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gerenm.photographyWell-nighBlog Galleries Music Contact Menu 701 Franklin Avenue Westminster, MD 21157 (443) 691-2616 the images, words, and music of geren w mortensen jr Your Custom Text HereWell-nighBlog Galleries Music Contact When Ultimate is not so Ultimate August 22, 2018 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. It's really disappointing when a visitor known for premium products falls down. But that seems to be exactly what's happening at Ultimate Support Systems. Just over a year ago purchased Ultimate's Apex AX48-Pro-Plus dual-tier keyboard stand (pictured here). The Apex is a good-looking stand, and I'd owned one many years ago. The one I had previously was built like a tank, and so, I had every expectation that this one would be, too. Upgrades over the previous model included a stabilizing foot on at the player side of the base, and an zipper point for a microphone boom, which is included in the "plus" model. As with the original version, the feet fold smartly into the marrow of the stand, and the support stovepipe fit neatly into slots in the top of the column. Full of unconfined expectations, I received the Apex and immediately put it to use. I had just joined 7Souls, and had decided that I was going to need to use two keyboards with the band, and that my Ultimate V-Stand with a second tier wouldn't really do (the V-Stand.was flipside disappointment, but I'll write well-nigh that some other time). My setup then was a Roland V-Combo VR-09 on top, a Casio Privia PX310 on the bottom, and I built a custom pedal workbench to fit over the wiring to hold sustain and volume pedals, as well as a TC Helicon Voice Mechanic pedal, and foot-switches to tenancy OnSong. Everything was fine and dandy, until a few months in. I was packing up without a rehearsal, and grabbed the stand by it's handle to flip it over to fold up the feet. As I turned the stand over, the handle tapped off in my hand, sending the stand crashing to the floor.Unlike my original Apex, which had a very nice, solid handle made of metal, the new Apex sports a plastic handle, held in place with plastic clips that indulge it to slide up and lanugo in the columns inside track, and its position was locked with a thumbscrew. The strain of picking up the stand and turning it over had rationalization the plastic zipper points to shatter. My solution was to mumble a bit, and use a pair of self-tapping machine screws to nail a sturdy metal handle from the hardware store. It doesn't retread like the old one did, but it's not letting go any time soon. But I do wish that I hadn't had to do that. And, in fact, I shouldn't have had to. Further, if the part had been made of metal, I wouldn't have. Fast forward to last month, setting up for rehearsal. I'd set the stand in place, and was setting the Korg Kross 2 88 on the lower tier, when I heard a snapping noise, and saw something kind of scoot wideness the floor. Thinking I'd dropped something or knocked something off the pedal board, I wilting lanugo and discovered that I hadn't dropped anything. Instead, the leveling foot had snapped off the base.Close inspection revealed that the plastic zipper point had broken. It appears that a captured nut had pulled right through the plastic locking plate, self-glorification out the front side. I haven't had time to come up with a solution for this problem just yet. It'll probably involved drilling and tapping the post for a 10-32 thumbscrew, which is what Ultimate should have washed-up to uncork with. In the meantime, I'm having to wedge the foot in place and strap it on with gaff tape, or wedge under the wiring of the stand to alimony things steady -- or pretty much whatever it takes to alimony the stand from falling over and spilling my keyboads onto the floor.As if all this wasn't enough, last Friday night at a gig, the mic tattoo failed. It's no longer possible to tighten the tattoo unbearable to alimony it from sinking under the weight of a microphone. It's really worrying when trying to sing and play, and the microphone is slowly sinking into the keyboards -- no matter how tightly I zombie lanugo on the locking handle. Fortunately, I have an old AKG telescoping tattoo arm "in stock", so I won't have to spend a permafrost of transpiration to get flipside decent one. Then again, without only a few months of use, I shouldn't have to.As I said at the top of this missive, Ultimate once made the ultimate stand, but I think that's no longer true. Unfortunately, they still tuition a premium price, while relying increasingly and increasingly on plastic where metal should be.I'll protract to use the Apex, at least for a while (click here for a post that shows a picture of the rig). But I'll be on the lookout for something better. X-stands don't work well for me, as I like the two tiers to be unappetizing and relatively tropical together. Z-stands a tremendously sturdy, but folded/disassembled, they are unwieldy and take too long to set up and tear down. I've had a couple variegated designs of A-frame stands from Ultimate, when they were good, and Standtastic. The Standtastic was okay, but a bit unwieldy to set up and it tended to slip virtually a bit. What's your favorite, gig-worthy stand? Let me know in the comments. I'm lookin' for something!   In music, product tests and reviews Tags Ultimate, Apex Pro Plus Comment Pixel2ated November 22, 2017 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. On November 10, 2017, I did the scrutinizingly unthinkable, and switched from an Apple iPhone 6s to a Google Pixel 2. There were a number of reasons overdue the decision, but senior among them was the superior quality of the Pixel 2's camera. Most of the other functions are pretty much like any modern phone -- it makes and receives calls and texts, and you can surf the web and waste time on Facebook.I chose to go with the "standard" size, with 128GB of on-board storage, as I alimony a lot of music and photo files on my phone most of the time, and I've widow a Zagg screen protector and the new Moment Pixel 2 specimen and their new Tele lens (so far).The camera really is amazingly good, expressly given how physically tiny the thing is. The detail, noise, and verisimilitude are all excellent, and the images hold up quite well to editing in my favorite mobile app, Snapseed (available for both Android and iOS), and the mobile version of Lightroom CC. Although I haven't used the feature, it's plane capable of shooting raw files. Stools detail, Pixel 2 camera Auto HDR+, cropping and slight adjustments in Google Photos. The pictures I've taken so far have been JPEGs with the standard camera, and without the Moment Tele lens. I have played virtually with a few of the special features -- notably the Auto HDR+ and Portrait modes.Auto HDR+ yields very good results most of the time. There's lots of detail in the shadows without much noise, and the overall effect is quite natural. The Portrait mode often does a nice job of rendering fake "bokeh" (defocused backgrounds) virtually the subject, although it is possible to fool the AI, with some odd results. I'll write increasingly well-nigh that flipside day.I've widow a new gallery, moreover tabbed Pixel2ated, for images made with the Pixel 2 (go figure), that you can visit to see my new exploits in mobile photography.My only complaint well-nigh the Pixel 2 is that there's no headphone jack. Most of the time, this isn't really a problem -- I can connect to one of my cars' radios via Bluetooth, and there's a USB-C to audio connector that comes in the box. Unfortunately, the connector doesn't indulge for powering the phone while it's plugged in, which can be problematic on long trips if I want to use Google Maps for navigation and listen to Spotify or a podcast. On my daily commute, which takes well-nigh an hour-and-a-half, I can hands eat up 15-20% of my battery.The Pixel 2 moreover doesn't have iMessage or Facetime. The seated text app is pretty vital and struggles with group MMS messages, so I've been fooling virtually with alternatives (so far, QKSMS is my favorite). For a Facetime replacement, I found Google's Duo, which is self-ruling and cross-platform, and seems to work just as well as Facetime. I think Facebook Messenger has a similar function. And, of course, there's moreover Skype, which works on anything.The marrow line, without well-nigh a dozen days, is that I don't really miss anything well-nigh the iPhone. A big part of that is considering of how wipe Android is on the Pixel, I'm sure. It runs smoothly, and pretty much everything just works, which I could no longer say well-nigh a number of functions in the iOS world.Maybe next, I'll find myself a Chromebook.... In photography, Tech Toys, product tests and reviews Tags Pixel 2 Comment MomentSpecimenand Wide Lens -- First Impressions November 19, 2015 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. The specimen for my iPhone 6S arrived today, and I thought I might share a little well-nigh it. It's not the stereotype case, you see. It's from a visitor tabbed Moment, and it's part of a system that includes the phone itself, three optional lenses (wide, tele, and macro), and the Moment app. The concept is really pretty neat. In wing to protecting the phone, the specimen has a bluetooth "shutter" sawed-off that works in concert with the app to make a camera that acts a lot like ... a camera. In it's most vital operation, you hold the phone pretty much like a regular point-and-shoot camera, and half-press the shutter to autofocus and set the exposure. When you're happy, follow through and click. Neat.The specimen moreover has a special bayonet mount that takes a lens. I got the wide lens with my order, and it is supposed to injudicious an 18mm lens on a "full frame" digital camera. So far, the lens seems very sharp, and attaches firmly to the mount on the case. Lenses can be used without the specimen and with any camera app you like, and they include a mount plate for subtracting the lenses to cameras without the Moment Case. I requested a mount for an iPhone 5, so I could try it out on one of our older iPhones.The only thing I don't like well-nigh the MomentSpecimenis that the shutter sawed-off doesn't work with other camera apps. 645 Pro does work with unrepealable other triggers, so I could see it stuff worldly-wise to support the MomentSpecimenin the future, and I wouldn't imagine it would be too nonflexible to get other camera apps to work, too. In photography, product tests and reviews Comment Fujifilm X-T10 and 35mm f/2 WR First Impressions October 23, 2015 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. image I had the opportunity to shoot with the Fujifilm X-T10, and the not-yet-available 35mm f/2 WR lens for several hours today. In general, I really liked the combo. Although I had my X-E1 and 18-55mm f/2.8-4 OIS with me, I did not swap the lenses virtually today. I may sign out the lens then tomorrow, and see how it responds on the X-E1.X-T10Like my other commentaries on gear, I'll be staying yonder from the tech specs, and will transiently describe my impressions of the gear in use, starting with the camera itself.The first thing I noticed well-nigh the X-T10 was that, while the soul is tiny, it still feels really good in my hands. It tends to finger a little worthier than it unquestionably is, and this may be in part to the very solid construction. The layout and finger of the primary controls doesn't hurt, either -- they're in the right places, and often finger really solid. The exception might be the little writ wheels, which I think turn and printing just a little to easily.The camera was loaded with the very latest firmware (possibly pre-release) so that it would work with the 35mm f/2 lens. Autofocus was quite fast and often quite accurate.  I would say that focusing performance was largest than the likes of a Canon 70D. One thing I found odd was that face-detection didn't seem to want to work on vertical shots.As small as the camera is, the electronic viewfinder was large and bright. Lag was barely perceptible.The only thing, for me, that would be largest would be either an X-E3, or the full "version 4" firmware update stuff made misogynist for the X-E2. If neither of those things happen, the X-T10 would be the camera I'd upgrade to.35mm f/2 WRThe 35mm f/2 is a unconfined match for the X-T10. It's small and light and fast. It's moreover simultaneously super-sharp, but with nice, linty bokeh.The wile of view is what is considered to be a "normal" lens on an APS-C sensor, and it acts surprisingly like I remember a 50mm f/1.8 lens vicarial on a full-frame camera. I think I like this lens largest than the wondrous 35mm f/1.4 I looked at last year.The 35mm f/2 definitely goes on my shopping list once it becomes available!Okay, so, unbearable words. Here are a few snapshots, taken at Photo Plus Expo. These are pretty much straight from the camera, with minimal touch up using Photos on my iPad Air 2. Sometime tomorrow, I'll try to post a few pictures relating to some other specific products I've been interested in for some time. In product tests and reviews Tags 35mm f/2 WR, Fujfilm, Photo Plus Expo, Photo Plus Expo 2015, PPE2015, X-T10 2 Comments Westone ES49 Custom Fit Hearing Protectors July 16, 2015 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. Some months ago, I mentioned that I had ordered a set of Westone ES49 custom fit hearing protectors. I've had them now for several months, and I thought it would be a good idea to unquestionably follow up and let you all know how they're working out. To quote Tony the Tiger, "They're great!" I'm quite happy that I had the fitting washed-up professionally, as both ES49s fit me like a glove. They're well-appointed enough to wear for hours on end. The standard 15db filters have so far been unobjectionable (sometimes increasingly than adequate) for my needs, reducing plane the loudest sounds to a much safer level. There is very little ousting of the sound, with maybe only a little roll-off in the upper frequencies. Power Project rehearsals -- and gigs -- can get quite loud, and the ES49s have been a godsend. I our current rehearsal space, my right ear is naturally somewhat protected, but my left ear bears the full brunt of the drums, bass, and lead guitar, as well as the vocal PA. Subsequently, I usually wear the left protector fully inserted into my ear. Depending on what's going on, I can either not wear the right one, or have it only partially inserted. I would recommend hearing protection to anyone who's in a band, or working in loud environments, and the Westone ES49 is a unconfined nomination for those who want a high-quality, custom-fit solution, but don't want to spend a huge value of money. In product tests and reviews, sounds Tags ES49, hearing protection, Westone, Westone ES49 4 Comments Mamiya-Sekor 55mm f/1.8 First Shots at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum June 19, 2015 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. This afternoon, on the way to a weekend visit to my parents', we stopped into the reversion wend show at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels. I thought it would be a unconfined opportunity to try out a lens that's been in the family since it was new ... in 1968 or so. I'd actuallly been contemplating something like this for a while, and so early in the week, I ordered the towardly connector to mount M42 thread-mount lenses to my Fujifilm X-E1 camera. I think the total forfeit with tax for the connector was well-nigh $12. The lens in question is a Mamiya-Sekor 55mm f/1.8, which works out to the "equivalent" of an 82.5mm f/2.5 on the Fuji's APS-C sensor. My thought, based on seeing some results from flipside old screw-mount lens, was that this would be an spanking-new portrait lens. I didn't shoot any portraits with the lens today, but I did try a variety of other shots, some of which are shown here. There's minimal processing here, since I'm interested in showing the capabilities of the lens/camera combination.Well-nighall I've washed-up is yield and make the most vital of exposure adjustments, all within the Photos app on my iPad Air 2. I really enjoyed shooting with this setup today. Focus, of course, is all manual. Two things contribut to achieving sharp focus with relative ease. First, the Fuji has very good transmission focusing tools -- a 10x zoom on the EVF, and unexceptionable focus-peaking, which in most conditions makes it scrutinizingly untellable to miss the mark. Exposure can be either full-manual or aperture-preferred automatic, and is moreover quite easy to control. The Fuji EVF can be set to automatically recoup for the transpiration in aperture, and correct the splendor to exhibit something very tropical to the final image -- including depth of field. The EVF plane looks good when the ISO is pushed up for working in fairly visionless conditions, though it does get a little laggy in low-light, upper ISO conditions. Of course, all this fun and enjoyment becomes merely an acedemic exercise if the image quality isn't acceptible, and I'm very happy to say that I'm very happy with the results. The lens is amazing, expressly considering its age -- somewhere in the neighborhood of 46 years old! It's sharp, and relatively self-ruling of flare. The bokeh is lovely. The unrelatedness is nice, and the colors are good. There is some visculent when very unexceptionable objects are versus very visionless backgrounds, but it's not objectionable. As I mentioned above, my thought going in was that this would be a unconfined portrait combination, and I'm really looking forward to trying it out for that. For those interested, full-size images may be seen in this tome on my Flickr stream. In galleries, photography, product tests and reviews Tags Adapter, CBMM, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Fujifilm X-E1, M42, Mamiya-Sekor 55mm f/1-8, x-e1 3 Comments Samson Concert 88 Handheld Wireless Microphone -- Initial Review May 4, 2015 Geren W. Mortensen, Jr. I recently ordered and received a Samson Concert 88 handheld wireless mic system, based on my experiences with Samson wireless mics many years ago -- and without consultation with Carson, my Sweetwater sales rep. I contacted Carson first, considering I wanted to personize that Samson still represented the kind of value that they did in the past. Of course, I'm relying on the opinion of a sales rep, but my wits has been that Carson has unchangingly answered my questions with my weightier interest in mind, which is part of why I've been dealing with him for over eight years now.Unstipulatedobservations: I must say that, for the money, I am really very impressed. While this is certainly not at the level of a $1000, nor plane a $600, wireless system, it certainly represents a fantastic value. It sounds good and so far, it works well. Here's Samson's product overview video: [embed]https://youtu.be/YFwY2ihUpWw[/embed] Samson Concert 88 systems are misogynist in hand-held, guitar, lavaliere, and headset versions. What follows are the observations of a somewhat jaded live sound engineer and musician who's been at this for over 3 decades. My review is based on my initial unboxing, and using the system while practicing with my band, which tends to play a little too loud in a space that's too small and is acoustically horrible. We'll be taking the mic out live this weekend, so at some point, I'll have some follow-up thoughts. Before the review, I should probably explain why, without all my warnings well-nigh UHF wireless systems (see my comments here and here), I decided to buy one. The FCC has unveiled their current plan tent UHF wireless spectrum, and it seems that the 500MHz wreath will remain untouched for at least flipside few years. 600MHz goes on the vendition woodcut very soon, if it's not already, and we'll soon be in the 39-month transition period. So, as long as I chose carefully, I could be unpreventable of getting at least 5-6 years or increasingly of service out of my investment, by which time 2.4GHz systems should be mature and well priced. At the price of these systems, plane if I bought 4 of them, I'd come in under the price of a single mid-grade wireless system, and get the same usable life, at the forfeit of a little flexibility. I'm good with that. So, on with my "review." First, the good. Setup is super simple: power on the receiver and, using the SET button, select a channel. Then, power up the mic with the shower imbricate off, point the IR dot in the mic at the IR dot on the receiver and hold the SET sawed-off on the receiver until the LED starts flashing. Let go of the SET button, and wait for the ready light to come on. Then, put the battery cover on the mic, vaccinate up the cable, and sing. Speaking of singing, the sound quality of the Samson Q6 microphone is quite nice -- I think largest than an SM58, if only considering it doesn't have that huge proximity effect that the SM58 does. Our singer's vocals were crystal clear, no matter what he did, and harmonica really cut through brilliantly. Feedback rejection was very impressive as well -- plane with the volume at uncomfortable levels (I wear my Westone ES49s at all practices!), we didn't wits any feedback. We didn't notice any weird RF issues, like dropouts or strange noises or pops, but again, we were in our practice space, and the receiver was no increasingly than well-nigh 15' from the singer. With that said, I usually prefer to have my wireless gear on stage, as opposed to out in the house, so I'll usually have this fairly tropical to the performer. The outputs virtually the when are both well-turned XLR and unbalanced (TS) 1/4". I doubt I'll overly use the unbalanced output, but it's there. The XLR output has good level, and the signal is nice and clean. This next one may seem minor, but for me, it's a thing: The antennae are on the squatter of the receiver instead of the back, which makes it easy to mount in a rack without worrying well-nigh where the antennae are positioned. So, what are the downsides? What didn't I like? The receiver specimen is plastic all the way around, so don't waif or throw the receiver The level tenancy and buttons finger a little chintzy. The antennae are non-removable, so if the swivel or an antenna breaks, it ways the receiver has to be sent in for repair. Since the antennae are non-removable, you can't use a single pair of antennae for multiple receivers. The included rack mount is moreover plastic, and feels fairly brittle, so superintendency will required when mounting the receiver to stave cracking the mount. The mic is a little increasingly susceptible to handling noise than some other, increasingly expensive wireless mics. It's easy to unwittingly hit the mute switch on the mic. Samson doesn't include a mic stand clip. There are only 16 channels per frequency band, and there are currently only two bands misogynist for the US/Canadian market. One of those bands is in the 600MHz band. The power supply is a wall wart, and it's slightly too fat to indulge side-by-side placement on most power strips. The marrow line: Am I happy with my purchase, and would I recommend this to a friend? In a word, yes to both, but with caveats. I wouldn't use the Concert 88 system on a national tour considering of the construction and limited number of frequencies. But for local bands, DJs and karaoke, houses of worship and schools, or anyone on a tight budget, the Concert 88 series is a unconfined deal. Just don't throw the receiver virtually like you would a typical guitar stomp box, and I'm sure everything will hold up just fine. The marrow marrow line: Would I buy another? At this point, yes. In fact, I plan to buy at least one more, and possibly as many as three, as my nearly non-existent upkeep permits. In product tests and reviews, sounds Tags microphone, Samson, uhf, wireless, wireless mic, wireless microphone Comment Older Posts → Featured Dec 28 Dec 28, 2018 – Dec 29, 2018 Phillips Pub & Grill 7Souls at Phillip's Pub & Grill Dec 28, 2018 – Dec 29, 2018 Phillips Pub & Grill Dec 28, 2018 – Dec 29, 2018 Phillips Pub & Grill Subscribe Sign up with your email write to receive news and updates. First Name Last Name EmailWriteSign Up We respect your privacy. Thank you! Powered by Squarespace