Screaming Monkey Research Laboratories

Just starting to play with a new idea.

I’ve been sick all weekend.  So when I finally felt better I decided to take a short walk in the park.  The trails are pretty dry but everything still looks dead.  I suppose it is still March.  Got one shot I kind of like.  Taken with the Minolta MD 50mm f3.5 Macro.

The artist Ctein has a sponsorship thing.  Pay as little as $9.50 a month and you’ll get a couple of prints at the end of the year.  You can pay more and get more.  The upshot for him is that it provides predictable funding which makes producing art easier.  The upshot for me is that I get new art at a low cost.  Considering I was able to swing half the payments when I was unemployed this is a great thing.

Visit the Collect Ctein page if you want more info.

Today I got my prints.  Two lovely 11×14 prints.  Not dye transfer this time.  Wonderfully printed all the same.

I received Xmas Oranges, San Carlos, CA ~ 2009 …

And Apollo-Soyuz in Floodlights, Cape Canaveral ~ 1975 …

Very pleased with both.  I’ll be re-upping.  I’m getting quite the collection of his photographs.

Not the Viking.  The photographer.  I never heard of him but I sure recognize the photographs.  There is an interesting obit titled Artists Ain’t Saints: Jim Marshall, 1936-2010 by Ctein over at The Online Photographer today…

Some of you reading this may be mildly offended by the tone of what I’ve written. Or even majorly offended. Too bad. This is the kind of attitude that Jim respected and liked. I’m really sorry he’s gone, and he’d be happy to know that I’m really sorry he’s gone. Jim always wanted badly to be liked. And I really did like that royal pain in the ass. But if I got all pious and holy and handwringing on him now, his ghost would rise up to haunt me, rattling chains and saying, as Jim frequently did, “F*ck that sh*t, man!”

I can’t wait to see the photos the man is gonna send back from hell. They are going to be dynamite!

Read the whole obit here.

The new rendering really is better.  Just at the defaults this is much nicer.

I like the noise reduction.  Here is one of my desk shot at ISO 3200.  (Tethered to LR.  Also a new feature.)

Hunt it down at labs.adobe.com.

Picked this up with the lifesize converter for $60.  Good price considering they are $84 at KEH.

The f1.7 has the advantage of being f1.7.  But this lens seems to be very sharp even wide open.

Got my adapter the other day.  It is not that easy to focus.  I think  it might be that I’m trying very precise focusing and at pretty low (indoor) light.  Definitely is a cheap lens made in the 80s.  But I can get much better lenses for pretty cheap.  Need to do some ebay and/or KEH shopping.

Rushmore was not purchased at Amazon.  Anywho, been a bit since we had a cat photo…

I will be joining them on Monday.  Very, very enthused!

Looks like the end of late late night TV for me.  I think I’ll cope.

Seems pretty cool.  I need to figure out how to make one that will fit the blogs color scheme.

(Clicky clicky)