'Wait, this thing is falling in my eyes!'

'You wanted to wear the thing darling so don't complain'.

'But I can't take pictures like this!'

'We have 15 minutes to get to the London Eye'.

Both were scratched by me.

Look at my two index toes and compare them... See how my left one is really swollen and there's some bruising? Well yesterday, I was laying on the couch and had to get up to spit out some flemy stuff that I coughed out of my lungs, because I'm pretty sure I've got the H1N1 virus, anyway.. Everytime I would sit up my head would start throbbing, so I figured if I rolled off the couch and then stood up from there my head wouldn't start throbbing like crazy... But what ended up happening was my left foot hit the floor REALLY HARD and my index toe was what came in contact with the floor first, resulting in A LOT of sudden pain and a popping noise... Its not broken, but it is either sprained or I have a hairline fracture, cause it got really swollen and there's A LOT of bruising... Just wait till you see the next picture I upload. Now I have to limp around everywhere... =(

I welcome advice from anyone who might know about this sort of thing.

Rom 2010

Clément - Semaine 3 // Dyptique, Long exposure // Canon 5D + 50mm 1.8

Aqua Tower in Chicago. images.google.com/images?hl=en&rlz=1C1CHMB_enUS316US3...

Pentax K1000

Promura 80-200

Fuji Superia X tra 400

micrograph of various and rugose bacterial colonies illuminated from below

erkangunes.deviantart.com/

 

www.fotokritik.com/kullanici/erkangunes/portfolyo

Xenodream

A man who works in an office passes by a homeless guy near the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

Xenodream

All around us.

Different ages of photographic processing.

Why? Lifting the veil: wakey wake key ~

It’s time to awaken from the larval dream. It’s time to emerge from the chrysalis and metamorphose. It’s time to step out of the plastic straitjacket and remove the blindfold tightly tied around body and mind by insecure family, indoctrinating schooling and insincere relationships. It’s time to decide who you really are, what you’re truly here for - and why.

 

It’s time to ask, “what’s ‘work’, what’s a ‘job’, what’s freedom, and what in hell is everyone doing – and why?” It’s time to stop making non-existent illusory money and garnering disinterested social approval by giving your time and energy to speed the destruction of Planet Earth’s biosphere – time to live a real life in a real living world instead of running a rat race through a pseudo civilisation of loathsome architect-designed concrete toilets in a pointless maze of toxic termite towers.

 

Yes, yes, you’ve heard it all before and you already know what’s going on. You don’t need to be told. You know what you need to do. You already know how you really could be living, thanks very much. You’ll get around to it in your own sweet time, when you’ve paid off your debts, when your family’s grown up, when you get some free time to pause and change tack, when you retire, when you win the lottery. When you’re good and ready.

 

Sure, buddy. Sure sis. You’ll get around to doing the right thing when you’re dead – in your next incarnation on a planet you’ve helped to thoroughly degrade and ruin – when you’re reborn in Bangladesh or Mongolia or sub-Saharan Africa, instead of in a better, blessed place where you can actually be free and make a difference, like here and now.

 

It’s time to find ways to share what remains of our beautiful planet with honour and without guilt. It’s time to decide whether to live a life of truth and beauty or die for a lie you know to be false. You’ve already chosen; your actions and ‘lifestyle’ are your choice, and the time has come to reassess your decisions and remake your destiny.

 

It’s time to realise why you’ve given yourself such an incredibly rare and privileged life that you actually have the space, mentality and leisure time to sit back and read this little diatribe. Now is the time and you are the person on the spot. You’re the one we need to save the world - now, at this critical juncture betwixt future and past. Living for life or dying for death? Choose. Now.

 

The system is set up to make you think you’re either on the high road to material success or sliding down a slippery slope to a loser’s failure; yet it’s designed to ensure you fail in the end. ‘Society’ is set up to ensure anything you build or create is taken from you, bit by bit, clod by clod, and stolen from any you choose to bequeath it to. Putrescent obsolescence is built into everything you’re sold and all that you’re told.

 

In modern all-consuming societies you’re taxed more highly than any ancient feudal serf, and even when you buy something outright you’ve just begun paying for it with the only thing you can ever really own - your time. The time of your life is taxed and stolen by those you vote for on behalf of remote controllers who think they ‘own’ the world. There are plenty of alternatives to their manipulated systems, but they’re all carefully concealed from you.

 

Most humans base their entire lives – plans, hopes, fears, dreams and strategies - on outdated assumptions programmed into them by brainwashed timeservers. They smother their kids in regimental uniforms and don’t care enough to notice how playtime becomes muted, how minds are restrained and freedom retrained into uniform mindlessness. They follow in the footsteps of torpid dolts and wonder why a regimented life is boringly doleful. Trained to subservience by millennia of feuding feudalists, humankind can only approach absolute truths (and long term survival) by roundabout routes that invariably lead people further astray.

 

Schooling isn’t education. It’s a system where open minds are successfully closed and everything not forbidden is compulsory. ‘Modern’ schooling ensures that cheats always prosper and that bullies and liars always prevail in the ‘real’ outside world of business and finance. Today’s educational establishments are dopey money factories designed to extort obedient volunteer slaves. No intelligent independent minds are found in them; none can survive there.

 

Schools, colleges and universities are quagmires of brainwashing, cultural imperialism and mindless training for destructive jobs that will soon cease to exist – training yards designed to serve the momentary needs of industries owned and run by short sighted paranoid sociopaths. They’re the birthplace of hierarchy and corruption. You know it’s true. Any real learning achieved is incidental. Scores and scoring a cushy job where you can lord it over others are everything. Learning and knowledge are secondary, sacrificial goals.

 

The system is thoroughly rigged by and for the worst elements to make sure that only most egregious people rise to the top of the dung heap and prosper. Only the worst control freaks and insecure jerks with killer ‘instincts’ claw their way to the summit. You know it’s true. There’s no ‘survival of the fittest’ (or even of the most adaptable) involved. Societies aren’t interested in change and evolution, but in security, status and stasis. And sooner or later stasis always means extinction, not survival.

 

But you can be different. So can your children. Deny the unloving death of blind conformity and confirm a free loving life with every action. Be what you always wanted to be, ’ere it harm none. If you’re well intentioned and wise the multiverse will provide. Choose. Now.

  

People are bigger than their straightjackets. You have the power to remove any blindfold and widen your vision whenever you choose. You have the ability to concentrate, meditate, cogitate and liberate. Only you can do it. Only you can free yourself, heal yourself, grow and learn. No-one can do it for you and anyone who says they can is a liar you need to avoid. And you have to do these things or die blind, lonely and incomplete before your time.

 

You’re a psychic immortal who gets precisely what you created. Only when people develop the inner divining and dowsing facilities latently inherent in all conscious beings are they able to discern truth from lies –able to actually tell the truth. You can only be free when you drop all that cultural conditioning and learn to open your inner sight. You can only decide what’s what, what to do and why when you have genuine personal insight.

 

Welcome to the new Aeon, a time when dangerous old myths can finally be laid to rest and healthier new legends allowed to arise from the ashes of yesterday’s ignorance.

 

One easy way to learn the truth is to ask two simple questions; ‘Why?’, and ‘Who Profits?’ Keep these liberating queries in mind as you progress onward…

 

Here’s a handy list of dangerous myths we need to lay to rest (and drive stakes through the hearts of. Repeatedly).

  

‘What did you do to save the world, daddy/mummy?’

 

Lie #1: The planet will soak up any mess humans make.

 

It won’t - not in any timeframe recognisable by you. We’ll all be dead before the planet is repaired and reforested unless WE go out and clean up our messes, stop the destruction of living treasures, replant entire continents of forests and weed and nourish them for generations, starting yesterday. Most brain-deprived, depraved ‘leaders’ seem to think the planet merely needs to be repaved. Don’t fall for their bandaid ‘solutions’. Opt out of death-dealing ‘civilisation’ and help start fresh societies in the green living world beyond the walls.

 

1b: Trees are a renewable resource. Forests will grow back if we cut them down.

 

They won’t. They haven’t. When the soil has washed away, the seed stock is gone and rainfall has disappeared (because forests make most of our rain, and store most of our fresh water) you’ve killed all the most interesting, nourishing and beneficial plants and animals and inherit a desert of sand, clay and rocks. It takes centuries for trees to be large enough, with large enough hollows, to support viable animal populations – including humans. Forests without animals are scrubby denuded death zones bereft of nutrients.

 

Idiots are still cutting down trees for money when there are better, cleaner, cheaper and totally renewable solutions for everything provided by natural forests - for everything except clean water, food and air! Somewhere near you, now, today, a forest is being felled. Help anyone who’s trying to stop them. Now.

 

Without global forests you’ll have no water fit to drink, no air fit to breathe and no crops to eat. The truth isn’t ‘out there’ – it’s obvious to any who actually look with unblinkered eyes.

 

Lie #2: Burning toxic fuels with lethal exhausts isn’t dangerous to the ecosystem or to people, and we need to keep doing it to fuel a prosperous civilisation.

 

It is. We don’t. If you don’t know about better technologies that are already available your head is in the sand with the in dust ‘realists’, looking for another oilfield or coal seam to vampirise. Some advanced nations are already totally fuelled by clean renewable energy. Literally hundreds of patents for new energy technologies are literally suppressed and stolen by ‘intelligence’ and ‘the military’ on behalf of ruthless killer corporations every year. Clean, free energy systems have been available for over a century and repeatedly eliminated, along with their investors (see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/free%20energy ). One name should suffice to explain much; Nikola Tesla.

 

The truth isn’t ‘out there’ – it’s being actively suppressed all around you. Why? The answer is a nested series of onion skins; the Russian dolls of money, control and power wrapped round an inner core of ultimate terrified insecurity.

 

2b: Human-made global warming is a lie spread by some unnameable group to control our lives and make us poorer.

 

It isn’t. The fossil fuel power mongers have lied to you so successfully that many or most people have been convinced ecologists have some vested interest in misleading them – instead of the profiteering planet killers who make gazillions from mining and selling you toxic and unnecessary products. CO2 IS a ‘greenhouse gas’, whose levels have dictated global temperatures for billions of years.

 

Whether we inject enough heat into the biosphere to forestall an impending cyclic ice age or simply create a global desert, every industry that injects carbon dioxide into the biosphere is doing so as a byproduct of pumping far more deadly chemicals into your body all the time, in the interests of meaningless profit. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply lying or ignorant.

 

Any time someone tells you that carbon dioxide isn’t a greenhouse gas or that manmade global warming is a lie, challenge them for some data – any real facts – and you won’t get any that aren’t constructs of half-truths, misdirecting distractions and outright lies. Humans ARE heating the planet with toxic emissions regardless of what industry shills and conspiratorial ignoramuses tell you (see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/co2 ).

 

Time for an inconvenient and little-appreciated fact: when climate scientists tell you there will be, say, a five degree Celsius rise in global temperature they’re talking about global averages – including sea temperatures, which will hardly rise at all. A ‘five degree average rise’ means a TEN DEGREE rise - or more - on the land (outside the tropics) – where you and everything that makes it possible for you to survive actually lives. Forget drowning cities and sinking islands – all that will be left is desert and dust if we allow our ‘leaders’ to keep taking bribes from blindly competitive in dust ‘realists’.

 

There is no truth on the side of profiteering corporations, surprisingly enough – and the only ‘invested interest’ environmentalists have is the wish to survive and thrive. Have you heard of the Precautionary Principle? If you haven’t, google it. The truth isn’t ‘out there’, it’s simple: stop using toxic products fuelled by toxic fuels that make profits for toxic monopolies run by toxic people.

  

Authorised Docterds

Lie #3: We’re repeatedly informed that ‘education is liberation’. It isn’t. Learning is liberation; education swiftly becomes rote indoctrination. The most dangerous, authoritarian ignoramuses are those who stayed in school the longest. No-one with a doctorate is entirely sane. No-one who demands money in exchange for healing the sick, protecting another’s rights and freedom, repairing the ecosystem or providing education can be trusted; they know nothing of truth and are part of the problem, not the solution. Anyone who profits from another’s misery, toil or terror is actually, functionally, a heartless sociopath.

 

In ‘advanced’ notions today, more people die from medical errors than from any other cause. Only a few years ago docterds ensured that just about everyone in ‘developed’ notions had organs removed from their bodies ‘just in case’ something went wrong. Every child was expected to have their tonsils and adenoids (lymph glands), appendix and wisdom teeth ‘removed’, just in case their docterd couldn’t afford a flashier car or another mistress. And many an operation led to another, to correct the mistakes made in the first. It was all bullshit and almost everyone fell for it, because, like priests and lawyers, docterds claim a false monopoly on access to life and death and rule only by terror. See hermetic.blog.com/2012/09/16/freeing-god’s-slaves-the-e...

 

Today fluoridation, toxic vaccines, poisonous drugs and a host of other techniques bestow slow death and perpetual dissolution on the incredibly patient (trusting, ignorant and terrified) patient.

See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/fluoridation and nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/vaccines

 

Your health and mind are in your hands. Sawbones/surgeons can occasionally be handy in real emergencies but best avoided at all other times. Once in a while you may damage yourself so much you need some repairs, but the only actual healing is done by you, your self, your body. The placebo effect – whereby if you believe something will heal you it will, regardless of whether it has any active ingredients or not – is estimated by reputable sources as being around forty percent – that’s 40%! This means that almost half of all cures are widely accepted as being basically magical –consciousness-driven - in nature. The other sixty percent are as well.

  

Time for some Truths

Cui Bono? Who Profits? Who is it good for?

 

Truth #1: Who profits? No-one who doesn’t have another planet or two readily available profits from old style industrial societies. Yet there will always be some deluded power monger willing to kill millions – to wreck an entire planet and civilisation - so that they can have a flashier car or another mansion complex surrounded by bodyguards and electric fences.

 

There are always those who’ve been so successfully brainwashed they’ll actually believe that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Messiah, a Redeemer, a big bearded genocidal racist asshole in the sky, his fallen foes or his mythical toady son are real – and these naïfs make fine prey for patriarchal paedophilic proselytising pederast priests. Who but the most ignorant innocents fall for such superstitious claptrap? Who but an insecure control freak with delusions of grandeur would want to interpose themselves as a middleman between you and your divine psychic heritage?

 

Anyone who tells you the Divine is only available through some frock wearing po-faced priest, or from some Bronze Age tome cobbled together by merciless barbaric dictators, or through some graven image or guru or savant, is lying. All who ‘worship’ some odd bod god or other fetish are simply trained to doff the forelock, kneel, bow, scrape and be subservient to a dead or deadly psychopathic control freak. Watch out, little girls! Bums to the wall, boys!

 

Christinanity, Islime and Moronism – to name a few - are nothing more than some of the more recent pernicious death cults focused on lies of pies in the skies at the expense of happy, healthy lives in the only real place - here and now. All other ‘great religions’ are as bad or worse. Religion is a region with a li(e) in it. But they make gigantic tax-free profits! Cui bono?

 

The truth is always simple. The only beliefs that are true are those that spread life, light, health and diversity – the hallmarks of true survival and wisdom. Everything else is deceptive bullshit.

 

If you really want to learn how to access the godhead that is the birthright and crown of all beings, all you have to do is listen to the endless programs running through the rat wheel of your mind – and transcend them. Everyone can do it if they try, but the younger and fresher you start deprogramming yourself and tuning into ‘higher’ or ‘deeper’ consciousness the better. See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/meditation and nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/magic if you want to learn how.

 

Enlightenment will always be available to any true seeker with an open mind and compassionate heart. Guides are always available if you simply search, but accept no substitute for self-gained awareness – and anyone who demands money in exchange for spreading the light of universal awareness is not a person you want anything to do with.

  

The Lore of the Land

 

Truth #2: There is no government. There is no law. There are no companies or corporations. Money does not exist. They are fables, illusions, widely accepted truisms – but they aren’t things. They don’t actually exist, except as agreements between people. They have no inherent power. They are clever pernicious illusions.

 

If you take a closer look you’ll discover that none of your country’s laws has a basis in any fact. In fact, you’ll find that your nation is also merely a notion, a fable agreed to by a sectional segment of some of the people; not all, or even necessarily most, but merely those who profit the most from the fable.

 

No ‘higher power’ or external ‘divine plan’ or government controls your life. No dog, no master. Thou art god(dess). All human-made laws are simply constructs and contracts, and none are writ in stone. The only real inherent law is the lore or karma and dharma – the ‘golden rule’: Do unto others as you’d be done by. It’s the only law and lore that works, and needs no intercessor or interpreter, no priest, monk, scholar or savant to preserve or transmit through the ages. It’s free for all, forever.

 

The real Law is no mystery and has no officers. It needs no prophets, liars/lawyers, judges or arbitrators. As above, so below. You are part of a giant hologram, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and every part contains the whole. In a holographic universe where everyone shares the same consciousness, anything you do to or for anyone else is something you do to or for your self.

 

Don’t kid yourself that ‘good deeds for others will reap rewards’. Of course they will. But anything you do for your children, family or strangers you’re actually doing for yourself. Caring about your family more than anyone else is perfectly understandable on a mechanical, biological and genetic level – but it’s also the basis for the worst traits of humankind. Racism, genocide, slavery and most forms of discrimination are outgrowths of such ‘love’, which is actually selfish at its root. Everyone is your family.

 

In fact, everyone is you, and you are everyone, for thou art god(dess), recreating the manifest world from instant to moment at a level beyond and behind linguistic thought.

  

Abundance and Scarcity: It’s Falseconomy, Stupid!

  

Truth #3: Money doesn’t exist. It’s a global pyramid scam whereby only the first ones in get to the top of the pyramid – everyone else loses. We have the ability to provide everyone on the planet with enough food, water and shelter – but we don’t appear to have enough of an entirely imaginary commodity to do it with. Something is very wrong.

 

The ‘science’ of economics is bullshit, as any true scientist can tell you. Arbitrary rules are continually altered and no ‘economist’ can make accurate predictions based on ‘economics’. It’s just another scam to make you think ‘authorities’ know what they’re doing and can be trusted to look after your best interests. Lol.

 

Money is simply invented. It’s created at the flick of a keyboard. It’s all made up; simply invented by (in)vested interests with ‘interest’. When the illusion is so arranged as to make it appear the ‘economy’ is circling the drain you go down the tubes – but the banksters, monarchs and in dust realists who own actual, tangible things don’t, as we all ought to recognise. This happens regularly and repeatedly. I won’t go on – see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/banksters and never take out a loan. Don’t use banks. There are plenty of alternatives.

 

Become as self-sufficient and live as sustainably as possible.

 

People are told they must pay money to inhabit a patch of the planet, and because they’ve been trained to accept a vast raft of lies by feudal societies run by hideous robber barons surrounded by gunmen they simply accept it.

 

People are told they must go to school and work every day to provide enough food, water, shelter and entertainment for themselves and their families. It’s a lie. That only has to happen because we’ve allowed industrious robber barons and banksters to steal everything and arrange it that way when we have a wide choice of much better possibilities. Now, at the dawn of the Third Millennium, the new industrious revolution has begun and advancing automation, nanotech and new processed like 3d printing mean that the jig is up. Full ‘employment’ is no longer possible or desirable. Now we have to provide shelter, food, water, transport and other necessities to everyone, even the rich, for free – because now, at last, we can!

 

If you work at any job that isn’t actively healing the planet you’re almost certainly actively destroying it. If you go into debt you’re destroying it. If you flush a toilet into a river or ocean, if you use fossil fuelled transport to and from work or to power your home (and nuclear fuels are fossil fuels, too) you’re destroying it. If you aren’t growing at least some of your own food and medicine you’re destroying it. If you leave your kids in some regimented school (or even a childcare centre) to be mindlessly raised to do and be the same as you were brainwashed into, you’re destroying it – and them.

 

If you’re trapped on a treadmill with no easy way out but to simply jump off and take your chances – JUMP OFF.

 

You’ll be so glad you did!

  

Competitiveness = Death Dealers

  

Truth #4: The ‘killer instinct’ is no instinct – it’s a result of training. Bullies and psychopaths are made, not born – and they can be unmade if you catch, restrain and retrain them early enough. Without bullying children don’t learn hate, fear and fight. Without bullies children don’t learn to be subservient. Bullies must be separated from other kids until they can be trusted among them. The same is true for adults.

 

The only reason to have a gun is to murder. They’re made for no other reason. They’re the coward’s long distance death dealing weapon of choice. Only people terrified of their neighbours own guns – and that, of course, terrifies their neighbours. Violence begets violence and weapons beget weapons. They’re feedback loops. Weapon ownership is always an arms race, the stupid doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction writ small for small minded loony hoons, terrified cowards and immature halfwits who like to menace others. Anyone who wants a gun – like anyone who wants a presidency – is precisely the person you don’t want to trust with one.

 

Allowing gun ownership in human society is just a form of collective lunacy. No popguns will save you from a modern army – or government swat team. They’ll just get you killed more quickly and assuredly. That’s the real lesson of modern history, for anyone who cares to look; don’t fall for the lies of weapon profiteers. In modern conflicts the survivors are those who successfully avoid the fighting. Save your money and save a life; you can’t have peace with a gun in your hand and it’s almost certain that no-one will aim one at you if you don’t. War or peace; you can’t serve two masters. Choose. Now.

 

All free societies have a fine time without weaponised populations perpetually living under a Sword of Damocles. The US, for instance, is not a free society but a corporatocracy that’s had its freedoms surgically removed since neoconmen ensured King George II stole the (p)residency. Freedom is free. How could it be otherwise? If you have to do something to defend or promote ‘freedom’, it isn’t freedom and you aren’t free. The contrary view is oxymoronic absurdity.

 

Flags are just coloured rags used to blindfold sacrificial lambs and enshroud their mangled bodies. Wars are always fought to enrich a few cowardly, spiteful old dorks and their trophy girlfriends hiding in some castle or penthouse. There is no honour involved in killing – it’s simply the worst form of working for The Man.

 

The only people who profit from wars and weapons are weapon makers, ammunition merchants, oil barons and the politicians they coerce and bribe. No-one who kills for a wage is anything but a (poorly) paid killer. This includes virtually all soldiers – not just mercenaries – and everyone who makes a profit from raising, hunting or killing animals for food.

 

You may have fallen for the bullshit that humans need to eat corpses to be healthy. The opposite is true. No-one (regardless of blood type or haplogroup) needs meat to survive. It’s a choice, a habit, an appetite – an addiction, nothing more.

 

Cattle and ‘meat animals’ are condemned to lives of pain and torture. They’re castrated, poisoned, fed garbage, corralled into cages, beaten, shocked and terrified into submission (rather like modern domesticated primates). If you saw what happens to animals before they end up in your mouth you wouldn’t touch the poisons collected at the top of the food chain and pump them through your bloodstream. Most young kids vomit the first time they’re fed eggs or meat. Ever wonder why?

 

Before you accept the lie that ‘vegetarians kill too – everything kills to survive’, consider that eating the fruits, vegetables and seeds of plants doesn’t kill any plant. The plant lives on, and reproduces. Just on more lie told by profiteers; one more unexamined false assumption.

 

If you choose to create endless unnecessary suffering by slaughtering innocent, terrified animals you deserve all that’s coming to you. Remember that ‘karma’ thing? Choose. Now.

See nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/vegetarianism

  

The Road to Hell is Paved with False Assumptions

 

When we’re kids we all ask, “Why?” Some kids mean, “Why does it work like that?” Others are asking, “Why on Earth would people do something so stupid?”

 

Bereft of imagination, in dust ‘realists’ force everyone to inhabit their bland, artless, heartless concrete toilets - blocky headstones designed by award winning wannabes and built by money-mastered so called craftsmen. Chintzy malls and ugly mausoleums masquerading as a civilisation. We can do much, much better.

 

Everything we’ve built has foundations of clay. All our sciences, beliefs and political systems are based on antiquated false assumptions; on lies, to be absolutely clear. Truth is always in here, within, waiting to be recognised by a freshly awakening mind. It isn’t going anywhere – unlike the outmoded scams perpetuated by a dying breed of conmen and the pernicious women hiding behind their thrones.

 

You’d think they’d know by now - you can service two mistresses but you can’t serve two masters! Life or Mammoney: Choose! Now!

  

It’s beyond the scope of this little entreaty to cover all these bases in detail – but they’re all explored in more (and more) depth at this website: become one of the New Illuminati by perusing truths and subscribing via one of the many ways available @ nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/

 

- Welcome to the New Millennium and have a great New Aeon

R. Ayana

 

For more by R, Ayana see nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/r.%20ayana

- See ‘Older Posts’ at the end of each section

 

From nexusilluminati.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/why-lifting-veil-...

Trying to find someplace in the house where I can get a good view of the dress. Just noticed my annoying tan-line

I went to Formby beach today where the National Trust charge £50 to park a coach.Also at Formby beach today was Orion MX14TSZ a Dennis Javelin / Plaxton Profile C53F . It actually dates from 2003 and is an ex MOD vehicle , but is wearing its first plate as it carried an MOD plate during its time in the services. Photo taken 03/06/15

Well east of Decatur IL. these NS horses gallop past horses of a different nature that could care less of the passing eastbound.

The same location of Clifton, and that's about it. The 48 runs up to every 8 minutes via The Meadows, and the 64 runs up to every hour via QMC.

Mr A. Kouwenberg and A.J. Kiebert were participants in the 12th international Tulpenrallye. Their Daf 600 DeLuxe had number 219. At their arrival at checkpoint Eindhoven they were greeted enthusiastically.

 

Note the city lights at the front, which appeared in mid 1960.

 

The first Daf passenger car was announced in 1957 and officially presented in Febr. 1958.

Production started one year later in 1959.

The Daf 600 was designed by W. van den Brink with technical assistance of Johan van der Brugghen, and was replaced by both the 1961-63 Daf 750 and the 1961-65 Daffodil.

The differences between the standard 600 and the luxe version include the two-tone paint (six colours available), quarterlights in the door windows, hub-caps, chrome strips around the windows and chrome bumpers. In the interior there was more colour upholstery choice.

 

590 cc 2 cylinder air-cooled boxer engine.

Ca. 600 kg.

Production Daf 600: 1959-1963.

Original old Dutch reg. number: Mid 1960 (not valid anymore, Oct. 2023).

 

Photo is taken from the monthly magazine De Dafbode, June 1960.

Original photographer and exact place and date unknown.

 

Halfweg, Sept. 17, 2023.

 

© 1960/2023 DAF/Sander Toonen Halfweg | All Rights Reserved

Living together in harmony does not require us to look the same, think the same or act the same - in fact we can benefit greatly from rubbing up against people who are different. But without love nothing works.

This is an image of two photographs I framed for a charity auction - The image on the left was more striking, so I took the trouble to use a nicer frame, add a mat border… and used museum glass (non-glare) in front of the art.

 

The Rhino on the other hand. is a bit more laid back, it was taken at a zoo and is more of just a happy rhino thing, where it was placed into a frame with no mat but also - normal glass in front…

 

Once you know to look for it you can quickly see the huge difference in reflection that museum glass makes. You can see the railing of stairs behind me easily in the rhino image and not at all in the tiger.

 

So if you are placing art where there may be any glare at all, strongly consider sprinting for museum glass so people can really appreciate your image.

The sky changed so fast!

 

Tamron SP Adaptall-2 70-210mm 1:3.5 AH

I cannot be more precise than say that these are two driving trailers of Treinitalia, seemingly of the same class. But I can see at least seven detailed diffrences between them, so modellers beware!

 

Siena, Tuscany, Italy

24th October 2016

  

20161024 IMG_5564b

Flickr Photowalk 2010 Lahore.

 

Other snaps are at web-shots due to low space in my account

 

outdoors.webshots.com/album/578300474PwkKpQ

These two near identical Volvo Olympian's are seen here on 02/06/2019, at Kirkby Industrial Estate, Liverpool, at the 8th. Annual NWVRT Rally & Running Day. On the left, facing the camera undergoing restoration is former Liverbus, Huyton, 211, L211SBG, a YN2RV18Z4 model, new in 10/1993 while on the right is former MTL North 0312, R312WVR, an OLY-50 model, new in 06/1998. Both carry the Northern Counties Palatine II body. © Peter Steel 2019.

 

Towers 114, 331 and 333, showing the minute differences between each of the Brontos.

Quote:

It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively."

...Figuratively, they escaped from Count Olaf and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf's evil in loco parentis ways. But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped.

-LS

Infrared converted Sony A6000 with Sony E 16mm F2.8 mounted with the Sony Ultra Wide Converter. HDR AEB +/-2 total of 3 exposures at F8, 16mm, auto focus and processed with Photomatix HDR software.

 

High Dynamic Range (HDR)

 

High-dynamic-range imaging (HDRI) is a high dynamic range (HDR) technique used in imaging and photography to reproduce a greater dynamic range of luminosity than is possible with standard digital imaging or photographic techniques. The aim is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through adaptation of the iris and other methods, adjusts constantly to adapt to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions.

 

HDR images can represent a greater range of luminance levels than can be achieved using more 'traditional' methods, such as many real-world scenes containing very bright, direct sunlight to extreme shade, or very faint nebulae. This is often achieved by capturing and then combining several different, narrower range, exposures of the same subject matter. Non-HDR cameras take photographs with a limited exposure range, referred to as LDR, resulting in the loss of detail in highlights or shadows.

 

The two primary types of HDR images are computer renderings and images resulting from merging multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. HDR images can also be acquired using special image sensors, such as an oversampled binary image sensor.

 

Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended luminosity range of an HDR image has to be compressed to be made visible. The method of rendering an HDR image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping. This method reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to facilitate display on devices or printouts with lower dynamic range, and can be applied to produce images with preserved local contrast (or exaggerated for artistic effect).

 

In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences (known as stops). An increase of one EV, or 'one stop', represents a doubling of the amount of light. Conversely, a decrease of one EV represents a halving of the amount of light. Therefore, revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires high exposures, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low exposures. Most cameras cannot provide this range of exposure values within a single exposure, due to their low dynamic range. High-dynamic-range photographs are generally achieved by capturing multiple standard-exposure images, often using exposure bracketing, and then later merging them into a single HDR image, usually within a photo manipulation program). Digital images are often encoded in a camera's raw image format, because 8-bit JPEG encoding does not offer a wide enough range of values to allow fine transitions (and regarding HDR, later introduces undesirable effects due to lossy compression).

 

Any camera that allows manual exposure control can make images for HDR work, although one equipped with auto exposure bracketing (AEB) is far better suited. Images from film cameras are less suitable as they often must first be digitized, so that they can later be processed using software HDR methods.

 

In most imaging devices, the degree of exposure to light applied to the active element (be it film or CCD) can be altered in one of two ways: by either increasing/decreasing the size of the aperture or by increasing/decreasing the time of each exposure. Exposure variation in an HDR set is only done by altering the exposure time and not the aperture size; this is because altering the aperture size also affects the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image.

 

An important limitation for HDR photography is that any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterwards. Also, as one must create several images (often three or five and sometimes more) to obtain the desired luminance range, such a full 'set' of images takes extra time. HDR photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is, at least, advised.

 

Some cameras have an auto exposure bracketing (AEB) feature with a far greater dynamic range than others, from the 3 EV of the Canon EOS 40D, to the 18 EV of the Canon EOS-1D Mark II. As the popularity of this imaging method grows, several camera manufactures are now offering built-in HDR features. For example, the Pentax K-7 DSLR has an HDR mode that captures an HDR image and outputs (only) a tone mapped JPEG file. The Canon PowerShot G12, Canon PowerShot S95 and Canon PowerShot S100 offer similar features in a smaller format.. Nikon's approach is called 'Active D-Lighting' which applies exposure compensation and tone mapping to the image as it comes from the sensor, with the accent being on retaing a realistic effect . Some smartphones provide HDR modes, and most mobile platforms have apps that provide HDR picture taking.

 

Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images.

 

Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. As a consequence, transparent originals (especially positive slides) feature a very high dynamic range

 

Tone mapping

Tone mapping reduces the dynamic range, or contrast ratio, of an entire image while retaining localized contrast. Although it is a distinct operation, tone mapping is often applied to HDRI files by the same software package.

 

Several software applications are available on the PC, Mac and Linux platforms for producing HDR files and tone mapped images. Notable titles include

 

Adobe Photoshop

Aurora HDR

Dynamic Photo HDR

HDR Efex Pro

HDR PhotoStudio

Luminance HDR

MagicRaw

Oloneo PhotoEngine

Photomatix Pro

PTGui

 

Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed (power law) or logarithmically encoded, or floating-point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges.

 

HDR images often don't use fixed ranges per color channel—other than traditional images—to represent many more colors over a much wider dynamic range. For that purpose, they don't use integer values to represent the single color channels (e.g., 0-255 in an 8 bit per pixel interval for red, green and blue) but instead use a floating point representation. Common are 16-bit (half precision) or 32-bit floating point numbers to represent HDR pixels. However, when the appropriate transfer function is used, HDR pixels for some applications can be represented with a color depth that has as few as 10–12 bits for luminance and 8 bits for chrominance without introducing any visible quantization artifacts.

 

History of HDR photography

The idea of using several exposures to adequately reproduce a too-extreme range of luminance was pioneered as early as the 1850s by Gustave Le Gray to render seascapes showing both the sky and the sea. Such rendering was impossible at the time using standard methods, as the luminosity range was too extreme. Le Gray used one negative for the sky, and another one with a longer exposure for the sea, and combined the two into one picture in positive.

 

Mid 20th century

Manual tone mapping was accomplished by dodging and burning – selectively increasing or decreasing the exposure of regions of the photograph to yield better tonality reproduction. This was effective because the dynamic range of the negative is significantly higher than would be available on the finished positive paper print when that is exposed via the negative in a uniform manner. An excellent example is the photograph Schweitzer at the Lamp by W. Eugene Smith, from his 1954 photo essay A Man of Mercy on Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his humanitarian work in French Equatorial Africa. The image took 5 days to reproduce the tonal range of the scene, which ranges from a bright lamp (relative to the scene) to a dark shadow.

 

Ansel Adams elevated dodging and burning to an art form. Many of his famous prints were manipulated in the darkroom with these two methods. Adams wrote a comprehensive book on producing prints called The Print, which prominently features dodging and burning, in the context of his Zone System.

 

With the advent of color photography, tone mapping in the darkroom was no longer possible due to the specific timing needed during the developing process of color film. Photographers looked to film manufacturers to design new film stocks with improved response, or continued to shoot in black and white to use tone mapping methods.

 

Color film capable of directly recording high-dynamic-range images was developed by Charles Wyckoff and EG&G "in the course of a contract with the Department of the Air Force". This XR film had three emulsion layers, an upper layer having an ASA speed rating of 400, a middle layer with an intermediate rating, and a lower layer with an ASA rating of 0.004. The film was processed in a manner similar to color films, and each layer produced a different color. The dynamic range of this extended range film has been estimated as 1:108. It has been used to photograph nuclear explosions, for astronomical photography, for spectrographic research, and for medical imaging. Wyckoff's detailed pictures of nuclear explosions appeared on the cover of Life magazine in the mid-1950s.

 

Late 20th century

Georges Cornuéjols and licensees of his patents (Brdi, Hymatom) introduced the principle of HDR video image, in 1986, by interposing a matricial LCD screen in front of the camera's image sensor, increasing the sensors dynamic by five stops. The concept of neighborhood tone mapping was applied to video cameras by a group from the Technion in Israel led by Dr. Oliver Hilsenrath and Prof. Y.Y.Zeevi who filed for a patent on this concept in 1988.

 

In February and April 1990, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the first real-time HDR camera that combined two images captured by a sensor3435 or simultaneously3637 by two sensors of the camera. This process is known as bracketing used for a video stream.

 

In 1991, the first commercial video camera was introduced that performed real-time capturing of multiple images with different exposures, and producing an HDR video image, by Hymatom, licensee of Georges Cornuéjols.

 

Also in 1991, Georges Cornuéjols introduced the HDR+ image principle by non-linear accumulation of images to increase the sensitivity of the camera: for low-light environments, several successive images are accumulated, thus increasing the signal to noise ratio.

 

In 1993, another commercial medical camera producing an HDR video image, by the Technion.

 

Modern HDR imaging uses a completely different approach, based on making a high-dynamic-range luminance or light map using only global image operations (across the entire image), and then tone mapping the result. Global HDR was first introduced in 19931 resulting in a mathematical theory of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter that was published in 1995 by Steve Mann and Rosalind Picard.

 

On October 28, 1998, Ben Sarao created one of the first nighttime HDR+G (High Dynamic Range + Graphic image)of STS-95 on the launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It consisted of four film images of the shuttle at night that were digitally composited with additional digital graphic elements. The image was first exhibited at NASA Headquarters Great Hall, Washington DC in 1999 and then published in Hasselblad Forum, Issue 3 1993, Volume 35 ISSN 0282-5449.

 

The advent of consumer digital cameras produced a new demand for HDR imaging to improve the light response of digital camera sensors, which had a much smaller dynamic range than film. Steve Mann developed and patented the global-HDR method for producing digital images having extended dynamic range at the MIT Media Laboratory. Mann's method involved a two-step procedure: (1) generate one floating point image array by global-only image operations (operations that affect all pixels identically, without regard to their local neighborhoods); and then (2) convert this image array, using local neighborhood processing (tone-remapping, etc.), into an HDR image. The image array generated by the first step of Mann's process is called a lightspace image, lightspace picture, or radiance map. Another benefit of global-HDR imaging is that it provides access to the intermediate light or radiance map, which has been used for computer vision, and other image processing operations.

 

21st century

In 2005, Adobe Systems introduced several new features in Photoshop CS2 including Merge to HDR, 32 bit floating point image support, and HDR tone mapping.

 

On June 30, 2016, Microsoft added support for the digital compositing of HDR images to Windows 10 using the Universal Windows Platform.

 

HDR sensors

Modern CMOS image sensors can often capture a high dynamic range from a single exposure. The wide dynamic range of the captured image is non-linearly compressed into a smaller dynamic range electronic representation. However, with proper processing, the information from a single exposure can be used to create an HDR image.

 

Such HDR imaging is used in extreme dynamic range applications like welding or automotive work. Some other cameras designed for use in security applications can automatically provide two or more images for each frame, with changing exposure. For example, a sensor for 30fps video will give out 60fps with the odd frames at a short exposure time and the even frames at a longer exposure time. Some of the sensor may even combine the two images on-chip so that a wider dynamic range without in-pixel compression is directly available to the user for display or processing.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-dynamic-range_imaging

 

Infrared Photography

 

In infrared photography, the film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light. The part of the spectrum used is referred to as near-infrared to distinguish it from far-infrared, which is the domain of thermal imaging. Wavelengths used for photography range from about 700 nm to about 900 nm. Film is usually sensitive to visible light too, so an infrared-passing filter is used; this lets infrared (IR) light pass through to the camera, but blocks all or most of the visible light spectrum (the filter thus looks black or deep red). ("Infrared filter" may refer either to this type of filter or to one that blocks infrared but passes other wavelengths.)

 

When these filters are used together with infrared-sensitive film or sensors, "in-camera effects" can be obtained; false-color or black-and-white images with a dreamlike or sometimes lurid appearance known as the "Wood Effect," an effect mainly caused by foliage (such as tree leaves and grass) strongly reflecting in the same way visible light is reflected from snow. There is a small contribution from chlorophyll fluorescence, but this is marginal and is not the real cause of the brightness seen in infrared photographs. The effect is named after the infrared photography pioneer Robert W. Wood, and not after the material wood, which does not strongly reflect infrared.

 

The other attributes of infrared photographs include very dark skies and penetration of atmospheric haze, caused by reduced Rayleigh scattering and Mie scattering, respectively, compared to visible light. The dark skies, in turn, result in less infrared light in shadows and dark reflections of those skies from water, and clouds will stand out strongly. These wavelengths also penetrate a few millimeters into skin and give a milky look to portraits, although eyes often look black.

 

Until the early 20th century, infrared photography was not possible because silver halide emulsions are not sensitive to longer wavelengths than that of blue light (and to a lesser extent, green light) without the addition of a dye to act as a color sensitizer. The first infrared photographs (as distinct from spectrographs) to be published appeared in the February 1910 edition of The Century Magazine and in the October 1910 edition of the Royal Photographic Society Journal to illustrate papers by Robert W. Wood, who discovered the unusual effects that now bear his name. The RPS co-ordinated events to celebrate the centenary of this event in 2010. Wood's photographs were taken on experimental film that required very long exposures; thus, most of his work focused on landscapes. A further set of infrared landscapes taken by Wood in Italy in 1911 used plates provided for him by CEK Mees at Wratten & Wainwright. Mees also took a few infrared photographs in Portugal in 1910, which are now in the Kodak archives.

 

Infrared-sensitive photographic plates were developed in the United States during World War I for spectroscopic analysis, and infrared sensitizing dyes were investigated for improved haze penetration in aerial photography. After 1930, new emulsions from Kodak and other manufacturers became useful to infrared astronomy.

 

Infrared photography became popular with photography enthusiasts in the 1930s when suitable film was introduced commercially. The Times regularly published landscape and aerial photographs taken by their staff photographers using Ilford infrared film. By 1937 33 kinds of infrared film were available from five manufacturers including Agfa, Kodak and Ilford. Infrared movie film was also available and was used to create day-for-night effects in motion pictures, a notable example being the pseudo-night aerial sequences in the James Cagney/Bette Davis movie The Bride Came COD.

 

False-color infrared photography became widely practiced with the introduction of Kodak Ektachrome Infrared Aero Film and Ektachrome Infrared EIR. The first version of this, known as Kodacolor Aero-Reversal-Film, was developed by Clark and others at the Kodak for camouflage detection in the 1940s. The film became more widely available in 35mm form in the 1960s but KODAK AEROCHROME III Infrared Film 1443 has been discontinued.

 

Infrared photography became popular with a number of 1960s recording artists, because of the unusual results; Jimi Hendrix, Donovan, Frank and a slow shutter speed without focus compensation, however wider apertures like f/2.0 can produce sharp photos only if the lens is meticulously refocused to the infrared index mark, and only if this index mark is the correct one for the filter and film in use. However, it should be noted that diffraction effects inside a camera are greater at infrared wavelengths so that stopping down the lens too far may actually reduce sharpness.

 

Most apochromatic ('APO') lenses do not have an Infrared index mark and do not need to be refocused for the infrared spectrum because they are already optically corrected into the near-infrared spectrum. Catadioptric lenses do not often require this adjustment because their mirror containing elements do not suffer from chromatic aberration and so the overall aberration is comparably less. Catadioptric lenses do, of course, still contain lenses, and these lenses do still have a dispersive property.

 

Infrared black-and-white films require special development times but development is usually achieved with standard black-and-white film developers and chemicals (like D-76). Kodak HIE film has a polyester film base that is very stable but extremely easy to scratch, therefore special care must be used in the handling of Kodak HIE throughout the development and printing/scanning process to avoid damage to the film. The Kodak HIE film was sensitive to 900 nm.

 

As of November 2, 2007, "KODAK is preannouncing the discontinuance" of HIE Infrared 35 mm film stating the reasons that, "Demand for these products has been declining significantly in recent years, and it is no longer practical to continue to manufacture given the low volume, the age of the product formulations and the complexity of the processes involved." At the time of this notice, HIE Infrared 135-36 was available at a street price of around $12.00 a roll at US mail order outlets.

 

Arguably the greatest obstacle to infrared film photography has been the increasing difficulty of obtaining infrared-sensitive film. However, despite the discontinuance of HIE, other newer infrared sensitive emulsions from EFKE, ROLLEI, and ILFORD are still available, but these formulations have differing sensitivity and specifications from the venerable KODAK HIE that has been around for at least two decades. Some of these infrared films are available in 120 and larger formats as well as 35 mm, which adds flexibility to their application. With the discontinuance of Kodak HIE, Efke's IR820 film has become the only IR film on the marketneeds update with good sensitivity beyond 750 nm, the Rollei film does extend beyond 750 nm but IR sensitivity falls off very rapidly.

  

Color infrared transparency films have three sensitized layers that, because of the way the dyes are coupled to these layers, reproduce infrared as red, red as green, and green as blue. All three layers are sensitive to blue so the film must be used with a yellow filter, since this will block blue light but allow the remaining colors to reach the film. The health of foliage can be determined from the relative strengths of green and infrared light reflected; this shows in color infrared as a shift from red (healthy) towards magenta (unhealthy). Early color infrared films were developed in the older E-4 process, but Kodak later manufactured a color transparency film that could be developed in standard E-6 chemistry, although more accurate results were obtained by developing using the AR-5 process. In general, color infrared does not need to be refocused to the infrared index mark on the lens.

 

In 2007 Kodak announced that production of the 35 mm version of their color infrared film (Ektachrome Professional Infrared/EIR) would cease as there was insufficient demand. Since 2011, all formats of color infrared film have been discontinued. Specifically, Aerochrome 1443 and SO-734.

 

There is no currently available digital camera that will produce the same results as Kodak color infrared film although the equivalent images can be produced by taking two exposures, one infrared and the other full-color, and combining in post-production. The color images produced by digital still cameras using infrared-pass filters are not equivalent to those produced on color infrared film. The colors result from varying amounts of infrared passing through the color filters on the photo sites, further amended by the Bayer filtering. While this makes such images unsuitable for the kind of applications for which the film was used, such as remote sensing of plant health, the resulting color tonality has proved popular artistically.

 

Color digital infrared, as part of full spectrum photography is gaining popularity. The ease of creating a softly colored photo with infrared characteristics has found interest among hobbyists and professionals.

 

In 2008, Los Angeles photographer, Dean Bennici started cutting and hand rolling Aerochrome color Infrared film. All Aerochrome medium and large format which exists today came directly from his lab. The trend in infrared photography continues to gain momentum with the success of photographer Richard Mosse and multiple users all around the world.

 

Digital camera sensors are inherently sensitive to infrared light, which would interfere with the normal photography by confusing the autofocus calculations or softening the image (because infrared light is focused differently from visible light), or oversaturating the red channel. Also, some clothing is transparent in the infrared, leading to unintended (at least to the manufacturer) uses of video cameras. Thus, to improve image quality and protect privacy, many digital cameras employ infrared blockers. Depending on the subject matter, infrared photography may not be practical with these cameras because the exposure times become overly long, often in the range of 30 seconds, creating noise and motion blur in the final image. However, for some subject matter the long exposure does not matter or the motion blur effects actually add to the image. Some lenses will also show a 'hot spot' in the centre of the image as their coatings are optimised for visible light and not for IR.

 

An alternative method of DSLR infrared photography is to remove the infrared blocker in front of the sensor and replace it with a filter that removes visible light. This filter is behind the mirror, so the camera can be used normally - handheld, normal shutter speeds, normal composition through the viewfinder, and focus, all work like a normal camera. Metering works but is not always accurate because of the difference between visible and infrared refraction. When the IR blocker is removed, many lenses which did display a hotspot cease to do so, and become perfectly usable for infrared photography. Additionally, because the red, green and blue micro-filters remain and have transmissions not only in their respective color but also in the infrared, enhanced infrared color may be recorded.

 

Since the Bayer filters in most digital cameras absorb a significant fraction of the infrared light, these cameras are sometimes not very sensitive as infrared cameras and can sometimes produce false colors in the images. An alternative approach is to use a Foveon X3 sensor, which does not have absorptive filters on it; the Sigma SD10 DSLR has a removable IR blocking filter and dust protector, which can be simply omitted or replaced by a deep red or complete visible light blocking filter. The Sigma SD14 has an IR/UV blocking filter that can be removed/installed without tools. The result is a very sensitive digital IR camera.

 

While it is common to use a filter that blocks almost all visible light, the wavelength sensitivity of a digital camera without internal infrared blocking is such that a variety of artistic results can be obtained with more conventional filtration. For example, a very dark neutral density filter can be used (such as the Hoya ND400) which passes a very small amount of visible light compared to the near-infrared it allows through. Wider filtration permits an SLR viewfinder to be used and also passes more varied color information to the sensor without necessarily reducing the Wood effect. Wider filtration is however likely to reduce other infrared artefacts such as haze penetration and darkened skies. This technique mirrors the methods used by infrared film photographers where black-and-white infrared film was often used with a deep red filter rather than a visually opaque one.

 

Another common technique with near-infrared filters is to swap blue and red channels in software (e.g. photoshop) which retains much of the characteristic 'white foliage' while rendering skies a glorious blue.

 

Several Sony cameras had the so-called Night Shot facility, which physically moves the blocking filter away from the light path, which makes the cameras very sensitive to infrared light. Soon after its development, this facility was 'restricted' by Sony to make it difficult for people to take photos that saw through clothing. To do this the iris is opened fully and exposure duration is limited to long times of more than 1/30 second or so. It is possible to shoot infrared but neutral density filters must be used to reduce the camera's sensitivity and the long exposure times mean that care must be taken to avoid camera-shake artifacts.

 

Fuji have produced digital cameras for use in forensic criminology and medicine which have no infrared blocking filter. The first camera, designated the S3 PRO UVIR, also had extended ultraviolet sensitivity (digital sensors are usually less sensitive to UV than to IR). Optimum UV sensitivity requires special lenses, but ordinary lenses usually work well for IR. In 2007, FujiFilm introduced a new version of this camera, based on the Nikon D200/ FujiFilm S5 called the IS Pro, also able to take Nikon lenses. Fuji had earlier introduced a non-SLR infrared camera, the IS-1, a modified version of the FujiFilm FinePix S9100. Unlike the S3 PRO UVIR, the IS-1 does not offer UV sensitivity. FujiFilm restricts the sale of these cameras to professional users with their EULA specifically prohibiting "unethical photographic conduct".

 

Phase One digital camera backs can be ordered in an infrared modified form.

 

Remote sensing and thermographic cameras are sensitive to longer wavelengths of infrared (see Infrared spectrum#Commonly used sub-division scheme). They may be multispectral and use a variety of technologies which may not resemble common camera or filter designs. Cameras sensitive to longer infrared wavelengths including those used in infrared astronomy often require cooling to reduce thermally induced dark currents in the sensor (see Dark current (physics)). Lower cost uncooled thermographic digital cameras operate in the Long Wave infrared band (see Thermographic camera#Uncooled infrared detectors). These cameras are generally used for building inspection or preventative maintenance but can be used for artistic pursuits as well.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_photography

Remembering Sweden...

ift.tt/1Mwf66l

2nd image from my first outing with my new Lee Filters

Nikola Tesla is one of the most brilliant scientists and inventors who has ever lived. A figure in the same magnitude as Newton and Einstein with the difference that you are bound to use things which are based on his research and inventions several times every day. But chances are high that you have never heard of him.

 

In short short he is the father of most practical things based on electricity and wireless transfer. For instance and fought for AC current. This might not say very much to you but without its discovery it would have been impossible or very improbable to use electricity to the extent that we do today. AC is among other things far superior when it comes to transporting the electricity from where it is generated to where it is consumed. So without it you wouldn't be able to get electricity anywhere you wanted or needs to use it.

 

Another invention was the electrical motor based on AC. While that might not very important if you start to think about stuff that run on electricity and that has moving parts in it and you start to understand now far reaching that is. Stuff like trams, subways, trains etc all need it. And for that matter your dishwasher, washing machine, fan, hairdryer etc etc etc etc - you get the point.

 

But that is only the start. He discovered wireless communication first. While Marconi is usually credited with that and even got the Nobel prize for it Tesla had described the principle and done experiments years before that and that he wasn't credited as well is usually considered as one of the Nobel prized biggest controversies.

 

If you heard of military drone aircraft and though it was a fantastic new invention - Tesla was so far ahead that he demonstrated it (although for boats) for the American military in the 19th! century...

 

He also invented the spark plug that most cars use to start the engine..

 

After inventing the Tesla coil which nowadays mostly are used to show cool displays but can be used to transmit electricity without wires and many other things. About the same time he also did research on for instance X-rays.

 

Well you get the point - The guy is a true heavyweight in engineering and science and that he is as unknown as he is is somewhat of a mystery but even though was a true genius at science he wasn't that skilled in publicizing his fantastic discoveries.

 

Even though he lived and worked in New York for most of his life he was born in current day Serbia where they are very proud of their son. Belgrade's airport is for instance named after him and the Nikolas Tesla museum where this photo was taken is located there.

 

If you want to take a shot like this you need to find a non-lethal Tesla coil (most are quite dangerous to get close to since they wield considerable power) and a willing subject that can stand still while getting electricity sent through you.

 

And before anyone asks - yes what you see hasn't been added in post - it is real electricity.

 

You should really watch this Large On Black since that brings out more details. My pictures aren't balanced for a white background and a lot of the finer details are lost in this small format. the large version is a sixth of the original - The medium size shown here even smaller...

 

This is an copyrighted image with all rights reserved and may not be reproduced, transmitted, copied or used in any way in any media(blogs included) without the written permission from the photographer.

Jack holding the life sized tracing of his body with bonus face printout from 6 years earlier.

I can't tell you, how much I hate bubble-guns...

Mitsubishi J8M1 Shusui

 

Chino Planes Of Fame

 

The J8M1 was intended to be a licence-built copy of the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet. Difficulties in shipping an example to Japan meant that the aircraft eventually had to be reverse-engineered from a flight operations manual and other limited documentation. A single prototype was tested before the end of World War II.

 

The Japanese were quite aware of the results of the strategic bombing of Germany, and knew that the B-29 Superfortress would be bombing Japan and the resultant problems which would arise from trying to combat this. Japanese military attachés had become aware of the Komet during a visit to the Bad Zwischenahn airfield of Erprobungskommando 16, the Luftwaffe evaluation squadron charged with service test of the revolutionary rocket-propelled interceptor. They negotiated the rights to licence-produce the aircraft and its Walter HWK 509A rocket engine. The engine license alone cost the Japanese 20 million Reichsmarks.[1]

 

The agreement was for Germany to provide the following by spring 1944:

 

Complete blueprints of the Me 163B Komet and the HWK 509A engine.

One complete Komet; two sets of sub-assemblies and components.

Three complete HWK 509A engines.

Inform Japan of any improvements and developments of the Komet.

Allow the Japanese to study the manufacturing processes for both the Komet and the engine.

Allow the Japanese to study Luftwaffe operational procedures for the Komet.

 

The broken-down aircraft and engine were sent to Kobe, Japan in early 1944. It is probable that the airframe was on the Japanese submarine RO-501 (ex-U-1224), which left Kiel, Germany on 30 March 1944 and was sunk in the mid-Atlantic on 13 May 1944 by the hunter-killer group based on the escort carrier USS Bogue. Plans and engines were on the Japanese submarine I-29, which left Lorient, France on 16 April 1944 and arrived in Singapore on 14 July 1944, later sunk by the submarine USS Sawfish on 26 July 1944, near the Philippines, after leaving Singapore.

 

The Japanese decided to attempt to copy the Me 163 using a basic instructional manual on the Komet in the hands of naval mission member Commander Eiichi Iwaya who had travelled to Singapore in the I-29 and flown on to Japan when the submarine docked.

 

From its inception, the project was a joint Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (JAAF)/Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service (JNAF) venture. The JAAF wanted a new design to be drawn up. The JNAF, on the other hand, felt the design should mimic the German Komet because it had already proven to be a stable aerodynamic body. It was the JNAF which won and issued the 19-shi specification in July 1944 for the design of the rocket-powered defence fighter. The contract went to Mitsubishi Jukogyo KK, which would produce both the JNAF version the J8M1 Shu-sui and the JAAF version Ki-200.

 

The project was headed by Mijiro Takahashi. The JAAF, however decided to undertake their own design to meet the 19-shi specifications, working at their Rikugun Kokugijitsu Kenkyujo (JAAF Aerotechnical Institute) in secret.

 

At the 1st Naval Air Technical Arsenal in Yokosuka, in association with Mitsubishi and Yokosuka Arsenal, work began to adapt the Walter HWK 509A engine to Japanese manufacturing capabilities and techniques. This was also where efforts were underway to produce a glider version of the J8M to provide handling data. While working on this glider, the MXY8 Akigusa (??, "Autumn Grass"), Mitsubishi completed a mock-up of the J8M1 in September 1944.

 

Both the JAAF and JNAF approved its design and construction and a prototype was built. In December 1944, the MXY8 was completed and, on 8 December 1944, at the Hyakurigahara Airfield, Lieutenant-Commander Toyohiko Inuzuka took the controls of the MXY8. Once in the air, Inuzuka found the MXY8 almost perfectly emulated the handling characteristics of the Komet. Two additional MXY8 gliders were constructed in the naval yard at Yokosuka, one being delivered to the Rikugun Kokugijitsu Kenkyujo (JAAF Aerotechnical Institute) at Tachikawa for evaluation. The JNAF initiated the construction another prototype, production designation Ku-13. This was to use water ballast to simulate the weight of an operational J8M complete with engine and weapons. This variant was to be built by Maeda Aircraft Institute, while the JAAF version was to be constructed by Yokoi Koku KK (Yoki Aircraft Co). The JNAF also proposed a more advanced trainer, designated the MXY9 Shu-ka (??, "Autumn Fire") which would be powered by a 441 lbf (1.96 kN) thrust Tsu-11 ducted-fan engine. The war, however, ended before this model could be built.

 

Mitsubishi and partners Nissan and Fuji proceeded with development of the airframe and Yokosuka Arsenal was adapting the engine for Japanese production, designated the Ro.2. The Japanese succeeded in producing prototypes that outwardly looked very much similar to the Komet. The J8M1 had a wet weight that was 900 lb (410 kg) lighter, the aircraft having a plywood main spar and wooden vertical tail. The designers had also dispensed with the armoured glass in the cockpit and the aircraft carried less ammunition and slightly less fuel.

 

The Ki-200 and the J8M1 differed only in minor items, but the most obvious difference was the JAAF's Ki-200 was armed with two 30 mm (1.18 in) Type 5 cannon (with a rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of 2,350 ft/s (720 m/s), while the J8M1 was armed with two 30 mm (1.18 in) Ho-105 cannon (rate of fire 400 rounds per minute, muzzle velocity 2,460 ft/s (750 m/s). The Ho-105 was the lighter of the two and both offered a higher velocity than the MK 108 cannon of the Me 163 (whose muzzle velocity was 1,705 ft/s (520 m/s). The Toko Ro.2 (KR10) rocket motor did not offer the same thrust rating as the original, and Mitsubishi calculated that the lighter weight of the J8M1 would not offset this. Performance would not be as good as that of the Komet, but was still substantial.[2]

 

The engine still used the German propellants of T-Stoff oxidizer and C-Stoff fuel (hydrogen peroxide/methanol-hydrazine), known in Japan as Ko and Otsu respectively.

 

A total of 60 of the training version (Ku-13, Ki-13, MXY-8, MXY-9) were produced by Yokosuka, Yokoi[disambiguation needed] and Maeda[disambiguation needed]. Seven of the operational version (J8M1/Ki-200) were built by Mitsubishi.

Operational history

J8M-17[clarification needed]

 

In 8 January 1945, one of the two J8M1 prototypes was towed aloft, water ballast added in place of the fuel tank and rocket engine to test its aerodynamics. The test flights confirmed the design. Training courses for JAAF and JNAF pilots began on the Ku-53 glider, which shared a similar configuration to the J8M1. The 312th Naval Air Group was selected to operate the first J8M1. Mitsubishi, Fuji Hikoki, and Nissan Jidosha all had tooling for mass production well into the advanced stages, ready to produce both the J8M1 and the J8M2 variant, which differed from the J8M1 in sacrificing one of the Type 5 cannon for a small increase in fuel capacity. The first J8M1 prototype to be equipped with the Toko Ro.2 (KR10) was ready in June 1945. They were then transferred from the Nagoya plant to Yokoku for final checks before powered flight testing, after final glide tests with the engine installed.

 

The J8M took to the air for its first powered flight on 7 July 1945,[3] with Lieutenant Commander Toyohiko Inuzuka at the controls; after his "sharp start" rocket-powered takeoff, Inuzuka successfully jettisoned the dolly upon becoming airborne and began to gain speed, climbing skywards at a 45° angle. At an altitude of 396 m (1,300 ft), the engine stopped abruptly and the J8M1 stalled. Inuzuka managed to glide the aircraft back, but clipped a small building at the edge of the airfield while trying to land, causing the aircraft to burst into flames. Inuzuka died the next day.[4] While Mitsubishi and naval technicians sought to find the cause of the accident, all future flights were grounded. The engine cutout had occurred because the angle of climb, coupled with the fuel tanks being half-filled for this first flight, caused a shifting of the fuel, which in turn caused an auto cutout device to activate because of an air lock in the fuel line. Requests to continue flight testing were denied pending the modification of the fuel pumps in the aircraft. The sixth and seventh prototypes were to be fitted with the modified Ro.2 engine.

 

Full scale production readiness was almost at hand and in fact, component construction was already underway. Flight testing was to resume, despite another explosion of the fuel mixture during a ground test days after the crash, in late August 1945 and the J8M2 design was finalized. But on 15 August 1945, the war ended for the Japanese and all work on the J8M ceased. The end of the war also spelled the end of the JAAF's Ki-202 Shu-sui-Kai (Modified Shusui), whose design had begun in secret months before. The Ki-202 was to offer improved flight endurance over the Ki-200 and was slated to be the priority fighter for the JAAF in 1946, but no metal was cut before Japan's surrender.

 

Germany tried to send another Komet in U-864, but the submarine was sunk near Bergen by British submarine HMS Venturer in February 1945.

Variants

 

J8M1

J8M2 Shu-sui Model 21(?)

Long-range version for Navy, identical to J8M1, but armament reduced to a single 30 mm (1.18 in) cannon.

J8M3 Shu-sui Model 22 (Rikugun Ki-202 Shu-sui-kai)

Long-range version for Army and Navy, with fuselage and wingspan lengthened to 7.10 m (23 ft 3 in) and 9.75 m (32 ft 0 in) respectively. Powered by 19.6 kN (4,410 lbf) Tokuro-3, projected maximum speed 900 km/h (560 mph).

Yokosuka MXY-8 "Akigusa" (Yokoi Ku-13)

Training glider using J8M airframe for Navy and Army.

Yokosuka MXY-9 "Shuka"

Training version using J8M airframe, powered by Tsu-11 thermojet engine.

 

Operators

 

Japan

 

Imperial Japanese Army Air Service

Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service

 

Survivors

The J8M1 at the Planes of Fame Museum.

 

In November 1945, two aircraft were taken from Yokosuka to the United States for evaluation aboard USS Barnes. FE-300/T2-300 (USA ident) (Japanese ident 403) is now exhibited at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. The other was at NAS Glenview in October 1946 (identity unknown), but was scrapped.

 

In the 1960s, a nearly complete (but badly damaged) fuselage was discovered in a cave in Japan. This was on display at a Japanese Air Self Defense Forces base near Gifu until 1999, when it was restored and completed by Mitsubishi for display in the company's internal Komaki Plant Museum.[5]

Specifications (J8M1/Ki-200)

 

Data from [6]

 

General characteristics

 

Crew: 1

Length: 6.03 m (19 ft 9 in) ;;;Ki 200

 

5.88 m (19 ft)

 

Wingspan: 9.47 m (31 ft 1 in)

Height: 2.68 m (8 ft 10 in)

Wing area: 17.72 m2 (190.7 sq ft) ;;;Ki 200

 

17.69 m2 (190.41 sq ft)

 

Empty weight: 1,445 kg (3,186 lb) ;;;Ki 200

 

1,505 kg (3,318 lb)

J8M2

1,510 kg (3,329 lb)

 

Gross weight: 3,000 kg (6,614 lb) ;;;J8M2

 

3,650 kg (8,047 lb)

 

Max takeoff weight: 3,870 kg (8,532 lb) ;;;J8M2

 

3,900 kg (8,598 lb)

 

Fuel capacity: ;;;Ko

 

1,181 l (260 imp gal) (T-Stoff = 80% Hydrogen Peroxide + 20% Oxyquinoline and Pyrophosphates)

O-tsu

522 l (115 imp gal) (C-Stoff = 30% Hydrazine Hydrate + 70% Methanol, Water and Potassium-Copper Cyanides)

 

Powerplant: 1 × Toku Ro.2 a.k.a. KR10 liquid-fuelled rocket engine, 14.71 kN (3,307 lbf) thrust

 

Performance

 

Maximum speed: 900 km/h (559 mph; 486 kn) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft)

Cruising speed: 699 km/h (434 mph; 377 kn) ;;;Ki 200

 

351 km/h (218 mph)

 

Stall speed: 150 km/h (93 mph; 81 kn)

Endurance: ;;;J8M1

 

5 minutes 30 seconds of powered flight

Ki 200

max - 7 minutes, full throttle - 2 minutes 30 seconds of powered flight,

 

Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)

Rate of climb: 50 m/s (9,800 ft/min)

Time to altitude: ;;;J8M1

 

2,000 m (6,562 ft) in 40 seconds

4,000 m (13,123 ft) in 2 minutes 8 seconds

8,000 m (26,247 ft) in 3 minutes 8 seconds

10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 3 minutes 50 seconds

Ki 200

10,000 m (32,808 ft) in 3 minutes 40 seconds

 

Wing loading: 219.22 kg/m² (44.90 lb/sq ft) ;;;J8M2

 

219.7kg/m² (44.998 lb/ft²)

 

Thrust/weight: 0.388

 

Armament

 

Guns: ;;;J8M1

 

2x Type 5 30mm cannon with 53 rounds per gun

J8M2

1x Type 5 30mm cannon with 53 rounds

Ki 200

2x Ho-155 30mm cannon or 2x Type 5 30mm cannon

 

Source Wikipedia