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DIY Virtual Pinball Machine

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I've always enjoyed a game of pinball, and I recently went down the rabbit hole of virtual pinball machines. I'd seen pinball games over the years, and enjoyed them, but never really LOVED playing them with a controller or keyboard. During some random late-night internet exploring, I discovered things have come quite some way... So, I set about planning my own virtual pinball machine. I wanted to keep the cost as low as possible, as the main reason I don't want to buy a real machine is the cost.  Parts List - First Round First up, screens: 43" 1080p Sharp TV - Playfield (already had this) 24" 1080p monitor - Backglass $30 9" screen - Dot Matrix Display (DMD) Next I needed a suitable PC. The specs I settled on were: Ryzen 5 3600 RX 580 8gb MoBo, SSD, PSU, etc Other bits and pieces: Zero delay USB board and arcade buttons ($40 from Amazon) Cheap PC speakers (will upgrade later) This is all I really needed to start with the software set up. It's a bit of a p...
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What (the fuck) is HDR?

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A few years back, I was standing in a rock bar in Ibiza (the Pinguin Bar, but that's another story) chatting to a friend of a friend about photography. He introduced me to the concept of HDR over a few beers, so I went back home and did some learning. There are many places where you can read about how HDR works, but this is the quick and dirty answer. Cameras can't see as well as the human eye (which is pretty shit hot when it comes to seeing stuff) - a great example of this is during F1 (Grand Prix? Motorsport? Oh, nevermind...) where a car goes through a tunnel - as the end of the tunnel approaches all you can see is a huge white light. Now, when I drive my car through a tunnel and out the other side I don't have this problem, as my eyes kick the camera's arse at this.
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What (the fuck) is Aperture all about?

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I've been meaning to write this for a long time, as it took me long enough to get motivated to find out! If you search around there are some really good articles on the subject, but it's a whole heap of stuff that can get quite confusing if not explained concisely - and also there waaaay too much information for the fumbling amateur like me. It just freaks me out. So, what the fuck is aperture? Basically, the size of the hole the light comes through! So let's take a quick look at the setting on the camera. Really simple, it has a little 'Av' icon - you can see it pretty clearly in the photo. Select this and you'll be able to adjust the size of the aperture.
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Build your own bed

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OK, so I need a new bed. Frames can be really expensive, and it's also pretty difficult to find something that's just right. So I searched around online and found this great blog by Ana White with a post about some beds she made. I wanted a UK queen sized frame, so decided to set about making my own SketchUp drawing. I also wanted to give the appearance of a 'floating' frame, so made some changes to the structure to allow the legs to be set in slightly. I am yet to build it, but thought I'd post my 'artists impression' of what I want it to look like. When I get round to putting it together, I'll post step-by-step instructions with detailed SketchUp drawings, and when I know it will actually work I'll provide a link to the Warehouse so you can download the file if you'd like to make your own. So anyway, without further ado, the picture!
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Photoshopped London Phone Box

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Photoshopped London Phone Box Originally uploaded by Daveaphillips I wanted to make a moody version of this photo so I dived into Photoshop, desaturated some of the sky and darkened areas of the image, leaving colour only in the phone box. I think this photo now feels more like London really is.
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Phone Box and Big Ben

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Phone Box and Big Ben Originally uploaded by Daveaphillips I love this photo. I wanted a really cool photo of a London phone box, and I think I did it. I took three exposures using a D80, and then used Photomatix Pro to combine the three images to one. Photomatix is an amazing bit of software, it's worth paying for the upgrade to the Pro version - it sorted out a load of ghosting issues. I have this as my iPhone background :)
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Contol4 7" portable with custom background

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Contol4 7" portable with custom background Originally uploaded by Daveaphillips Here's a Control4 portable touch panel with a customised background. It's also running the latest 2.1 operating system - the polished clean interface gives that away! Custom buttons are back, like the Vacation and Cinema buttons you can see on the screen. These buttons open up small submenus on the home page with up to six additional buttons, each of which can be programmed to do anything through Composer.
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