Eureka!

Eureka!, originally uploaded by uw-eric.

I finally got it right! I bought a Sigma 10-20mm lens this summer to be used underwater. The Sigma fits the PPE-E05 port, normally suitable for the standard kit lens. This port is HUGE and after careful analysis I found out the Sigma would fit in the port, without any trouble. The port is big enough - no vignetting. The only problem that remained was that I couldn't zoom the lens. I took a few shots with it (see my photostream) but one thing was missing...Zoom.

Guess what - now I can. By using a caterpilar track normally found in LEGO Mindstorms I managed to create a zoomring that can be operated by the zoom knob on the outside of the camerahousing. The track is folded around the lens and fixed in place by using a rubber band. Eureka! It works...

Playing around with the Gimp

Intersection - second version, originally uploaded by uw-eric.

Last weekend I took a picture of the intersection near my village "knooppunt Ridderkerk". Because I mixed up the controls of the camera, I came home with 1 heavily over-exposed and one heavily underexposed image of the intersection, instead of a nice exposure-bracketed series.

To salvage the shot, I mixed the two picture using PhotoMatix, and applied selective colouring to the image, and retouched the image to remove lanterns (some of them were right in front of the intersection), message signs and an ugly background.

This is the mixed original with insets (the 2 ill-exposed pics):