2010 December 16 « The Blog of Wildstar, aka Jimpossible

I stayed up late Monday to catch some of the Geminids meteor shower. I also wanted to capture some of this on film (my cheap digital p-and-s isn’t really up to this job, so I pulled out my good ol’ trusty Pentax film SLR. Then I realized that I needed a good way to hold the shutter button open for over an hour or so – (I’m no photographer & therefore don’t have a fancy-smancy cable deal to work it with) the camera has a “hold-open” or “bulb” option, but no way to “leave it open”, lol. So, I used my Aggie engineering education & came up with this hack!: A “C-clamp” worked nicely for this task! Gently holding the clamp in place, I simply screwed it down slowly to depress the button. No, this is no Aggie joke – I did not leave it open into the next day, lol! I just left the tripod out all nite, then reset this up to take a picture of it! Actually I only had it open for a little over an hour before, nearly freezing, I decided to go to bed. I was afraid of the sun beating me up so I took it down before going to bed.

I had to open a new roll and plan to use more of it next week on the lunar eclipse, so it’ll be a while before I can get anything back. I don’t have warm fuzzies though b/c I made the rookie mistake of forgetting to cover up the viewfinder eye-piece, so I’m afraid a small amount of light may have gotten in. Also, since I only have a (not so wide-angle) 50mm lenz left for this thing, I wasn’t able to capture that much of the sky, but hey, we’ll see!

Quote of the Day: “If Canon is like Windows, and Nikon is like Apple, then Pentax would be Linux. It’s that cool!”

(source: http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/pentax-k-x-black/4852-6501_7-33810396.html?tag=uoBody
on February 16, 2010 by “grampacaligula”)

I’m considering buying a new digital SLR camera for myself for Christmas or soon after & I was looking at the new Pentax k-x (“Kix”?). I’ve been happy with my almost 30 year old Pentax film SLR, but now want something comparable in digital. I started looking at Cannons and Nikons, but am now leaning towards another Pentax because it seems to offer more features for less money (Comments, pro or con are welcome!). It’s a 12 mega-pixel that can also do short HD movies, fully auto and manual modes, and can run on either AA or rechargeable battery! That’s one feature I like a/b my cheap Sony digikam and my mp3 player is that they run on quick-swappable batteries. The reviews I’ve read are good too (including the one in the quote above for one). (That quote did score some points with me lol)! It also seams to be a popular model on Flikr to boot! Another possible plus is that I might be able to use the new lenses with my old Pentax – it looks like it should be possible. The best deal I’ve seen is at Wal-Mart Online for a kit including 2 lenses – the DA 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 wide-angle and the DA 55-300mm F4-5.8 telephoto.