Yellowcube.nl

or, as they say in Holland: katjes.

our little boat will guide us through it.

Photography mostly deals with things we can see. An object reflects light which is then projected on our retina and after a lot of complicated business with small electrical charges through nerves, neurons and so on, this all translates into an image of the object. The same goes for a digital sensor with even more complex electrical stuff.  However, we (unlike a digital sensor…I’ll get to that later) don’t get the whole picture.

Our retinas are only able to catch or “see” the visible part of the spectrum which is reflected from the object. There’s also a small invisible part which is known as the infrared spectrum. Now, in case you’re thinking about action movie scenes with very blurry yet colorful pictures which somehow solve the whole mystery around which the movie revolves…you’re thinking of the wrong kind of infrared.  If you’re utterly lost while thinking, bear with me because there’s a nice picture coming up…

The infrared that solves mysteries in movies is known as “far infrared” and, when looked at with the right kind of equipment, produces so called thermal images. The one I’m talking about is called “near infrared”. It has nothing to do with thermal stuff, hardly ever solves any mysteries, can remotely control your television set and most importantly, produces pretty pictures…

To do this you’ll need a digital camera and a special infrared filter. The filter blocks all the light from the visible spectrum and the only light that goes through is the near infrared (the filter, as a result of our eyes not being able to see infrared light, looks almost black). This light then falls onto the sensor and even though camera manufacturers try to prevent their sensors responding to infrared light (mainly because it has a negative effect on the resolution), they are able to register it. Of course, there’s also the part of the photographer who has to fiddle around a lot with camera settings and his sense of patience….but, in the end, it all results in a pleasing picture which reveals a hidden part of our world.

The small white ship moved silently through the inky black void. It was travelling at fabulous, breathtaking speed, yet appeared, against this deep and murky background to be moving not at all. It was just one shape, frozen against an almost infinite amount of darkness.

On august 7, 1974 the French Phillipe Petit took a 45 minute walk on the clouds in between the World Trade Center Towers in New York. The clouds were not so much clouds, but more of a steel cable rigged between the two towers. This, of course, wasn’t entirely legal.

In 2008 James Marsch, directed the  documentary “Man on wire”, which shows in an impressive way how Phillipe plans and carries out his highwire walk.  A must-see, if you ask me.

translation from Italian: ‘Something must change in the rear’

In the old days, racing bicycles usually had two gears which consisted of two cogwheels of different size, situated on each side of the rear wheel. Changing gears therefore meant that you had to take out the rear wheel, turn it and put it back in so that the chain would now run over the other cogwheel. In this way you created a different ratio between the front cogwheel and the rear one, thus making cycling lighter (going up the mountain) or heavier (going down the mountain).

Another problem with this construction (and I hope you can see the first one) was this: the wheels were thightened with large wingnuts which had to be loosened in order to change the wheel (and therefore the gear). This leads to another problem, especially on a cold day in the Italian Dolomites. When the wingnuts are frozen, chances are that your fingers are frozen as well. This makes loosening the wingnuts rather difficult, if not impossible. This is what happened to Tulio Campagnolo on the 11th of November, 1927 during a race in the Dolomites and apparently, while trying to change gears he muttered the words “Bisogno cambiá qualcossa de drio!”… Something has to change in the rear.

First, he tackled the wingnut problem by designing the worlds’ first quick release lever. Not long after that, he came up with the very first derailleur, which enables a cyclist to change gears without changing the wheel (the quick release lever is still very handy in case of a flat tyre though).

So, in short…by changing stuff in the rear, Campagnolo was the one who lay the foundations of the modern racing bicycle.

It may sound like a made-up word, but it’s a real thing. It looks a bit like a round and small accordion, but instead of sound, it produces pictures (when mounted on a camera of course).

Here’s a small picture of the lens in its’ simplest form:

cute…isn’t it?

Focussing is done by pressing down the lens. The focal plane can be shifted by pressing one side of the lens a little bit more than the other (while maintaining focus…which is, as I found out, the hard part). Changing the aperture is done by removing the aperture ring and replacing it with a different version (the lens comes with about four seperate rings varying from f/2.8 to f/8).

Unlike its’ hughly expensive tilt&shift cousins, the lens is very cheap. Also, because of the kind of random results you get, it is great fun to use.

Of course one might get random results from a professional lens by dropping it on the kitchen floor from a considerable height, but this is usually considered less fun.

Sometimes you have to keep things simple.

(so is dropping an expensive lens to the kitchen floor, but I’m not here to argue).

Here are some of my babysteps.