Mix 'n Match Pens

I'm talking about the Uni Ball Style Fit and the Pilot Coleto.

These pens are like those 4-in-1 pens where you push down to select a colour, but the special thing about these pens is you can choose the colours you want. They sell the empty pen bodies and refills separately. Uni has a 3 and 5 refill body, and I think Pilot has a 4 refill body. Uni also has a single refill body, which looks a lot like a refill since the refills also come in tubes of similar width. The refills cost $1.70 and the single refill body costs $1.90. Uni also has pencil refills.

These are actually quite expensive, a fully loaded pen may cost >$10. I think the refills look quite thin so they won't last very long either. I mean, even normal gel ink refills, which are much thicker than ballpoint refills, don't last a long as ballpoints.

Uni refills seem to be the same as the Signo DX (they come in 0.38 and 0.28) or Jetstream. It'll be nice to be able to carry up to 5 colours of Signo at the same time. (The Signo DX is my favourite pen) It'll also be nice not to have to worry about capping the pen. (In my experience with refilling the Signo DX bodies, the cap is the first part to wear out, so when using the pen I only cap it when I'm done for the session)

Copic Multiliner

Actually, I love stationery. Looking at the pen blogs out there, I'm not the only one. I don't think I can compare with them though, so this is just a little post.

My favourite pen is the Uni-Ball Signo DX 0.38 mm. I like it because it's:

• smooth
• reliable
• fine
• waterproof
• doesn't have a needle point. I don't like needle points because they get damaged if you press too hard. Otherwise, the Signo DX is the same as Pilot's G-Tec (Hi-Tec).

It has remained my favourite pen for >10 years. I recently found Copic's Multiliner, which might just become my second favourite pen.

• Copic makes drawing instruments including pens and markers, so these pens are more for drawing. They're good for writing too.
• Being for drawing, they have A LOT of options: 10 nib sizes, 12 colours
• They're also very high quality - shape and colour consistency are key. Ink is waterproof and archival save (what is Copic proof?)
• The paint on the Multiliner's body scratches off very easily - look at the word "Copic". Why?
• The Multiliner is disposable, the Multiliner SP is refillable and the nibs are replaceable as well. The SP's body is made of aluminium and meant to last longer
• I don't understand why people say they're expensive, the Multiliner is <$3 and the SP <$8. Refills are <$3. Unless the ink finishes extremely fast, they're about the same price as say Uni-Ball's Power Tank. And the money here goes into their quality, not like some branded writing pens.
• I suspect (and this might be their key advantage over the Signo DX when writing) is the ink doesn't build up on the nib and smudge. This is especially obvious when drawing lines with a ruler.
• Their disadvantage is you can't see how much ink is left

• This is a close up of the SP's nib. How does it work? Is it a piece of plastic in a metal barrel? How do they get the ink to be consistent?
• How does nib replacement work? They only seem to have 2 sizes of replacement nibs.

Kuru Toga mechanical pencil and Green.L close-up filter

I've been meaning to write about this for ages, but I kept putting off taking the pictures.

I like taking macro pictures, so I miss my Sony T2, which took great macros. SLRs, which have lenses for everything, also have macro lenses, which means normal lenses leave taking macro pictures to those lenses (i.e. normal lenses can't take macro pictures). The options for taking macro on SLRs are:

1. Buy a macro lens
2. Get a lens extension tube
3. Get a macro filter

1 is very expensive. 2 sounds like a great way to get dust in your camera body. 3 is surprisingly hard to find in camera stores, maybe because their quality is poor. Or because stores can't earn much money from them. Enter eBay.

I bought this close-up filter for less than $10, including delivery. I shall test it by taking pictures of the Kuru Toga mechanical pencil.

The Kuru Toga, by Uni, attempts to fix a problem with mechanical pencils. With conventional mechanical pencils, the pencil lead starts out as a cylinder with a perpendicular face. Since only 1 "corner" of the cylinder contacts the paper, the lead makes nice sharp lines. After some use, the cylinder wears down, more and more lead contacts the paper and the lines become dull. From the side, the lead looks like a sawtooth waveform. The Kuru Toga fixes this by continually rotating the lead, so it wears all around the cylinder, looking like a triangular waveform. Personally, I don't encounter this problem as I naturally rotate the pencil for the same reason, but I bought this because it was special.

UV filter

Macro filter

I took these pictures by setting the zoom to 55 mm and positioning the camera as close as it could focus. It appears to be able to take closer pictures at 55 mm than 18 mm. This might be due to the zoom, not the distance of the camera. The picture taken with the macro filter seems closer than without. It doesn't seem to let the camera focus closer, maybe it just magnifies the image. With cheap filters, image quality is usually poor, but this seems ok. The sides are out of focus, but the image with the UV filter has the same problem. The centre is ok.
The Kuru Toga has a ratcheting mechanism that rotates the lead every time you press it to paper. You can see the orange and white teeth in the images above. In my experience, you have to press harder to get it to rotate. I usually don't press as hard as normal people, so maybe it'll rotate with normal writing pressure.

Conclusions

• Macro filter works, but effect is not very great
• Kuru Toga works, but you may have to press harder
• Kuru Toga is cool