After being frozen stiff last week, Scotland’s weather has decided we are to be lightly boiled this week 🙄
But for the fact that it also brought high winds and rain, the return to balmy conditions that might almost pass for summer in Scotland would be welcome 😂
Bear in mind the Max/Min chart has a different timescale, and is always one day behind the others – it can’t be plotted until the current day has ended 🤔
I wonder if there will something similar to post next week?
😨
I bought a couple of handy digital thermometers with fold away probes a few years ago, in a local sale.
They’ve been fine, and despite their long metal sheathed probes, are able to detect warm breath if blown on from over a foot away.
Better still, they’ll run from a AAA NiMh cell, rather than a lithium coin cell, which needs to be replaced whenever it dies. I recently bought the new version (another sale), and was disappointed when I discovered it DID want one of those things, and had lost the folding probe too. On the other hand, it still used that great sensor.
Then, one spoiled the fun when its multifunction power button started acting up – it should be: press to switch on, press again to activate the Hold function, then again to release it, and then press for a few seconds to switch off. But, the button became erratic, failing to make contact, and delivering those options at random – if it even made contact at all. I had to resist the urge to press TOO hard, and maybe damage something.
When I tried to open the thermometer to fix this, I got a couple of surprises.
First, when I tried to split the case to get inside, I (fortunately) didn’t try too hard. Expecting the usual plastic clips, I discovered it was properly made, and was held together by no less than SIX screws, which had been hidden behind the front panel that had been held in place by adhesive tape, easily defeated with no damage after a little heat had been added.
The second surprise was the type of switch I found inside.
I’d been expecting a variant of this design, which has become common in recent years inside almost every electronic device out of China, and either works forever, or fails quickly.
I don’t know how many I’ve replaced, and probably have around 100 in a drawer.
But, I was wrong, and it turned out I didn’t even need a replacement part.
It is possible to split the type seen above, and clean the contact area, which is usually the problem if it’s become contaminated – my small ultrasonic baths like to kill them, probably because of the damp atmosphere they create inside their cases.
However, in this case I found a pair of switches made from these discs.
It took me ages to find them, and almost gave up, before I spotted a pic with ‘Metal Dome Switches’. I had been trying variations on the ‘Tactile Switch’ description that find the above style.
I had expected it to work, or at least get me close, since these discs are just the switching part used in those push switches, without the supporting body.
I’m not sure what happened to the faulty one, since it was fine when cleaned and inspected, and worked fine when the thermometer was reassembled.
It looked as if a miniscule piece of dirt had landed on the dimple in the centre, preventing it from making contact when the button/disc was pressed, and all I had to do was push it off. It wasn’t even stuck to it.
I’m surprised the usual repair strategy of ‘HIT IT’ hadn’t dislodged it earlier, but it just might have been too light to be affected.
I think I was maybe also lucky these discs were not stuck in place using Kapton tape, which is often laid over them to hold them in place, together with the small locating pins on their edges. Removing the tape and its adhesive can sometimes be a hassle.
Although, if they had been assembled with tape – it could have prevented any contamination from getting under the disc.
🤔
I took a few pics of the pier built at Daldowie Crematorium a few years ago, which extend out over the River Clyde.
I was going to delete them, after checking the post I made last year, Daldowie Crematorium – River Clyde pier, until I looked at the pics it contained and compared them to this year’s.
The difference was something of a surprise. Last year’s images were colourful, presumably from a less than completely cloud covered sky.
By way of contrast, this year’s pics are just grey, and look completely different.
Although I took almost the same pic last year, I just noticed that boarded area in the foreground, which seems pointless given the fence means nobody is ever likely to stand on it – leaving me wondering if it was originally supposed to lead visitors on to the pier over the river, but they changed their mids and extended it to the right.
I think that’s a possibility, as it lay untouched for a year, or maybe two, as the build seemed to stall for a time, and I even wondered if it was going to be finished, or become another abandoned site.
I also noticed the construction technique used for the fence changes along the pier. Was this intended, or was it down to that lengthy delay I just mentioned, and maybe a different contracted finishing the build differently, using different materials?
There’s never been any official notice nearby regarding this pier, its purpose, or what activities may be carried out.
Similarly, I have the occasional look at the crematorium website, again looking for information regarding this pier.
So far, nothing seems to be mentioned.
It seems to build something as substantial as this, yet fail to mention its existence, or purpose.
With so little on the Christmas theme (and what I got arriving late), I almost missed this one that’s almost on my doorstep.
Although it’s so near, I barely saw it as I was forced to follow a different road to the shops etc, and only remembered when I saw the bright lights along a side street.
At least I was aware of the wide range of highlights and shadows this year, and didn’t have to make multiple visits to catch some shots where the Nativity was little more than a burnt out white blob, with no details to be seen.
I started out with a conventional exposure correction, aimed at taming down the brightness of the floodlight, and restoring some of the Nativity scene detail.
This was fine, but still has a very bright area – this could have been reduced further, but I noticed the processing was beginning to affect the surrounding area, so didn’t go further.
That’s normally where I would have stopped, but decided to play with a new toy this year.
I had the camera help me out with this one, although I hadn’t expected it to be useable – it’s a camera shot HDR image (in other words, not a simulation) which means it takes a number of images, and then combines them. While that’s fine in daylight, or with a tripod, when shooting low light or night shots hand held, the chances of the camera moving or shaking while those multiple shots are captured is high, especially if it decides to make a relatively long exposure.
It went MUCH better than expected/
This view has a better control of the overly bright floodlit area, AND better exposure of the area that was in shadow, and darker than I liked.
The only problem, as usual, was that I wasn’t able to stand on the centre line (the handy lamppost used for stability was just a little to the left), and I didn’t hold the camera straight, hence the bit missing at the bottom.
As noted earlier, I didn’t get much chance for Christmassy pics this year, things just didn’t go well.
I noticed quite a lot of people now start pulling down their lights/trees/decoration almost as soon as Christmas Day has passed, with scant attention paid to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, which was my guideline up to January 6th.
So, a lot of goodies went dark quickly, or just disappeared.
I noticed a little Christmas tree planted at the entrance to our local railway station a while ago, and someone added solar lights to it.
Sad to say, those lights seem to have died, and not been replaced (probably the rechargeable cell has died, but the solar cells are liable to water ingress too).
Weird pic – while the lower foreground had a lot of detail, the tree and background came out very mushy. Not out of focus, but lacking any contrast.
I found a new filter, really complicated, with lots of parameters – but surprisingly easy to view its effects as they were changed, and that is often NOT the case, with the effect sometimes being very hard to judge.
It’s one I’ll have to call up in the future (if I don’t forget about it), to see if it has more general applications, but in this case, it did a nice job of raising the tree’s branches.
I’m guessing part of the problem here was the station lighting which, from the brightness and colour, I assume to be high pressure sodium – I’m also guessing they’ve got a lifetime supply of spare bulbs in store, so it may be some time before we see LEDs being fitted here.
New for this year, or at least I hadn’t seen it before, was another (larger) tree near the entrance to the other side of the track – and this one WAS lit.
Not so much of an influence on this pic from the station lighting, which is not so dense on this side.
Looking at the two pics again, the colours seem to suggest they have HP sodium on the pedestrian paths, but LED on the platforms.
Because I tend to shoot low light and night shots hand held, I’m usually working at maximum aperture.
A change of kit means I should now have the option of not defaulting to that setting, and can try reduced aperture settings, which should increase the depth of field.
I say ‘should’.
With four test shots of the above scene collected, ending up four stops down, I expected to see some difference between shots, and I did.
The only problem was that my usual max aperture shot came out best, with the smaller aperture results apparently being no sharper, or deeper, and worse, to my eyes.
Still, that was only the first effort, and might have been affected by slower shutter speeds, although they were theoretically still fast enough to avoid vibration or shake.
I’ve been ‘collecting’ this Christmas Tree for a few years, and it’s nice to see it’s still being decorated (it’s actually planted here, and is growing).
I’ve posted these pics in the order I took them, starting off in afternoon light, and ending in the dusk of evening.
Tree in the background, not obvious if the lights are working, and some poor unfortunate Christmas Casualty abandoned in the foreground.
A little later, a little darker, and quite a different view.
Just a few minutes later, but with the image processed – hopefully improving it a little.
I never know how to properly refer to this place. Like quite a few others I’ve found, when I try to pin it down on an ordinary map, it’s just not clear.
In this case, a number of addresses give their location as Uddingston, but to me, that’s the location of Tunnock’s factory, more than a mile to the south.
It’s no help that I was standing on Baillieston Road when I took these pics.
And, although this may be a reference to the past, Glasgow Zoo, or as it was also known back then, Calderpark Zoo, was just a short distance away.
Just to add to the confusion, Daldowie Crematorium is also nearby.
One more – a number of signs around the area refer to it as Burntbroom.
One day, I might find out which one is the right one.
🙄
I recently mentioned a surprise fail on my camera’s lens, once regarded as a ‘superzoom’ lens, although it’s now ‘only’ about an 11:1 item.
I’d been evaluating some small heating boxes in an effort to counter the frustrating condensation I always seem to suffer at this time of year. Even if there’s little or no rain, my cameras and lenses seem to develop heavy condensation as soon as I step outside, and getting on a bus generally means no shooting for maybe as much as 2 hours or more, thanks to all the damp bodies on board.
The surprise had come as the lens hood/filter ring suddenly came loose at the end of the lens. There had been no warning, and I’d been using the lens only a few hours earlier, and everything was solid, yet the ring now appeared to be hanging loose, secured by only one of what I later found to be six tiny machine screws holding it in place.
The offending piece can be seen on the right in this pic. Although it’s not part of the zooming process, it gets touched every time the lens is used, since it usually starts off at its shortest length, and has to be extended.
So, I know it was fine and not sliding about when I put it in the box because I had to collapse it to make it small enough to fit.
But, an hour later when I took it out, and extend it, that ring was rattling/sliding on the end, and later found to be being held on by only one of six screws.
In this view from the front, you can see the plastic/rubber dressing ring between the wide ring holding the objective lens in place, and the threaded section where a filter would be screwed in place.
Behind that ring is a thin plastic ring, adhesive coated on each side, which holds that black ring in place, to cover/hide the six screws.
All but one of those screws were completely free of the body when I examined the piece.
I can’t really see how that happened, since the black ring and its adhesive ring sit directly on top of the screw heads, with no free space apparent above. It is conceivable there is just enough space for the threaded length of the screw to fit into what little space may exist there, should it somehow unscrew itself if, perhaps, it was not tightened in the factory. The length of thread which does engage with the body is very short, only few threads.
Whatever, it’s all back together, secured and tightened (but not TOO much).
I may watch them for a while, to see if they come loose, and use some low strength (removable) thread locking fluid, just to avoid any repeat of this weirdness. But that’s for when the warm weather returns in April. 🥵
I was mildly worried as I went on my January 1st walk to Daldowie Crematorium, as the objective lens had absolutely NOTHING in front, or to the side, no protective filter, or even filter/hood ring present.
I may try to re-use the clear adhesive ring, which may still be sticky enough, but was slightly distorted as it was removed, but may be able to be corrected to fit, perhaps with a little heat. Adhesive would be the real problem – this has to be something that is secure, but not permanent.
The black dressing ring should be reusable, but did suffer some slight marking/distortion as I was removing it, since it was blocking access to the last screw head before I could see how it was fitted. This may have relaxed itself by the time I come to try refitting it.
I doubt any of these pieces could be purchased from Nikon, although I’ve discovered I do have a local repair agent nearby. That said, I also suspect the price of such seldom sourced parts might be ridiculous.
I’ve watched the Nativity at Parkhead’s St Michael’s change over the years, from its original site at the side of the church, then onto a low roof – I’m guessing the local scum had a go at it and forced this move – and then into a protective glasshouse on the lawn, as seen below in full floodlit mode in 2024.
I hadn’t expected to see it in 2025, and didn’t, but not for the reason expected.
This was the view when I did happen to pass.
I seem to have developed a habit of snapping the first snow of the year, and this might be it.
After dawn eventually decided to make an appearance this morning, a glance outside revealed what might have been our first dusting, and I really mean DUSTING, of snow in my corner of Glasgow.
I’ve seen other pics from the opposite side of the city over the past few days and, although they’re more convincing, they’ve also just been of light dustings.
It’s definitely NOT the tail end of an early frost. Not only are various outdoor water containers, which have been frozen solid for the past few days, now sitting with lumps of ice floating in water, this chart of the current temperature shows we’re (thankfully) currently enjoying a bit of a thaw.
This was what was left in one area of pavement – it’s normally the same colour as the road in the foreground.
And this was the only roof, an unheated garage, that seemed to any similar evidence.
Although I had a quick walk around to see if there was anything else, there was nothing, and even these signs were disappearing as I was looking.
An unexpected pass through Parkhead Cross meant two chances to spot the Christmas lights – once in near daylight, and again in near darkness.
Should have had a backup for this one – focus fail. ☹
And it’s just along the road from me.
😇
Secret Scotland 