New Video: DIY Tripods

Post-Script: It was a nice day to be out and about, before the storm hits later this week; often there's a bit of warm air pushed ahead of a cold front. I wanted to find a few scenic locations around town to shoot these scenes, but I didn't want the proximity of people, or their noise, to distract me, and so these two locations were the best I could find. At the first location, where I shot the scenes about the small tripod, there was a work crew across the street (behind the camera) working on re-roofing a house, so there were the usual noises of construction, talking and radios playing. For the second location featuring the larger tripod, it was much quieter, but enough of a breeze kicked up that the last few scenes have excess wind noise. As I indicated in the typecast, I'm going to have to experiment with using my portable audio field recorder as a solution to the audio. But I hope these are not too distracting that you can't benefit from the content therein.

I finally put the Olivetti Lettera 22 back in the closet, and brought out the Smith-Corona Silent. In comparison to the last three machines put into use, which have all been portables, this mid-sized machine has spectacular feel and touch, smooth and tight. The only downside is the imprint is a bit less than perfect; either the type slugs are a bit worn, or I'm just not finding the type style as easy to read as on other machines. But I really think this Silent is one of those "desert island" or "doomsday" machines, if you could only have one to carry you through the remainder of your life. Of course, it isn't as spectacularly colorful in appearance as compared to the Webster/Brother XL-747's bright blue or the Olivetti's style. But dang is it a nicely engineered typewriter. I know this sound overly emotional, but I had just finished typing a letter on the Lettera 22 (!) before switching to the Smith-Corona, and so the differences were readily apparent. Perhaps this is the dilemma that Jay Leno suffers with his automobile collection; they all have their own peculiar pluses and minuses, and none are absolutely perfect, so how can you pick one above the others? What a problem to have! The easy solution is to keep and use them all.