Josh R 3Ð

~ • • • X – II – X • • • ~

Well I’ve disassembled my camera. I investigated and found out that it would be $80 to get a new lens assembly directly from Nikon. The problem is, I don’t know if I can actually order parts direct from Nikon or if I’m supposed to have a business license to do so. During my research I did a search on ebay for another p6000 and found a used one with a low bid on it. I bid twice on it and won it at $200 which came as a bit of a surprise. I didn’t really want to put the money down on it, but I couldn’t pass it up at that price, which was only $5 more than it would have cost to have Nikon fix my broken one through a Ritz Camera shop.

So here’s what the old camera looks like now after having tried to repair it taken with my new Nikon P6000:

Whether it looks like it or not, disassembly went well. I still intend to fix the broken camera when I get a chance, but of course I’m not in a big rush, and I have set up an alert that will let me know if a lens assembly becomes available to buy online.

After weighing out my options to fix my Nikon P6000, I decided to buy an $8 .pdf download. The .pdf mentioned happens to be a repair manual for the camera. If I can muster up some serious repairmanship (as if that were a word) to fix the camera on my own, and only pay $8 to bring my camera back to working order that would be fantastic!

My other option is to pay $195 to start, with the possibility that Nikon will have to charge more for the extra parts necessary to fix it. So I’m looking at a paper weight if I do nothing, a camera that is splayed out in a box if I can’t fix it, or a $203 bill minimum, after factoring in the cost of the .pdf I paid for. It’s worth a shot though right?

I bought the camera at a decent price of $367 at the time, a refurbished one now costs right around $300, so I’m at a price point where it is not yet feasible to buy a new one that costs the same as repairs would. We’ll see how I fair with my handymannery.

To note, it would seem that I may need to buy an entire Lens Assembly to fix my camera by just looking at the .pdf. I’m sure those are cheap. After all that’s only 1/3 the make up of the camera. Real cheap. I don’t even really know how I could get my paws on just the assembly even if I wanted to buy it. I would expect having to become a certified camera repairman.

I’ll give an update soon of the outcome.

Oh one final thing! The incident happened because the hook itself came out of the wall and the string didn’t unravel from the hook. So it was by chance and not my failings that the camera is now broken. Even though the camera is still thrashed, this makes me feel a little better about the situation.

Yay?

My Nikon P6000 is ruined.

I was setting up for a puzzle timelapse shoot, so I tethered the tripod to the wall with some string and a wall hook. I had to go off and take care of a couple things, and when I got back I saw my poor camera lying in the floor having fell six feet and making a circle in the wood right where the lens hit. Apparently I hadn’t secured it well enough.

I had the camera turned on at the time of impact so the lens got jammed up into itself and now there is no way for it to extend. The cost of repair is more than half of what I paid for it and so I’m stuck with a brick for a point and shoot. I loved that camera, so I will get it back to working order one way or the other.

In other news I’m busy with a regular job now and I also have several side projects going on. I am doing some modeling and animation work for Blue Ridge Community College so that they can demonstrate how things work on a virtual reality system. My current project is a working combustion engine. Also several people are interested in having me do drawn portraits of their children and a friend has asked for help doing some design work for his button making business.

It was the best of times it was the end of times.

I’m getting excited by the prospects the colorful leaves of fall bring in photography. I recently got a Nikon P6000 camera and an ASUS Seashell 1050HA netbook, that I’m ready to take out in the field for timelapse. If you’re into timelapse and haven’t checked it out yet go to Open Moco to check out their new software that interfaces with the 497 Meade controller which allows for smooth starts and stops on a Meade telescope head. So I hope to get some really interesting timelapse footage soon. Keep an eye out for more as I’ll be posting an update with photos of what the set up looks like.

I recently found a couple of open source programs that I’ve enjoyed experimenting with. First there is Construct, which is an open source game engine. I’m producing a simple game of Pop Goes the Weasel just to familiarize myself with the application and I can tell that the program is quite robust.

The next program is VirtualDub which is an open source video editing software. Although a bit limited in comparison to Adobe products, there is still quite a lot that can be done with it. The reason I started using this program though, was for the deflicker plugins called deflicker by Graft and MSU Deflicker. The pay counterpart is GB Deflicker which is a plugin for Premiere and After Effects.

In timelapse photography, flicker happens because nearly all, if not all glass for digital cameras dial the aperture down to the proper diameter during the snap of each photograph and then opens back up. The problem with this is that although insignificant when taking still photographs, the aperture dials in at minutely different diameters, which results in flicker when using the images in a video sequence. Older glass actually stays the same aperture when the aperture is set.

Yep.

I went to searching the internet to see if there was an open source program out that stitches photographs together and I found Hugin. I tried Hugin out after being frustrated with the way Photoshop handles stitching photographs together. In the program there’s a lot of different options available to use and the final product is very nice. My Seattle Panorama is proof of the capabilities of the program.

I was standing atop the space needle and made my way around one side of it resting the camera on the safety cable to take the photographs. That’s right, no tripod, only handheld. I had tried several times to get the results I wanted using Photoshop but there was just no way. Hugin got it right the first time.

Innovate or Die. I recently attended the Triangle Games Conference and stayed with a friend from college who works for Funcom as a game tester. I love North Carolina and want to move there! I had a good time talking to people and learned a lot about what they’re looking for in a portfolio.

I just bought a flash for my camera, which will definitely add a whole new level of professionalism to my photography. Having a flash is also one step closer to being able to do high speed photography. All I have to now is build my own trigger system. A simple laser pointer can be used so that the shutter on the camera trips when the light path is broken with this particular system.