I’m going to talk for a bit about the value of focus.  Since the start of the Defenestrator, the focus has been simple – whatever is interesting to me.  The only forbidden topic is politics – which isn’t interesting to me.  Major exemptions were granted for elections and tax days, but that’s it.

The problem is that it was always kind of easy to find topics since there was no focus.  The downside is that it was sort of everything to some people – and nothing to most people.  My photography friends don’t care about pinball.  My pinball friends don’t care about my travel adventures.  My family doesn’t care about either photography or pinball.  Well, they do – but not enough to go to my blog every day.  When you know nobody’s reading – it’s tough to stay motivated to post!

Back in November I decided to focus.  I launched a new blog over at T3imagery.com to be tightly focused on being a photo blog.  The idea is simple – one photo per day, every day.  This gave me the opportunity to showcase my favorite pictures and tell a little story about them.  That way, people that are interested in that topic will continue to find interesting stuff every day.

The results?  Three months in, I’ve found it to be really rewarding.  I’ve had a nice boost in hits due to cross promotion on Facebook and Twitter.  And – in the thing that means the most – I’ve had more nice comments from people in three months than I got in five years of the Defenestrator.  It’s also challenging me to create content – one picture per day eats up your good stuff really fast!

So, what now for the Defenestrator?  I’m certainly going to keep the lights on.  It’s minimal effort to keep things running.  Honestly, it’ll probably continue to be a little more sporadic in that I’ll only create content when something blogworthy happens.  I just don’t have time to blog for blogging’s sake.  I’ll still probably post travelogues since that serves as a great way to capture memories for the future.  I’ll also probably continue to show off pinball things since that’s a big chunk of what I do.  I suspect though it’ll never be as rewarding as the focused effort I’ve got going at T3 Imagery.

So – if you lose your way – focus!

This is really unscientific.� I’m not using a tripod.� Heck, I even shot the pictures a day apart.� It’s also not fair – the 5D Mk II is about double the cost of the 40D.� But, is it 2x better?

For the test, I set both the 5D Mk II and the 40D to ISO3200.� On the 40D, I had to enable a custom function to get 3200 (shown as ‘H’ on the LCD).� In both shots, I used Canon’s superb 24-105L lens.� Here are my results:

Canon 5D Mk II @ ISO 3200

Canon 40D @ ISO 3200

Exif info:

5D Mk II version: Canon 24-105mm @ 105mm, ISO 3200, f/4.0, 1/80 sec

40D version: Canon 24-105mm @ 58mm, ISO3200, f/4.0, 1/125 sec

Clicking on either picture will open up the original (note: careful, they are BIG – especially the 21.1 megapixel 5D image!).

My impressions?� Wow, is 3200 good on the 5D Mark II.� I’d totally use that shot.� It’s clearly better than the image taken with the 40D.� The 40D image shows a lot of noise in the red portion above the Christmas balls.� The balls themselves look ‘crispy’, as does the ironwork on the 40D shot.� I gotta say though – the 40D shot looks way better than I would have guessed.

I also printed each @ 4×6 with my Canon i9900.� The shot from the 5D Mk. II is noise free and looks great – very vibrant and lifelike.� The shot from the 40D looks very noisy, even in print.

Conclusion?� At least in terms of low light performance – the 5D delivers.� I’ll be looking forward to finding out what else it can do.

The idea is this – it’s going to take the old “A picture is worth 1000 words” adage to heart.  It’s about the image, the story behind it, and way it was made.  There will probably never be more than a couple of quick sentences each day, text isn’t the point.

Here is the way it will work.  I’m going to post one picture per day posted at 8 PM.  It’s only going to be my favorite stuff – landscapes, portraits, travel shots, whatever.  It’s something that catches my eye or something I want to share with all of you.  The front page will only show one shot – but you can navigate to see the archives on the left side of the page or by the arrows on the bottom.

So – if you don’t mind – please check t3imagery.com each night after 8.  Better yet – set up a reader to get the RSS feed (available on the home page) to get the daily post delivered to you automatically.  And, if you forget how to get there – I’ve created a link on the right side of this page.  Check it out – and while you are at it, please check out some of my friend’s sites.

After 9 months and more orders from Pinball Life, Marco Specialties, Bay Area Amusements, and Pinball Resource than I care to count, I crossed the last to-do off the list of restoration tasks.

Restore White Water - playfield view

I’ve had a bunch of pesky little tasks for the past couple of weeks to resolve – like coloring the white edges of the decal with a blue paint pen.  It’s a little detail, but it really makes it look professional.  

The last task was to do something I’ve never done in pinball restoration – weaken the flippers.  Everything I’ve learned has been how to make the flippers nice ‘n strong.  This machine had the wrong flipper coils when I bought the machine – but they were okay with the worn linkages.  Once I rebuilt the flippers, the flippers turned into cannons that threatened to destroy all the expensive new plastic parts.  To rectify, I went one step weaker with the coils and that did the trick.

White Water - Upper playfield view

Pictures from the entire restoration odyssey are here on my SmugMug site: Whitewater Restoration

Either way.. here’s the footage of the mortar launch system test.  Click on the thumbnail to get the full-sized images.

Truthfully, I hate it.  But – I realized that I’m missing out on a big chunk of the Web 2.0 experience, so I’m giving it a whack.  It’s also really useful fo publicity when you are a photographer.

So – I’m trying to figure out how to glue the Defenestrator with Facebook and not having much luck.  There’s an official plugin, but it only works on blogs hosted at WordPress, not self-hosted ones.  There’s a plugin called Wordbook – but that apparently doesn’t work with the version PHP/XML (or something) installed on here.

Now I’m down to a straight RSS feed.  We’ll see if it works!

In the meantime – send me a friend request to Mark Teskey!

I’m going to briefly break ranks on my pledge to never talk about politics except on April 15th.  Since apparently the frontrunners are allowed to go back on pledges, I’m going to do the same and utter one short statement.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE, SAVE YOUR DAMN MONEY AND STOP SENDING ME CRAP AND POLLUTING MY TELEVISION.  I’LL VOTE FOR ANYBODY.. AND I MEAN ANYBODY.. THAT PLEDGES TO CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMIT CAMPAIGNING TO ONE MONTH.

Yep, one month.  That’s it.  If you can’t get your message out in a month – you either don’t really believe in it or you aren’t persuasive enough to win anyway.

Who the heck has been running the country for the past fourteen months, anyway?

Rant off.

Next up.. what’s a heavy metal medley without some Iron Maiden?  This one goes out to Henry in room 667.  He’s the neighbor of the beast.

Happy Halloween from everyone at the T3sk3y compound!

Oh.. what are the horns?  My good friend Hilary will be happy to demonstrate:

Throwin' the horns

 
Today’s video of the day?  DIO!