Photography

Don’t Get the Glorich EN-EL25 Power Adapter

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This post has been sitting here and since I don’t have another post ready, I will just publish it.

I occasionally live stream. My Nikon Z 50 allows me to turn off sleep mode, but changing batteries is a pain when live streaming. Unfortunately, Nikon decided that the Z 50’s USB port can only charge the battery, not power the camera. Unlike the Z 6/7 (which uses the D850 battery), there is no battery adapter to power the camera via external power, such as a wall outlet.

I needed something to deal with this, albeit minor, issue. So back in February, I ordered and received a Glorich Z50 AC power dummy battery adaptor from Amazon.

This is my review. TL;DR I sent it back.

It didn’t come with a manual. I connected it to my Z 50 and closed the battery door. I then plugged it into an outlet, and turned on the camera. The camera did not turn on.

I tried to unplug it from my surge protector. It didn’t want to unplug. It was stuck part way in. After some work, I was finally able to wrestle it out. I repeated the same process with a different outlet. Still did not turn on. Getting it out of the socket was still difficult. Inspecting the plugs showed scratches in them. Have never seen this behavior with a plug before, but it is likely due to the circular holes in the plugs catching on something in the power strip socket.

Tried plugging it into a wall outlet and inspected it for a secret “on” switch. Didn’t find one. The power box has a green light on it that seemed to have a faint glow, but the product still didn’t power my camera.

Getting the dummy battery out was a bit of an ordeal, but once I placed the Nikon battery back in and turned on the camera and it worked just fine.

I filed for my refund that day and returned it the next. I did not bother getting another one to try. If the first unit refuses to work, then it must be of such poor quality that a working unit would likely fail just after I can no longer return it.

At least it didn’t kill my camera.

I won’t bother with the other two models since I doubt their return policy will protect me if the product fails. Also, my guess is that the AliExpress product is the same as the Glorich product, based on the photos they show. The F1TP version is also likely the same as the Glorich product.

I ended choosing another solution I am satisfied with, but not happy with, but that is for another post.

Photography, War

Warship Wednesday: DDGs LBJ & Inouye

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Over the summer I planned to head up to Bath, Maine to photograph the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. I planned to take the Maine Maritime Museum’s Shipyards & Lighthouses Cruise just as I had when photographing the USS Monsoor.

Due to the pandemic that was not possible, so I instead rented the Sigma 150-600mm Sport lens from Hunt’s Photo Video. My son and I drove up and tried finding locations to photograph from. The land across from the Kennebec River is filled with private houses and offered no outlet from which to photograph the USS LBJ. We ended up starting on the US Route 1 bridge and traveling down to the Doubling Point Lighthouse:

Bath Maine

The Sigma 150-600mm Sport lens is a very heavy lens. Hand holding it seemed a recipe for blurry photos so I put it on a sturdy tripod. It worked well though the walkway to the Doubling Point Lighthouse vibrated when people walked on it.

From the US Route 1 bridge:

USS Lyndon B. Johnson USS Daniel Inouye

From the Doubling Point Lighthouse:

USS Lyndon B. Johnson USS Lyndon B. Johnson

From where on the Doubling Point Lighthouse I photographed the LBJ. Taken while on a previous boat cruise.

Bath Maine
Pirate Party, Speech

Attacks on Section 230

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Steve and I talked about the CDA Section 230 gutting SAFE TECH Act on the latest Pirate News livestream. You can read a redline version.

Some of the articles we reference:

We live stream Sundays at 7:30pm Eastern. You can find past recordings at MassPirates.org.

Miniatures, Photography, When Imagination Fails

Latest Fleet Additions

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Finally got around to photographing and uploading my latest set of 1/2400 ship miniatures. I cannot claim that I painted the ships. That honor goes to gak8346 who has a far better eye for painting small modern ships than I do. I’ll stick to other miniatures.

I played with focus stacking and using HeliconFocus got a number of photos of ships at oblique angles. Some post-Cold War GHQ ships:

GHQ Type 52D Destroyer 1/2400 miniature GHQ Type 54A Frigate 1/2400 miniature GHQ Arleigh Burke Destroyer 1/2400 miniature

I based the Arleigh Burke IIA destroyer as the USS Hudner, which I photographed when it was being commissioned in Boston.

GHQ Independence LCS 1/2400 miniature

And one from Dutch Fleet Naval Miniatures on Shapeways:

Spearhead EPF post-Cold War 1/2400 miniature

As well as some Cold War era ships:

PFC C-in-C Spruance VLS Destroyer 1/2400 miniature PFC C-in-C Spruance Destroyer 1/2400 miniature PFC C-in-C Garcia Frigate 1/2400 miniature

Some of the mini-carriers nice and based:

GHQ JMSDF Izumo Helicopter Destroyer 1/2400 miniature - based GHQ USS Wasp LHD 1/2400 miniature - based GHQ Ōsumi LST 1/2400 miniature - based

Finally finished the Tarawa-class LHA:

PFC-CinC USS Peleliu LHA 1/2400 miniature - based

Bill’s Models was nice enough to create some ships at my request, so I had to get them, including some USNS RO-ROs:

USNS Bobo maritime prepositioning ship 1/2400 miniature - based USNS Bob Hope prepositioning RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based USNS Gordon RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based USNS Shughart RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based USNS Watson RO-RO 1/2400 miniature - based

And some merchant ships:

LNG Tanker 1/2400 miniature - based LNG Square Tanker 1/2400 miniature - based Dry Stores Cargo Ship 1/2400 miniature - based

They are all decent ships, but if you are starting out with adding merchant or RO-ROs to your collection, I recommend getting some of the US ships from Viking Forge such as the Sealift Pacific, Cape Isabel and Algol.

There are more pictures from this upload in my 1/2400 Naval Miniatures photo album as well as pictures I shared in the past. You can just cycle through them below:

1/2400 Naval Miniatures

The musings of Jamie O'Keefe: pirate party activist, geek, father and gamer.