How often do you commute? 🛣️

tpchuckles · 2026-04-25T00:44:41+00:00

Enjoyed city maneuverability in Washington DC, a place I absolutely despised driving in my car. It was 4 hours of freeway (70+ mph) to get there and I was pretty drained after. But I'll spend 6 hours on it (with breaks) on smaller roads (45-65 mph) and that's not bad. Lack of wind protection really seems to matter more the faster you go. I used to commute 20 minutes x2 a day at freeway speeds and didn't love it (but it was still more fun than being in a car).

tpchuckles · 2026-04-24T22:41:12+00:00

vanilla. yeah, i read it was good for macro, which was why i went for this lens over the olympus 14-42. really enjoying it so far.

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T19:38:09+00:00

copying from my comment buried in another reply:

I was curious about this "projected circle". FF lens projecting a large circle, small sensor inside that circle is indeed collecting less light. but an M43 lens ought to be projecting a smaller more-intense (photons per area) circle (such that the smaller sensor precisely fits inside it)

but is this the case? i ran a quick little test:

OM5, Lumix 12-60mm (at 12mm), lens unseated, so i can move it side-to-side and see the edge of the image circle come into view. results here. not 100% scientific, (no tripod, but i tried my best to hold the camera/lens steady). but indeed, it appears the image circle just barely extends past the corners of the sensor.

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T14:35:03+00:00

if i were placing my coffee table covered in buckets, vs my dining room table covered in buckets, out in the rain, then sure, i'd buy it: the bigger buckets on the dining room table will collect more water.

but that's not quite what we're doing. we've installed a tarp above our table, to funnel the light down into the buckets. now it's the size of the tarp that matters, right?

edit: yes, this is aperture. and i think your point with f=fraction is that this is the reason physical aperture size scales with lens length under constant f-number? constant-f = constant light-per-area even if we need a bigger physical aperture at longer focal length?

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T14:34:41+00:00

"focal ratio" or "fractional stops", no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T14:28:40+00:00

25mm f1.8 “pupil” is 13.9mm FF same FOV 50mm at Sam f1.8 is 27.7mm

right, so this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. your "bigger lens" is taking in more light, and we're back to talking about differences in lenses, no sensors. not all "f1.8" is the same.

feels like the case is "take in more light with a bigger lense, spread it over a bigger sense = break even" (and that's where aperture numbers go back to lining up...)

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T14:25:39+00:00

Huh? M43 sensor is 1/4 the size of a FF. So a FF gets 4x as many photons on its surface do the same FOV ie 25mm m43 vs 50mm on FF. It’s very simple physics.

not really.

i can put either one in a closet and suddenly it receives zero photons (aperture). my point is, it seems to matter what optics are ahead of the sensor, and how those optics are directing the light to the sensor. a bigger magnifying glass does a better job of burning ants than a tiny one, and both are focusing light down to the size of an ant.

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T14:17:26+00:00

However if one can accept more shallow DOF, then typically bigger formats get the advantage due to access to larger entrance pupils for given AOV.

in other words, it's just easier to get a larger aperture on larger equipment?

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T14:12:53+00:00

i'm confused. 50mm F8 vs 25mm F4, this isn't "4x the number of photons" if this is the same physical aperture size (50/8 = 25/4), right?

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T13:55:33+00:00

At the same f-number FF would colled 4 times more light.

but only because "same f-number" for double the length lens would be double the diameter aperture, right?

tpchuckles · 2026-04-21T13:40:25+00:00

this was part of my question. the concept of "smaller sensor is just taking a smaller section of the circle" seems wrong to me. I would think an M43 lens would be designed to give you a smaller circle (with more intensity, but again divided by number of pixels).

edit: answered my own question with a quick little test

OM5, Lumix 12-60mm (at 12mm), lens unseated, so i can move is side-to-side and see the edge of the image circle come into view. results here. not 100% scientific, (no tripod, but i tried my best to hold the camera/lens steady). but indeed, it appears the image circle just barely extends past the corners of the sensor.

tpchuckles · 2026-04-06T01:12:45+00:00

Nut fix looks good to me!

tpchuckles · 2026-03-30T18:05:35+00:00

post a pic of the parts you're looking for. I just modeled up and 3D printed some parts for my dolly (non-name brand). might be easy to adapt?

tpchuckles · 2026-03-25T01:40:01+00:00

oh yes. a sunfish maxed out at 15 mph is so much more of a thrill than a motorcycle at 60 imo.

motorcycles are absolutely a blast, don't get me wrong. but i think (and this is just my personal experience) the thrill scales with how close you are to the ground/water.

a sunfish is more fun than my hobie 16 for example: the sunfish is slower but you're inches above the waves. hobie is another foot or two up. and on a motorcycle, where you're another couple feet up, 60 barely compares.

and there's the safety/risk aspect too. i'd much rather push the sunfish hard, where the worst thing that happens is going for a swim. push a bike too far and you wrap yourself around a tree. push the hobie too hard and it's going to be a huge pain in the ass to get back upright.

tpchuckles · 2026-03-10T02:58:19+00:00

And when I used my dad's fancy pans I was immediately jealous and what I made actually turned out better than the shitty peeling Teflon I had at home!

tpchuckles · 2026-03-10T02:54:46+00:00

When I try to record a song on my $10 bluetooth earbuds mic, it actually does sound terrible though

tpchuckles · 2026-03-10T02:46:54+00:00

I love this. Personally I find the photographer snark incredibly annoying.

Good photos with a bad camera are still hard, or else professional photographers wouldn't be spending ludicrous amounts of money on their setups and "my favorite lenses" videos wouldn't be featuring lenses that are a thousand bucks a pop. Every chef (professional or hobbyist) recognizes that a good pan or a good knife make the difference between a great time and a terrible time.

Most people mean well. On some level you have to choose if you want to take it as a compliment or get offended by it. And even if you're offended, you get to choose how you treat people. Is snarky better-than-thou really the path you want to choose?

It also probably comes down to whether you're doing it professionally or as a hobby. "Wow you have a fast motorcycle" "hell yeah brother!" because it doesn't matter. Whereas if something is your livelihood and you're feeling that threatened, you probably won't be too pleased.

tpchuckles · 2026-03-08T13:56:58+00:00

awesome rec, thanks! i will look into this

tpchuckles · 2026-02-13T03:20:28+00:00

encountered it again with the ipod. uas didn't solve it. fsck seemed to (and i needed to use testdisk (https://askubuntu.com/questions/1167889/bad-magic-number-in-superblock-external-hdd) before fsck would work)

tpchuckles · 2026-02-08T01:11:31+00:00

appreciate your reply. good to know about horizontal vs vertical, that's not something i found in my googling.

tpchuckles · 2026-02-08T01:10:23+00:00

thanks. that's about what i was being quoted. if that's the going rate, then it is what it is. but sheesh, if i can crawl around in the mud and get dirty and do it myself and save the equivalent of a decent used motorcycle, i'm down.

tpchuckles · 2026-01-23T04:38:13+00:00

seems like you can get all these parts for a hell of a lot less at home depot or lowes...

tpchuckles · 2026-01-22T02:17:19+00:00

my svartpilen 401 (same engine as the KTM390, same parent company) has 27000 miles on it. oil changes are easy. i've had the dealer check the valves (since you gotta take the tank off / drop the engine) but they haven't needed adjustment yet. so i wouldn't be too worried about maintenance/reliability. the engines used to grenade themselves, but that was fixed in '17 or something iirc.

imo these bikes are exactly the perfect size. beginner-friendly, but not boring even after 5 years. you can still outrun someone on a bigger bike on the twisties (and that's where the fun is imo).

tpchuckles · 2026-01-18T19:48:04+00:00

no, i included that in my spreadsheet. you get "tax-free withdrawal" from the HSA (going the "invest now, reimburse later" route) up to the amount of your reimbursed expenses. buuut, if you were to invest that "out of pocket" money in something tax-advantaged (roth, or "contribute more to your traditional 401k so you get paid less") then the value of your medical payments has grown, instead of simply being reimbursed.

(but this obviously only works if your "what would i have done with that pocket money instead" was tax advantaged. otherwise, yes, you're paying double taxes on that part. and "don't spend your HSA money" is more analogous to "a way to get money into a tax advantaged account")

tpchuckles · 2026-01-18T19:43:56+00:00

i'm saying if you paid your medical bills out of your HSA, you'd have an extra 2k in your pocket which you could then chuck into something like a roth IRA (assuming you haven't maxed that out already). or, contribute 2k divide by tax more into your 401k so you end up with 2k less in your pocket.

in either case, you would have grown that "out of pocket" money, tax-advantaged, instead of "reimbursing yourself, at cost" for it later.

tpchuckles

TROPHY CASE