On Saturday morning we had some snow. Much to my surprise I looked out and saw a whole clan full of robins hanging out in the trees near our apartment despite snow falling. They stayed for a short while they left again. What were they thinking?!

EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS with the EF 1.4x Extender @280mm. 1/250, f/4.0, ISO 200.

We went down to Acton, MA to play 1856 (an 18xx board game). We use a moderator - software which automates some of the housekeeping for the game so play doesn’t take so long. The game took around 6 hours even with the moderator. Lucky manned the moderator for most of the game (in addition to playing):

EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS @70mm. 1/80, f/6.3 ISO 100. With Canon 580EX II flash and Demb diffuser. Desaturated and vignetted in Lightroom for an antique look.

We played in teams in order to keep the number of players down (and make things go faster). So there was some whispering between team mates Alan and Shawn:

EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS @70mm. 1/80, f/5.6, ISO 100. With 580EX II flash and Demb flash diffuser, with the flash head pointing up and to the right at an angle.

For Christmas I knit a purple turtle hat for my sister-in-law Gennie, who likes turtles (and purple). This was my first knitting project, and a rather complex one at that, but I never got a photo of it since the whole thing was rather secret until Christmas Day. Well, this weekend Abby and I went up to Sunday River to go snowboarding and Gennie was there, so I finally got a chance to take some pictures of the hat.

All of these were shot with the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens, and Digital Rebel XTi. The Canon 580EX II flash was used undiffused for fill light.

The hat pattern is “Terrific Turtle Hat Pattern” from Kody May Knits.

Abby has taught me to knit. My first project was a purple hat with a turtle pattern, which was a Christmas present for Abby’s sister Gennie (who likes purple and turtles). Unfortunately, I do not have photos of that project since I managed to forget my camera in the busyness of Christmas (sigh). Hopefully soon I’ll get a chance to photograph her wearing it soon.

My second project was a blue Marsan Watchcap which I’ve made for Lucky. I started it on our way to Gabon, and much of the hat was “made in Africa.” But, I did not finish it in time to give it to him at Arisia, so Abby is modeling it instead. I think it looks really nice!

EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS @70mm, f/4.0, 1/60, ISO 100, with 580EX II bounce flash.

EF 50mm f/1.4, f/3.2, 1/60, ISO 100, with 580 EX II bounce flash.

This is an old one, clearly shot earlier in the fall. But I figure some green and yellow and fall beautifulness will make our transition into winter bright and cheerful.

Glowing Leaf. Canon Digital Rebel XTi, EF 85mm f/1.8@f/2.2. ISO 100, 1/800.

View larger and more in the gallery.

First, a Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb. Seriously, these things are awesome. We had a very weak one in the dining room, part of a set of CFLs which were given to us by the property manager as part of an energy saving project. However, today I upgraded to a much larger lamp, a 150 watt equivalent CFL. This shot has totally been done before, but I wanted to play around with it. I used a small aperture and shot directly up at the ceiling fixture. I took this exposure almost directly after turning the light switch on, so the tube is still warming up.

Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi), Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 @ f/16.0, 1/250, Aperture Priority program mode, ISO 200.

The second shot is of a lit candle. This was shot in darkness, with all room lights off. I put the camera on a tripod and focused on the candle with the lights on. Then I set the lens to manual focus and lit the candle, then turned off the lights. I used a cable release with the “Bulb” setting to achieve a 19 second exposure. During the exposure I blew towards the candle to create a wide soft look to the flame. The photo was later cropped to a vertical orientation featuring just the candle in Adobe Lightroom.

Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi), Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 @ f/22, 19s, manual mode, ISO 100.

I took this sunset photo on November 2nd. The clouds had incredible coloring with all these layers throughout. Lately most of my shots have been people pictures but today I figured I’d share a nice landscape shot :)

ISO 100, Canon EF 50 f/1.4 @ f/2.5, 1/125, Program mode with -4/3 EV bias.

I am in love with this photo.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 @ f/2.8, Canon Speedlite 580EX II. ISO 100, 1/200, manual exposure mode.

I took some nice photos of people playing Ultimate Frisbee earlier this afternoon. The light was just right for most of it. I shot with fairly wide apertures and very fast shutter speeds. Shooting with the 85mm prime was nice, but the best pics came only when the action was close. Doing this kind of shooting has reinforced my desire for the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS which would provides the best focal lengths, zoom, a wide aperture, and IS. The image below was shot using ISO 100, f/2.2, with a 1/3200 exposure (aperture priority mode).

View all ultimate photos.

This morning I caught some photos of Katz giving herself a tongue bath. She is very cute, and I swear she was posing for the camera. These are all shots with my EF 85mm lens, with lighting using the Canon 580EX II flash with the Demb Flash Diffuser. The Demb basically combines a variable tilt bounce card (which can also tilt completely down for a ceiling bounce only) and a piece of plastic that attaches to the front with velcro and can be easily removed or repositioned. Most of these were shot with the reflector tilted completely down, giving mostly ceiling light with the plastic diffuser catching a bit of light and throwing it forward to fill in shadows.

Unlike the built in bounce card on the 580EX II, the Demb Diffuser can be placed with the short edge of the flash facing forward - this allows you to simply tilt the flash head to take vertical (portrait) orientation photos with the flash. The 580EX II is a serious workhorse.. I just kept shooting again and again and the flash recycles very fast. I use rechargeable NiMH batteries which work quite well, in fact, the batteries had not been recharged since the last time I used them and they were fine (a bit warm when I took them out at the end). With the Demb diffuser stealing some of the flash power, the flash head does get quite warm as well after heavy use! It is a serious unit.

Check out the barbs on her tongue. It makes for a comb-like surface ideal for grooming.

Larger sizes starting here and going forward. Check out some full size originals.

The lens used in both my is my Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM prime telephoto, an excellent lens. The flash used is a Canon Speedlite 580EX II. And, of course, the body is the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi.

ISO 100, 1/60, f/4.0, Program AE. I shot this one a few days ago and only got around to post processing it in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom last night. To take it, I put the camera on a small tripod and used my new cable release. That way I avoided the dreaded “arms out” photo. Afternoon light is coming in from the right of the photo. I used the 580EX flash bounced vertically off the ceiling, with the white bounce card extended. White balance and contrast adjusted in Lightroom. Other sizes.

ISO 100, 1/100, f/3.2, Manual Exposure. This was shot in the bathroom mirror when I was first trying out the 580EX. The flash head is facing directly up, with the bounce card extended just past the edge of the frame. You can see the reflection in the lens. Other sizes.

We had some severe weather roll through and I took some lightning photos. These have been added to a new weather gallery and you can check out others and details there.

Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/3.5-5.6, 30s exposure, f/7.1, ISO 100.

To take good lightning photos in the dark, you need a tripod. Set the camera on the tripod and choose an aperture around f/7.1-f/13 and an exposure time of 30 seconds or more. Use ISO 100. I used the self timer to actuate the shutter without shaking the camera, but this may not be necessary. Then, just take long shots until you happen to catch the lightning in action. I chose a wide angle focal length but this isn’t strictly necessary. However, it does increase the changes of seeing some action since the field of view is wider.

Well, Abby and I are married and returned from our honeymoon to the UK. We traveled to London, Keswick (north lake district) and Edinburgh. I have a new Canon Digital Rebel XTi camera, and the standard EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, so all my pictures from the trip are with that. It is a very nice camera.. I am happy to have a finally digital SLR, although the kit lens leaves a few things to be desired. I’ve also decided to start hosting my photos are smugmug for now since Apache:Gallery has really left many things to be desired (particularly lately it has not been stable lately). It is an eventual goal to move things back here, but I need to find a better solution and there isn’t time right now. So my smugmug gallery is now the source for photos from my SLR camera.

Full gallery

Awww! Miss Katz is currently winning the cutest cat award.

Look at those huge fangs! She is a fierce and wild animal!

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Earlier this evening I did some work on my car and to test drive things I drove over to Pease (KPSM), our local big airport. Pease used to be an Air Force Base, but now it is open to the public. It is also still used by the 157th Air Refueling Wing of the NH Air National Guard. The Air Refueling Wing flies the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker.

In Durham at UNH, one can frequently see KC-135s flying overhead at low altitude. They are easily recognizable by the refueling boom which is visible at the back. The reason why these aircraft frequently overfly Durham and Newmarket is because they are flying a air traffic pattern for one of the runways at Pease. They fly the pattern over and over again for training.

When I got to Pease I sat for a little while in the Park and Ride lot near the south end of the airport. This is at the beginning of Runway 34, which was the active runway since there was a brisk wind coming in from the north. I waited for a little while, watching the sunet, then spotted an aircraft headed south on a downwind leg over Durham. I watched as it turned to a base leg, then final. With such a big aircraft they set up for a long final and the base to final turn was barely visible. But, landing lights were clearly visible and I could tell the plane was definitely descending for landing on Runway 34. Soon it was quite close and at this point it was obvious it was a USAF KC-135.

Above you can see the plane passing over the ILS transmitted at the end of Runway 34. My camera has great zoom capabilities but at this point it was basically zoomed all the way out. The picture doesn’t do the size of the plane justice.

I watched as the plane touched down.. then, much to my surprise, the pilot took off again. This is called a touch-and-go and is frequently used during training since it allows you to make lots of take offs and landings, and generally practice the most important phases of flight. It was just a surprise to see touch and goes in such a large plane.. I had previously been used to seeing Cessnas at Boire Field in Nashua!

This time I could track the plane in my field of view the whole time it flew the pattern, then came in for another touch and go. Instead of watching from my car in the parking lot I crossed to the airport perimeter and watched from near the fence. It truly is impressive to see such a large plane coming in from so close. You could also clearly see the course corrections and wind affecting the aircraft during the short final approach. Of course, these are pilots in training so a bit of a rough landing is to be expected :)

Unfortunately by that time it was nearly dark, so no good pictures. You can check out the blurry ones, plus high-res versions of the others, in the gallery.

Earlier this evening I took advantage of nice weather to replace the distributor cap and rotor in my 1992 Honda Accord as part of an ongoing 150k mile service. Earlier I replaced the spark plugs. The distributor forms another part of the ignition system on this engine. The purpose of the distributor is to mechanically assign the spark voltage from the ignition coil to the particular cylinder that needs to fire. New cars sold today rarely have distributors, instead opting for full computer control with a separate coil for each cylinder (or shared by pairs of cylinders on some engines).

On my car the precise ignition timing is electronically controlled (it used to be fully mechanical on older cars). But the mechanical distributor is still used to assign the high voltage pulse to the cylinder that needs it. There is only a single coil, and the precise ignition firing is triggered by electronic sensors.

The distributor itself consists of a rotating shaft which is attached to the end of the camshaft. On the end of the shaft is a rotor, which is a plastic piece with a metal connection going from a contact in the middle to a contact at a particular point on the edge. The distributor cap has four metal contacts on the inside which are connected to the four spark plug wires. In the center is a contact which is connected to the coil. As the camshaft spins so does the rotor, synchronized with the rest of the engine. As the electronic ignition triggers an ignition signal, it is increased to high voltage by the coil and sent through the distributor, where everything has aligned to send the spark to the correct cylinder.

Since the distributor is a mechanical system, it is obviously subject to wear. My quick and dirty estimate indicates that the rotor inside the distributor will have made around 45,000,000 revolutions during 30,000 miles. Eventually the contacts wear out, grow dirty, and so on. Thus typically the rotor and the cap are considered wear parts and are replaced periodically when the ignition system is serviced.

Here is my old distributor on the engine. The spark plug wires have been removed for easy access to the annoying screw on the bottom. If you are going to try and replace the cap and rotor on this engine I highly recommend a stubby Phillips screwdriver. The job would have been much more frustrating without it since room is tight between the distributor cap screws and the airbox/cooling pipe on the left.

Once the distributor cap is removed you can see the rotor. The metal contact is visible at the top. On this car the rotor is simply held on the shaft with friction — a lot of friction. It did take considerable effort and prying to get the rotor off.

The gray plastic dust cover covering some of the sensors inside was very brittle, likely due to age. It cracked and I was not able to reinstall it. It is only a $1.10 part.. but I think for now the purpose of the dust cover is pretty much redundant. I will include a replacement in my next parts order and install it then.

With the dust cover and rotor removed you can see the sensors inside. These electronic modules are used to detect the exact position of the camshaft so the spark timing can be adjusted. Precise timing of ignition provides big benefits in emissions, power, and fuel efficiency. Again, systems today are much, much more complex and sophisticated!

Here is the finished product with the new distributor cap installed and the spark plug wires reconnected. You need to make sure you connect the wires in the correct order. The firing order is not 1-2-3-4! In fact, it is 1-3-4-2! That particular firing order was likely chosen to keep the engine’s operation smooth.

You can find some ultra-high res images in the gallery.

I started going through some old photos, including my photos from backpacking in the White Mountain National Forest last August (2006). The current blog header photo is from there. None of these photos have been posted here before.

This is the AMC Lakes of the Clouds hut stationed at 5050 ft. near Mt. Washington’s summit cone. Wind and solar power are used here to provide electricity for the hut (radio, minimal lighting, refrigeration). Lakes of the Clouds has had problems losing wind turbines due to the high winds seen at this location.

This was taken around the same time as the previous picture from the Lakes of the Clouds area. You can see some weather monitoring equipment to the left. The area to the left forms the Ammonosuc Ravine.

I took this earlier on our trip from the summit of Mt. Garfield. Traversing the Garfield Ridge was one of our longest days. The ridge runs along the northern rim of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, seen here. The Pemigewasset River drains this large basin. The woody mountain in the middle is Owl’s Head, bane of peakbaggers.

The evening after climbing Mt. Garfield we were at Zealand falls. The Zealand Falls hut is not far from here. It is the only of the huts to use hydroelectric power. Water is taken from the river and used to run a mechanically interesting well water pump for fresh water at the hut and a second water feed goes to a homebuilt turbine for electricity. Zealand is also one of the huts open on a minimal basis in the winter. We had hoped to go this winter, but conditions and busyness unfortunately delayed that project.

You can find larger versions of these and more in the gallery.

As some of my long-term visitors may have noticed (or not if you read the RSS feed :), I have once again changed the site design here. I am using a slightly modified version of the MistyLooks Wordpress theme. The image at the top is from my backpacking trip last August. It was taken near the dam on Lonesome Lake, west of Franconia Notch, NH. This where the AMC Lonesome Lake Hut is.

In the photo we are looking beyond the lake, across Franconia Notch. Behind you can see the far ridge of the Notch rising up to a green knob. Slightly farther up is the AMC Greenleaf Hut. The high rocky peak is Mt. Lafayette. The next night we stayed at the Greenleaf Hut, after hiking up Cannon Mtn (west side of Franconia Notch), down into the notch, and up to the hut.

Now that the weather has started to get warmer (high of 86F today!) the cats are starting to shed much of their winter fur. But they still have a lot. I snapped this picture of Smithers in the inbox he stole using eminent feline domain:

He is really a big cat.

Amazingly, the box is one of his favorite spots for napping.

Now that it has cooled off a bit we have removed the AC in the computer room and Katz and Smithers have reclaimed a nightly perch on the window sill. There is a big fan which we often have blowing air out the back door, so a cool breeze comes in the window and they seem to like it.

As you may know, Northwestern New England has gotten a pretty large amount of rain this weekend. By some estimates we have already received around 10 inches of rain with more on the way. While other parts of the state (in particular the central part and the Merrimack River Valley) are experiencing more problems there is definitely flooding here.

I took some pictures when I went out earlier to buy some pants. Of particular interest is laminar flow over the Oyster River dam. Typically a more slow typical turbulant flow is seen. When I drove past Packer’s Falls there was a crowd checking out the falls. The river was definitely above flood stage, with water moving fast through trees at the river bank. Not far downstream it was still showing rapids, in the same area I skiied on last winter. When I left the river downstream of the falls was just beginning to creep onto the road.

Later, we went out to Portsmouth for dinner with Abby’s family and when we returned NHDOT was just blocking off NH 108 between Durham and Newmarket. We had to take the back route, which also had numerous flooded sections and washouts, some of which with pretty fast moving water. Fortunately we live on a hill. Although there is a lot of drainage going down the road and down the hill into the retention ponds right outside our porch. The ponds connect with a small waterfall which is typically completely dry in the summer season. Right now, the little cascade is so loud that I can hear it from inside the apartment with the windows closed. Exciting :)

UPDATE: Abby has posted some photos from today. As of now just about every road heading north from here is closed at some point due to the flooding or washouts. We’ll see if I can make it to Durham for work tomorrow morning!

UPDATE 2: More pics added from Tuesday. Things have now crested, and water levels are falling. The NH Army and Air National Guard are here to fill and place sandbags along the edges of the Macallen Dam in town. Hopefully at this point a dam breach has been avoided - earlier today it was a very real posibility. A river has appeared near the Citgo station on Gerry Ave. which is flowing across the road and through houses before eventually emptying into the lower Lamprey river below the dam.