Off Topic Chit Chat

[RandyDSok]

I typically shoot landscape.... only the last two ( of the three I've done ) times I've made a pano, were they done on purpose and had I thought about it more ( they were done last minute since the storms were sort of sudden )... they would have probably been done in portrait mode. The first pano I did was sort of accidental... I was taking lightning shots and when I got done... thought... oooo that'd look good if I pano'd those two together...

 

[RandyDSok]

Linux is the devil!!! lmao.

I'm with you on that one...

When I work with Linux, it's a constant need to translate what I may want to do on a DOS/Windows box... over to what may or may not be able to be done on Linux. Usually it can be done... it's finding the right "translation" ( ie steps ) to get there.

I had to fight a Netgear NAS box ( standalone, no monitor etc ) to recover the data off of the drive. From what I found, it's a fork of Red Hat that they used a RAID setup on... Neither Ubuntu or Windows would mount the drive natively... until I found I could force mount it in Linux if I could figure out what format they used for the RAID partition... tried EXT3 first, the EXT4 and then just for S&G's even tried EXT2 .... none of it worked.

Brought it back up in Windows and tried a couple of linux FS drivers and then utils to read linux drives... one finally gave me the clue I was looking for... It turned out to be formatted with a XFS partition... Went back to Ubuntu, forced the mount and was finally able to get at the data so I could copy it off.

Later... after I'd quit sweating on getting the clients data for them... I looked closer at the stuff they'd given me for the NAS box... they given me a 12v 750ma power supply... the box stated it needed a 12v 5a instead. I dug through my old PS's... the biggest I found was a 2a and gave it a shot... the NAS box came on up

 

[Tony]

Who knew setting up for this video would be such a pain in the ass... ,

 

[RandyDSok]

Was having trouble getting sleepy last night, so I headed out to Lake Thunderbird east of Norman and grabbed some shots of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. The yellow/orange glow from the city lights ( sodium ) is a problem this close in to any city but it's probably not as bad as the older type of street lights would have been... Still, I couldn't filter it with software too much or affect the areas that weren't too bad...

 

[trainrider06]

Cool shots, one doesn't know just how many stars fill the sky until they get a real life look at the sky away from the city!
Then there are the other things that streak across the sky! I had never seen so many things till I went down to Big Bend area!

 

[RandyDSok]

Just a nice Oklahoma sunset with a few wispy clouds ...

 

[trainrider06]

Very nice!

 

[leedude1]

some nice shots sir for sure.

 

[RandyDSok]

Yet another Milky Way shot...

This is a panorama of about 6-8 shots merged to produce this ( it's late and I can't remember how many I selected now ). In the previous shot there was a lot of light pollution still in it even after the post processing I was able to do. That one was shot at 3200 ISO for 10 seconds using a 35mm lens set at f2. This shot is taken at 12800 ISO for only 2.5 seconds ( other settings the same ) which reduced the amount of light pollution while still getting the detail... the downside is there is also more noise although considering the differences it may be worth the trade off.

I've also resized this down to make it more reasonable for a forum post... this one is 1280x1604px, the original is 5974x7487px

 

[leedude1]

Hey guys not sure if I mentioned it, but I finally located a club about 15 minutes out from my place..... great set up...Got my MAAC ( Canadian AMA equivalent) with the new bird there just is just NOT enough ~safe space~ to fly so outside of just a set up hover Ill be heading to the flying field with it and the pilots there will surely help me progress as well.

BTW I went to t an Fun fly event about 2 weeks ago (Club Crash) with my son and there was Mitch Mazonas, Kevin St Cyr, and Kyle Stacey doing some demo flights.. check out the pictures on the site the dude with the speed R5 is my LHS owner

http://clubcrash.ca/cchs2016.html#lb-gallery1-52

Kevin St Cyr flight...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZIMla0QlhVgo-JediwrFGw

Unbelievable capabilities ... NOT sure but I would guess there were A LOT of spare parts involved getting to that level of ability. I figure in about 10 years ill be able to sniff their shorts

 

[RandyDSok]

I always enjoyed when I was part of the club... even when I wasn't flying... we have/had a great bunch of guys and would sit around and BS about RC or just stuff in general. I enjoyed the hobby much more because of that.

 

[RandyDSok]

Just a Cresent Moon

 

[trainrider06]

Hey guys not sure if I mentioned it, but I finally located a club about 15 minutes out from my place..... great set up...Got my MAAC ( Canadian AMA equivalent) with the new bird there just is just NOT enough ~safe space~ to fly so outside of just a set up hover Ill be heading to the flying field with it and the pilots there will surely help me progress as well.

BTW I went to t an Fun fly event about 2 weeks ago (Club Crash) with my son and there was Mitch Mazonas, Kevin St Cyr, and Kyle Stacey doing some demo flights.. check out the pictures on the site the dude with the speed R5 is my LHS owner

Club CRASH - CCHS 2016

Kevin St Cyr flight...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZIMla0QlhVgo-JediwrFGw

Unbelievable capabilities ... NOT sure but I would guess there were A LOT of spare parts involved getting to that level of ability. I figure in about 10 years ill be able to sniff their shorts

Wow pretty cool Mike! Although I like my club, 98% of the people there fly planes. Events are planes, talk is planes, geared toward planes.... I am like the Maytag repairman off in my little corner with my heli's... Don't get me wrong everyone except for a few heli hating old goats are friendly and I enjoy talking to em, but it'd be nice to have a few heli guys around too!

 

[RandyDSok]

At 8:30pm, 5 minutes after sunset... I noticed a little storm had popped up just east of Norman. I know there is little chance of a great shot, there wasn't even any lightning happening... just a towering storm cloud with some cool structure and a little bit of a rain shaft. So I quickly got my gear together and into the Escape... headed to the fairgrounds area on the NE side of Norman... and got 3 sets of shots that I could assemble into pano's if they were worth my time once I looked them over.

This is the last smaller set... It's certainly grainy from me using a high ISO speed... but even though it's a good 25-30 minutes after sunset, there was still some good color to be seen and you can just barely make out the rain shaft sort of.

 

[trainrider06]

Love the colors! But dang stadium lights and soccer field goal kinda distracting.

 

[RandyDSok]

Love the colors! But dang stadium lights and soccer field goal kinda distracting.

I hear ya... but if I had gone any further out to try to find an empty field or something... I wouldn't have gotten any shot.


The above pics I used to assemble that pano from... were all taken at 12800 ISO ( which should explain the graininess ).... To give you and idea of how dark it really was... here is the first test shot I took at 3200 ISO hoping it'd be fast enough...

 

[trainrider06]

Wow! The difference is really unbelievable! Although even the test shot there is something sort of hidden in the shadows about that makes that cool!
I understand the need to get the shot though, and the things that get in the way. If you ever get the oportunity or haven't already done so, a trip to the Big Bend area would get you some very beautiful photo ops with your skills and knowledge. I saw stuff in the sky that I never knew existed down there! Lol

 

[RandyDSok]

I don't really know why I keep taking shot's of the Moon, other than it's just an easy target that's up often... so to add to the "million" I've got already... I grabbed another waiting on the Perseid Meteor shower to show up after the Moon set finally... clouds blocked that though...

 

[Tony]

i love bourbon

 

[Tony]

life means nothing