Among my numerous hobbies is 3-D printing. My wife bought me my first “put-it-together-yourself” kit back in 2016. Since then I’ve upgraded to a Bambu Lab X1, which is as close to a home appliance as 3D printing has ever been. It literally has never failed me short of my own errors.
Recently, my mom called me up to tell me that multiple drawers in her kitchen cabinets were broken. The rails the drawer slides along had fallen down, and the drawers were no longer horizontally level. Her husband took one apart and found that the bracket that holds the rail to the back of the cabinet had broken.
She looked online to see if she could find a replacement part, but was unsuccessful. Knowing I have a 3D printer, she asked if I could print a replacement. Always eager for a fun challenge (and because I’m a good son), I said sure.
Before I started measuring and modeling the part, I took a look online myself to see if I could find replacement parts. Sure enough, there were other people were having the same difficultysourcing a replacement part.
So I started measuring and preparing a model.
A few minutes into doing this I thought, “Wait a second, I wonder if someone else has come up with the same solution and already made a model?”. Guess what? Someone had!
In 2017 bmonnin created and uploaded their model for others to use. They had the same problem my mom had!
“I had several brackets that support the drawer slider on my kitchen cabinet drawers break. After looking around at several different big boxes and online I couldn’t find the same bracket anywhere.
So I got to printing.
A few minutes later, a solid replacement for the part was born.
There is a slight, almost imperceptible, difference between the original and the model. The lip that holds the rail in place is on both the top and bottom in the original. Assumedly so the manufacturer could print one mold and flip it for either side of the drawer. bmonnin’s model only has the lip on one side. They provided a mirrored version though, so all is well!
Since my mom needed more than one, I set up the X1 to print enough for all her drawers.
A few hours later, and less than half a spool of filament, I was done.
The next time I saw my mom, I handed a box of brackets off to her and Ken. A few days later she shared these photos.
Huzzah! A resounding success. I hope they last as long as the old ones (26 years, since the house was built).
🙂
This is one of those mundane, but also incredibly interconnected, stories where technology – combined with the social aspects of being able to share information easily and freely – come together to create a tangible solution to a problem. A small problem in this instance, but I think an example of how even larger problems can be solved when we think and work together.
Photography as a hobby is a shrinking circle. It won’t ever go away, but it is much smaller than it ever was. I was reading this post from Mike Johnston, The Online Photographer and a few bits stood out to me from the post and comments.
Even if times really are changing, and people just aren’t interested in new cameras and better specs as much as they used to be, it doesn’t really matter that much. Here’s the thing: dedicated photographers are outsiders. I’ve always looked at us that way. We’re not attached to the industry; we’re not affected by fashions. We’re not driven by mass taste. We go our own way. We do our own thing.
As many middle-aged hipsters will attest, I love not doing mainstream hobbies. Even while I also love doing many other mainstream things. Photography is not mainstream and you can consider it outsider-ish, but at the same time more people have cameras – in their phones – than they have ever had stand-alone cameras! It’s the most mainstream thing you can think of!
It’s mainstream and outsider at the same time. To be human is to contain multitudes.
Another quote:
It’s clear to me that we’re in the sad twilight of the era of photography as a serious hobby. It’s rapidly heading for the same category as ham radio or model railroading: a quirky, shrinking tiny niche, regarded (if at all) with a flicker of tolerant amusement by the masses. I derived immense satisfaction and not a little joy from several decades spent honing my technical skills, learning how to use finicky gear, and teasing the best possible result from large format inkjets, all in service to a goal. That goal was creating the best possible photographic print. I still love a beautiful print, but it has become a niche skill. To the broader culture, photography now means billions of technically competent snapshots captured by increasingly sophisticated smart-phone cameras flooding the Internet every single day, each with the impact and lifespan of a just-hatched Mayfly or cicada.
Kind of a negative outlook, but I think I can still enjoy taking purposeful photos with my big camera while allowing others to enjoy snapshots with their smart phone – or even really good solid photos taken with a phone!
Another comment:
Strangely enough, I think it is the internet that lets those “tiny niches” survive. It is a “force multiplier” that allows a much smaller number of practitioners keep the niche alive and thriving to some extent.
When you were the editor of the model railroading magazine, magazines and clubs were the way these niches survived. As time went on and the number of practitioners shrank, magazines folded and clubs have withered and the practitioners moved to a community online where you can have a global community and draw from the whole connected world.
I “belong” to three of those niches: Photography, Garden Scale Model Railroading and HP calculators. I keep current in all three by belonging to a small but active online community. What is interesting, is that while you get your share of trolls, in general, the internet experience is much different than what you hear about in the wide world of the internet.
I don’t use popular social media and prefer the smaller corners of the web. Like dedicated forums, Flickr, community Slacks, and my personal blog. So this resonates with me.
But then again, maybe there’s hope for photography,
Another thing that’s interesting is that photography is unlikely to prove to be a generational phenomenon. Younger people aren’t showing any diminished interest in photography—quite the opposite in fact—they just won’t be practicing it in the way us older enthusiasts accepted as normal when we were young.
Hey, I just said the same thing! Ah, the joys of non-linear writing.
I recently bought a new camera. My first in over 12 years.1 The new camera is a Fujifilm X100VI, the latest in their line of fixed lens travel cameras.
It’s a very different camera than what I’ve been shooting with, a still wonderful Nikon D800. I love the D800, but I wanted something smaller and less complicated. Something I can just throw in a bag and not worry about which lens to bring – and the bulk. The D800 with an 50mm lens is close to 2.6 pounds! The X100VI by comparion is 1.15 lbs.
I’m still wrapping my head around the new camera. Learning the menus and commands and getting comfortable with setting it up how I like it. I’ve gone on one long trip and captured a few decent photos.
I wanted to document a few of the things I’ve learned along the way. To help reflect and reset my expectations – and hopefully so others can learn from my experiences.
All images are taken with the X100VI. Edited RAW files in Apple Photos. Full gallery on Flickr
Setup Command Dial
Unsurprisingly, I’ve customized the front and rear command dials to work just like the D800 – Aperture on the front dial, shutter speed on the rear. ISO set to Auto or I use the dial for specific needs.
This video from JayRegular was really helpful in figuring this out. One note, from Jay in the comments, is really important!
“For everyone who cannot get the aperture dial to work when set to “A” go into menu > wrench icon > button dial setting > aperture ring setting (A) and set it to ‘command’ instead of ‘auto'”
I love how many Fn buttons there are on this little guy and have been playing around with them. I have even set the manual focus ring to switch between the 50mm and 70mm digital teleconverter. It’s like a zoom ring (but not)!
Use the EVF
It’s faster than the optical viewfinder and gives you a better representation of how your shot will look. Coming from a D800 this was a big change to get use to. After a few outings, I’m starting to appreciate it more. I like the idea of an optical viewfinder, but with the offset on the X100VI – and with an added lens hood – it’s almost useless.2
Speed Things Up
Get a good SD card. You don’t need a UHS-II card as the X100VI only supports UHS-I cards. However, if you do buy a card that is faster than what the camera can utilize, you can still benefit when transferring images from the SD card to a computer. For example my Mac’s SD card slot can utilize UHS-II speeds up to 312 MB/s. I picked up a Sandisk that has a read rating of about 200MB/s. For the first week I used an old 80MB/s SD card I had lying around and it was so slow to save and preview images.
In the power management settings there is an option called “boost”. Turn this on. It helps with focus and viewfinder display performance.3 Two of the most key aspects of nailing a shot.
If you’re worried about battery life, Wasabi Power makes a great replacement battery (x2) and a charger for like $30. Way cheaper than Fuji’s own battery and the charger can charge two batteries at the same time over USB-C.
This was a wild one to learn. By default the X100VI will use 2.4GHz wi-fi to transfer images to your smartphone. Switch the wi-fi to 5GHz for noticeably faster transfer speeds. 5GHz has been around for over a decade at this point. It should be the default to give a better user experience and it’s one setting that can be easily overlooked.
Chris Lee (pal2tech on YouTube) created a great beginners setup video for this camera. I learned of this tip and a few others from his videos. Go check them out.
Shoot in RAW
Even though my photo editing app of choice doesn’t support the latest RAW (.RAF) files from this camera (yet), I’m still shooting RAW. Storage space is cheap and I love being able to pull the most range out of the images I shoot. I find JPEG/HEIF images direct from the camera to have too much contrast. Here’s a subtle example between a HEIF version and RAW version of the same image. The RAW file was converted to DNG so I can edit. No other edits to the images, direct from the camera.
Notice how much darker the HEIF image is in the eye sockets. There’s no data there to pull from when editing.
Move with your feet
This is just general photography advice and more of a reminder for myself. For the last 12 years I’ve shot primarily with my D800 and a fixed prime lens. Either a 50mm or an 85mm (for portraits). I’m use to shooting with these longer focal length lenses. The 35mm equivalent on the X100 means I need to move in more often. Or, be mindful that with this camera that you’re going to capture more surrounding context than you would with a longer lens.
You can also fib this a bit with the X100VI. With a 40 megapixel image size, cropping by 50% still gives you a very usable 20 megapixel image. I’m not a purist! Do both if that’s what works for you.
This is the first camera I’ve used that has in body image stabilization. I shoot mostly handheld and would never go below the reciprocal rule when shooting. So if I was shooting with my 85mm I would never go below ~1/100th of a second shutter speed. The resulting image, no how hard I tried to control my stance, grip, and breathing, would result in a blurry image.
But oh boy, the X100VI has five-axis stabilization. I can take a sharp photo, handheld, at a shutter speed far lower than the focal length. I’ve been able to get a few great shots at 1/25 and 1/15. That is pure magic. I’m having to learn that I have this new superpower and where its limits lie, but so far I’m really enjoying it. When I remember I can do it!
The wonderful Dave Etchells from Imaging Resource has this surprisingly in-depth interview with Hisashi Takeuchi from Olympus on how this all works. Fascinating stuff.
Conclusion
I’m heading out on another trip soon. This one a little longer and varied than the last. I’m hoping to have more to share and I’ll update this post if I come across any other tidbits that I think might be useful. Thanks for reading and please share your own tips in the comments and check out more of my photos on Flickr.
