About Jon Leirdal

A sociable geek with some artistic interests.

Only a flash and a macro lens

Posted on 2012-04-09 by Jon Leirdal

The last day of Easter turned into a rainy, gray day here in Drøbak. So in-between cleaning and doing the laundry I found the time to play around with a flash and a macro lens. I did not have that many motives, but two flowers, a cat and a bag of fruits and nuts held my interest for a while. After some fast manipulations of sliders in Adobe Lightroom, I got the following results.

Light from behind

Orchid in black and white

See-thru orchid

Curious cat (or should I say nosy)

Cat eye - in colours

Fruit and nuts

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

Common Cranes

Posted on 2012-04-08 by Jon Leirdal

In Sweden there is a lake called Lake Hornborga (Link in Swedish). For some years now this lake has become famous for its annual visit from thousands of cranes migrating from Africa to Norway and Sweden. Two days before my visit they had a new record with more than 26.000 birds staying the night by the lake.

I visited on a sunny but cold April day. The wind blew quite hard and I had bit of a hard luck, the cranes did not come very close to the viewing areas, but kept to themselves down on the fields. If I am going to visit another time I’ll probably try to rent a tent or a small bird watcher cabin down by the lake, and plan for a longer stay. This time I just stayed for an hour or two.

There is quite a history to this lake. About 100 years ago they tried to drain the area and change the swamp and wetland into agricultural land. They have tried to restore the lake to its former glory now, and by dumping several thousand kilos of grain down by the lake every day they have created a haven for migratory birds.

Anyway it was quite an experience to watch, I would recommend it for any nature interested person.

Here are some of the pictures I took (and one that my girlfriend took of me). Remember, you can click on all the pictures to see them in a larger size.

Overview to the North West (extra large)

Cranes dancing

In flight

As close as I got

Battle of the great birds - obviously some swans do not like cranes.

A stroll by the waterside

A lot of birds

Swedish landscape

Big wings

Look I am jumping

Not only cranes

Me in the cold wind

Here are some galleries that are better than mine (Link in Swedish)

Other Resources
Expedition Hornborgasjön
Aftenposten Reise
Web cameras
Common Crane (Wikipedia)
Lake Hornborga (Wikipedia)

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

Another day lost in the mist

Posted on 2012-03-18 by Jon Leirdal

We have had a lot of foggy weather around here lately. I managed to grab my camera and go for a little walk before it disappeared though. In Drøbak where I live there are several old and abandoned military sites, one of those is Seiersten fort. You can still find some old cannons there. They do no longer work of course, but they still look a bit threatening. Especially when they loom in the grey mist, and the fjord below is hidden from the view.

Lift me up

Ready ... aim ...

Fire!

Pointy foliage

Even the plants around this place have their hard edges.

Posted from Drøbak, Akershus, Norway.

An iPad 1 with a forward facing camera … and with 128 GB memory?

Posted on 2012-03-06 by Jon Leirdal

When I write this the supposedly new iPad 3 might be released in about one day. In honour of that event I would like to share some pictures of another similar device.

Not an iPad 1

I do not buy pirated products, but occasionally I get to see what other people have found out there. This is one of those times. I recently got the opportunity to see a device that supposedly was an iPad 1 with 128 GB memory, a built in camera and what seems to be an SD card reader. “What the …” you say? Where might one find a device like that? Well, China seems to be a safe bet, and in this case it is the truth as well. In the sake of anonymity we will just say that the owner of this device visited China last year and found this device in a market in Beijing. From a distance and while turned off it looked like an iPad and it was cheap. It even was packed in something with a superficial resemblance to the real packaging. Now after the bargain had been struck and he arrived at the hotel to check it out he found a few strange things. It had a separate charger pin input. The regular iPad connector could be refitted with an adapter that made it possible for the device to connect to a regular network cable, an USB cable and (updated, see below) ~~several other cable types~~. All in one adapter! That was kind of neat. Oh and it ran Android!

Not an iPad running Android version 2.2

Android? On an iPad?

Yes …. and no. This is of course no iPad. It might look like one but the there are several things that these images do not tell. Among else it is made of plastic, and feels cheap. Another tell was that it stopped working after a week. Now it only gives you the startup logo and then nothing happens.

But as a curiosity it may now live for a long time on the internet.

Not an iPad with more than one connector

Not an iPad with 128 GB memory

Not an iPad - backside

Not an iPad with a forward facing camera

Update 2012-02-06: I managed to take a few pictures of the included dongle as well. I remembered slightly wrong though, It only has two USB ports and one ethernet port available.

iPad dongle

Posted from Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Misty air

Posted on 2012-02-20 by Jon Leirdal

Winter fog

I am not sure if you have ever considered that weird thing that surrounds us everywhere we go. The air around us. The atmosphere. This thing that we very seldom bother noticing.

There are moments when the air and what it means to use is more visible than other moments. Fog is maybe one of the most obvious ones. The weird fact that misty air can reduce the visibility to such a degree that we lose detail and color, in fact so much that we might get lost in our own well known woods.

Here are a few photos I have taken of fog over the years. I have a couple of misty images from Venabygd as well.