New old lens

A month or so ago, I got a new lens.  New to me at least.  I picked up a Zenzanon 150mm for my ETRS.  Here it is mounted on the body alongside my 75mm.  I'm hoping to pick up a 50mm in the next few months.  I'd really like a 40mm, but I don't think I'm willing to invest that much into it.

Bronica ETRS with 150mm f3.5 (mounted) and 75mm f2.8

Test photo of my daughter taken with the 150mm on my ETRS.  Light is natural from window left and a reflector on the right.

Talking to myself

I don't really expect many folks are reading this.  Outside of a few friends I send links to and a top secret government data mining project, I expect this to go largely unread.  Irregardless, I will type anyway.  BTW, did you know irregardless is not a word?

Since my other blog with all my photo ramblings got eaten by a giant internet worm, it won't do much good to refer to my old posts on this blog.  I'll give a brief description of my photography and see how it goes.

I took a photography class in class in high school.  I think it was my junior year, probably 1983-84.  I enjoyed the class a lot and learned to develop film and make silver prints in the dark room.  I learned a little about photography but didn't really pursue it outside of class assignments and working on the yearbook and school newspaper.  An opportunity wasted.

After a few years of college I took a job as a graphic artist, mostly creating newspaper advertisements.  And while over the years I worked closely with photos, it was some time before I decided to try my hand a expanding my photographic skills beyond taking family snapshots.  It wasn't until after my second daughter asked for an upgrade from the family's digital point-n-shoot to a digital SLR that my interest was rekindled.  We got her a Canon Digital Rebel and she proved to be quite talented with it.  I was jealous of her camera almost immediately, but I fought the bug for a while.  I eventually broke down and bought a Canon 40D a few lenses and a flash.  Then a tripod.  Then my first (and only, so far) L series lens.  Then I bought an Alien Bee monolight.  By this time I was actively reading photo books and blogs.  Then I picked up a cheap EOS 650 on eBay.  I started shooting film again.  Then I was given an enlarger and some other darkroom equipment and picked some more on Craigslist.  All the while I'm trying to learn as much as I can about both the science and art of photography.

Since then, I've expanded my film interest into both medium format and 35mm.   I've scored a Yashica Mat LM, a Bronica ETRS, several 35mm SLRs, and rangefinders. I've love to pick up a 4x5 or *gasp* dare I dream, an 8x10 large format camera.  I've mostly been shooting 35mm on a Minolta XG-7, but I have my eye on a Nikon FM2n.

I do photography because I enjoy it.  I do it for myself, and as tempting as it can be, I resist the urge to try and make money doing it.  Maybe one day, under the right circumstances I will, but for know I will leave shooting for money to the real pros.  I don't want to be another guy with a Facebook photography business that doesn't know an f-stop from a hole in the ground.  In my defense, I know what an f-stop is.  More or less.

iPad repaired.

A while back I dropped my iPad 2 from a height of about 3 feet onto some concrete.  I had a Smart Cover attached, but that was the only "protection" it had.  It landed right on the corner and ended up looking something like this.

I went to the Apple store and they wanted me to pay $319 for them to swap it out for a new one.  With Christmas coming up, I didn't have the extra cash to fix it so I waited a while before looking for other options.  I found several places selling replacement screens and I watched several "how-to" videos about replacing the screen myself.  I was just about ready to tackle fixing it myself when I stumbled upon iRepairNational.com.  Their service looked good so I gave them a shot and sent it off for repair the week before Christmas. Their price was $139.95.  Despite the timing, their turn around time was great.  The Post Office held the shipment longer than I would have liked, but I was very happy with the repair job.

You can seen where they had to reshape the corner to get the glass to fit correctly, which is just fine with me since I didn't want to have to replace the back as well as the front.  Overall I'm very happy with the job they did.

Controls Are In

My X-Arcade Tankstick arrived today and I dropped it into the cabinet.  I had to do a little work to get it to fit, but it's in.  I tested it out with a little Centipede.

I know the hard core cabinet builder will scoff at my addition of the pre-made controls, but it was the best fit for me right now.  I would like to eventually salvage the parts out of it and build my own, but I'll wait until after Christmas to break it.  I'm going to enjoy it with my kids a while first.

If you look closely you can see that I changed the way the marquee is mounted.  I went with aluminum retaining frames rather then the weaker pvc j-moulding I was using.  It's much stronger now and I don't have to worry about it falling apart.

I also installed two rails inside the monitor area to hold the bezel and front glass.

It's really coming together, a few more weekends and it will be basically done*.  I still need to enclose the speaker box area and clean up the keyboard drawer as well.

*I don't think projects like this are ever really done.

Coin Door

Earlier this week I got my coin door from X-Arcade.  Here is how it looks.

 I was impressed by the quality of the door.  It seems to be well made.  The coin return has a red LED that has it's own AC adapter attached.  The coin mech seems to work well, it accepts quarters and rejects other coins.   I haven't tested the microswitch yet, but I expect it to work.

The Tankstick I ordered last weekend is on back-order but I should have it in another week to 10 days.  Then I can wire the coin door into the controls.

Photoless update

No new pictures at this time, but I have made a little progress.
I spent some time this weekend working on the software side of the Arcade.  I gave HyperSpin a look and was really impressed with how shiny it was.  My biggest problem with it was that it was just too heavy for the old PC I'm running the arcade on.  Even with the effects turned way down, the performance was poor.  Maybe if I upgrade the PC I'll take another look.
I had been testing both MameWAH and MaLA, and right now it looks like I'm sticking with MaLa.  I found a theme that I liked for a starting point and I've spent a little time customizing it.  The more I tweak it the more inspired I get to make more changes.
I also made some decisions about the control panel.  I had just decided to start from scratch and build everything myself when I happened to take a look at the X-Arcade website this weekend.  They were running a special holiday sale that was too good to pass up so I ordered the Tankstick.  I know, I know, I took a shortcut and robbed myself of part of the fun of building my own.  But, I have a plan.  I figure I'll install the Tankstick and play with it a while, but eventually will strip it down and use the parts build my own.

A little more progress...

Not much of an update, but I did install the t-molding and I put in a different Marquee.  I'm still working on the design/theme.

The red trim with the black makes me think of the old Batmobile.

It looks a lot better with the molding, but I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with the control panel.  I'm torn between buying an X-arcade Tankstick and buying all the parts and building my own.  I built the cabinet so the Tankstick would drop right in above the keyboard drawer, but now I find myself wanting to do the controls from scratch.  There isn't much more I can do until I decide which way to go.  I can finish the sound system, but I don't want to tackle the bezel until I decide on a controller.