Kodak Vest Pocket with Kodak Portra 160

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Here's another roll on the Kodak Vest Pocket camera -- this time with Kodak Portra 160 print film in it.  I think we might have a winner.  Despite all the shots being totally light-leaked upon, this film really seems to suit the li'l guy.  The true winners are the indoor shots, where I had to make multi-second exposures.  The color is just fantastic, and the leaked light only adds character.

This roll was a single-variable experiment.  I'd taped over the window that shows the frame I'm on.  It looks more like the light is leaking in along the panel that opens to let you load and unload film rolls.  I'm gonna keep the frame window taped up, and I'll also tape around the panel for the next roll.  I just ordered more Kodak Portra 160 .. so it'll take a couple weeks to get the next batch of experiment data back.

Setting up FTDI (for XBee) on Mac OS X

My awesome brother and I have been playing with XBee radios for the past few days.  Darned near all of the programming interfaces -- and fancier breakout boards -- use a USB-to-FTDI serial translator.  I've got a new Air here that doesn't have the drivers installed yet.  So, since it took a minute or two to determine what I needed, here's my quick outline for the next time:

• You want the Virtual Comm Port (VCP) version of the driver.
• Plug in.  See if Terminal.app shows the new cu and tty devices, with `ls -l /dev/*usbserial*`
• CoolTerm seems to be a nice terminal emulator.  (ZTerm still works, for the old-skoolers!)
• (Thanks to Building Wireless Sensor Networks for suggesting CoolTerm.)
• Plug in USB .. to FTDI translator .. to breakout board .. to XBee radio.
• XBees ship with 8N1 serial at 9600 baud.  Set your terminal emulator accordingly.
• XBees don't echo your input, so turn on Local Echo in your terminal emulator.
• In the terminal emulator, type "+++" to get into command mode.  XBee will reply "OK."
• Continue building your robot army.

You don't actually need CoolTerm or ZTerm, if you don't mind that `screen` won't do a local echo.  If you're okay with typing blind, a `screen /dev/cu.usbserial*` command should work just fine (as long there's only one usbserial device connected at a time).  Crafting a one-liner that fakes local echo is left as an exercise for our new robotic overlords.

DS18B20 Temperature Sensor on Arduino

I just got a DS18B20 temperature sensor from adafruit, and it took a little sleuthing to get it working.  There are a few sources of sample code, but none of them tell you how to wire the silly thing in the first place.  I eventually got it.

I downloaded and installed the Dallas Temperature Control Library, then I used tushev's wiring diagram to hook it up to an Arduino Uno.  The "Tester" example that's included with the library confirmed that everything was in one piece.  Hopefully that helps, if you're in the same boat..

Two Rolls on the Kodak Vest Pocket

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I got back the two rolls we shot on the Kodak Vest Pocket Autographic camera.  One's Efke R 100 black and white.  The other is Rollei Crossbird 200 color slide film.  I think I like the character of the color roll, which is a new brand to me.  I'll need to try some in another camera to see how much is the film and how much is the camera.  It looks like it's the film.

As you may have noticed, there's a bit of a light issue going on.  The baffles on the thing seem to be in one piece.  The shutter also looks pretty good.  The design of the Autographic model includes a nice wide door on the back .. so I might be taping over that for the next roll.  And the window for looking at the frame number is generous.  Plus, it was a very bright couple of days.  It's also really hard to get the film in the camera in the first place.  (Now I'm just making excuses.)

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With the handful of variables, this is gonna be a really interesting experiment.  Testing one of the easier theories first, I'll use a changing bag for the load and unload of the film.