Nice.
Update - the Wx Underground forecast graphic is for valley-floor locations, which is always ~4 degrees off from our hill-top site. It's generally warmer in summer with thicker atmosphere, but colder in winter thanks to cold-air seepage. We reached 80° Friday up here, and NWS temperatures near 750' show mid-upper 60s next week.
Nearly as nice!
Mirrorless systems did not play nice with my Minolta A- or Sigma SA- mount lenses. Both SA-L & A-E adapter setups came with many limitations. The FTZ solution apparently does not have those problems; also, nikon-G slr lenses* are both talented and available at good prices.
How to decide?
At some point one must choose from two decent options. Here's my z6 logic:
 |
| apotelyt table screen-shot |
The first call of a swainsons' thrush was heard on 5/18, right on schedule! Our first grosbeaks (black headed) were seen and heard five days later. We love both songs and it's nice to see and hear them.
We also had a deer family drop by, a mom and two small ones from last year. They camped out for most of two hours!
My surgery in early May was followed by damp weather, which has allowed the grass to grow tall. This coming weekend should be dry, so it should be several inches lower soon.
I'm heading in for prostate removal on 5/5. Other than lawn mowing, it looks pretty nice for sitting in the outdoor swing and sipping fruity drinks! Spouse and ma-in-law can fight over the riding mower, assuming the battery is decently charged. Hopefully I'll be nearly mended by the 10th, though weight-lifting and twisting limits will remain for a few weeks.
I've heard it so often: "make sure your proposed system has the lenses you want before you buy in! ".
Yet somehow I didn't take it to heart when the S5 called. The L mount is still expanding, and lenses will assuredly appear as appropriate.
Oops.
Worse yet, very few mirrorless systems carry what I seek. Seek ye an 50-200mm in any 36x24 system that weighs under 800 grams. The answer is: μ43 and nothing else. The Lumix 35-100/2.8 is amazing - but larger systems offer nothing slower than f/4. Those are less bulky than their f/2.8 siblings, but still not in my comfort zone. I'd prefer my old Minolta 70-210 /3.5-4.5 or 100-200/4.5, both under 500 grams and plenty bright enough for a 36x24 sensor. But to make them autofocus requires a bulky adapter, and poof goes the weight and size advantage.
The nearest things are from Tamron, which means Sony E or Nikon Z. Since I actually own the Minolta 100-200, Sony sadly makes more sense. Both have tilt screens instead of flipout, so that's a positive. The α7³ has a BSI-tech sensor with two ISO channels and PDAF - both make it comparable to the S5.II and a slight improvement over the S5. Neither company has the aspect ratios or touchscreen features of the Lumix types though - ah well.
Me vs. TECH
As usual, I came in second.
I have three computers and a few phones/tablets. And a printer - and oh yes, a 'smart' television. These all conspire with each other in frequencies I cannot access, and choose which among them will take it turn in my torment.
This past week it was the computers taking turns. They mostly communicate with the internet, but very rarely with each other. All are in the same workgroup and use the same WiFi - but shared files often don't, and the internet keeps flashing in and out.
First up was the traditional tricks: reboots, network resets, even reworking the outdoor antenna that supposedly helps it all work. Finally, I descended to a network full reset - then things really went mad.
Two of the computers plug directly into WiFi box ethernet ports, meaning they should not be bothered by anything WiFi at all. Yet they were. After several attempts of varying types I recalled the 192.168 opening to the network internals. I rebuilt a 5Mhz and a 2.4Mhz channel and began reconnecting things to WiFi, removing the ethernet connections. Hooray, it all works!
Until the next day. OK that wasn't fun or effective.
The last two days found me trolling the web for newer WiFi drivers. I found an updated driver for the i7 box yesterday, and it's continuing to work via WiFi. Today I found a driver for the i5 box - but I couldn't get the file to the right computer. It's on my phone, it's on the i7 - but the i5 won't connect so neither google drive nor network connections will push it across! Finally a thumb-drive did the job. Now the i5 can't install it, as the driver needs to be uninstalled. Well I did that three times, but rebooting just reloaded the familiar old driver. At last I broke down and pulled the WiFi card from the i5 and restarted with ethernet, a clean WiFi slate and no drivers..
And now it works great on the ethernet port! OK I'm not feeling compelled to reinstall either card or drivers now. We'll see how long this lasts.
In the meantime the i3 box has been functioning again via ethernet for the last two days.
Yippee?
And today I found a $30 4g+ phone with a smaller screen, a USB3 charging port, and all the features I liked in my old Moto E5 Play. I'm really tired of juggling (and dropping) the larger Moto 5G Ace UW, or somesuch long name.
The tech world will make a Luddite of me yet.
Back story:
My favorite cell phone was the Moto e5Play. A nice size and screen ratio, nice performance, a good bit of memory, microSD capable and acceptable battery life. It even took a quick dunk with no repercussions!
With every new upgrade, I've missed it more. Actually it's still here, used as a voice recorder for music lessons - but it's not the same.
After dropping my 5G moto Ace yet again, I made a quick stop at eBay in search of a reasonable step down. I don't need 5G and would prefer something like.. well, a modern e5 play! And to my surprise I found one rather quickly.
I'm looking forward to stepping back!
I spent part of the day with my S5, changing button- and Q-menu settings. After recording the current settings on a spreadsheet, I looked closer at this:
.. and there were pretty much all the settings I use in one place! And even a couple more, like HLG and flash adjustments. Better still, the control panel and EVF are separate - so having it on the big screen doesn't limit my shooting through the eyepiece!
Maybe I don't need to program the joystick to control additional Fn buttons after all ..
I spent some time attempting to shoot birds with the S 70-300mm. Nearly all were grounded for no particular reason, but I shot in af-c anyway. I tried disconnecting AF from the shutter button but that didn't go well today. I'm still learning the camera and stumbling over whether ISO or white balance is in the middle position, and where that video button is hiding.
Practice, and practice more: that's what I need to do!!
