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A mysterious firmware update turns the Viltrox 85mm F1.8 lens into an even faster F1.6 prime

07 Aug

The $ 400 Viltrox 85mm F1.8 lens is a popular choice for Sony E and Fujifilm X users due to its compelling blend of performance and value. Owners have remarked that the lens delivers sharp image quality even when shot wide open. It now appears that wide open can be made even wider with a firmware update allowing the lens to become an F1.6 prime.

Photographer Stefan Malloch has published a video tutorial, seen below, which shows how to use the USB port on the lens to update the lens. This update allows the lens to open its aperture wider, changing the maximum aperture from F1.8 to F1.6. With a simple firmware update, you can get an extra one-third of a stop of light gathering capability.

As PetaPixel notes, there are conflicting reports as to the origin of the firmware. Sony Addict reported that the firmware was released officially in China. FujiRumors, on the other hand, reached out to Viltrox and was told that firmware to turn the F1.8 lens into an F1.6 lens had not been released. All this is to say that installing (possibly unofficial) firmware into your lens is a risk with unknown consequences.

Supposing you still want to update your lens using Malloch’s video above, what can you expect from the Viltrox 85mm F1.6 lens? Malloch also published an overview video of the lens, including sample images.

As mentioned earlier, the Viltrox 85mm F1.8 (or F1.6) lens is available as a full-frame lens for Sony E mount or for the APS-C Fujifilm X system. The fast, autofocus-capable prime lens can focus as closely as 2.62′ (0.8m). The lens includes 10 elements across 7 groups, including 1 ED lens element and 4 ‘short-wavelength and high-transparency’ lens elements. The lens has a 72mm filter thread and weighs 636g (1.4 lbs.). You can learn more about the lens on Viltrox’s website.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Lensrentals and the mysterious case of the Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM

25 Feb

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One lens’ bad fortune is our gain: the Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM’s optical test results had been puzzling the team at Lensrentals, and when a customer dropped one recently a teardown was in order. The teardown took a total of six hours – twice the usual amount of time required – and along the way they found a lot of solidly constructed pieces, a mysterious component they dubbed the ‘Southern Fairy Tale Ring,’ and a great deal of silicone glue.

This article details the first part of the teardown, showing the disassembly of the first half of the lens up to the point where a snack break was needed. It’s a long read but as always, thoroughly fascinating and entertaining. It turns out that construction of the FE 70-200mm F2.8 is a bit unconventional, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Read LensRentals’ Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS Teardown (Part 1)

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Paint it Black: 16 Mysterious Houses That Have Joined the Dark Side

20 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Most people can be divided into two pretty clear-cut categories: those who think black houses are creepy in a bad way, and those who love them for all their mysterious allure. Victorian houses in San Francisco, famously witchy mansions in Salem, modern homes in Japan and gingerbread houses in the woods of New York all get cool points when they’re painted top-to-bottom in shades of coal and pitch, though one abandoned black house in North Carolina looks legitimately scary in its dark disarray.

Black Ocean Firehouse, New York

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The black paint on this facade of a former New York City firehouse highlights all of the ornate neo-gothic architectural details, modernizing the 1890s structure for its new life as the headquarters for Black Ocean, a digital media company.

Haus in Schwarz, Germany

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This house in Germany wasn’t painted pitch black all over until after it was condemned, as a sort of tribute before it was demolished, and that’s kind of a shame. It looks way cooler than its similarly-shaped neighbors on the same street. At night, it virtually disappears into the sky.

Shingle House by NORD

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Located on the shingle beach of Dungeness, one of England’s most unique landscapes, this home by NORD stands out from a sea of fisherman’s huts with its pitch paint and tarred black roof. It’s available for rent as part of Living Architecture, a project offering vacations in striking works of modern architecture.

Abandoned Black House in North Carolina

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Unlike the other houses on this list, which simply don harmless black exteriors, this home on a peak in mountainous Western North Carolina is truly creepy. Located on Howard’s Knob in Boone, the home known as “The Cult House” has been abandoned for many years since its owners were went to prison, and has deteriorated after being broken into, vandalized and used as a party house. Once a million dollar home, it’s now peeling and crumbling.

Black-Fronted Residence for Park Place, London

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In London, SHH Architects won permission to convert a 1960s office into a home with a black facade. The original seven-story building was demolished and replaced with black brick, a double-story Oriel bay window with a decorative metalwork screen, and polished granite window frames.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Paint It Black 16 Houses That Have Joined The Dark Side

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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24 Dark and Mysterious Shadow Images

17 Jul

Light and shadow are key in photography. You cannot have one without the other, and how light is used in the image set the tone and mood of it. Images with high contrast, and strong shadows can be very dramatic.

Have a look and see if you agree that these shadow images have a certain mystique about them.

I’ll start off with a few of my own images taken on a “shadows” themed photo walk a couple years ago:

By Darlene Hildebrandt

By hapal

By Magdalena Roeseler

By Bryon Lippincott

By Ian Sane

Photograph O O by Jianwei Yang on 500px

O O by Jianwei Yang on 500px

Round shadows by Junichi Hakoyama on 500px

Photograph Living Shadows by Jorge Pena on 500px

Living Shadows by Jorge Pena on 500px

Lead or Follow? by Krystian Olszanski on 500px

Photograph Afternoon Shadow by Joe Josephs on 500px

Afternoon Shadow by Joe Josephs on 500px

Photograph Untitled by Spyros Catramis on 500px

Untitled by Spyros Catramis on 500px

Photograph shadows of people by Mister Mark on 500px

shadows of people by Mister Mark on 500px

Photograph They also get along by Ignasi Jansà on 500px

They also get along by Ignasi Jansà on 500px

Photograph Love by Candle Light by Ticknor Photo on 500px

Love by Candle Light by Ticknor Photo on 500px

Photograph Salsa Shadows by Joan Herwig on 500px

Salsa Shadows by Joan Herwig on 500px

Photograph Shadow dancing by Didier Vanspranghe on 500px

Shadow dancing by Didier Vanspranghe on 500px

Photograph dancing with lights by nave aviani on 500px

dancing with lights by nave aviani on 500px

Photograph ????? by umedust ?? on 500px

????? by umedust ?? on 500px

Photograph Shadowdance by Alex Noriega on 500px

Shadowdance by Alex Noriega on 500px

Photograph Protector ! by Mardy Suong Photography on 500px

Protector ! by Mardy Suong Photography on 500px

Photograph 58/365 Bottle Neck by Monika Bigelow on 500px

58/365 Bottle Neck by Monika Bigelow on 500px

Photograph Fork Shadow by Michaël Luitaud on 500px

Fork Shadow by Michaël Luitaud on 500px

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The post 24 Dark and Mysterious Shadow Images by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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The Mysterious Disappearing Filters in Photoshop

15 Aug

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If you use filters in Photoshop CS6, Creative Cloud (CC) or CC2014 you may notice that some of your old favorites are missing. Some (sadly) are gone forever, and others are just less easy to find. So, here’s what you need to know about the filters that are gone, how to make those that are hidden more accessible and why that might be important.

Going…Going…Gone!

First to Photoshop CC 2014. Gone from this version is the Oil Paint Filter. This was the sole remaining filter left when support for the Pixel Bender plug-in was removed from Photoshop CS6.

Also gone from this version is the Kuler Extension which you could get to by choosing Window > Extension > Kuler, and Mini Bridge too. In addition, any older Flash based extension panels are also no longer supported. That said there is a new html based Kuler extension with a different feature set that you can download from Adobe here.

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Missing but not gone…

In Photoshop CS6, CC and CC2014 some filters groups are missing from the Filter menu. Those missing are the Artistic, Brush Strokes, Distort, Sketch, and Texture groups. The filters themselves are still available from the Filter Gallery but the actual menu options for those filters are no longer visible by default.

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Luckily you can restore those filters to the Filter menu. To do this, go to your Preferences dialog on Mac by choosing Photoshop > Preferences (on PC select Edit > Preferences). Click the Plug-Ins group of preferences and locate and select the checkbox for” Show all Filter Gallery groups and names” and click Ok.

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If the filter groups don’t appear on the Filter menu immediately, close and reopen Photoshop.

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You may be wondering if there is any real reason to return these filters to the Filter menu when they are all still accessible via the Filter Gallery. The answer is that there is a difference in how the filter is referred to in the Layers palette depending on whether you select it from the menu, or the Filter Gallery.

In the image below I first selected the image layer and chose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters to make the layer a Smart Object. I then applied the Diffuse Glow filter to the photo by choosing Filter > Filter Gallery. I selected the Distort group of filters and applied the Diffuse Glow filter and clicked OK.

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The Layers palette entry for this filter simply reads Filter Gallery, there is nothing to say what filter was applied to the image. Worse still if I were to apply multiple filters this way the entries in the Layers palette will each read Filter Gallery so I have no visible indication of what filters have been applied or in what order.

Contrast this to the image below where I applied the Palette Knife filter by choosing Filter > Artistic > Palette Knife > OK and the Layers palette shows the filter name. So, even though the settings for the filter are applied using the Filter Gallery dialog, the very fact that the filter was initially selected from the Filter menu results in the filter’s name appearing below the Smart Object layer in place of the less helpful “Filter Gallery”.

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This is the case if you apply multiple filters from the Filter menu, and also if you select one filter from the menu and then change your mind and apply a different one when the Filter Gallery appears. The trigger seems to be that you start the process of applying a filter in the menus and not via the Filter Gallery.

If you use filters a lot then it’s best to have them appear on the Filters menu and to use them from that menu rather than the Filter Gallery.

An Oil Paint Filter option

If you’re bemoaning the demise of the Oil Paint Filter in Photoshop CC 2014 there are some options available. One option is to keep an older version of Photoshop on your computer so you can use that version when you need to use that filter.

If you are using Windows, there is a Windows only plug-in called GREYCstoration which you can find more details about here. This is an open source filter typically used for noise reduction that will double as an Oil Paint filter which installs inside Photoshop. Make sure you download the correct version for your version of Windows (there are x86 and x64 versions), unzip the file and copy the 8bf and bin files into your Plug-ins folder. Then you will find the filter in your Filters > Noise category. To date there is no Mac equivalent for this filter.

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Some sites have also suggested you try the Pixel Bender Accelerator for Photoshop that allows you to run Pixel Bender files in Photoshop CS6 and later. This will be of use to you if you want access to Pixel Bender filters that are available as .pbk files. Unfortunately the Oil Paint Filter was never distributed as a .pbk file so it appears that, inspite of suggestions to the contrary, this application won’t be of use for getting access to the Oil Paint filter.

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That said, this application is great for running Pixel Bender filters in later versions of Photoshop so, if that’s what you’re seeking to do it is worth a look.

The post The Mysterious Disappearing Filters in Photoshop by Helen Bradley appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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Pointing Nowhere: Mysterious Arrows in Remote Places

31 Dec

[ By Steph in Global & Travel & Places. ]

Mysterious Concrete Arrows Airmail 1

The remains of large concrete arrows can be found in patches of dirt and grass across the United States from New York to San Francisco. Many locals have wondered what they’re for, seemingly pointing nowhere at all and often located in fairly remote places. They were installed in the 1920s, each accompanied by a fifty-foot tower and a tiny hut, and became obsolete within a decade.

Mysterious Concrete Arrows Airmail 2

So what were they for? Getting mail delivered in the time period just after the birth of the airplane, but before the wide use of radar and radio communications. The arrows helped guide airmail pilots at night, when flights would otherwise be grounded due to inability to properly navigate. The ability to deliver mail by plane represented a huge step in the evolution of U.S. mail delivery, vastly speeding up a system that had previously relied on stagecoach lines.

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The system used fifty-foot beacon towers with rotating lights placed on top of concrete foundations shaped like arrows, usually between 50-70 feet in length. A small hut offered a place to stay for the people who maintained the generators and lights. The beacons were only visible from a distance of about 10 miles.

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By the end of the first year of the program, the airmail service had 18 terminal airfields and more than 500 beacon lights in operation along the main mail delivery route, and continued to expand throughout the 1920s. But by 1933, new technology and the high cost of operation during the depression shut the program down. The towers were disassembled for their steel during World War II. A few have been preserved, like the one pictured above at the Western New Mexico Aviation Heritage Museum.

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While many of the arrows have since been lost to development, those further afield still offer a (sometimes mystifying) glimpse of the past. The blog Sometimes Interesting has compiled a list with map links to arrows that still remain in New Mexico, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada and other states.

[ By Steph in Global & Travel & Places. ]

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28 September, 2013 – Capturing a Mysterious Incident

29 Sep

During their testing of the new Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, Chris, Kevin, and Michael witnessed a strange occurance. A brief video, which they were able to capture shows what happened. You may view this on the site’s Home Page.

…
The Luminous Landscape – What’s New

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Engineering Marvel: The Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol

19 Feb

[ By Steph in Global & Travel & Places. ]

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 1

The only ancient city ever built upon a coral reef, Nan Madol is a marvel of ancient engineering so complex, no one can figure out how it was conceived and built starting in the 8th or 9th century CE. Nan Madol is located off the island of Pohnpei in the present-day Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean, and consists of nearly 100 small artificial islands bordered by tidal canals.

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 2

The people who built it – the Saudeleur – ruled these islands for more than a millennium, yet there is nothing left of them but legend and the crumbling black basalt ruins. No art, no carvings, no writing. They were known to be deeply religious, tyrannical and cruel, and the remains of their civilization are often viewed with fear and superstition by modern-day Pohnpeians.

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 3

The Nahnmwarki people, who overthrew the last Saudeleur leader and killed the islands’ inhabitants, found themselves unable to withstand the difficult lifestyle of living at Nan Madol, which required food and fresh water to be brought over from the main island.

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 4

The ruins have been abandoned for hundreds of years. Often called the Venice of the Pacific, Nan Madol’s canals and islands were constructed starting in the 8th century, but its most iconic megalithic architecture came later, in the 12th and 13th centuries. Historians and archaeologists don’t know how the giant stones were transported and lifted into place; most Pohnpeians still believe the lore that credits magical flying abilities for the city’s construction. Another folktale tells of giants large and strong enough to move the rocks.

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 5

The total weight of the black rocks that make up the city’s construction is estimated at 750,000 metric tons, an average of 1,850 tons a year over four centuries. The basalt ‘logs’ that make up the high walls can weight as much as 50 tons each. What’s even more mysterious is the Saudeleurs didn’t have pulleys, levers or metal to aid in the process.

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 6

Unlike the similar ruins of Easter Island, Nan Madol is not a significant tourist draw, mostly due to the face that it has not yet been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through this designation, Nan Madol would receive the funding necessary to rehabilitate the ruins and support a new tourism industry.

Images via wikimedia commons + CT Snow

[ By Steph in Global & Travel & Places. ]

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Engineering Marvel: The Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol

08 Feb

[ By Steph in Global & Travel & Places. ]

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 1

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 2

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 3

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 4

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 5

Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol 6

Images via wikimedia commons + CT Snow

[ By Steph in Global & Travel & Places. ]

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Mats (Feat Mysterious Dancer) danser til Yeah av Usher…!

05 Feb

Mats jammed to some Usher, but suddenly a Mysterious Dancer shows up and steals the show. Mats would not have any of it, he took responsibility and ended this shit..! yaaww…! Check out this ones too… : I like it with Mats Dancing: www.youtube.com Haba Haba with Mats Dancing: www.youtube.com All Rights Reserved to Usher, Lil John and Ludachris + sony music entertainment
Video Rating: 5 / 5

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Posts Tagged ‘Mysterious’

A mysterious firmware update turns the Viltrox 85mm F1.8 lens into an even faster F1.6 prime

Lensrentals and the mysterious case of the Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM

Paint it Black: 16 Mysterious Houses That Have Joined the Dark Side

Black Ocean Firehouse, New York

Haus in Schwarz, Germany

Shingle House by NORD

Abandoned Black House in North Carolina

Black-Fronted Residence for Park Place, London

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Paint It Black 16 Houses That Have Joined The Dark Side

24 Dark and Mysterious Shadow Images

The Mysterious Disappearing Filters in Photoshop

Going…Going…Gone!

Missing but not gone…

An Oil Paint Filter option

Pointing Nowhere: Mysterious Arrows in Remote Places

28 September, 2013 – Capturing a Mysterious Incident

Engineering Marvel: The Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol

Engineering Marvel: The Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol

Mats (Feat Mysterious Dancer) danser til Yeah av Usher…!

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Posts Tagged ‘Mysterious’

Black Ocean Firehouse, New York

Haus in Schwarz, Germany

Shingle House by NORD

Abandoned Black House in North Carolina

Black-Fronted Residence for Park Place, London

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Paint It Black 16 Houses That Have Joined The Dark Side

Going…Going…Gone!

Missing but not gone…

An Oil Paint Filter option

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7 Island Wonders of the World: Most Remote & Mysterious

7 Mysterious & Monumental Man-Made Wonders of America

Engineering Marvel: The Mysterious Ruins of Nan Madol

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12 of the World’s Most Mysterious Monuments & Ruins

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Paint It Black 16 Houses That Have Joined The Dark Side