These Christmas light came out well

I wish I could take ALL my Christmas light pics so they came out like this one.

Although I did play around with the final appearance of this image, other than things like contrast and detail, I cancelled just about everything related to colour (and even levelling, which I usually get wrong) that I explored.

I could, possibly, have raised the overall exposure and brightened the whole image, but I have come to prefer darker night shots rather than fall back into what I think used to be my bad habit of overdoing the exposure.

If I’m doing night shots I like them to look like night shots.

If I want a bright night view for some reason, then it will be because I think it looked better that way.

Plus, I’ve also discovered that the black background of this theme tends to raise detail in dark pic backgrounds, and making things brighter can lead to the effect being overdone when the pic is viewed.

Chance processing find suggests burnt out white Christmas lights MIGHT be recoverable

The last few Christmas light posts seemed to suggest that while processing might tone down the glare, recovering any details from their burnt out whites was not an option.

That might not always be the case.

While playing with the pic below, I was sad to find the lighting included an overly bright circular feature in the middle of the window, which just seemed to be a mass of burnt out white pixels. I could lighten/darken it, but those edits didn’t suggest there was anything to recover.

Other than that, once I had removed a blue cast that covered the image, I was fairly happy as it came with some decent detail.

Then I came across an unused tool.

I have two colour balance tools, each with different options, and best described as ‘scary’, thanks to the long list of options offered under each, and variations that can be applied to each.

On this occasion, I tried one of the slightly hidden variations, and reverted to the usual method of learning – just start randomly sliding all the sliders around and see what they do.

Surprisingly, as I moved one, I noticed detail appeared in the midst of the white ring in the window, something I hadn’t managed before. Hopefully you can see it with the Click to enlarge option.

I soon discovered I’d been lucky to spot this, as retracing my steps showed that this only happened in one small section of the relevant slider’s movement, probably only amounted to about 5% of its travel, Everywhere else, the result of moving that sliders was completely useless, and either made the burnt out area worse, or made it falsely darker.

Notably, this is the first time I have EVER recovered any detail from an area I saw to be a burnt out area of peak white.

I’ll have to try to remember this one, and how narrow its effect is.

Note

I did go back and try this edit on the similar ring seen in the pic posted a few days ago.

However, that ring was really very bright, and was completely burnt out so I didn’t expect it to work.

It didn’t, not even a bit.

Note for the note

I’ve had time to try this ‘find’ on a few other pics, and have to bring the sad news that it is NOT the magical fix I thought it might have been.

In fact, other than that one pic where I spotted the effect, I haven’t been able to obtain the same result on ANY similar pic I tried to reproduce it on, so have to conclude it was just a lucky strike on that pic, and what it had captured.

Bright Christmas lights and haze – not ALWAYS a disaster

I didn’t think this was going to look good when it was viewed, but the bright circular feature threw out so much light it brightened so much of the surrounding area that it was possible to tame it down without ruining the pic.

It cast a haze over the image too, but it was also so wide that the dehazing tool was able to kill off most of that as well.

The rendering of the decoration at top left is interesting, with the bells (I hope they are bells) appearing to be an intense black, something I didn’t notice at the time.

Might amble back later, for a second look at that.

I was surprised, as that bright decoration on the door was completely burnt out, and the glare almost hid the door behind. However, although the burnt out ring couldn’t be recovered, it was possible to recover the door behind.

Angles and fences – a Christmas light headache

After grumbling about one wrought iron fence getting in the way of a pic, I found another one.

From a distance, this looked like a nice display, but getting closer didn’t help, as there was no way to avoid the fence getting in the way and hiding some of the lights.

Another issue appeared when I checked the pic, as this one’s on a corner, so the house and the wall are not parallel, so one or the other ends up lying at an angle, and it just doesn’t look right since one or the other will not be in line with the framing. It looked terrible with the wall running off at an angle.

Nothing horribly bright this time, but I think this looked better when seen from the side, but couldn’t stand back far enough to catch it all.

Time for a crazy Scottish weather update

As usual, our lovely Scottish weather is going crazy.

A few weeks ago i (foolishly) made a post showing how summer was over, on the basis that we had two frosty nights in a row, only for the temperature trend to do an about-turn, and generally get WARMER every day since.

That post first chilly post was made just after I had to replace the batteries in my weather station’s sensor module, as the sudden cold had caused the temp and RH sensors to lock up, although the wind and rain sensors had carried on quite happily, just to confuse me.

Another spectacular remote weather station sensor battery fail

These graphs carry on after those in that previous post, and show how the weather is, as usual, out to make me look stupid, and contradict what I said.

First, a look at the outside (and inside, just for fun) temperatures, which managed to hit +16℃ yesterday, after -2℃ last time I commented.

Note how we’ve also had a couple of storms since then (with Storm Bram being the most recent, an visible in the chart below), with yesterday’s gusting over 30 MPH (probably more, since I’m sure my numbers are low). Although I didn’t know that was the peak, I happened to look at my sensor, and the pole was shaking like mad. I’d use a lighter pole than usual when I remounted the thing, and had planned to tie a length of scaffolding pole to it, just to stiffen it. I’d used that for the mounting last time, but it was a hassle to raise and lower, hence the lighter pole, which is in two parts, and makes maintenance a LOT easier.

I nipped out and tied the scaffolding pole to the ‘new’ 2-part pole, and noted that the addition made a significant improvement to the stability.

Previously, it had been shaking so much in the gusting wind that I wasn’t sure if the rain sensor was accurately reporting the rain. I’m sure it wasn’t raining at the time (since I had to go out and add the pole stiffening, also a significant mass increase), and would have remembered if I had also been soaked as well as blown about.

The sensor is a tipping bucket or seesaw arrangement, and I’m sure the pole was oscillation hard enough to cause the seesaw to rattle up and down, producing false readings.

This is the daily Max and Min temperature (note the timescale is slightly different – this graph is generated from a different source), but both show a horizontal line where the temperature sensor had frozen when the battery voltage fell.

Not only the days have got warmer, the nights have joined them!

At the moment, it’s very odd to step out at night, look up to see stars in a cloudless sky, and NOT also be FREEZING!

I like simple Christmas light pics

Following on from yesterday’s pleasing (for me) Christmas lights pic, since it didn’t have any over bright white LEDs, I came across one.

Seriously, it’s nice to process a low light pic that only needs a few seconds works to tweak the highlight and shadows, rather than what feels like hours trying to calm down burnt out areas of white, and shadow areas that hide little, if any, detail because the bright white areas knocked the exposure so far back.

Again, the house’s porch light, although bright, didn’t spoil the darker areas, and my only real moan with this one was the wrought iron fence, which I couldn’t avoid.

Not sure if I was right to leave the shadow areas in darkness. The did have detail that could be raised, but I thought it was better to leave them dark, to emphasise the decorations.

Life is much simpler without over driven white LEDs

If you looked in for a while, you may have noticed my complaint about how some manufacturers have engaged in a ‘Brightness War’, where they are over driving white LEDs, presumably in order to win more customers among the unwitting buying public, who are suckered into the buying what amounts to the biggest Bang for their Buck, or the highest Lumens per Pound when they buy white LEDs.

Unfortunately, they’re unaware that this makes their lamps VERY inefficient, and vastly reduces their life. The early figures of anything from 25,000 to 50,000 hours have been left in circulation, and were genuine, but are now fantasy, as more recent devices get all hot and bothered, and are failing in times more like the incandescent lamps of old.

I have to make this point, as I’m sure there will be many ‘Internet Experts’ jumping to use these early failures as justification to back their mindless claims that “LEDs are junk”.

If you’re not aware of how this practice is the exact OPPOSITE of what should be done with LED lamps, search online for articles and videos about DUBAI LAMPS.

Christmas lights are easier to photograph with ‘normal’ LEDs

This is the first pic I’ve taken this year with LEDs having what I would refer to as ‘normal’ brightness, as opposed to over driven whites.

It was a pleasure to process it, and find the buildings, shadows, and sky could all be seen without any extreme filtering applied to bring any of them into view.

Bright as it was, even the bright house light by the door was easy to tone down and avoid it burning out that area of the image.

Did you spot the ‘dead’ reindeer?

On the left of the group on the right.

Power cut – TOO CLOSE for comfort?

This was just supposed to be a quick post about how digital clocks have changed over the decades (yes, I did say DECADES).

But the context changed after I went for a walk the next day.

The red digits up top are on the first digital clock I built fairly soon after the first Nat Semi MOS MM5314 clock IC was released – and it’s still working fine today. However, it doesn’t have any sort of battery backup, hence the difference in time between it and the lower display.

I hadn’t even thought to check as it’s the last (only) truly mains powered clock I still maintain.

Everything else is battery, or is powered by a 5 V USB type supply, and has battery backup, not forgetting radio control in many cases, plus GPS in all my watches.

There’s a nice article about a clock project from 1974 which was featured in Elektor (magazine), but I made my own board.

Circuit: The MOS Clock 5314

I had been playing with the idea of building a digital clock from TTL or CMOS logic chips, it’s fairly straightforward, but never got motivated, then this chip really simplified things. All you really had to do was add 13 switching transistors for the display, and a few other bits (plus a case) and the job was done. Now, of course, the whole thing just lives in a black blob on the back of the display.

Surprisingly, I pre-empted the now common ‘wall wart’ power supply, and mounted the mains transformer remotely, so I could use a case little bigger than the display and board carrying the components.

If only I’d thought to patent the design 😢

It was interesting to be reminded of this clock IC family in this comment on the article:

Back when I was a co-op college student at National Semiconductor I built a similar MM5314 clock on my own PCBs. I used a packaging reject part which didn’t look pretty but is still working fine today, as are those original LEDs. FWIW the MM5314 is just a different bond out of the MM5311 chip, as are the MM5312 and MM5313. One chip, 4 products. Back then I was told by the chip’s designer that the impetuous behind the chip’s development was a major communications radio manufacturer who wanted a digital clock to go in their dispatch consoles.  

Below it is a more recent acquisition known as a Dementia Clock, with a graphic LCD.

These show day/date/time together with an indication of whether it is night or day, in this case evening. It will show things like pre-dawn, morning, or afternoon as appropriate. They can also offer numerous alarms and alerts, such as reminders to eat and drink, or take medication. Others include an analogue clock face in the LCD as well.

Sadly, they’re often horribly over-priced.

In a time when clocks like this can be produced for a few pounds, specialist ‘medical’ suppliers charge unsuspecting non-technical buyers anything from £20 to over £100, because America loves charging a fortune for anything that can be classified as ‘medical’.

Although the image renders the display with a blue background to the white figures, it looks black to the eye.

Power cut

So, I was watching a video on a laptop in the evening when the room went dark. I have to admit I didn’t realise what had happened at first, since the laptop just carried on working from its battery, and the video carried on too, since these are cached in memory.

This wasn’t helped by another clock I have which, although battery operated, lights up automatically when it’s dark, so was also ON along with the laptop when the power failed. This one is impressive, as it manages to stay lit every night for almost a year, powered only by 3 x AA cells, and is radio-controlled too.

But, when I looked around the room and noticed my mains power analyser was dead, as were clocks similar to those above, the power fail was obvious.

The good news was I barely had time to fetch one of my nice bright portable LED lanterns before it was restored, although when I eventually looked outside I was surprised to see half of the street was still in darkness some 20 minutes later.

Less than 100 metres

It looks as if this was an underground failure of some sort, and less than 100 metres from my house.

When I went out for a quick walk the next evening, I found the adjacent street had been dug up for about 15 metres, and had expected the small print on the signs to be for some broadband work, but when I got closer and read it, it was an apology from the company that digs holes for electricity cable repairs.

I know that hole wasn’t there the day before, and it was already being filled in, and ready to be tarmacked.

I wonder if there was anything to see when it blew, or if the breakers are fast enough to prevent that?

There would have been plenty of power as this is only about 100 metres from our substation, and my mains supply voltage seldom fall below 250 V.

Given the hysterical way ‘Internet Electrical Experts’ have fits over any supply in excess of 240 V, you would think they couldn’t understand that for decades (since the 1990s), the UK’s mains supply has been set at a nominal 240 volts, with a tolerance of ±6%, meaning anything between 226 and 254 volts is acceptable.

Nearly thirty years later, the UK’s Distribution Network Operators (DNOs), through the Energy Networks Association (ENA), are consulting on the next step: to fully align with the European voltage standard of 230 volts ±10%, giving a working range of 207 to 253 volts.

The current UK standard uses a tighter lower limit of −6% (216 volts), so the proposal would simply extend that to −10%, creating a little extra room at the bottom of the range.

However, I feel sure the Internet’s many ‘experts’ will just focus on the ±10% aspect, ignore the nominal voltage figure, and continue to have fits and alarm everyone else by claiming that the mains voltage will be fluctuating ‘wildly’ at that figure, rather than the ±6% that used to apply, and all their ‘old’ hardware is going to burst into flames, burn down their home, and kill them.

Enjoy 😂

More Christmas light problems

It’s beginning to feel like every Christmas lights pic I take has some sort of problem.

This one’s near enough OK for colour, but if you haven’t spotted it, has issues with relative brightness.

While everything left of centre and below is reasonable (even the sky manage to make an appearance), the upper right is ruined by a glowing Santa hanging from a balloon – you can’t even see them ☹

This one really needed video – note the Santa with his cute little reindeer in the centre, just to the right of the very underexposed tree (its lights were actually decently bright to the eye, but the bright item caused it to be knocked back, and look darker than it was).

Santa is waving, and the reindeer’s head is tied to his hand, so is nodding along with it.

I might try for a video revisit.

In fact, I shot this scene with underexposure, knowing I could raise details from the shadows, but even that didn’t prevent Santa and his balloon from being completely overexposed, and burnt out.

Here’s Santa and his balloon on their own, properly exposed.

A view which would have driven the rest of the scene into darkness.

Statue of Prometheus catching lightning

The Soviet era may have been problematic, but one thing it did leave behind was some amazing architecture and sculpture.

Sadly, much of the architecture has been abandoned and fallen into decay, having been created as showpiece features forming part of that era’s propaganda. Once the system collapsed, they had little or no actual purpose, and were too costly to maintain.

The same fate has befallen a number of sculptures, while many of the purely political statues were quickly torn down, for obvious reasons.

However, a number have been more fortunate, and survived.

Such as this piece, Prometheus catching lightning, a statue created by Constantin Popovici as a symbol of electricity, installed above the Vidraru Dam in Romania. It was completed in 1966 on the Argeș River and created Lake Vidraru.

Completed in 1971, the stainless steel figure stands some 10 metres tall.

While there is a fair number of pics floating around of this figure, I had to dig a little deeper to find out where it was in relation to the dam.

Note the lighting conductors mounted on top, a nice touch 😊

Find it at Number 2 in this list of 50 non-boring design and architecture items – which somehow manages to squeeze in 145 items.

From Amazing To Downright Scary, These 50 Design And Architecture Decisions Are Far From Boring

Here’s Scotland’s attempt, almost hidden in Glasgow

Prometheus has a statue in Scotland.

Installed a little over 20 years after the Soviet Romanian example. I’m afraid it just doesn’t have the same presence ☹

By chance – Prometheus Sculpture find

The cycle lane a car got lost in

While the Internet may be handy for publicity (for some people), there is an associated downside, when somebody spots something that’s probably quite innocent, but decides to run to the media and try to make a point, just raise hysteria.

I believe I spotted one such ‘incident’ a while ago, just after the new cycle lane was opened on Hamilton Road, where it continued to join London Road.

At the time, a media source (which I remember the name of, but will not name and humiliate, since their reporting probably provides too many such opportunities, and I’d never be finished) got hold of a video clip showing a car driving along the cycle lane, and the reporter made all the great noises of ow dangerous this was, and showed how arrogant car drivers were.

They failed to mention the inadequate signage at the start of the lane, making it hard for a driver who was unaware of the newly opened lane before to realise what they were approaching.

I’m more surprised there was only ONE such incident, or were there more, but nobody noticed, or had a smartphone handy?

Anyway, it’s time to clear these pics of the start of the cycle lane as it then appeared at a set of traffic lights controlling this junction with Daldowie Road, showing the vague signage presented to someone turning right into Hamilton Road from Daldowie Road. I don’t think there’s a similar issue for someone already on Hamilton Road, as they’ve already been diverted to the right lane by the older cycle lane still present to their left.

I know, I SHOULD have an updated/current pic of this junction, and the entry to the cycle lane, but I just haven’t been able to get back for one.

I’d like to say better signage was present, and I think there is, but I just can’t remember, and the current latest Google Street View is too old to be any help.