Just another brick in the wall...

So last week, I participated in the blackout against SOPA/PIPA. This was relatively successful, but we all have to remember that was simply one battle in a war that we must continue to fight to save our rights in the electronic era.

So, without further ado, I give you a new, high priority target: 

BILL-C11

 http://www.ccer.ca/canadian-copyright-reform/canadian-copyright-reform-back-with-vengeance/

Canadians, I IMPLORE you to speak up. The people drafting and passing these bills aren't savvy enough to be trusted with these decisions, so lets stonewall this shit and make it easy for them. If enough people tell them we don't want it, they have to listen, right (maybe not, but we have to try)? We are a democracy, after all.

fittingly:

close up of  a brick, using LED and standard tungsten lighting.


If you are curious and didn't see my blackout page, check it out here.

Censorship be no ship I'll have a part in sailin'!

If you happen to reach my blog today without going through my main site/domain, please take a minute to check the instantkamera main page. As you are no doubt aware, many big sites (wikipedia, boing boing, reddit etc) are down or have gone "dark" to show their concerns with US legislation (SOPA and PIPA) that furthers the ongoing agenda to strangle online freedoms under the guise of "stopping piracy".

I'm happy to say my webhost, nearlyfreespeech.net, has my back, and implemented an option to "go dark against SOPA" automatically, but I thought I could do one better, so I wrote my own blurb in pirate-speak and even did a new logo.
Also, Google (who runs this blog via Blogger) AND my image host, SmugMug are both opposed to this dangerous legislation.

It's good to know the sites I choose to support with my dollars and bandwidth are on my side.

again, see http://instantkamera.ca for links that say more that I ever could on the subject, and stay free.

-Aaron

new goodies!

Just got an order in the mail, 1.5 new lenses!

I have been finding my reach to be lacking recently, so I snatched up a cheap Nikkor 55-200vr. When I say "cheap", I mean it - it's all plastic, including the mount. It's also not the fastest lens in my bag. However, despite the shortcomings, this lens is a sleeper in terms of performance, especially stopped down. Going rate for a new one is like 250 bucks, and I got this one LNIB (including ALL accessories - hood, caps, bag) for $109. "Who can resist a sale, son?!" 

See a fairly good technical review here.

The other "lens" I picked up is a close-up/macro diopter, the Raynox DCR-150. It's not a proper lens in the camera sense of the word; it's meant to attach to the front of a mounted lens, similar to a filter. Make no mistake though, this is of MUCH higher quality than you standard filter (including so-called "close-up filters"). It is a multi-element/multi-group construction.

This is it here.

I bought the two to be used together, and I must say, they unite harmoniously. It's as if they were intended for one another. The biggest issue with the Raynox is the size, it's TINY (43mm) and thus it's prone to vignetting on bigger glass. Thankfully, the tiny thread size(52mm) of the cheap 55-200vr works like a charm.

I specifically got the DCR-150 in lieu of the much more popular DCR-250 because I felt the 250's +8 diopter would be too strong (a common complaint), and am I ever glad I did, this is already SUPER close. My intentions are more for close-up abstracts than the standard macro fare (bugs 'n shit), so I figured anything that would get me close to 1:1 would be fine.

Stay tuned for some samples from the new toys!