Using the revived Lumix

 Having successfully revived the Lumix, I thought I'd put it to work to see how it went, using my super cheap Temu lightbox

For this exercise I thought I'd try photographing some coins as in this 1850s English halfpenny

or in this pair of Italian 50 centesimi coins - one from the 1920s with the classic design harking back to the glories of Imperial Rome, and the other from Mussolini's Italy in 1941, with a far more aggressive Fascist design

Photographing coins can be tricky - they are small, fiddly, and getting the contrast right to show detail can be difficult. 

Sometimes, playing with the contrast and exposure settings can help bring out detail as in the tweaked photograph of the Italian coins or this equally tweaked George III half penny

On the whole, the grubby tarnished British coins came out alright after a little fiddling as in this comparison shot of a pre and post 1860 recoinage Queen Victoria penny

(and yes, I will need to reshoot it as I've accidentally cropped the edge of the post 1860 coin) works quite well, but not so much with the more reflective Italian coins (stainless steel and cupronickel respectively)

What I did find is that the Lumix is lighter and easier to use than the Finepix I used to photograph postal covers, it doesn't produce such a high resolution image - good enough for photographing bottles and similar small artefacts but really at its limit with an item like a coin.

and of course there's a question as whether a camera is really required, as in this quick and dirty phone picture of a post and pre 1860 recoinage penny.

However, on balance I feel the revived Lumix is going to be a useful extra tool, being lighter, hand held shots in less than optimal light should be easier, such as in Lakeview, and indeed when photographing things like manufacturers labels on the base of items.

Reviving an old digital camera

 A long time ago, 2006 in fact, we bought a Panasonic Lumix in Schiphol airport's duty free store.

When we had been to Laos the year before we had noticed that the world had suddenly gone digital, something, that as we both had good quality film cameras, had passed us by,

So we bought the Lumix as an experiment, and never looked back.

In time, we acquired other, newer, more sophisticated cameras and simply stopped using the Lumix, and it languished in a cupboard.

Yesterday, I found it at the back of a cupboard. Now, I’ve been thinking about getting a small light DSLR for survey work, rather than the waterproof/drop proof point and shoot Nikon I use at the moment, and I wondered if the Lumix might do the job.

First of all could I charge it?

At some point we must have replaced the battery as it was a third party unit, so after a scratch around in my box of e-stuff I found a charger from the same people that had supplied the battery, and a check on their website showed that I had the correct charger for the battery.

The original charger had a European style two pin plug and at some point we must have bought one with an Australian plug - I have no memory of this or why we did so, And then, at some later date we must have bought a replacement battery from the same people.

Anyway I could charge it.

The SD card had long since disappeared, and that’s a problem. The maximum size that the old Lumix can handle is 2GB - obviously later models can take higher capacity cards.

However ebay was my friend, it turns out there’s a trade in either recycled or discontinued stock smaller SD cards and 2GB units are relatively easy to get  - 1GB are a bit more tricky to track down.

However, first things first, did the camera actually work - well in my box of e-stuff I found a 16MB SD card - that’s right sixteen megabyte that had obviously been living in my old Cool-er e-reader judging by the content.

A quick wipe of the contacts with some isopropyl alcohol - being married to an artist who has a slightly frightening array of solvents in her studio has its advantages - and a reformat.

Then into the camera, and a quick picture

I’m sure that no-one’s really interested in my work backpacks but it proved that the camera worked.

So, I ordered a 2GB SD card still in its original packaging from ebay. It’ll be here at the end of week and will give me an opportunity to put the camera to work.

[Update 30/07/2024]

Well, the 2GB SD card arrived a couple of days later than it should - more due to AustraliaPost's inefficiency rather than any tardiness on the part of the supplier.

I popped the card in, powered up the Lumix, and it recognised the card, and said I had space for 652 images, which sounds about right, so I reckon we're ready to rock ...

Using the Temu lightbox

 You might remember that a few weeks ago I bought a cheap foldable lightbox from Temu.

Incredibly basic, but then it cost me less than $25. I hadn't really had a chance to use it seriously until this afternoon, when I used it to photograph some Victorian postal ephemera I've acquired - really to illustrate talks and the like.

I thought I'd better put them in archive grade storage sheets rather than acid free paper bags in a heavy book to keep them flat, which is where they've been up to now.

So this afternoon, I had some fun photographing them, putting them in archive grade storage sheets and making up little record cards for them.

To photograph them I used my big, if old, Fujifilm Finepix digital camera, and I'm pretty pleased with the results

as in this black bordered 1861 mourning envelope.

Gemini on Victorian tin hat boxes

 A month or so ago, on a complete whim, I tried to get Microsoft CoPilot to write an article on Victorian tin hat boxes, with mixed results.

Well, Google's been touting Gemini (formerly Bard) as an alternative to CoPilot, so I thought I'd give it a go.

This is what I got

A Timeless Touch: Victorian Tin Hat Boxes

The Victorian era (1837-1901) brimmed with innovation and style, and even the humble hat box wasn't exempt. While leather hat boxes were certainly popular during this period, tin offered a unique combination of affordability, durability, and even a canvas for artistic expression. Today, Victorian tin hat boxes are coveted by collectors for their historical charm and decorative appeal.

Functionality and Form

Tin hat boxes were prized for their ability to protect delicate hats during travel or storage. The metal construction offered a sturdy barrier against crushing or damage from external elements. Unlike their leather counterparts, tin hat boxes were often lighter and easier to transport. Manufacturers capitalized on this by crafting them in various sizes, accommodating everything from towering top hats to wide-brimmed ladies' hats.

A Canvas for Victorian Design

Victorian tin hat boxes transcended mere functionality. Many were adorned with intricate graphics and patterns. These designs reflected the artistic sensibilities of the era, with floral motifs, geometric shapes, and even brand logos gracing the tin surfaces. Wealthier individuals might have commissioned personalized hat boxes with their initials or family crests.

Collecting Victorian Tin Hat Boxes

Today, Victorian tin hat boxes are prized possessions for collectors. Their historical significance and artistic value make them desirable additions to any collection. When searching for these treasures, keep an eye out for well-preserved boxes with vibrant paint and clear markings. The presence of a brand name or logo can also add value.

Beyond Storage

Even if you're not a hat aficionado, Victorian tin hat boxes can add a touch of timeless elegance to your home. Their unique aesthetic makes them perfect for storing keepsakes, jewelry, or other small treasures.

A Connection to the Past

Owning a Victorian tin hat box is more than just acquiring a decorative object. It's a chance to connect with a bygone era where style and practicality went hand-in-hand. These boxes embody the spirit of Victorian ingenuity and serve as a reminder of the importance of preserving craftsmanship and timeless design.

Definitely better, 6/10 rather than the 4/10 I would have given CoPilot's effort, and it did come up with one idea that hadn't occurred to me - that tin hat boxes were both lighter and more durable than the traditional wood and leather ones, just as tin trunks were lighter and more durable than the massively heavy early Victorian wood and leather travel trunks.

The results still read a bit like a marketing puff, and unlike CoPilot, Gemini does not quote its sources, but it does read better and could be used as supporting material  in an exhibition about nineteenth century luggage ...

Working in Wodonga Library

 Our new car was due for its 1500km service - the complimentary one where you take it back and they check that nothing has fallen off and it's not started leaking fluid from somewhere it shouldn't.

This had to be done at the Hyundai dealer in Wodonga as that's where we bought it from, so off I trotted this morning to Wodonga.

Now, Wodonga in winter doesn't exactly scintillate. In summer the area round the old train station tries to be funky with cafes and gelato bars but in winter it has all the appeal of a down at heel light industrial park, and the rest of the town is not that much better.

Wodonga lives in Albury's shadow, and we're as guilty as anyone in preferring Albury over Wodonga.

What Wodonga does have is a shiny newly refurbished library, and what's more it's only a ten minute walk from the Hyundai dealer, so I thought I'd try it out.

Well, there's no getting away from the fact it's a library, but it does have a casual area with sofas and tables, a couple of rows of carrells - really more like open plan workstations than the good old coveted university carrells like the ones on the top floor in St Andrews North St Library and doubtless elsewhere - housing the public access computers and a long bench, as well as a couple of alcove type areas for people to sit and work on their own laptops.

The areas were well used, the chairs reasonably comfortable, and amazingly there were power sockets, basically one per seat. No USB sockets to plug in an ipad, tablet, or phone, but they did have good old three pin 240v sockets.

The wifi was one of these portal based solutions and slow to login, but once logged in, performance was adequate if not lightning. Good enough to work on a Google Docs document and to  add a pdf to Evernote, as well as the usual email and website checking.

I'd deliberately taken the Windows based laptop that I use when travelling as a lowest common denominator machine rather than my Chromebook or either of my Linux machines - that's an exercise for another day perhaps.

However, would I use Wodonga Library as a workspace between meetings?

Almost certainly. While there's competition for laptop work areas, on the day I visited there were just enough, though there might be a different story in the run up to school exams, but the desks and chairs were comfortable, and better thought out than Albury City Library where they provide large worktables but for some reason no power sockets...

Accessioned!

 I've been working on accessioning some t-shirts at the Athenaeum, and today I finally completed the accessioning process. It should have happened last week, but I came down with a nasty flu and had a week off.

I'd previously added catalogue tags to those items where it was possible to easily attach an acid free luggage tag, but that left the neoprene stubby holder, a baseball cap and a t-shirt.

I'd initially thought of adding a cotton cataloguing tag to the stubby holder, but settled for simply writing the number on the base of the object in artefact in classic cataloguing style.

That left a baseball cap and a t-shirt.

Fortunately we had some suitable unbleached cotton tape in our supplies box, so the first stage was to make the labels

using a Pigma archival quality brush pen.

Then I attached the two labels with cotton thread using a very simple stitch making them easy to remove if required

using black cotton thread. I could claim that I used black thread to make it clear how and where the labels were attached, but in truth black was the only colour that I had to hand.

(There's an argument that perhaps I should have used unbleached cotton or linen thread, but preservation quality threads are not readily available locally and it's possible to be too precious about things - after all the items are either polycotton or chemically dyed cotton and not sewn with archive quality thread.

It would of course be a different question if the items were delicate and genuinely old dating from either the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.)

The labels were folded over at the ends and then folded in half making a smaller and neater tag - something I thought would be important if the items ever ended up on display as it would be easier to hide the tag.

Strangely satisfied with the result and I've learned a lot along the way about the accessioning process for fabric and similar artefacts ...