Tag Archives: Cameras

Negativity and More with my Takashi Special Effects Camera

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Holy Family Cathedral

When I was rummaging around Saturday looking for my generic Go Pro camera and I found my Takashi Special Effects Camera. It is kind of strange little camera with only 5 MP but it has various special effects built in such as negatives, black and white, sepia, and so forth. Check here for a list of my previous posts. Anyway I found it and fed it the AAA batteries it chews up like candy and took it for a walk at noon in downtown Tulsa.

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I love the negative effect. It makes me see old sights in a new way.

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It also gives scenes a spooky feel. I kind of like that.

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The camera also has no shutter. When you press “the button” the camera just scans the photocell. So if you are moving the camera while it is scanning it distorts the image in ways that are pleasing to me. It is called the Lartigue Effect after a Frenchman named Jacque Henri Lartigue who discovered the effect in the early 1900’s. It can make buildings look kind of wavy.

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I went down to the temporary replacement library for the Tulsa Central Library to pick up a book that I had on order and found out that that since they are closing it to move back to the regular library  they moved it to another library, miles away. Oh well.

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I love our library and the staff and have known a couple of them over the years but the present administrator I kind of worry about. The library gave him several months off to finish his PhD and then we come to find out that that he spends a huge amount of time and money flying to conferences here there and yonder. Much more so than libraries of similar sizes both regionally and nationally. He says that is where he found out about automated book checkout machines. Wow, I remember those from the last century. Oh well. I go to one conference a year and I think I’m pretty much up on what is going on in the natural gas industry. Oops, off topic.

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My favorite sidewalk in downtown Tulsa on Denver avenue.

So I walked back to the office taking pics along the way. Isn’t it wonderful that electrons and photons are still free?

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Downtown Tulsa in a negative mode.

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The entrance to a downtown apartment complex.

Anyway I always dragging my lowfi funky Takashi out, feeding it some batteries and taking it for a walk.

Bike Ride to Sand Springs and a Blowout

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I was on my own Saturday afternoon. Heather is in Dallas with other fitness instructors learning all sorts of stuff and son Logan at rehearsal as has a small part in musical based on Romeo Juliet (more to come later on that) so I thought what the heck I will ride my bike over the recently reopened bridge linking the Tulsa bike trails with those of Sand Springs. Also, I wanted to use my GoPro camera clone. An SJ4000 that I’ve had over a year and half and hadn’t used much. See it mounted on the handlebars of my bike.

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Here I am adjusting it.

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Us guys know that looking at something sideways always helps with whatever you are doing.

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I finally got it going. It can take video continuously or it can take photos when you hit the button or it can take pics at set intervals. I had it set to take pics every 20 seconds. Once you get it started it just keeps on going.

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So I got to the north end of the of the Riverparks trails and went under the freeway via the new underpass headed to the reopened pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks. The bridge has been closed for several years it seems.

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And here is the bridge, just as narrow as I remembered it. The approach from the south is a lot better with more room but the exit at the far end is still a blind turn and very sharp. Oh well. As a bonus a train was going under just as I passed over. Have I ever told you that I love trains. I do.

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And then across the bridge and then along Charles Page Boulevard to Sand Springs.

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Past the Tulsa Police Department garage. Lots of wrecked police cars there. Makes me think of the guys who keep us safe. I am totally behind Black Lives Matter but am also totally behind Police Lives Matter also. Shoot, everybody’s life matters. You may notice the photo is tilted. The bicycle mounts that come with the the SJ4000 are not very robust. I might have to invest in something better. They lose position with the jostling and vibration of the ride. People can have a peek at these guys if they need the best limo services.

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Oops, I used to ride this route a lot years ago when the bridge was last open. I forgot about the steep climb from the Arkansas River Bottom up the hill. I didn’t have to walk the bike.

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At the top though there were two other bikes and this walker all hit the intersection at the same time so we all turned into walkers. They guy walking said, “What a ***** traffic jam you guys have going on, in a good natured manner. I turned to the left. Going to the right heads you back to Tulsa and you go past back side of the jail and then by the Day Center for the Homeless. Years ago, I took that route and a couple drunk guys outside the Homeless Center were cheering me on: “Go Lance Go!!!” they yelled and pumping their arms.  That was kind of the highlight of my athletic career. I went by there a couple of other times and they weren’t there. You know, fans are fickle. Just ask Lance.

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Hanging a left, the trail is an old railroad bed. So it is flat and shaded in a few places.

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You have a few roads to be concerned about.

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Oops, the camera shifted again.

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I met a few bikers coming back at me.

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I had a three hour window and so my plan was to turn around after an hour. Give me an hour leeway in case something went wrong. With Heather out of town and having to pick Logan up at a set time after rehearsal I was a little nervous. So here is the one hour point where I stopped the bike and took a little water break. Oh, and don’t worry I wore a helmet. I just took it off during my break.

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So then I headed back and pretty soon the bike was like bonk, bonk, bonk, It is like what? Well the front tire had a little hernia. So I said well, I’ll just ride it until it quits. And then I thought that last time I had a blowout it was on the back tire and I almost lost control. Not good on the front tire. So I got off the bike and walked it and sure enough, POW!!! and it was all over. So, now what?? Hmm, my plan was to stash the bike and get an Uber or a taxi back to my car.

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I didn’t see a good place to stash the bike on the trail so I went under a freeway overpass.

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So see that white fence leading to a concrete wall? I walked the bike and put it up against the wall. Hidden from traffic and no sidewalks or anything. Best I could do.

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Yep, that is the spot. I didn’t lay it down, I leaned it up so it was all shadowed. I was a little nervous. Then I went across the street  to the Taco Bueno, found out that there were no Ubers available so I called Yellow Taxi. About 15 minutes later, Enrico showed up in the Taxi  and took me back to my car. I drove my car rented from MiramarSpeedCircuit back out to the Taco Bueno and my bike was still there. So I loaded it up and went to pick up the kid with 15 minutes to spare.

Pretty amazing I think. Just think how different things are now compared to when we didn’t have cell phones and apps and all that.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. My camera, with its 20 second timer, took 240 photos and I cut them down to about 30. Digital is a lot more convenient and cheaper than film. Maybe next time I’ll cu cut the interval down to five seconds. The camera is pretty noticeable and I had a couple of pretty female bicyclists smile and wave at it as they went by (surely they weren’t smiling and waving at me!). I passed a couple geocachers looking for a cache. And lots of other people. None of them showed up on the camera.

So, all in all, not a bad day it turned out. I got to visit an area of town I hadn’t seen in a long time, check out my camera, and was able to bail myself out of a situation.

Weekend Reflections – Lake Logan

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A cloudy afternoon, Lake Logan at the West Side YMCA on Turkey Mountain in Tulsa, Oklahoma

I was doing my Wednesday night run on Turkey Mountain last Wednesday night. I call it run even though I stop a lot to take photographs. I took 79 of them Wednesday. I had my trusty weatherproof, everything proof, Nikon AW110 point and shoot with me set on “Auto” mode and I noticed after taking one particular pic that a menu option popped up offering instant edits. So I decided to see where that took me and it gave me a choice of six filters. So I experimented with it and this is an example of the “Toy Camera” filter. I kind of like it as a variation. Luckily the camera saves the original image along with the filtered image so I can save myself if need be.

I’m looking forward to the day when cameras have just as good a filters as our phones and ipods do along with wifi connectability so one can buy and upgrade filters, as well as upload our photos directly to our various social media and photo storage sites. I have two cameras that have wifi compatibility but only with cell phones and setting up and maintaing the connection is time consuming and chews up battery life at an alarming rate and doesn’t work that great.

So, does your camera have some hidden features that you found?

I am linking with Weekend Reflections

Birthday Time

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I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. It has been my birthday. My birthday is not an event, it is a whole season nowdays. At least to me. I’m getting trouble getting buy in.

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Except from my buddy Fiona. She is into my extended multiday birthday plan. But then, she is still celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day.

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So I was totally spoiled on Sunday. I kept wondering what are guys going to get me tomorrow?? I’m very spoiled in case you can’t see.

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I got a new camera: a Nikon D5300. I’m still learning how to use it. Fortunately it has the auto setting. Us picture takers need the auto button.

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Today was my real birthday. It was kind of drizzly but still Heather and I went up to Woodward Park and I took a few pics of the tulips. The auto button is not bad for that.

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I also tried the macro setting. I got a little bokeh action going on.

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This evening we went for a family stroll on the River Parks and I took along my new camera.

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Here is Heather, Logan and Rascal at what we call the bear park on the trails. The flash pops up and fills in nicely. Except Rascal the dog looks kind of blobbish. Not bad for the auto setting though. I’m a blessed man is what I say.

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And there is lots and lots of megapixels so I can do long distance shots like this.

Anyways I had a great birthday. Now, 59 more to go!! Hey birthdays are too nice to confine to just one day!!

When is your next birthday coming up? Is one day enough?

Downtown Tulsa – Doing the Lartigue Shuffle

I own a lot of cameras. Three of them are pretty good the rest are just plain weird. At least to some. One of my favorites is the Takashi Digital Effects 521 camera.  It is a 5 MP digital camera with fixed focus, several special effects modes, and most intriguing, no shutter. Yep, that is right no shutter. You press the button and the sensor scans the image. So what you say? I’ll tell you what. If you get the camera moving while the sensor scans you can get an interesting effect named the Lartigue Effect.

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So I can make all the buildings sway to the left.

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And I can make them lean to the right.

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Or I can make them shimmy in place.

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The camera can take regular pics. They are kind of fuzzy just do the low fi nature of the device. I have to tell you that I love the look of the photo above.

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Or I can make it shoot in a negative mode.

I have fun with my funky little low tech over priced camera.

What do you have fun with?