Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Nightmare on Queen Street

OK, I am exaggerating a bit, but what happened this morning is every city cyclist's nightmare of the second order -- A car door that suddenly open right in front of your path.  What's worse than this, is the door on the driver's side, because you will fall, and fall on the street, and you could get hit by cars coming from behind.  This morning, a car door opened at the exact moment that I was about to pass it.  I had zero time to react.  My bike hit the passenger door, and the front wheel was so warp that it wouldn't turn.  I had to hold up the front wheel and dragged the bike to the shop.  Luckily, I was riding a very light bike.

The person who opened the door is a gentlemen.  I won't pretend I didn't swear at him inside when I realized I was on the floor.  But, he was very apologetic, and genuinely concern about my fall.  We exchanged information, and he would pay for the the cost of the repair of the bike.  Many people would just try to avoid any and all responsibility.  In any case, the handle bar hit my upper left arm and my right rib.  There is a huge bruise on my arm and my rib hurts like hell when I cough, laugh or sneeze.  Again, my helmet probably saved me again.  If you bike, please wear a good helmet.  If you drive, please do look before opening the door, especially when parked on the street.

Back to gears.  Soulnibbler wanted to see the picture of the focusing helicoids.  You can see it below, along with the 17-31mm mounted on the 75mm f2 lens plus a bonus sample picture :-)

M42-mount helicoids: 12-17mm on left, 17-31mm on right.

17-31mm helicoid on the Taylor-Hobson 75mm f2 with the c-mount adapter. Click to see larger


Sample picture -- NEX-5 & Taylor-Hobson 75mm f2 TV Lens.

4 comments:

  1. Truely a gentleman driver, glad your alright. Im also a big fan of the helmets.
    http://dchristianson.blogspot.com/2010/04/kuddos-to-giro.html
    Ive always been puzzled by the photos from overseas in such bike freindly cultures where nobody wears a helmet, go figure.

    Love you site here, thanks for all the information.

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  2. Thanks Daniel. Even in bike friendly countries, I think a helmet is a must. You never know when something might happen!

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  3. Yeah riding without a helmet is just dumb.
    So you convinced me (well and my dealer having an El-nikkor 135f5.6). I'm getting the helicoid, what I don't quite get is how you are converting from m42 to nex(without adding a ton of space). Would you mind illuminating that for me?
    Thanks

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  4. @soulnibbler, I will write up another post on how I use the M42 mount helicoid on the NEX. I was considering it last week and I think it will be good for other people who might be interested.

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