Quick Strap

The Quick Strap I ordered from China five weeks has finally arrived.  It came with a metal plate that screws into the camera tripod mount.  The metal plate is quite thick (I think 2mm thick), although a bit sharp--they should round off or sand off all the edges.  The metal plate then connects to the strap via a carabiner.  (The connection is not where the tripod mount is but rather, on the end of the metal plate, close to the left side of the camera.)  The carabiner has a screw lock that prevents the swinging arm from moving.  Here, quality is not great either.  The screw lock is a bit rough to turn.  Well, for $20, you get what you pay for.  I don't own a Rapid Strap but I'm sure the Rapid Strap is better built than this but the Quick Strap will serve my purpose well.

After some length adjustments of the strap I have now a new way of carrying my camera around.  Like I said, I don't like the Nikon strap.  It gets in the way of handling the camera.  This Quick Strap is better, but it needs some more design work.

Cleaning the print head of the Epson Stylus 1280

The following is from a website at http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/hardware/7324-problem-getting-quality-prints.html

The original article came from http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/cone_ts/cleaning.htm

I am quoting it here just in case the website goes down:

DRIPS OF EXCESS INK ON THE PAPER DURING PRINTING
(cleaning the underside of the printhead, printhead cap)
In general, paper dust and lint accumulate on the bottom of the print head and in the print head cap.

NOTE: Paper towels are made with many levels of quality. Some really fall apart when wet and this type is not recommended. There are many possible substitutions here, for example, you could use photo wipes, lint free cloths etc. We tend to have rolls of paper towels available next to the printer, and an ink sogged paper towel can be thrown away easily. Use common sense, and what ever material you think best. Some people have reported success using a foam paint stick to scrub under the print head, and these can be cleaned after use. Use your ingenuity.

PROCEDURE - TO CLEAN OFF THE BOTTOM OF THE PRINT HEAD
SMALLER DESKTOP PRINTERS (760, 800, 850, 860, 1160, 1200 ETC.)

1 - Press paper button for 4 seconds, the print head should be to the left.
Note: Some printers have a special button for this purpose.

2 - Pull power cord

3 - Tear paper towel in 1/2. (A full sheet is too thick when folded).

4 - Fold paper towel and lay it in the black plastic channel below where the print head travels back and forth.

5 - Work the print head up over the paper towel (We are doing this on a dry paper towel so we can get the print head over it about an inch or two.)

6 - When the print head is up on the paper towel, squirt some Windex on the paper towel, and then move the printhead back and forth to scrub off the bottom.

7 - Move the print head off the towel, pull the towel up and get everything cleaned up.

8 - Push the print head over to the right parked position.

9 - Plug in the printer and turn it on.

10 - Print the nozzle check and do a couple cleaning cycles as required to get any paper towel fibers off the bottom of the print head. They clean right up - and are worth it because you have removed any large buildups from the bottom of the print head.

Epson Stylus 1280

The saga continues.  As it turns out, the paper size I bought for these two rather large frames was a tiny bit too small.  The frame needs something like 11.5".  I really should have bought 13"x19" paper (which is really hard to find on eBay Canada) but it is a minor issue.  The bigger issue is the black streaks I see on the printouts.  I started looking around for possible reasons and some suggested that the sponge inside the printer used for cleaning the print head may be too full of ink.  I checked the sponge and indeed it is full of ink.  I used some kleenex tissue to dab on the sponge to dry it.  Before my next print, I will perform a print head cleaning and we will see how it goes then.

eBay purchase from China

It's been nearly a month since I paid for the Quick strap on eBay.  The seller indicated the item was shipped on February 14.  Today is March 12.  This is the first time I purchased anything from China that takes this long to arrive.  In the past, it could take up to 3 weeks so this is stretching it.  Maybe Canadian customs is inspecting every parcel arriving from China?  In any case, if it does not arrive in a week, it looks like I will have to bring this up with PayPal and get my money back.

Photo paper and Ink

As I promised from an earlier post, once I have successfully tested the prints onto the 11"x17" glossy/matte photo paper and using the cheap ink I purchased from Montreal, here are the celebrities:

Photo paper from Waterloo, ON, that I got for $65 USD (including shipping) for 100 glossy/matte 11"x17" sheets:
http://myworld.ebay.ca/larillion

Ink cartridges for the Epson Stylus 1280 I got for less than $3 CAD, from Montreal, QC:
http://www.123inkcartridges.ca

I am not saying these are top notch quality, but in my own eyes, the quality is quite good.  Some of you who work in the printing/design art profession might find some faults in colour rendering or what not, but as far as I'm concerned, these two sources of ink and paper work great for my prints and for my walls at home.

Good prints from the Epson Stylus 1280

The colour banding was starting to eat away my mind.  I kept on thinking about it the whole week.  How could this printer produce such low quality photos when some cheap commodity inkjets can print photos without banding?  I decided to do one more print, onto glossy paper.  This time, I looked closely at the colour bands and noticed it was really just the blueish parts of the photo that suffers from colour banding.  The green was completely fine and so was black.  Also, the blue colour banding seems to be a result of some missing pixels, so it appears like bands.

I had to run through the nozzle check utility to see a pixel is missing from the blue ink. Sure enough in the blue/pink ink, there were a couple of lines missing from the nozzle test.  A good nozzle test should look like the following:

I decided then to waste some ink and run the nozzle cleaning utility.  I had to do this twice to get a perfect nozzle test.  Once the nozzle test shows a perfect print, I then retried some more photo prints on glossy paper.

In the printer printing preference menu, I selected to print on Glossy Photo Paper and chose a custom DPI of 1440.  I am not sure if 720dpi would have been fine but so far, the prints came out nearly perfect.  It was nearly perfect because close to the two shorter edges, there were a streak mark.  I'm not sure where that comes from yet but I have seen it in every print I have made so far--I guess something is dirty.  However, at least, there is no more banding!  Woohoo!

I am now printing onto the 11"x17" glossy paper--the primary reason I bought this printer, for $90 by the way--of a beach scene I took in Costa Rica a couple of years ago.  The print is coming out fine.

For my own information, before I print next time, I should always run through the nozzle check first.  The nozzle check does not waste ink. It prints just a few lines using all the print heads for inspection.

Flickr AutoDownloadr

In my search for a Flickr downloader, I came across this fourth application called Flickr AutoDownloadr--I did not mention in my earlier post that the first application I tried was Flickr Downloadr but I have not been able to install it for a second time, and there was a second application I tried, called Flickr Downloadr that does not allow me to auto-download sets of photos.

The key term is "auto".  I do not want to have to select photos and download them.  I just want to download a whole set.  If I had wanted to download specific photos, Flickr Downloadr would work really well I think.  In any case, Flickr AutoDownloadr is the best application I have seen so far that works the way I want.

Here is a screenshot of the application:

To download photos that are private, you must log on.  This option is under the "Options" tab.  After logging on to Flickr you will have access to all the sets that are exposed to you (as either families or friends).  To start downloading photos of a set, I set the download path first (also in the "Options" tab), choose a set, and then click on the "Go" button.  Go make some coffee and return to see the full list of photos downloaded.

If anyone is interested in trying out Flickr AutoDownloadr, you can download it from http://flickrslideshow.fateback.com/

FlickrDown

I have been searching for an application to download sets of photos from Flickr.  The reason I need one of these applications is because sometimes friends want photos of a party or event I shot.  Downloading from my home server would take forever--my slow upload speed and the sheer size of the photos are just too painful.  I have uploaded many of my photos to a private collection and sets to share between families and friends only and I wish to allow them to download them as they will.

My search landed on this one application called FlickrDown.  It's a cool application that I believe does what I want--downloading a whole set of photos without having to select one photo at a time.  Unfortunately, since 2010, this application has been banned from Flickr! for no valid reason.  The articles I have read speak of copyrighted materials...well, any browser or similar software can download any photos that are copyrighted, and in fact, I want my friends to download my copyrighted photos.  So, what's with Flickr! banning this seemingly great application?

I unfortunately never had the opportunity to try out this application but from the screenshot I saw, it looks pretty simple and good to use.  Flickr! is an 800-pound gorilla and I hope they don't become arseholes like PayPal--yeah, I had issues with PayPal in the past as a vendor.  I have a Pro account with Flickr! and I wish they could open their eyes a little bigger.

If you are interested in FlickrDown, visit their website at:  http://blog.greggman.com/blog/flickrdown/