Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[CitroJim]

That'll be a bit of interesting fun Zel If you need a hand when you come to do the job, let me know

For now it looks fine and the bit of a 'modification' can't be seen so that's OK.. And as long as it's not leaking - no rush to do the job...

[Gibbo2286]

This popped up on the Birmingham forum, might interest some.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/03 ... nts-page=1

[Zelandeth]

That'll be a bit of interesting fun Zel If you need a hand when you come to do the job, let me know

For now it looks fine and the bit of a 'modification' can't be seen so that's OK.. And as long as it's not leaking - no rush to do the job...

I'd like to get it going, but if at the end of the day it may be a tricky one. The biggest challenge is likely to be figuring out whe bits we're missing are. 3D printing may be a bit of a saviour there IF we can figure out what's missing. Don't even know if finding one from a scrapper would help as it's likely the same bits would be broken anyway.

Just a shame it's something in the panel itself that's gone...every other electric sunroof I've had die has been the drive or the motor that have gone. Those are both absolutely fine here! Motor sounds as good as the day it was made and the sled moves perfectly smoothly.

Still miss the manual one on the Saab. Grab handle on the panel releases it, then you just slid it open or closed. 100% metal...and made an exceptionally satisfying *ka-thunk!* As you closed it.

Three tasks at the top of the list though will be...

[] Timing belt. Kit is here now at least.

[] Drop links.

Need to get one off to compare it to the new ones which arrived to see if the bushes at least match. Then I'll need to make a decision on whether I try to transfer the bushes to the old links, or cut the new ones down and weld them back together to fit. Assuming the bushes are correct, which they're entirely likely not. If the new bushes are wrong, we'll be back to square one and need to see if I can source some in the right spec. Or go down the home brew polyurethane route.

[] Radiator. Especially after I looked more closely at it while hunting for the horn and discovered that it's actually not attached to the car at the bottom edge because the core has totally dissolved between the mountings. That has been ordered and should be here in the next couple of days.

Makes sense to combine the radiator and timing belt jobs I reckon as having the radiator out the way will improve access - not that it's exactly limited anyway!

[CitroJim]

Amazing that rad is not leaking Zel!

Agree on the cambelt and drop links being on the top of the list... I'm never comfortable with a 'new' car until it's had a new cambelt...

Access, compared with a transverse engine, looked very good to me, even with the rad in place

[Zelandeth]

A couple of months back, I picked up a Minolta 7000 from a local photography store, sadly this turned out to have a fault which rendered the aperture control inoperative. It's stuck at somewhere around f/4 - with this lens on anyway. The mechanism to operate it does move, but the preload is way out of whack. It's an odd one and I could absolutely see why they wouldn't have spotted it when doing a basic function check.

Now bear in mind, I paid a whole £20 for this, and fully expected this to be very much sold as seen. I asked the shop I got it from if they knew anyone who might be willing to take a look. Cue much apologising, and the camera being whisked off to not one, but three different repairers. Eventually the conclusion being reached that it's BER. There's a spare part needed which you're only going to get by cannibalising another camera, and there's a stupid amount of work involved because it's so deeply buried. I was offered two choices. Another very cosmetically scruffy but thoroughly tested and working 7000, or a tidy 7000i at no extra charge.

I took the scruffy 7000. While from a purely logical standpoint that makes zero sense, I just prefer it. Plus while I do try to look after them, I do like to actually use my cameras and don't baby them overly much - so don't really mind it being a bit scruffy. Especially when I've only paid £20 for it!

I still have the clean one as well, if for instance I wind up with a fixed aperture lens of some sort in the future it could still be used.

Absolutely cannot compliment the service at Imagex enough.

Also on the subject of photography, I've run into something of a hard limit with my current hardware regarding photos for my website. In recent history I've used my phone, which does punch well above it's weight. I mean this is straight out the gate without me doing anything aside from some cropping.



What limits me however for things like this...



...Is a serious lack of depth of field. This is down to a physical limitation of the camera here and that's the fact that the aperture is fixed at f/1.6. Which is fair enough...the fact that Huawei managed to cram as much capability into this small a package is downright astonishing.

However it's time to admit I need something a bit more suited to the job at hand. Believe it or not, despite all the cameras I own a DSLR is not among them. Now I could roll the dice on something on eBay etc...or the aforementioned photography shop have said they can fix me up with a Canon EOS 40D, a decent 50mm Prime lens and a big battery kit for £150. I reckon that will suit my needs just fine, and while it may cost me an extra £50 over eBay, makes me feel good about supporting a local business I've really come to like.

Yes the 40D is only 10MP, but for my needs that's absolutely adequate. Especially as I'll usually be close enough to the subject that I'll not be doing a massive amount of cropping anyway. This isn't something I'll be taking out to car shows, Goodwood or Furcons, in those settings I'll likely either be letting Chris get the photos with his few grand of Canon something-about-a-year-old and a grand or so of glass or if it's me I'll be shooting on film for my part.

He gets stuff where you can count the driver's facial hairs as they go up the hill at Goodwood. I get this instead.



Exactly what I was after - something which looked like it could have come straight out of an automotive publication from the 60s. I really want to get a shot of the Napier Railton in motion on that film (Ilford Delta 3200) one day. That is a crop in on a frame just shot on a 50mm lens by the way, no fancy telephoto kit here. That was shot on the old Konica T3.

Here's one from your old Olympus from last September, Jim.



Which is still my usual go to camera these days, especially since it was kitted out with the manual adapter a year or so back.

So I suspect we may have some new tech arriving in the next week or so for me to get to grips with...then I'll be a little more inclined to get the next few pages for the site put together. Hopefully with slightly sharper images.

[CitroJim]

Wow! Good to see my old Olympus is still doing a good Job Zel

[myglaren]

My Olympus E-500 (had to dig it out to see what it is) is only 8mpx.
Had it quite a long time, at least ten years and likely fifteen. It is surprisingly good for the age and lack of pixels.

I worked with a bloke with a Leica digital SLR with the same spec and he compared the images from that with those of a much higher spec camera and the Leica came out on top due to better construction and most of all, better glass.

[Zelandeth]

My Olympus E-500 (had to dig it out to see what it is) is only 8mpx.
Had it quite a long time, at least ten years and likely fifteen. It is surprisingly good for the age and lack of pixels.

I worked with a bloke with a Leica digital SLR with the same spec and he compared the images from that with those of a much higher spec camera and the Leica came out on top due to better construction and most of all, better glass.

It's astonishing how much difference just the quality of the optics can make on what's by today's standards a very basic camera. The Sony Mavica FD85 I've got here despite only being a 1.3MP sensor and dating from 2000 takes entirely acceptable photos. Certainly far, far better than the camera I had five years later with more than twice the pixel count!

Had a few things lined up for this coming week though most have just been chucked into limbo as my other half has just tested positive for COVID. Likely a free gift brought back from a day in the office (and the three hours on public transport that goes with it) in the middle of the week. Oh deep joy.

I've not got over it from the first time last May yet, I'd *really* rather not like to find out what happens if I get it a second time.

[myglaren]

Look after yourselves, Covid seems to be capable of worse things that I expected.
I have been looking at the case of Dianna Cowern, popularly known as "Physics Girl" on a very interesting YouTube channel.
Infected over a year ago she has been bedridden for a year and is incapable of doing anything for herself and doesn't appear to be improving.
Quite young and fit too.

[Zelandeth]

Yep. Very few places seem to be taking the long term effects that can go with it seriously.

I'm absolutely definitely not back to 100% best part of a year on, I'd say 75% on a good day. 30% on a bad day. It's vastly worsened the issues I've always had with migraines, and kicked my chronic fatigue issues from something I just had to keep in mind and generally manage if I was having a really busy period, to something I actively have to manage on a daily basis and which is absolutely impacting my ability to do things.

I know quite a few people who have had long term effects following it too, some less, some worse, but it's not just a bad cold that goes away after a week.

Back on cameras...found a couple of example images from a trip to Florida back in 2018 shot with the Mavica (on "normal" mode, so 0.8MP).





Which I thought for a camera from 2000 was pretty impressive. Especially the colour rendition. No it's nothing particularly special, but I see plenty worse photos from cheap phones and tablets today around the internet.

[bobins]

Which I thought for a camera from 2000 was pretty impressive. Especially the colour rendition. No it's nothing particularly special, but I see plenty worse photos from cheap phones and tablets today around the internet.

Not that anyone's interested, but I think that plant is an Alternanthera. It can be grown in the UK, but it needs to be overwintered in a frost free place. They do come in some lovely colours

[Hell Razor5543]

Something I found that can make a difference is a good lens cleaner. For Christmas my cousin Bob gave me a pair of Celestron binoculars with a lens pen. I used it on the lens of my Fujitsu camera, and now there are no marks whatsoever on it (previous attempts to clean the lens had left slight marks).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Celestron-9357 ... 193&sr=8-2

[Zelandeth]

Occasional distraction time.

Well I've ended up coming down with COVID for a second time. Which is annoying to say the least, especially as I had only got about 80% of the way through recovering from last time I got it a year ago.

This has however given me time to get the web page for this old slab of granite updated.



The last page was written in about 30 minutes back somewhere between 2006 and 2009. It showed.

The new version of the page is now live over here if you want to go read someone waffling on about what these days is honestly pretty pointlessly obsolete technology. This is one of my favourite machines, and was basically the thing which really kicked my vintage tech hobby into starting.

Kind of embarrassed it took me so long to get that page tidied up. Both because of how important it was in the chronology of my vintage computing obsession, and because it has always been one of the busiest pages on my website in terms of search engine activity. So it really needed to be sorted.

Given I'm really not in a fit state to do anything resembling physically strenuous beyond hobbling to the kitchen for the occasional Lemsip, I'll probably try to tackle another one in the queue during periods of actually being able to string a sentence together. There is a long, long queue waiting to be added there. The T1200 would probably be the most logical target given it's one that's in regular use...and is already sitting on the desk so I don't have to dig it out!

[mickthemaverick]

Sorry to read you have a second dose Zel, hopefully it will not be too severe and you will get back on the road to recovery quickly !

[xantia_v6]

If you need photos of the original T1200 ancillaries (bag, manuals, disks) let me know.