Digital Ninja® 6/29/20 Digital Ninja® 6/29/20

Working Remotely

I am used to working remotely. I've been doing it since 2000/2001. Around that time, I had just moved to California. My place of employment was a Tile place in Florida and I was the brochure, Pricebook, and website guy. My claim to fame was my scanning and color correction ability. I used to put the tiles directly on the scanner and color correct using the tiles themselves. It helped the company immensely because the image color was a lot closer to the actual tile color. I would painstakingly work in Photoshop to get the image color correct. My Boss appreciated me so much, that when I told him I was moving to California to go to USC, he kept me on and said I could work remotely. It was awesome and nearly drove me insane. This was way before the high-speed Internet that we have now.

I am used to working remotely. Moving my entire computer around in a crate isn’t something new to me. I've been doing it since 2000/2001. Around that time, I had just moved to California. My place of employment was a Tile place in Florida and I was the brochure, Pricebook, and website guy. My claim to fame was my scanning and color correction ability. I used to put the tiles directly on the scanner and color correct using the tiles themselves. It helped the company immensely because the image color was a lot closer to the actual tile color. I would painstakingly work in Photoshop to get the image color correct. My Boss appreciated me so much, that when I told him I was moving to California to go to USC, he kept me on and said I could work remotely. It was awesome and nearly drove me insane. This was way before the high-speed Internet that we have now.

My meetings were conducted via Netmeeting on a 320p Webcam! It was so slow and clumsy. Setting up a meetng took damn near 10 minutes. One of the hardest things to get used to was the time difference of 3 hours. I had to be up and running at 5 am for an hour of prep work between 8am-9am. What made me excited to get up everyday was the fact that I could earn a paycheck in Florida while in California. I was actively trying to get better at remote working. The process of it all pushed me into mastering it. I wanted to get my workflow down pat. Ultimately, what did me in back then was upload and download times. There was no way around moving the amount of data I needed to move. I was working with large photo files, trying to capture all of the details contained in the tiles themselves.

My office on-location. I even took my monitors with me!

These days I’m working off of a FIOS connection and have amazing capability to transmit any of my projects whether they be large format photographs or even 4k Video. With Zoom getting so popular, it has reinvigorated my meeting game. So much so, I’ve skipped over using my computers built-in webcam. I’m using lights with diffusion, a usb mic, and my mirrorless camera to make the image and sound come across impeccably on the other end. It’s been a trip. A legit trip. Does that make me sound internet ancient? I remember dial-up! If you don’t know what that is, look it up. It’s mind boggling to think how far we’ve come in being able to transmit large amounts of data. Additionally, if you have an internet/satellite USB dongle, the extraordinary capabilities of being able to work remotely almost anywhere in the world. I’m glad I had those early experiences early in my career because they gave me the confidence and expertise in being able to coordinate projects. We literally can overcome the obstacles of Space & Time.

- Digital Ninja®

Digital Ninja® 4/23/19 Digital Ninja® 4/23/19

SONY 35mm 1.4 E-Mount DIY FIX

I had a problem with my Sony 35mm 1.4 OSS Lens and figured out what the problem was. Read my blog to figure out how to do it yourself.

So I kept having problems with one of my favorite lenses, the Sony 35mm 1.4 OSS E-Mount lens for my A6500. I use the lens a lot for close-ups and portraits. It started happening around Christmas. The lens just wouldn’t mount properly. It would just show “F - - -”. I wasn’t able to control the aperture at all. We were back home in MD visiting family and I wasn’t able to take the more intimate photos like I wanted. I used my 18-105mm and 10-18mm instead, but it just wasn’t the same. I was missing out on the low-light capabilities and all the bokeh! I searched online, fired off an email to B+H (where I purchased it from) and sent another letter to Sony describing my issue.

The metal lens mount is held on by 4 small screws.

Through my research, I found that it happens to a lot of people. As (the total opposite of) luck would have it, my warranty had already run out. It ran out right around Christmas time. I had an important shoot coming up and rely on my Sony lenses and the auto-focus to shoot on my gimbal, the Moza Air. So instead of waiting to hear back from anyone, I decided to try and fix it myself. I gathered my little screwdriver set and other tools and took my lens apart.

I was nervous but I really believed I could fix it and the screws made it look really easy being right there. The screws came out fairly easy and I made sure I was really careful not to strip them, while also keeping track of them in the rear lens cap. Once I took the back off, I noticed inside that the ribbon connecting the contacts to the board had somehow gotten loose. On a Monday at the Sony factory somewhere, somebody probably was still hungover from the weekend and didn’t snap it in properly. Maybe the robot at the factory isn’t applying enough pressure when pushing the clamp down.

Here you can see where the clip is located and the loose ribbon cable; the problem.

Connecting the ribbon back was cumbersome, but you can do it yourself. There is a small clip that holds the ribbon in. This issue is definitely a quality control issue. The only way that clip could have come undone is that not enough pressure was placed upon it. I honestly feel bad for all the people that had this same problem and gave up on the lens, threw it in the trash, or paid a ridiculous amount of money to get it fixed. That’s why I wrote this.

The ribbon seated properly and snapped closed with ribbon clamp.

This fix might not work for everyone. Of course some people might have dropped their lenses or there may be water damages, but if you get the “F - - -” notification, this might work for you. I have read a ridiculous amount of information about this online and there weren’t any other ideas that seemed to fix the issue. If someone you know has this problem, please share this.