Just got these back from National Camera – and I have to say – this is why I love film. Digital just can’t do this.
Two more after the jump:
Archive for February, 2009
Being a music nerd – I bought some sweet headphones about a year ago – Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro’s. Unfortunately I was borderline underpowering them, and within a few months what started as light buzzing in the left ear got so bad they were unlistenable. When the warranty check came I decided to get a pair of Sennheiser HD280’s (I’ll pay to get the DT770’s repaired). To avoid underpowering and wrecking these too, I decided to either buy or make a headphone amp. I wasn’t happy with what I was seeing to buy, and I just knew that in order to get something that would do what I wanted – I’d be spending at least $200-300, which I just can’t justify right now.
So I decided to rock the DIY ethic and build a CMoy amp – using the instructions on Tangentsoft’s Audiologica DIY Audio page, found here: http://tangentsoft.net/audio/cmoy-tutorial/. He lays out a comprehensive parts list, schematics, wiring diagrams, and lays out tweaks to make it your own. I opted to use bigger \ higher quality capacitors on both the power (470 uf vs 220) and audio circuits (.47 uf vs. 1) – since I tend to listen to a decent amount of hip hop, and rock that has a decent amount of bass \ deep drum hits that can tax smaller capacitors. I upgraded the OPAMP from the Burr Brown OPA2132PA to the OPA2227PA – to avoid the tubby lower-end while keeping the flaw friendly chip design. (I bought both just in case – but the 227 is a worthwhile upgrade) I also decided to run the amp at 18v rather than a single 9v. The bigger caps and 2x 9v batteries meant I couldn’t stuff the thing in an altoids tin – but I probably won’t be using this on the go too often.
Wiring took two nights, followed by a frustrating search for a proper enclosure. I wanted to go as small as I possibly could, but finding something that would fit everything without being the size of a shoebox ended up being next to impossible – at least without waiting for something to ship. I opted to go with two cases from Radioshack – drilling out the circuit board stand-offs, insulating the board and hot-gluing it to the bottom of the larger case. I re-wired things down to assembly size, but just as I was about to seal up the bottom compartment – the main power wire broke (sonofa!). I soldered that lead to the LED lead (overheating that and burning it out in the process), but at least had a working power circuit again.
After that fiasco I got everything back together, finished up the top half, and everything works! The amp sounds fantastic – with almost no noise (which considering its basically running at full power – with volume control at the source, due to not being able to find a proper volume control pot – not bad). The headphone connections got a little bit loose after desoldering and resoldering the connections, and I neglected to testfit the powerswitch with the headphone out jack in place, and had to move it. Lessons Lessons.
At some point I’ll replace the headphone jacks, fix the power led, fix the main power lead to the circuit board, and hopefully find a better sized enclosure. For now, I’m really happy with the outcome – This is the best my music has sounded in a while. I’d definitely recommend giving this project a go if you need a headphone amp, don’t want to pay a ton, and are at least semi comfortable with DIY wiring projects.
Well, I got my test rolls back from National Camera – and the extent of the Leica’s shutter issues are clearly apparent. It’s next in line for an overhaul in the next few weeks.
Bad exposure or no – I like these shots. These were taken at Tettegouche State Park this past fall, and now I’ve got an easy excuse to go again.
3 more photos after the jump:
When I was where the Minnehaha meets the Mississippi, there was a loud clang, and voices arose from nowhere.
Turns out, there was 5 or 6 people that came from about 3/4 of a mile up this drainage tunnel. The gate is unchained, and could be an interesting tunnel to shoot \ explore. Am I wierd?
(These are scans of negatives that Ritz didn’t handle very well. The negs are a bit on the thin side, and I adjusted as much as I could in Lightroom without spending a couple of hours each, but they still aren’t great)
3 more photos after the jump:
Saturday I wandered around with the intention of exploring the Mississippi river banks in Minneapolis, and while I ended up at a park I’ve been to before – Minnehaha falls park – I explored down to the river and saw things I haven’t seen before.
I took the Pentax loaded with b&w film, and my Tower rangefinder camera loaded with some Kodak UC100 pro film. I’ve got a thing for old cameras, and figured it would be a good time to play with my new lightmeter (Sekonic Brockway Norwood Director ~ late 50’s vintage) (I’ll post on my gear at some point in the near future).
The weather was nice – 15-20 degrees, sunny, fresh snow, no other people around, a nice quiet Saturday afternoon.
I decided to drop the film at Ritz (Ridgedale) for processing + their high-res scanning services, and no prints. Should be done in about two hours. I get a call an hour later saying their machine went down, they don’t know when it will be fixed, but will call with an update. Monday morning – no update – I call – they’re done. Pick them up, and after the order being $25 instead of $20 – I’ve got film and two CDs. Import to Lightroom and its pretty obvious they suck. Bad scanning levels, tons of dust, and oh yeah – scratched negatives. Soooo glad this is essentially a test roll. (I also have film at national camera for similar services – to decide where to get the rest of my film processed)
2009 or 1959?
That being said, I’m happy with the camera, and the photos it puts out. They definitely have that old camera feel – and I can think of some situations that I’ll love having that old camera feel. You just can’t replicate the old aesthetic with modern gear.