Category: Topslakr

Posts by Topslakr

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Fuji Velvia 50 35mm Film

Over the past few months I have been running various 35mm film stocks through my Nikon FE and more recently my Nikon N80 in an effort to find differences in the films. The film I was most excited about was Fuji’s Velvia 50. I know that professional landscape photographers that use Velvia 50 are using medium and large format films to get their stunning images but that didn’t discourage me from using the 35mm format.

The internet is filled with information about what makes Velvia 50 special but to boil it down the film favors reds and yellows and by extension adds warmth to the image.… Click here to read more!

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Back from Vacation… Where do I stand?

Well, I’ve just returned from a week long vacation into the white mountains here in New Hampshire. I am tired but it was enough of a change of pace for me that I’m feeling refreshed as well. To me, that’s what a vacation should be, a change of pace. We saw a lot of rain and had to change our plans continually but in the end we did find plenty of fun and new things to do.

We head into the mountains basically every year. If I were the only person choosing, it would be every year. I love that area.… Click here to read more!

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Used Stuff from KEH.com

I ordered some used Nikon gear from KEH.com this week and I thought I’d mention how impressed with them I was. I should also mention that, of course, they nor anyone else is giving me anything for talking about their products and services. Odds are they don’t even know about it.

I ordered a Nikon TC-200 manual teleconverter and the Nikon 24-50mm zoom lens used from them. Both products were listed as ‘BGN’ or bargain quality according to their condition chart and both pieces look flawless.

The TC-200 is quite old as Nikon began making them on 1988. It’s basically a tube with some glass in it that doubles the focal length of a lens and make the lens one stop slower.… Click here to read more!

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Nikon 24-120mm VR Zoom Lens Review

Several months ago when I was searching for what I call a ‘walking around lens’ the Nikon 24-120mm VR was top on my list. It’s a unique lens in the Nikon lineup. It’s both fairly wide and fairly long and has VR to help steady your lower light shoots. Plus, it’s not a DX specific lens so it can be used on DX cameras, full frame digital and film cameras without any problem. Nikon makes a number of other lenses with similar focal lengths, but they are all DX lenses. This lens is the only one that fit all of my criteria.… Click here to read more!

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Real World iPhone thoughts…

I’m a geek with an iPhone living out in the boonies and I thought it would interesting to post my thoughts of iPhone use as a contrast to the big reviews posted by people in NYC and San Fransisco.

When I heard that the iPhone 2.0 software would support Exchange email I was pretty excited because it meant the iPhone might make sense for me to use as a phone. I’m a long time Treo user and was reasonably happy with that device. I was able to get my email, post to twitter and use it as a modem when I needed to surf the web.… Click here to read more!

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Getting Better Fuel Efficiency

These days everyone and their mom is posting on the internet about getting better gas mileage. I’ve read a lot of articles that talk about the topic and they all seem to have a few things in common. The first is that a few items are unrealistic and the second being that the rest is basically common sense. I’m not going to bother doing a lot of linking for this article, you can google for the same 80 million pages just the same as I can but I thought I would point out this one article from MotherJones.com about hypermiling.… Click here to read more!

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Grow Your Own: The Garden is a Reality!

The garden has been built, planted and is now growing. Some might say that since no posts have come forth that those facts prove that I am behind in my posting. Those people would be correct.

The garden is a single 4′ x 8′ raised bed. For it’s construction I bought two 12 foot 2×12’s and cut 4 feet off of the end of each. A attached them with an internal bracket and a top bracket. It took only a few minutes to put together but think ahead as to which screws you will use. Make sure they are the right size for both the bracket and the depth of the wood.… Click here to read more!

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Apple Leopard Server: Two Weeks Later

So, it’s been installed and running for two weeks. I think I made it pretty clear in the first review that it’s good but not perfect, nothing is and over the past 14 days I’ve had a chance to really dig in and learn new things and fix some problems.

If you have been following my twitter updates you may have noticed some, shall we say, frustrations, with the VPN server that come with Leopard server. Me, being lazy, setup a simple PPTP VPN for my use that I use to connect back home when I’m on the road or looking to secure my traffic from whatever random wireless I’m connected to.… Click here to read more!

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Review: Apple’s Leopard Server

As you may have read in my twitter feed, I have installed Mac OS X Leopard Server on a basically stock Mac Mini for my personal use. The Mini hosts email and webmail, calendars, directory services and a VPN without any problems at all.

For a little bit of background, by day I am a Windows and Linux admin and am responsible for about dozen servers and ~750 users. I am very comfortable with servers and how they work so this setup was not my first go in the world of servers. This web server is hosted on one of my Linux servers as a matter of fact.… Click here to read more!

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Choosing Film – Part One

It never occurred to me that buying film could be so confusing. With digital you just pick and ISO setting and go but with film each manufacturer makes a number of different kinds of film based on it’s speed, the way the grain looks, and if it’s color or black and white. I’ve been trying to pick out a few types of film as of late to bring on a short trip I’m taking north in the next few days. I received a great comment on my first Nikon FE post that pointed me toward a very simple approach to buying film.… Click here to read more!