Thursday, December 13, 2012

Did the Greenhouse Work? / Stella Impersonates a Citrus Tree

Stella Does her Citrus Tree Impression: Canon 5D, Rokinon 35mm f/1.4 @1.4
So I stated in my last post that I thought I was getting about 6 degrees of protection from the greenhouse.  After three consecutive nights of freezing weather, it now appears that I underestimated a little.  I use an Oregon Scientific wireless thermometer with two sensors, one inside the greenhouse, and one on the fence outside. I am also a dork.  Here are the numbers:


  • Night one: 32.7 degrees inside, 23.2 degrees outside, 9.5 degrees difference
  • Night two: 31.3 degrees inside, 22.5 degrees outside, 8.8 degrees difference
  • Night three: 34.3 degrees inside, 26.6 degrees outside, 7.7 degrees difference

So it was successful. It only dipped slightly below freezing for a short while on night two.  Night 3 had a smaller difference because I initially thought it wasn't going to freeze, so I didn't turn on the Christmas lights until later in the evening.   Overall the average protection was 8.66 degrees, which I think it is safe to round up to 9 degrees.  Not too shabby.

What's most important is that all the trees look fine, even the ones that had to make due with nothing but a crummy blanket. 





Monday, December 10, 2012

The Greenhouse

An eyesore in the night
Well, Austin's first freeze is here.  It was late this year, which was nice, but the dreaded time has arrived.  Time to build the greenhouse. This is my second year with trees in the ground, and my second year building the greenhouse.  Actually, it was just a reassembly this year.  Oh, the fun I had.

All the photos(unless otherwise specified) were taken with my brand new Rokinon(rebranded Samyang) 35mm f/1.4 on my Canon 5D.  You will be hearing more about it in the future, no doubt. The subject matter does this lens no justice, but since this is camera and garden, I figured I would let you know.

Here are some shots of the trees along the southeast side of the house.  Southeast, because that's the warmest side of the house, shielded from the North wind and first to catch the sun's rays in the morning.
There's a Kiki in a pot!
They look so scraggly from this direction.
 Here is the greenhouse, where it was left last spring after it's demolition, much to my wife's dismay.  Fortunately, with time, it mostly disappeared.  I had to use the weedwacker to get the pieces out.  The danged Bermuda grass had them deep in its clutches.
This is what happens when you don't mow the Bermuda.
 So I spent an hour putting the thing back together like a puzzle.  Some pieces were still glued together from last year.  I did not re-glue them this year.  I am just hoping friction will do the job.   I did use a little duct tape in a couple of trouble spots.  Everything  could us a little duct tape.
The skeleton of the beast

 As you can see in the pictures, the frame is made of pvc pipe, fitted together with normal pipe junctions.  The roof has a slant to it to funnel off the water when it rains.  Without the slope, water pools on the top. Last year my second greenhouse attempt was crushed by the weight of pooling water, my first attempt was toppled by the wind.  Third time was the charm.


 
Check out the slanty roof.
You'll also notice the black trashcans in the picture above.  They will be filled with water to act as heatsinks.  They will absorb heat during the day, and then release it as night, helping to keep the greenhouse warm.  When I say warm, I mean above freezing.  That's all I really need.  This is Texas.  The temperature is rarely below freezing for long. They will also add support to keep the wind at bay.

Asian Beetle
I found this lovely asian beetle admiring my fine work.
Asian Beetle Close up.

 The Frame is then covered in 6 mil polyethylene. This doesn't have much insulating power, but it's enough. 


 The Terra Cotta pots and the ugly faded cart provide added support against the wind.

I have about 2000 incandescent Christmas lights inside to generate heat.  Don't do LEDs. They don't generate much heat.  You will feel dumb.
 Everyone is all warm and cozy inside.

 Except for these Guys.
 They got their own blankets.  I couldn't extend the greenhouse any further without obstructing the gas meter.  Figured the gas company wouldn't be too happy about that.
  This guy got a blanket too.  He's a satsuma, so he should do okay like this.  Satsumas are about as cold hardy as they come while still tasting good.

  So everyone's ready for the freeze.  So far, it looks like the greenhouse is managing to stay about 6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer inside than outside at night. That means it can get down to about 26 outside before it hits the freezing mark inside.  The citrus trees can take a light freeze, so everything should be fine. 

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Oh My Darlin', Oh My Darlin': 2012 Clementine Report


Clementine: Canon 5D, 85mm f/1.8 USM
     Well, December is finally here. It's the Holiday season as well as the citrus season.  I picked my first clementine mandarin today.  It's also know as the Algerian orange. These aren't your grocery store cuties, although I wouldn't complain if they were. Those are generally Nules Clementines, which are related, but not the same.  I haven't been able to find Nules Clementine in Texas.

    I guess I should preface that I live in Austin, TX, and part of this blog will be chronicling my successes and failures at trying to grow citrus here. Citrus, in general, are easy, so hopefully, there will be more successes than failures. The biggest challenge is the weather.  Austin lies at a transition zone, climate wise.  Citrus North of here is pretty much north of here is pretty much bound to fail.  As you go progressively south, things become increasingly favorable, the Rio Grande Valley being the heart of the Texas citrus industry.

   I've had my clementine tree for about 3 years, and it was probably about a year old when I got it.  It spent its first year in a pot and its first winter in the garage, along with all my other citrus.  The garage did not work out so well, so most of my citrus, including this tree were planted in the ground on the southeast side of the house, where the micro-climate should theoretically be the warmest.  So the tree is 4 years old and this is its second season in the ground.  It produced a few clementines,which were smaller and tastier than this batch, that first year in the pot.  I had none last year.  This year I had 9 fruit which were about tennis ball sized, maybe a wee bit smaller.

Meet Clementine: Canon 5D, Contax Zeiss 135mm f/2.8

     The little squiggles on the fruit are leaf miner trails.  A moth lays and egg, the larva hatches and burrows under the surface and eats til it is mature.  Usually they attack the leaves and not the fruit, but not this year apparently.  This is the first time that I have seen any evidence of them since the big freeze two years ago.  It apparently killed off the larva that were chilling in the soil waiting for spring, and they are only just now making their way back from warmer climates.  Leaf miners generally don't cause much trouble.  They just make things a little uglier.  This fruit is perfectly fine inside.

Leaf Miners: Canon T2i, 40mm f/2.8 STM
Canon T2i, 40mm f/2.8 STM

     The one below and on the right is the one I picked.


The one I picked: Canon 5D, Contax Zeiss 135mm f/2.8  
    
     So naturally, I brought the one I picked inside, and we did a photo-shoot.


"That's right, smile for the camera, Darlin'!": Canon 5D, 85mm F/1.8 USM



It's what's inside that counts: Canon 5D, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm F/2
   And then I cut it in half to see what was inside;  Disappointment.  So it wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything special.  It was juicy, but not running-down-the-side-of-your-arm juicy.  It was only slightly sweet, and there was no acidic tang at all.  The best was to describe it was: bland. It was also full of seeds.  I counted 19.  I figured it wouldn't be seedless. Seedless is a product of both genetics and monoculture, neither of which I have. I did, however, hope for a little better than this.

Canon 5D, 50mm f/1.4 USM
19 Seeds: Canon 5D, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm F/2 

     Despite my disappointment, I do remain hopeful for this tree.  This is its first crop in the ground, and citrus trees usually produce better fruit as they age, so next year might be better, and maybe the year after that.  More citrus reports to come. Is this enough citrus for you, Kai?

Monday, November 26, 2012

Deconstructing The Olympus OM H.Zuiko 24mm f/2.8

"Eureka!": Canon T2i, EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM
     Well.  I am not as prepared today as I thought I was.  I have a pile of things I want to blog about, but they all seem to get piled up on one another, and then i go to write and discover that I am missing some of the pictures I need.

     Never fear, though, for I have a topic, it just wasn't the one I was planning on, although it makes sense in the natural progression of things. So, without further ado, I dismantle the Olympus Zuiko 24/2.8.

  
     It really is pretty amazing how these things are put together inside. I never really understood the cost of a lens until I started taking them apart.  They are pretty much a modern marvel of mechanics.  I bow to anyone who designs optics. I can't imagine anything more challenging.

    Now, if you read my last post, I said I was going to show you what happens when you go into a lens from the front. If you recall, I have two copies of this lens.  I gave up on the first copy, and now I need to clean some gunk and fix the aperture in the second, and optically superior copy.  This is the one I want to keep.

   So I gathered my tools.  You will laugh when you see them. Please do. I deserve to be laughed at (and probably chastised) for using them.  Better tools are on my Christmas list this year.

   The first task is to get the front retaining ring off.  This is the piece with the writing on it.  There are two little slots on opposite sides of the retaining ring. These are for a spanner wrench, which is a special, and surprising expensive tool.  I have fashioned my own.

The elegant spanner

    A paper clip works, but you have to be careful.  Since it is obviously not the appropriate tool, if it slips, which it is prone to do, you can scratch something pretty good.

   Once you get it loose you can unscrew it more easily using a friction tool.  You can get a set from http://www.micro-tools.com/. They're basically just a set of rubber cones("It's a cone!").  You can find the other proper tools there as well. Here is my friction tool(Hee hee, I said "friction tool"!).




Purple nitrile glove and water bottle cap...


...in action.

     Once you get it off, you're in dangerous territory.  Don't turn the thing over, or things will come off, and you will 100% most definitely lose the tiny ball bearing that makes the aperture clicks for each stop.

     You will lift the retaining ring off and also the ring with the filter thread on it.  Underneath will be a silver ring with some holes in it that the ball bearing fits into. The best way to keep from losing the ball bearing is to remove the aperture ring(the ring with all the teeth) and the silver piece together(hold them together) and set them aside as a single, assembled group.  Lift up and off.


OMG, It's the ball bearing!

Then you will see a little stainless notch (it fits into a hole in the aperture ring).  This is the physical connection between the aperture and the aperture ring.

Aperture Lever
     Now, using your spanner(actually your fingers might work, mine did), you can unscrew a large portion of the optics as one piece.  If you need to clean in there, then you can further dismantle it.  Fortunately, I didn't need to get in there.  My problems were behind these elements. Here is what the piece looks like.


Front optical elements


     Once you get the front optical elements out, Voila! you have reached the aperture. A ridiculously complex little thing.  The two screws that attached the aperture lever to the aperture had fallen out(they fell out of the lens during an earlier operation, so i knew something was wrong somewhere), and to my luck and surprise, the dust spot that was showing up in the bokeh was on the element you see directly below.  I blew out the inside of the lens with the rocket blower and cleaned the element with some lens cleaner and a microfiber cloth.

Aperture open

Aperture stopped down to f/16

These screws came loose and were screwing everything up.

Now. All you have to do is put it back together.  It's important to pay attention to what you're doing so you remember how it goes back together.  As far as what I did here, it's not too hard.  You just screw the optical elements in until the unit is finger tight.  Then you put the aperture ring back on, making sure the aperture lever fits in the little hole in the ring(remember to do this with the other rings together as a group as to not lose the ball bearing). Once the aperture ring is lined up correctly, you can screw the retaining ring back on using your friction tool, and at the end, your spanner to tighten it up.

     I may have over simplified it a little bit, but generally every piece has some little notches that have to line up to allow everything to snap into place correctly. You can't put it back together wrong.  Now if you do some other things, you can put it back together wrong, so don't tear this lens apart with reckless abandon. But for this procedure you're safe.  When you start taking screws out, make sure you keep track of them(they are tiny) and remember what goes where.  Also, if you start taking individual elements out, make sure you don't put them back in facing the wrong direction.  You're done for if you do. Please bear in mind that most of these pictures are much larger than actual size.

   Of course, good intentions be damned. I have a perfectly working aperture now, but it appears a new planet transits the sun.
Could that be Mercury in its transit of the sun?




(P.S. If you like athletic Greek women you should do a google image search for "voula" like I did when I was trying to make sure I spelled voila correctly)




Monday, November 19, 2012

Check out my Funky Bokeh Balls

Bad Bokeh Balls: Canon T2i, Olympus OM H.Zuiko 24mm f/2.8
    So previously I wrote about how wonderful this lens was.  And then I finished by showing you the nasty bokeh balls.  This is the sort of thing you have to look out for when you're buying used lenses.  They can look perfect, and then do things like this.

    You will read, time and time again, that dust and other stuff in the lens doesn't really make much of a difference in the photos it takes.  That tends to be true, for the most part, except when it comes to the bokeh.  That's where the imperfections start to show up.  They are more pronounced when the offender is present on or between the elements closer to the sensor plane(or film plane if you're old school, or a hipster).  That's why a little dirt and grime on the outside of the front element doesn't really effect anything, but on the back element, it can cause trouble.

    As if getting one bad copy isn't enough, here's the bokeh from the second 24/2.8 that I bought.  Described as being perfect in the auction description, it's most glaring flaw was a broken aperture mechanism, but we'll look at that in a later post.  This second copy had a speck of black dust that showed up in the bokeh. Is that venus' transit of the sun? You can see the spot about halfway out from the center towards the bottom in both balls.

Orange eyeballs are watching you.


    In the case of the first lens, it appears that there might be some oil on one of the elements.  being the thrifty fellow that I am.  I decided I would go inside and see what I could do.  The nice thing about manual lenses, is that they are made very sturdily, and there are no electronics inside for you to mess up.  Still proceed with caution.  Make sure you remember how to get it back to together, and be sure to mark elements so that you know which way they face when you put them back in.  A backwards element would render a lens useless.  A nice pair of magnetic tweezers and magnetic screwdrivers are really nice as well. the screws inside the lens are tiny, and you don't want to lose them.

    Ok.  First, for Olympus lenses, if you ever want to find the exploded parts diagram, which, believe it or not, can be quite helpful, check out http://olympus.dementix.org/Hardware/olympus_hw.html. There is a parts diagram for every Olympus OM lens ever made(I think).


    If you're going to go in through the backside (minds out of gutters please), you would start by laying it face down on a microfiber cloth, so that nothing on the front element gets scratched.

     Then remove the three screws on the mount and lift it up and off.  Quick and easy.  It's easy to get back on too, you just have to make sure all the levers in the mount engage all the aperture levers.  I probably could have taken a clearer picture, but you will get better picture in some future posts.  




     Now, Is everyone ready for the anti-climax? Dead end. I need to get into the rear elements, which means I needed to get the rear retaining ring off.  Unfortunately I couldn't, and I gave up because, as I already have a better copy of this lens that I plan on keeping, this one is going on the auction block.  It takes good pictures and just has a minor bokeh problem. There's more value, though, in a lens with an oily squiggle  thing in the bokeh balls than a broken lens.

     The irony of it all is that the rear element retaining ring screws right off on my second copy of this lens. It's only finger tight.

     So you hate me now for letting you down.  Hopefully I can remedy that in the future.  I will show you the horror that is the flashlight test,  I will show you how I got the dust spot out of the bokeh balls on my second copy of the 24mm and what i did to fix the aperture, and I will show you how I cleaned at least some of the fungus out of a 28mm f/2.  You'll see me go in through the front side and the through back side. It'll be a good old fashioned party.


This is my dog after all was said and done. She's pooped.

Stella has been bored to sleep by this post: Canon T2i, EF-s 60mm F/2.8 Macro USM



Thursday, November 15, 2012

The Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8

No Caption Necessary: Canon Rebel T2i with EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM
      This lens is a beauty. It's a reasonably fast lens designed for the full frame Olympus OM system and is easily adapted to the Canon EF mount. You can buy a small metal adapter for around $10 on the Ebay.  It is small, light and superbly sharp.

     If you want to know all the technical details, I suggest you check out http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/olympusom1n2/shared/zuiko/htmls/24mm1.htm.  The site is out of Malaysia (so Kai ought to like that), and it has pretty much all the technical information you could ever want to know.  If you're into classic manual focus lenses, it's a good resource.

     If you don't believe me that it's a superb lens, you should check out http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/24mmcup/final/24mm_final1.html.  The little Zuiko is second only to the Canon 24mm f/1.4L in the "24mm World Cup".  That's lens would set you back about $1000.  The Zuiko can be found easily on ebay for a little over $100. That's a lot of value for your dollar. Granted, the 16-9 review is a little old, and doesn't include some of the newer players, but rest assured this lens can compete in the digital world.

    This lens really is a pleasure to use.  It is solid and the focus  and aperture rings are well damped and feel good.  The aperture is 6 blades, and there is a click at each f-stop.  Manual focus takes some time to get used to, and eventually I might invest in a manual focus screen for my 5D, but for now I seem to be doing okay without it. 



   


     So that's what it looks like.   I tried do a side by side layout of the pics, but blogger doesn't do that very well, as best I can tell.  So what do the photos it takes look like.  Here are some examples:

The Stately Bean: Canon 5D, Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8
A Rose: Canon 5D, Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8

An Asian lady I found in the backyard: Canon 5D, Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8
  
   Some dudes in a hat store: Canon 5D, Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8

A Chicken: Canon 5D, Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8

   So you see, it can take some pretty decent photos.  I won't lie.  I have Adobe Lightroom, and I use it.  These pictures have been processed using my usual workflow. These photos show you what you can do with what you get out of this lens.

But wait a minute!

Bazooty Buttsnacks!: Canon 5D, Olympus OM-System H.Zuiko Auto-W 24mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8

    What in the Bazooty Buttsnacks is going on with those bokeh balls?


     
     Yikes! This calls for an investigation! Unfortunately, it will have to wait until next time, because it's past my bedtime.