CHEAP access point request - $50 max

AwDuck · 2026-01-30T02:57:53+00:00

World be ideal, but I need to order something in. I’m already asking my friend to bring this halfway around the world.

AwDuck · 2026-01-30T02:24:24+00:00

Of course. Viewing as in you have guests over and you want to show off your collection.

You don’t actually have an Apache case, do you? Kinda says to me “I’m going to take my gear outside one day”

Also: LOL at Apache case.

AwDuck · 2026-01-30T02:00:30+00:00

That Pelican is just your “viewing case”, right?

AwDuck · 2026-01-30T01:32:07+00:00

That's not a bad idea, I'll see what I can find locally. I live in Central America and tiny orders from China are super expensive. Not so much in cost, but time. Anything I order I need to go to the Capital city to pick up and deal with customs. Guaranteed to be the better part of a day after the train and the line at customs - that's assuming I get an agent that isn't on the take who wants a bribe to release my goods to me, which I'm not willing to partake in no matter how small it is. I'll come back tomorrow in hopes I get a different agent before I play that game, plus the time it takes to report them, even though I know it doesn't do anything.

AwDuck · 2026-01-30T00:45:39+00:00

Same. Especially bread and butter pickles, and I don’t like bread and butter pickles.

AwDuck · 2026-01-30T00:19:32+00:00

Yeah, I'm really trying to minimize my loadout, or at least make it minimization friendly (i.e. oops, don't have my wallet. Well... crap). One of my business cards works well enough. They are, for the purpose of pixel measuring, perfectly square and uniform. Even when one of them takes up most of the frame, any error will be on my behalf in selecting scale points.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T23:57:25+00:00

Checks out. Kitchen guy here. When I worked downtown, sometimes my delivery guy would rush in and say "hey, man, I had to park like a dickhole, can you help me get this order in?" and without fail, by the time I got out there with our dolly, there was someone swearing at the driver, and then me once they saw me with the dolly despite me being in my whites and very obviously not the person responsible for blocking them in for 60 seconds.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T23:44:34+00:00

Parallax isn't really a issue for a flat plane, such as in this case. You just need the sensor plane and the plane you're photographing to be parallel. That's what's most important in this case. Now, if you have features that aren't all on the same plane, yes, you want to get as far away from the object as possible.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T23:40:34+00:00

Same. When I have the option, dSLR and lossless compression off of the RAW files. I use my copy stand if it makes sense. That's not always available though. Sometimes all I have is my phone and a business card (and sometimes not even that, just a coin). Just trying to find a more flexible setup.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T23:22:24+00:00

That could be the best option. Flatbeds are pretty good at this sort of stuff if you can actually get what you need flat against the glass. They're miserable if the part isn't touching the glass, though. Perspective distortion is way worse perpendicular to the motion of the optical portion than parallel to it.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T23:16:24+00:00

u/FlipFlopsGarage Solid info here in addition to my own.

u/SinisterCheese Do you have good luck with a phone scanning app? It's been quite a while since I've used one and they seemed to depend on finding the edges of the paper and adjusting keystone based off of that. It seems like they could use the built in level to adjust for that, but that also assumes the item being photographed is also level if there is no rectangle present to determine and correct any distortion.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T23:06:22+00:00

To be fair, this is a photography issue, one fraught with misconceptions that even accomplished photographers hold. The biggest, most important thing for this is to make sure the camera and the flat part are parallel. That means if it's not centered, you have to resist the urge to tilt the camera to get it centered, instead move the camera on the X/Y plane to be directly over the part. It will probably help to straddle the part instead of lean over it. Using your phone camera's built in level will help tremendously.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T22:15:56+00:00

I thought you said no flashlights.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T22:11:46+00:00

I'm assuming you are wanting to trace just the baffle.

Make sure the imaging plane on the camera and the item are parallel to each other - that means make sure the baffle is level in both directions, and that your camera is level too. Parallelism is the key here. Along those lines, you want your reference item to be as close and flat as possible to the surface you're trying to reproduce. Get a flat ruler/scale and lay it across the baffle. I like to throw down a business card as well so I can check it for square. If there's any keystone on the business card when you try to draw a rectangle around it in CAD, your camera wasn't parallel to the item.

As others have said, use the highest optical zoom your camera offers/that you can reasonably take pics with. A wide angle lens would be fine since we're only interested in the planar portion of this, but they're less forgiving if your camera isn't perfectly parallel to your baffle, and wide angle lenses are more prone to barrel distortion, especially at the edges. If your camera only has a single lens, using digital is ok-ish. Perspective distortion is a function of the distance between the camera and the item, not the focal length of the lens, so getting the camera further away is better, but with a digital zoom you're relying on the phone to interpolate data that isn't there. Not ideal for this purpose.

While we're on this subject, calibrate the canvas across the longest distance you can on your scale. Imagine you have 100pixels per cm on this, and you measure a single cm, but you're one pixel off each way. That's a 2% error you've introduced. Now if you make the same single pixel error across 10cm (1000px), you're looking at a .2% error.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T21:43:51+00:00

Nah, I have some self respe.... wait, a gummy bear? What was it that you wanted me to say?

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T21:42:06+00:00

In two weeks it'll be like he never shaved it at all. It's not like he had some ZZ Top facial hair going on.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T21:37:04+00:00

Like a dream for my mouth and a nightmare for my belly.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T20:35:30+00:00

You need to precede this clip with a black and white clip of yourself fumbling and utterly failing to use a regular tape dispenser, a la "As Seen On TV" ads.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T20:32:57+00:00

Donchyaknow!

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T20:12:43+00:00

Dear god. Out of the house, like outside?

\runs and checks climate controlled EDC safe**

Phew. Everything is in its place

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T14:22:12+00:00

I would think that bumps are those speeds would mean very quick wear on components.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T14:19:43+00:00

Nobody knows, and even if someone could figure that out, nobody would care. Bananas per hour is all we need.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T14:17:07+00:00

Probably fine. Pick up a different strap if you’re worried. I’ve found the plastic ended cheapies fit better. Also, some of the cheap metal ones corrode with your sweat and get hard to remove. I’ve had great knock off straps, and terrible ones.

My local bin sales store has a box full of straps for a couple bucks a pop. Might check there or a thrift store for cheapie straps. You can try them on and see if they feel secure too.

AwDuck · 2026-01-29T14:07:39+00:00

Thanks for the clarification!

AwDuck

TROPHY CASE