October and a bit more than December - yet we've had several dry ones. Last year was exceptionally dry at 25% of average, and the year before was also dry. This looks like the right start for a normal November, but things can turn quickly here. 

Time will tell its tale at the usual pace..

too early to call..

No, not the election - seasonal snowpack!

Looks good so far, but that's what cool air and an inch of snow can do. A few thousand percent of normal cannot last long in the Sawtooth mountains, nor can the snow-barrier between the Yakima and Cowlitz basins.

No snow yet, but we just had our first frost this morning - with a low reading of 31.8° it hardly counts but the car and outside fabrics show it's true. We're over seven inches & counting on October rain, two inches above normal. That means October keeps up with Sep as two months that have had no subnormal precipitation in the six-ish years we've lived here. 

On the Coronavirus front, no good news is news. Over 100k cases in Washington and it's doing well, and Cowlitz county is at 800 cases though only seven have died. Things could be far worse - and sadly they will be in a month or so; cases will likely reach 100k daily in the USA before election time. The "blue wave" shown in snowpack won't be reflected in eastern WA or Idaho, but the rest of the country? We shall see!

next wet spell approaches

 We're in October now, and average rainfall needs to be about an inch per week. The first week was .. whatever the opposite of a 'washout' might be. This weekend is expected to drop 1½" upon us though, so times are a-changing. October is definitely quick-change month around here, as highs in the 80s are replaced by those in the 50s - and no doubt the last week is the wettest on average anyway.

and away we go! 7-day forecast

The peaks will be white - for a few days at least, and just on the highest points. Snow season is still a month or so away, so the 'termination dust' will not amount to much. October's moisture is usually more sourced from tropical remnants from the west Pacific more than polar/Arctic air invasions.

post-script
Well that was fun. We overperformed, receiving over two inches on Saturday and slightly more on Sunday, making a 48-hour total (8pm Friday to Sunday) of about 4½". Another inch could arrive in the next 48h, then cooler and clearing for a few days. Mostly that means fog, but it will be nice to get out for a bit!

covid update

Here's the bottom of an interesting table. I sorted this by cases/100000 population and removed territories from the bottom of the list. It appears that the 'cold corners' are relatively good places to hang out, with the three uppermost New England states lowest and most of the PacNW nearly as low (except Idaho, which is having a surge right now). Conditions change quickly (just ask Idaho) but it's an interesting snapshot. 

One could add Alaska and Hawaii, but being adjacent only to Canada or water is a rather different case.

The two right-most columns are for deaths, total and per 100k. Those numbers are pretty low as well.

By the way - the 'warm corners' are suffering greatly. California tops the total-case list and suffers still from wildfires and smoke. Florida is in the top-five for cases as well, plus rising sea levels make things a misery in other ways at high tides.

a wet week

 The past seven days provided us with about 3½ inches of rain, so September has again beat the 30-year average by quite a bit. Sep/Oct have been the most consistently wet months since we arrived here, a definite change from my memories of Septembers in Portland. Amazing what an hour's drive (or a 30-minute crow flight) can do to conditions, with the Columbia gorge reduced in influence. The 'water year' shown here begins in July, so the long-time averages are 189% for September and 180% for October. September has doubled its average here three times, but the wettest-ever month was October 2016 at 366% - over twenty inches.

Note that August, November and May are the least efficient months on our hill-top, with fairly consistent underperformance relative to the 1981-2010 period. November is supposed to be our wettest month of the twelve, with 10.84" expected; it's reached that twice but failed badly twice; last year left a hole that needed a huge January managed to fill (over 18" total, second-wettest month on the list!). 

Averages are one thing, standard deviations quite another!

Rain? postscript

 It took a few days, but oh it came to us today /Friday. Two hours of powerful thunder in several directions, 1.08 inches of rain - and far better air quality than we'd seen since Labor Day. Definitely worth waiting for! 

rain? Yes please

As summer wanes and the jet stream reawakens, the dry days of our local summer begin to break down. Given our crazy smoke and fires of the past ten days, we'll gladly take the change! The map here shows the next week could bring us over an inch of rainfall, which along with the onshore flow will take the wildfires down several notches as they are forced back to areas that have already burned the available combustibles. The rain doesn't get much past the Cascades, and the jet stream will not  be visiting California soon - so for now only WA/OR will get the benefits.

Once the danger has passed I can finally cook on the grille outside, maybe even mow the dandelions!

Looks like our area gets a good soaking - until you see what TS/Hurricane Sally has in store for Louisana..

well now what's this?

 A happy surprise or two. 

The GX8 has arrived - and it isn't black. I expected a black in EX condition; this seems the right evaluation but a very shiny silvery shade of black! It's OK though, as I prefer this two-tone look, especially when the silver 20mm comes out to play; if they had labeled things right I'd have selected this copy anyway!

Here it sits with the new-to-itself Pentax 40mm XS lens. I seem to have sent off my relatively smart aperture-control adapter, but a hard rubber stop fits in the adapter and holds it at a preset opening (probably f/4ish). I've ordered another with the ap-control ring for sanity's sake.

With the 12-60mm lens it's a weather-compatible setup; with primes (including the 40) we have 8-20-40-60mm.. an adapted 90mm macro and 150mm*. That's a nice spacing.

* A Pentax 150/3.5 was just appended - did not expect that bid to hold up.

firefights

 

A cool blast of high pressure fell down the Rockies this week, and a huge pressure gradient sent winds south and west. The dry season is near its max, and this caught every smoldering fire and blasted them into inferno mode. The NW has joined California, which has already been mired in deep smoke since the weekend.

The satellite image here shows the Cascade smoke plumes flowing west and probably making the hot-weather forecast a bit more challenging with the obscured sunlight. A faint plume off Mt. St.Helens is actually ash being pushed west by those strong winds! Other fires in central Washington are less clear since the winds have relaxed a bit up there - but those fires have also make large jumps into new territory. Large-scale alerts and watches are out, as any spark or smolder could take over in a hurry right now.

The hottest weather is coming in the next couple of days, but the wind should relax a bit; by next weekend the west wind will be in charge on this side, bring cooler air from the ocean and sending the smoke to other areas.

Update 9/10 - the hottest day of the forecast has become the thickest for smoke, so 90° may be out of reach. I'm OK with that, but oh the smoke.. from Olympia to San Diego plus several inland locations. Not a great day to breathe - but I'll do it anyway.

why the GX8, exactly? And why Now??

The GX8 is now my primary camera. 

My track record makes clear that I don't make good body choices* - yet here I sit typing bold statements like the one above.  It sure looks confident - especially for a camera that won't arrive for another week. One would think I should touch it first, perhaps? Yeah, that's not easy to do any more - especially with a camera no longer in production.

The GX8 has been around for five years, and in that time I've tried em5/10/10.ii and g7/8/gx85 bodies - and a YI M1. Yet I didn't try this one, and at several forks in the road I was sure that decision made sense.

Next week's kit

 So once everything is assembled, this will be my setup - sorta.

'pixco' 8 fish-eye -- Lumix 20/1.7 -- Σ DN 60/2.8

Lumix 12-60 -- Lumix 45-150 -- Zd 70-300 (4T)

Pentax da40xs (PK) -- Qtaray 90 2.8 (NF)

I say 'sorta' because I still have a few tests to crank out. I have several Nikon lenses that could be adapted with a 0.71x 'speed booster' (magification reduced by 0.71 leading to 1 stop more light concentrated). Tossing that into the mix makes things.. messy.

YN 35/2 = 25/1.4 -- YN 50/1.8 = 36/1.2 -- Sigma 18/3.5=13.8/2.5

A few other Nikon-F mount zooms could be used too.

This all comes down to usability: can such manual-only beasts be used comfortably on the GX8 with its larger grip? With µ43 it's the common problem, where the reduced depth of field is overcome with faster lenses, which add bulk, which (to most users) defeats the entire purpose of the smaller sensor that brings more compact lenses. Why carry a full35-scale Sigma 18mm And a focal reducer to match the Lumix 14/2.5 autofocus pancake lens?

Why indeed. All three will have work to do, to justify hanging around. I could use them as straight adapted lens without the added weight of speedboosting, which is what put the Quantaray 90 macro in the top list; that however leaves me with 35, 40 and 50mm primes of which only one would get used. 

(ah but which of the three? again, who knows..)

The Pentax 40 is in a unique place. I know its imaging characteristics and really like them, so its place in the lineup is pretty comfortable - meaning the two Yongnuo NF-mount primes are probably off to market. That 90 macro might fit as well as the Pentax, though bulkier - and it speedboosts to a 65mm f/2, putting the Sigma f/2.8 at risk! And the old Sigma 100-300 speedboosts to a faster 70-210, which tries (and likely fails) to bump the 4Thirds Olympus 70-300 from its weighty perch on the longer end.

Clearly the house of optical cards has not settled just yet. A few slow tests and some honest evaluation of how things feel in hand are in the works.

Nooo.. not again..

Confronted with the clear evidence, I was forced to accept defeat and plead no contest to the dreadful charge. My gear problem is not a Pentax thing: I can just as easily overspend on Nikon gear. No surprise - but very disappointing.

The punishment really isn't punitive: my 𝛍43 kit is in nice shape, in fact it's a bit bloated as well. The three bodies in hand is at least one too many, and yet the setup is incomplete in ways that allow other systems to appeal.

Here's my spontaneous list for what a kit should have to suffice as my single setup:

• Stabilized sensor
• Reasonably weather-protected
• Tilt screen for look-down shooting 
• Good viewfinder
• A body with many control switches/buttons but Not Dials (I don't "do" retro)
• And oh my yes, a great sensor and a cool feature or three.

Looking at my m4:3 options, it felt like my best two choices were Olympi, either eM5.iii or eM1.ii; both had the 20Mpx sensor, superb wx seals and IStab, and the Live features. The second camera should be a Lumix with 4k, but the gx85 and gx9 were not appealing to me. The gx1 was also an option, but prices have risen enough to justify keeping the gx7. That in turn was too good a camera to be my second option, leading to gear competition.

So it seems my choice was a higher end Lumix? Hey that's OK by me, since the ePL8 made for a Nice Camera In a Supporting Role.

Trouble is, which advanced Lumix? The G series was inexplicably not working for me (having tried g7 and g85) and the gx>7 failed to move my dials. A gh body wouldn't do either! Sad but true.

But not true?

The gx8 had pretty much everything on my list except the tilt screen. But it did have a tilt viewfinder, and an Excellent one by all accounts. Wx seals, dual iStab, 4k tricks, and the gx line that I enjoyed. Yes it also has an external EV± dial.. I expect I can manage just the one.

The online photographer can be accused of undue influence here. Mike was reviewing the gx9 and disparaging the gx7 from his perspective as a former gx8 user, and I realized how much the gx8 had damaged users'  later experience of newer bodies. Something about the oversize camera had stirred people - and I was ripe for stirring!

Also, an excellent copy could be had for less than the two Olympus 20Mpx bodies. Also also, the second body was already in hand, as was a recently reacquired 12-60 Lumix with weather seals.

I closed the deal this afternoon. Away goes the gx7, eM10ii, and most of the Nikon gear. Also I dismembered the µ43 prime setup, letting the rarely-used 14/2.5 and 30/2.8 slip away. Ironically, the 20-60 prime gap will be filled by a bizarre old friend, the Pentax DA40xs - an excellent lens, more crêpe than pancake though 'merely' f/2.8. 

A great kit - ok Another great kit will gather here soon, and a few Nikon primes will get a test drive on the gx8 and its larger grip before possibly going to market.

Looking forward not back! Well not much, now that this has been written..

heat wave!

 After a few chilly nights of Perseid-watching, the weather turned on us. A blast from the east thanks to a thermal trough near the coast; 100° in Portland today and tomorrow. Sitting about 10 degrees cooler is small comfort.. but hey we'll take it!

Odd truth

In no case have I seen a 55-200mm lens made for a full 35mm (36x24) sensor. They are all DX/DC/DiII models designed for 18x24. All full35 bodies can use the smaller-sensor lenses, but auto-crop mode yields a reduced pixel count. For example, the D600 takes 24Mpx images with full35 lenses but just over 10Mpx images when cropped to the smaller projection. Not ideal.

I picked up a huge Tamron 70-300mm lens for its impressive range and (mostly) for its VC stabilization. At over 600g it's a lot more lens than I wish.. so I went looking for a light telephoto option. Something like a 50-200mm was ideal, but I wanted it to fill as much of the full35 frame so I would lose minimal pixels. Reviews chose to say nothing about lens coverage for models I examined (e.g. Nikon 55-200dx/vr or Tamron's Di-II).  I figured that old models might be more film compatible, so I looked into elderlenses.

A brief hunt revealed a Quantaray 55-200mm lens, a Ritz camera rebadge of a Sigma or (in this case, most likely) Tamron lens. The low price was worth a chance so I bought a copy complete with original caps and hood.

Results are confusingly good. I see images with 6000x4000 pixels, very low vignette and decent sharpness when wide open at 55and 200mm. Random shots at other values are nice too. If it's not a full35 lens it's an incredibly close facsimile!

I could test it against the 70-300VC, but what would I learn of value? Only that more cash and bulk will provide incrementally better images - and I already expect that answer. Or worse yet: what if the Quantaray is the better lens?? 

𝛍43 Grand Final

Man I miss Aussie Rules Football. It's hard to find in the USA but great entertainment - well for me at least. In the meanwhile I'm having a playoff of my own, with perhaps two winners but maybe just one?

I've recently learned in several areas of my life that I have cool stuff that I cannot use well. Much of it is due to rust - it worked great 18 months ago but I've forgotten the trick of it! In other cases, like cameras, it's that I have used too many interfaces and cannot recall how to make changes in a hurry, leading to missed shots and slapped foreheads (well, just my forehead - so far). Since I don't quite know how to use what I have, it is therefore an excellent time to learn something new. 

Yes that's how my mind works..

In the current-champion position is the Lumix GX7. So many great features that updates haven't fully overtaken without losing things that I like. However, many advantages of 4k 'video' shooting and other technical updates do make some sense - so yet again I'm bringing in a Mark II aka GX85 to compete for the spot. It loses the 1/8k max shutter and the AF/MF switch that I use constantly - but compensates with 4k still technology and video ability, dual IS, available-almost-anywhere microUSB charging (e.g. off my flashlight/battery bank) and a stutter-free shutter improvement plus electronic shutter for up to 1/16ksec. If I can set AF/MF as a dedicated button and live with that, I should be able to dethrone the champ - we'll see.

I also have the Olympus ePL8 in hand, a very stylish tan/silver instrument that can do a lot of things well that Lumix does not attempt (e.g. Live Time, great for astronomy shots!). However, I did notice a few things that I've noticed before but not found so confounding: the 1-wheel control left me bumbling during manual-exposure comet shoots, the lack of VF rendered a few other shots unshootable in bright light with the LCD screen, and who am I to be dealing with a 'stylish' camera?!? I'm therefore importing a VG copy of the eM10.ii to see if I can make it shoot just like the D600, which would be good for my learning curve everywhere.

Gear begins to arrive today - more gear departs next week. Who will stay and who will go?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Round One began and ended swiftly, as the GX85 is going back. Its rear control dial is behaving randomly for adjusting SS or aperture, depending on the setting; I tried both and it worked for a brief time then went south again. The dial is fine with image reviews and other settings, but the most important thing it does, it doesn't. Ah well.

I've set the EM10b to mimic the D600 and it seems to do the job, so far. I expect that if this camera does not fail in some way it will win over the ePL8, considering its price and the minimal gain in bulk that comes with two dials and an EVF. For now, the Olympus contest continues!

Round.. ah never mind. No reader here should feign surprise when, of my four choices for a main camera, I choose #5. The gx8 will arrive in a week or so, and the ePL8 will be the versatile backup.

a quick superwide test

While camping I took the Tamron SP 20-40mm and Sigma 17/3.5 extra∙wide lenses out for a shootout. Testing showed a winner pretty quickly; should I be disappointed by that?

The Sigma did a decent job for its age, with less distortion at the edges than I had expected. It tended to overexpose images but that can be accounted for much of the time. It did not come with a hood, and its loss had a major effect on contrast; veiling flare is a large deal with such a large element! I could hold my hand out to shade the nose and contrast was much more acceptable. I tried near and far shots and felt the images were quite good, so only the flare was a big deal.

Then came the Tamron. Despite its range it could not match the Sigma for close focus, but at 40mm the max magnification was fairly close. Images were very nice and well saturated, exposure was nearly spot-on compared to the prime lens, and I had a hard time getting much flare or compound reflections in the shot. It is definitely an SP version with superior coatings, even though it's about the same age as the Sigma.

So while I'd prefer to keep the prime for its size and closeup value, the Tamron is sufficiently better in the shots I took (which were reasonable representatives of how I use a lens). 

If the next owner finds a hood for it, the Sigma will serve them very well!

yeah that's not good

from NBC news website