Chevy Gun Tractor by Italeri - Part 1

It's been a long time since I build a plastic model kit and never did any more then just glue one together in the past. 

Hopefully I can practice some painting, finishing and weathering techniques on this one working towards building some other kits stored up over the years.

Started off with the chassis and wasn't really sure where to draw the like of assembly to painting but decided to get a fair way into the chassis before hitting it with paint.

 For what was meant to be a learning kit it's got a lot (and I mean a lot) of bits in it, so much detail.

Looking at the assembly manual it looked like the kit could be build in modular parts, I started building a few bits in parallel. Chassis, Cabin floor pan, Main body and front end. This was great as it gave me something else to do while waiting for bits to dry or to keep the interest up.

Had to get a quick feel for what it was going to look like and did a bit of a dry assembly test also to make sure everything still fitted together as expected.

Test fitting the front clip onto the floor pan.

At this point I think it might be time for paint before to much more gets added in and becomes harder to paint. That's for the next installment.

Until then.

PR-RC SB401 4WD First run

Finally managed to get a quick test run with the PR-RC SB401, I decided to try the out of the box setup to get some sort of baseline and it wasn't to bad. I don't think the tyres were the right choice for the conditions but over all wasn't bad. need work on a little more grip though.

Cant wait for Sunday. Hope the weather holds out.

PR-RC SB401 4wd Buggy Update

Coming along, just sorting out tyres right now. Thanks to Paint & Graphics by TFG for the eye popping paint.

PR-RC 4wd SB401 Buggy Time Lapse Build Video

Very quick PR-RC SB401 Build.

It all seems to fit very together fairly well, the carbon looks top quality and the plastics appear to be a interesting mix of plastic and re-enforced plastic. Just waiting for the electrics and the slipper and should be hitting the track in a couple of weeks.

Can't wait.

Initial thoughts on Focus Bracketing/Stacking modes in the new Olympus E-M1 firmware update

The new v4.0 firmware for the Olympus E-M1 updated many things and provided a few new functions, the focus bracketing and stacking were ones I was really looking forward to playing.

Last night for comparison I tried taking a photo of a tiny flower in the standard way with a macro as a basis for comparison, then upgraded the firmware on the camera and all my lenses wile I was at it.

The initial baseline image is this one with the expected shallow depth of field.

The thing I tried was the in camera Focus Stacking mode to my surprise the camera made no noise and I hadn't noticed a photo was taken untill I noticed the flashing red SD card symbol in the top left of the screen.

When you go into focus stacking or bracketing mode the camera automatically picks high speed silent shutter mode, cool.

As can be seen from the photo below the result was quite impressive although the furtherest back parts are not quite as sharp as the rest probably because I didn't adjust step distance for each photo, but very impressive for a first try.

The last thing to try out was the focus bracketing mode which gives a bit more control over the number of shots to take, so having a bit of a play around with different shot numbers I got the following image.

This one gave some really nice results being able to take 15 shots and cover from the tip of the front petal all the way back through the rest of the leaves.

This was the very first time I had attempted to do any sort of focus stacking in Photoshop and I was not 100% happy with the results as the auto stacking was not perfect, with a bit of tweaking it could be much better, I also tried Helicon Focus with the free demo for 30 days and it 2 struggled with the same things that Photoshop struggled with.

Conclusions

One thing I did not like was that I could not change the shooting mode away from what the bracketing mode had set, so I could not select the option to delay taking the photos just to let the camera settle down any movement in pressing the button. This could be mitigated by using the OIS app to trigger the photo, or there maybe even another option I did not find in my cursory look last night.

The other thing I noted was that I can probably get better results in the stacking software by setting up the subject a little different or with less depth if possible, this will require a bit of fiddling and playing to see what works best. I'm relatively new to macro photography so there is plenty to learn I guess.

Graffiti and Weddings don't normally mix but....

Hosier Lane and likely many of Melbournes other graffiti covered lanes are not only a playground for tourists and photographers alike but have also become a very sought after location for wedding photographers.

Pretty much any weekend day if you hang around for a couple of hours you will come across a wedding photo shoot in there.

Quiet interesting to see the different styles of weddings and photographers that show up and direct the shoots, some are super organised with an entourage of assistants multiple shooters and tons of equipment and take over the place directing the public to stay out of their shots.

Others turn up with 2 photographers a couple of cameras and get it all done with minimal apparent effort and no interfering with the general public.

The cool thing from an enthusiastic amateur photographer point of view is that it adds a whole other side to taking photos in places like this and gives you willing subjects and situations which you can try out different kinds of photography that is perhaps outside of your normal style.

Harden the F*** Up

After having purchased a Bower 7.5mm lens for the my E-P5 over 9 months ago and having used it once and been put off by the lack of auto-focus, last weekend I decided it was time to take a spoonful of concrete and just get out there with it.

I had just found out about he Maryborough Wings and Wheels event (http://www.wingsandwheels.net.au/) so on Saturday I decided to bolt the 7.5mm lens onto the EM-1, setup focus peaking on/off on Fn2 and with that done I was all ready to go for a relaxed Sunday drive in the country.

So arriving late morning armed with the fully charged battery and empty memory card I started out slowly playing with focus and focus peaking trying to get used to things and after a bit of zooming in as far as possible while reviewing the initial images, I pretty soon worked out that I could leave the focus set in between the 0.25m and infinity everything in the image would be sharp at F11 at a distances I like to shoot and can get close to the subject.

de Havilland Vampire

This Vampire jet image was from the first few shots I took, and it came out as I'd hoped. After those first few shots I started to get more comfortable and started enjoying the event and taking photos more.

Cobra Engine bay

One of the main benefits of this lens and camera combo is how light it is compared to a more conventional DSLR, which meant walking around with it in hand for hourws wasn't an issue even taking a few photos just holding the camera out above the cars to get different angles.

Selfie reflection in Jaguar grill

After biting the bullet and just getting on with it, I have discovered new confidence in this lens and can't wait to get back out there with it. Over all I'm really impressed with the quality of the images produced by this little lens, for the money it's amazing value if you have a need for a fish-eye lens.

Ford Falcon 351 GT