Camp Snap flat jpeg profile

In the hope that blogger does not "improve" anything in terms of image quality. Here a test photo and a respective edit.

flat jped as shot

edited with Google Photos

In this edit, I tried to keep as much detail in the foliage on the upper right, while also having detail in the clouds.

The Hype of the Camp Snap - I Get It!

You certainly saw the ads all over social media, the "cheap" camera that does not have a screen and is supposed to replace disposable film cameras. I have seen the ads, I ignored the ads, still, I liked the idea of a non-chimpable camera. Ordering... too much of a huzzle. 
Lately, I was searching for something at MediaMarkt. Just walking along the by now tiny camera section. And there it was, the Camp Snap for €69. So, I grabbed one.

What a surprise this little bugger is! I knew about ability of the camera to use image profiles, however, I was unaware of the extend of popularity of such profiles by now. For those unfamiliar with the product, it feels really cheap and light, fits into pockets. 

There are presently (still) a few different models on the market. Make sure to get the V105. This version is equipped with eyes for a shoulder-strap. While I won't be using a strap with this device, it also switches on by a mechanical switch, rather than the shutter button, which I believe is very beneficial. Also, the V105 comes with the latest firmware, the one that supports those image profiles I mentioned above.

The Camp Snap webpage offers an interface to create your very own profiles, which is excellent! Right away I tested some low-key high-contrast black&white stuff. Looking really good! Of course, this is a tricky profile, since the good looks strongly depend on the lighting situation. 

Some experiments later, the idea popped up to create a very very faded or flat "filter" (as the profiles are called). The thought behind that was to have a decent latitude for post-production, similar to log-profiles in video-recording. In essence, this is the opposite to the gritty B&W profile I mentioned above. 
And here was the surprise. Just using Google-Photos, the adjustability of the images is enormous. A flat profile is of course very forgiving what lighting is concerned. 

For those interested, here is my first version of the faded (flat) profile.

As you can see, I pushed blues a little bit and reduced green. The intention was to create a balance between green and blue. Brightness is slightly up, to avoid underexposed shadows. However, maybe this blows out the highlights more than necessary. Also, contrast could potentially still be a little bit to high.

Next try (untested):

So, one generates these "filters" and put a single one in the root-directory of the cameras µSD-card. Meaning, whatever lurks there will be used until replaced by something else (or deleted).
How can we do that in the field, without a Chromebook (in my case)?
I created a directory on the µSD-card containing all my filter files. In the field, usually I would have my phone with me. The camera can connect to my phone with a USB-C-to-USB-C-cable. In fact, the cable that came with the camera. Once connected, I  delete the filter-file in the root-directory and copy one of the files from the filter-directory into root. => Unmount the camera from the phone. Done!
With the next power-up of the camera, the filter-file is read and used.

In the respect of being able to shoot extremely flat images, this camera is almost as good as one that can shoot raw. And yes, flat images and raw files, both require post-processing...

PS: I just found out that the "very_flat" profile is a good starting point to B&W image creation using Google Photos.

Peaking through the soup

As a regular reader of my irregular blog, you might have noticed that I got myself a Dwarf-II some time ago.

Just lately, I spent some more time with the device, shame on me. 

You may know that I do live in the Netherlands, one of the worlds most light-polluted regions. On top of that, we have pretty murky skies in general. Not the best for astro-stuff.

Having earned my astronomy degree in the field of open stellar clusters, stellar matter was always interesting to me. Most astrophotographers are focused on colorful images of nebulae, which I do appreciate myself too.

Colorful, i.e. full spectrum images, require a pretty clear sky. Again, no such thing in NL. 

Some weeks ago, I ordered 800nm IR pass-band filters. Those arrived lately. Certainly those are not really narrow-band, but that's OK. 

The main idea was to use the filter(s) in front of the Dwarf-II's telescopic lens. 
The Dwarf-II has an option to pass IR to the sensor. This has got some implications:

First of all, IR light can reach the sensor (daaahhhh!). Not so fast, all other smart-telescopes do not let IR trickle their sensor.

Secondly, this enables an almost monochromatic imaging mode when used with an IR band-pass filter. Well, that is exactly what I described above.

Thirdly, IR astronomy still works in murky conditions, somehow at least.

A minor forth point might be that the RGB-filters on the image sensor might not have a great effect on IR radiation, thereby keeping up the resolution of the sensor.

Why am I so enthused about monochromatic imaging? When taking images of full-spectrum radiation sources, such as star and galaxies, one does not need any other "colors". The particular advantage is that all light from a source will be focused at the same place on the sensor, i.e. not chromatic aberration issues. 

The added benefit of IR is of course the reduced influence of the atmosphere. 

However, when collecting images one needs to understand that the portion of light collected is restricted. Therefore, one might consider to experiment with amplification. 

The following images are screen-captures from my table during acquisition. There is no post-processing involved at all. You also see a photo of the sky conditions during the data acquisition.

stack with statistics

spectrogram and curve

conditions during data acquisition

DWARFLAB app on the Amazon fire HD 8 (2022)

The DWARF II Smart Telescope is a very neat device, embraced by many. I use mine usually with a 10" Android tablet, when at home. This tablet is a little bit too large to fit into the DWARF's bag however.
For portable use of the telescope, therefore my Android phone was the only option. As well as the app is, it is tricky for me to operate with cold fingers. Even with warm hands, the small screen on the phone is not really helpful.
Consequently, I felt the need to purchase an inexpensive Android tablet, small enough to fit in said bag, but big enough for easy operations.

Tablets with smaller screens were popular once. Today, there are only a handful models with modern specs available. The 3 brands I am aware of are Amazon, Lenovo and Samsung. This order seems not only alphabetical, it also reflects prices from low to high. 

Here is an overview about the dimensions in mm we have to consider:
device        length  width
DWARF II      204.0   130.0 (height)
A. fire 7     192.0   115.0
A. fire HD 8  201.9   137.34
L. Tab M7     176.3   102.9
L. Tab M8     198.2   122.6
S. GalTab.A8" 206.6   126.7

All things considered, the Amazon fire HD 8 made the race. First of all, the specs of the fire HD 8 are a lot better than those of the fire 7. Further, the fire HD 8 was on clearance sale, decently reduced, so the purchase of another gadget could be justified.

Does it fit in the bag? Perfectly. 

The big question of course is, if the DWARFLAB app can be installed on a device which is, unless hacked, very restricted in its abilities. Of course the DWARFLAB app is not in the Amazon Appstore, not a big surprise here.
However, DWARFLAB has the app as apk-file for download from their webpage. The "Silk Browser" (the browser of Amazon's fire tablets) surprisingly let me download said apk-file. There was a little trick however: one has to hold down on the download-link until the browser offer to download the link. Just tabbing the link did not do anything for me.

The browser than will ask for permission to write file to storage, with the warning that such files could harm your device.

Once the file is on your device, you can install the DWARFLAB app, after confirming security concerns of  Fire OS.
The application runs perfectly fine on the Amazon fire HD 8.

Having a comfortable UI for the DWARF II, I would consider today's exercise a success.

Godox Lux Senior

Well, that might be a first to me, I am actually praising a product. And no, I was not gifted the product. In fact, I had a hard time to purchase it in the first place. All the usual places were out of stock. Actually, one provider reimbursed my prepayment. Finally I was able to procure the device, surprisingly at a very decent discount. 
That made me think that this product fell out of grace somehow.

So, what are we talking about? It is a flash unit, not a speed light. An old style flash unit that you would traditionally feed flash bulbs to, one at the time.... However, there is a modern interpretation of such a device: http://godox.com/product-a/Lux-Senior.html 

When deployed, the circular reflector has a diameter of 11.5cm. In this setting, the flash creates a directed beam of relatively soft light. Not exactly a beauty dish, but not far from it. That's what you see from the interwebs anyway.
However, there is another non-bespoke way of using the flash, namely with the reflector NOT being deployed. Now we are looking at a 180 degrees light source having a tiny portion of a top reflector towards the subject.  Depending on the settings of your reflectors, this opens a ton of opportunities. Not to mention slaves in this scenario.

Using this unit as a slave opens more options that I am willing to describe. 
I hope that Godox will continue this product! This may be the most flexible one ever, in combinations with remote triggers and light modifiers.

Godox, if you read, continue this path (and send me products for testing).

ups... G.A.S.!

 Well, nostalgia of the modern world got the better of me again. So, I spent some of my funds on yet another outdated 2nd hand camera. This time it had to be a Fujifilm X-E3. 

Before the purchase, I did some "research" about the camera and what would suit me. Regular readers (sorry, I am no longer a regular writer, might need to do something about that) will know that I am a big fan of the X-Pro1, the X-M1, the X-100S and the X70. Two of them have a proper viewfinder. 
Lately, my eyesight suffered a bit. Close distance requires reading glasses. Hence, those displays on the back of cameras are no longer doing the job for me, unless I wear those reading glasses.

For the time being, I ignored the X-E series. My focus was on having the optical viewfinder of the X-Pro1 and the X-100S or the compact size of the X-M1 or X70. Certainly for its size, the X70 will remain one of my favorites. However, as a compromise between size and viewfinder, the X-E series all of a sudden became interesting.

It appears that, with some luck, one can purchase an X-E4. However, many reviewers noted that the X-E4 might be stripped down a little too much. Looking at it, I tend to agree. The X-E3, however, is no longer manufactured and only available on the 2nd hand marked. And that's where I go lucky. In fact, the same place is selling a 2nd hand X-E2. My decision was to have Acros film simulation, hence, the decision.

By now, I did basic tests only. The lens used is a TTArtisan 27/2.8 AF, which works very well with the X-E3 and keeps the setup small.

Now it is time to dive into recipes for this sensor, which is new to my collection of gear. I have high hopes to find some amazing ones that reduce the need of processing images on a PC.

What is the incentive of the industry?

Are products popular? Are popular products successful for the market/producer?

Questions I wish to through in the air and see what the responses will be.

As an example, I wish to introduce one of my favorite, the Joby Micro Tripod.
I was surprised I found a seller today: https://fotogrijpink.nl/joby-micro-tripod.html

When I bought mine, I paid a forth of the price mentioned. In fact, when I searched the last time, some year ago, I could not find any. 

Now, Joby post on their webpage: https://joby.com/global/griptight-one-micro-stand-black-jb01492-0ww/

It appears the Joby micro is back, when you accept buying something I don't need.

When it all was fresh, I bought those...

Hopefully Joby (and the world) remembers, how cheerful and useful those things are.