A Leslie Wong Blog

Someone stuck a Sony DSC-WX1 10.2 MP digital camera inside a Russian Zorki rangefinder (a Leica II copy) – a melding of a 1950′s classic film camera with a modern digital camera.

The original site is in Japanese. (English Google translation) There are detailed build photos; the body was re-covered and even the rangefinder’s shutter release works the digital camera’s shutter. It is a beautiful hack. I wish I had the patience to do something like this.

via Hack a Day

Moon Jellies, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium:

“These alien-looking creatures are named for their translucent, moonlike circular bells. Instead of long, trailing tentacles, moon jellies have a short, fine fringe (cilia) that sweeps food toward the mucous layer on the edges of the bells. Prey is stored in pouches until the oral arms pick it up and begin to digest it.”

Nikon D70, 18-55 f3.5-f5.6, 18mm, f5.6, 1/4 sec, ISO 400. 2-25-10, 3:17:19 PM PDT.

Dubrow’s Cafeteria, 515 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY, circa 1983

On my drives from New York City to the Catskills to go fishing on the Beaverkill River, I always took Route 17, because it was a little more interesting.

Off the George Washington Bridge, I’d take Route 4 in New Jersey and then NJ 17 near the Garden State Plaza. Once I crossed back into New York near Suffern, the surroundings started to change from urban to rural.

On Route 17 in Southfields, New York, was The Red Apple Rest. I probably first went by there in the late 70′s. I took this photograph around 1979. The Red Apple Rest closed in 2006.

Josepth Berger at the NY Times wrote about the Red Apple Rest’s location: “What made the Red Apple so essential a summertime port of call was not so much its food as its location. Before the New York State Thruway opened in 1956, the ride up to the mountains along the old Route 17 could take four or five hours and the Red Apple Rest was almost exactly halfway. While there were three or four other pit stops, the Red Apple, watched over by its founder, Reuben Freed, became the place to go.”

I went outside tonight and saw an unusual sight (for Pacific Grove, at this time of year), the waxing gibbous Moon. It’s usually overcast here, but with the Basin Complex fire still raging in Big Sur, the current weather conditions: Smoke.

Nikon D70, Nikkor 300mm f:4.5, 1/45 sec @ f8

Nikon introduced the new D700 SLR, their second digital camera with an FX format CMOS image sensor. The sensor is 23.9 x 36mm, almost the same size as 35mm film camera.

Why do photographers want a 35mm film sized sensor? The lenses on the FX format cameras don’t have the 1.5x crop factor of the DX sensor cameras, so you can spend a lot more money getting wide angle lenses. For example, this AF NIKKOR 14mm f/2.8D ED lens on the D700 is going to be the equivalent of a 21mm lens on a DX format sensor camera.

Priced at $2,999.95 USD, the Nikon D700 is a little more attainable than the Nikon D3 at $4,999.95 USD, I guess.

With all the improvements over a few short years, the Nikon D700 is at least 10 times better than my D70.

Nikon D700 (Nikon USA) press release.

Automat, 977 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan.

I found this photograph by Bernice Abbott (1898-1991) at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery, whose image database was “developed to provide free and open online access to thousands of images from the original and rare holdings of The Library”. You can even order prints.

In the late 80′s, I ate at the last Automat in Manhattan at 42nd and Third and by then it was tired. I like the more advanced technology of Kaiten-zushi (conveyor belt sushi) anyway. You don’t have to get up to retrieve your food – kinda like dim sum without people.

5:44 PM PDT