TractionMan's Random Reflections

Just some random photos...

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 11:56:00 +0100

As the title says, just some random photos from a random walk with the camera before work the other day.

Unboxing: iOptron Skytracker V2

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Thu, 27 Feb 2014 13:34:00 +0100

I've decided to explore widefield astro photography a bit more this year. So to get past the limitations of a fixed tripod I invested in an iOptron Skytracker V2 with the intention to make both still photos and time lapse videos. Just got it yesterday but the weather forecast doesn't look too great for the time being. So I'll have to wait for a while to be able to try it out. But at least I made a silly little unboxing video just for the hell of it. :)

Astro Time Lapse

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 22:58:00 +0200

It's been a long while since I've made a video, at least for this blog. About time! I've been concentrating on my (swedish) photo blog lately, so this one has been a bit neglected unfortunately. But I will try to keep it somewhat alive at least.
And the video? Well, I'm very hooked on astronomy and that's something I've been for a few years now. Last night I rigged my DSLR to shoot images continuously in an attempt to get some of the Perseids (meteor shower) on fram. Unfortunately this didn't go as planned. I did see eight Perseids, but they were not in the direction where the camera was pointed and after three hours the clouds came rolling in and pretty much ruined the attempt. However I thought I'd try to make a time lapse video with the 342 images I got during the night. There are quite alot of activity in the sky anyway such as aircraft and satellites (and those cursed clouds of course).

Oh and beware of the "ghost"!

Venus Transit 2012!

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 06:46:00 +0200

I stayed up late last night to make filters to view and photograph the Venus Transit. Made filters for my binoculars and 100-400mm zoom lens, using Baader AstroSolar Safety Film. Messed up a bit when I made the filter for the camera lens by getting glue on it. Tried to clean it as best as I could before it dried, but didn't manage to get it all off. The pics didn't turn out that bad anyway. Had a blast watching the event, which was prio number one. The pictures are a bonus. Please click on them for a larger version.
Will post a filter making video soon. Now I'm back to bed!

Unboxing the Skywatcher Heritage 130P

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Fri, 1 Jun 2012 12:06:00 +0200

What? Another unboxing video?! Oh well I can't help myself. Havn't made a video for quite some time now so I thought this one had to do. ;) I've spent this past autumn and winter gazing at the stars, moon and planets using a pair of inexpensive 10x50 binoculars (Celestron UpClose). In fact I've also been able to see the Orion Nebula and the Andomeda Galaxy as well as the comet Garradd. Although very, very faint. To me, that's really amazing. Anyway, I thought it was time to get a first telescope and I chose the Skywatcher Heritage 130P since it's got really good rep. I've read lots of good stuff at stargazerslounge.com, my now absolutely favorite astronomy forum. Great people over there, lots of knowledge and eager to help out noobs like myself. By going there, it got alot easier to decide which telescope to get.

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Wed, 6 Jul 2011 10:39:00 +0200

TractionMan goes Geocaching!
Geocaching is another hobby mine. So I brought the camcorder on a little cache hunt last week right after work. With the goal of finding a particular cache called "Double bridge" that I've been wanting to find for a while. It's not a difficult one, just hidden in an odd but fun place. Yeah, yeah I know, I'm not a hardcore geocacher. :)
Anyway, don't worry about spoilers in the video. I won't show the actual hiding spot of the cache.
If you're curious about geocaching, just visit www.geocaching.com and find out all about it.

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:56:00 +0200

Panasonic HDC SD90 - Random Test Footage!
Have to admit that I've been a bit lazy with the video editing lately. But here it is at last, the random test footage video, shot with the Panasonic HDC SD90, all shot in 1080p mode. Not an extensive test video, just a few quick test shots slapped together to see the video quality of this nice camcorder. Had to slow down a couple of clips because they were too short. Most was shot in automatic mode as well. I've shot a bit more since this footage though and so far I'm very happy with it. Great camera for the money in my opinion.

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:46:00 +0200

Unboxing the Panasonic HDC SD90!
Got my new camcorder quite a few weeks ago, but I havn't had time to edit this video until now, sorry about the delay.
Have never really understood the purpose of making "unboxing videos" so I thought I'd make one myself just for the hell of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing all you folks who make them. After all, making videos is supposed to be fun, so I guess it really doesn't matter what they're about. And yes, I had fun making this video. Mission accomplished!
Have a nice day!

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:50:00 +0200

Spring flowers in the garden!
Ah! Nice weather at last. Got my camera and macro lens out to explore the garden. Didn't bring my tripod this time so these pics were all hand held. Not easy to shoot macro hand held with the narrow depth of field that comes with it. Had fun though and that's what's important.

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:25:00 +0100

Murphy's Effing Law!
When I decided to start making videos again, I got struck by Murphy's law. Something just HAD to go wrong. Take a look at this clip to see what that was. However, it's not all bad news, it actually brought something good with it. That's also in the clip...
Go ahead watch it! Unless you don't want to of course. I'm not forcing you to watch it. Oh well, you do as you please.

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Wed, 9 Mar 2011 11:11:00 +0100

Guess what?

This sad excuse of a blog is about to come alive again. So is my YouTube channel, although it's a slow progress at the moment. Please be patient, here will be videos very, very soon.

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:13:00 +0100

New video: A noob on stilts!
Finally made a video again! Thought I'd try to use YouTube to publish it this time. I hope it works:

And here's the video as a wmv file.

Runtime: 3 minutes, 58 seconds.
Format: Flash (YouTube) and WMV.
Size: 8.2MB (WMV)

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:38:00 +0100

New project: Jumping stilts!
Ok I'm really lazy when it comes to posting on my blog. Shame on me, I'll try (once again) to improve it. Anyway, I got some new fun and somewhat dangerous toys to play with - jumping stilts. I only have a few pics to post right now, but I'll try to post a video as soon as the weather gets better. I'm kind of a noob on stilts since I've only had them for a month or two and havn't had much of a chance to practice.

So, here are the pics:

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 00:05:00 +0200

Just some bird shots...
Nothing special, just a couple of photos of Whooper swans (and a Canada goose and a Greylag goose). I missed quite a few shots today but these two turned out ok I think. At least they were the best of all the crappy ones I got. :-)

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 03:20:00 +0200

No this blog/vlog isn't dead!!!
The thing is that I've been more interested in photography for a while now. That's why I havn't made any new videos. Actually, since I'm interested in both videography and photography, I think I'll use this blog for a little bit of both. Just to get started again, here's a crappy photo of a Blue tit:

Hey I didn't say I was good at shooting stills! But I still like to do it! LOL!

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Tue, 8 Nov 2005 04:12:00 +0100

New video: The Halloween Experiment
This was supposed to be quick test to make an animated Halloween video. I got a little carried away when shooting it (with a digital stills camera) and I ended up with 717 photos. Then I had quite alot of work to do in Photoshop editing just about every one of them. However I had to throw away quite a few of them when editing the video because of all the mistakes I made, so the final video contains 439 stills. It didn't turn out to be such a great video (it was better in my head), but I had a lot of fun trying and it was a great learning experience. Besides, I got more ideas I want to try later.

Runtime: 1 minute, 7 seconds
Size: 5MB
Format: WMV

More Halloween vlogs can be found at: Halloween VlogFest 2005

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:23:00 +0200

New video: At the zoo
A trip to the zoo usually provides plenty of opportunities to get some fun shots of the animals. Well, apparently not on this particular day as most of the animals where either sleeping or hiding. I guess I had more fun running around with my DSLR than with my videocamera instead. Oh well got some moving images with sound at least. :-)

Runtime: 2 minutes, 5 seconds
Size: 9.7MB
Format: WMV

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:01:00 +0200

New video: Oh no, it's me!!!
A quick test of an idea I got a while back. Black and white movies are fun, split screen and matting can be fun as well. Ok so I forgot about a few details, but I probably spent less than 15 minutes to make it. As I said... ehm, wrote, this was just a quick test, but I'll try to put some more work into this idea for another video later on.

Runtime: 1 minute, 14 seconds
Size: 5.7MB
Format: WMV

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 06:47:00 +0200

First video: Wind Driven
Here it is, my first video! Parakarting/kitebuggying is a great way to get the adrenaline going. Three wheeled buggies (or karts) powered by big kites are alot of fun. The footage was shot during some of our (Team Wipeout Sweden) yearly trips to the danish island Römö.
The guy in the black full face helmet is me.

Runtime: 3 minutes
Size: 14MB
Format: WMV

noreply@blogger.com (Stellan Johansson) — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 06:07:00 +0200

First post!!!

Ok, so now I've finally done it - started my very first videoblog. Or at least I'm about to (no video just yet). I have spent the past few weeks checking out some really cool/fun/weird/etc videoblogs and it seems like a lot of fun and I felt that I just had to give it a try! Actually I signed on to Blogger.com in january to start a regular blog but I soon got bored with it. But then I found out about videoblogging and since I like to mess around a bit with videocameras and video editing it got interesting again. Well I'm not good at editing video, but hopefully by starting this vlog I can get better.
Anyway, enough typing. Now it's time to post a video!