Thursday, January 28, 2010

Alexander 2, V6. Last.

Relatively a quite day, except of the smelly canned fish samples that I had to prepare. Thank God I didn't puke after all!
I brought my camera today as well for no apparent reason, and since I'm leaving in 30 minutes of writing this post, so I think I won't do any photography for today. However, it was nice to try my filters out yesterday on the roof with the beginning of the night at around 6:00 p.m. local time, when the moon was just raising and Mars was apparent as a red dot to the south of it. There was a bright glowing spot to the right of the moon as well but I can't tell which planet is this, and I say planet because stars usually are not that sparkling in the city.
I wanted to make a study about my filters and make an estimation of how much light they can block, but anyway I find that is difficult for the many factors involved, but rather I found out some useful sites that explain some aspects of the filters, and I've found out that Cokin (the manufacturer of my filters) seem to provide only 3 types of filters: ND2, ND4, and ND8, but there are lot of others out there that reduce the light more than this specially for the long exposures. The numbers after "ND" denote how many times the light is reduces, i.e. 2 reduces the intensity to its half, and 4 reduces to the quarter and so on. There is ND64 and ND1000, but they seem not made as a flexible filter as I'm hoping for, but rather as a fixed plate to be screwed int othe lens, and this one is expensive. However, I might be able to induce such effects by stacking the ND8 filters altogether, but at the current time, I have only one. It was such a mess that I couldn't take a picture of the moon from the roof with my telephoto lens (simple one: 55-200mm) which zoomed nicely for the moon surface and showed the spots (but I had to do this manually since Automatic Focus tend to be problematic with darkness all around the scene). Alas, the light coming from the moon is so strong that makes such a glowing spot, and I have no adapter for this lens diameter. Anyway, I didn't think of speeding up the shutter speed, so I hope I can check for today. The main aim for my experiment yesterday is to see my ability to catch long exposures and make a trail of an object, but that was not so successful with my recent grasp of NDs. Instead, I took successive pictures with my 18-55mm lens (which did not zoom to the moon at all but only showed a glowing star with flare), with my ND filter fixed on it and each shot was exposed for 30 seconds. Thus, and for ten minutes, I came up with 20 or 21 successive shots. I stacked the images in Photoshop and blended them together and it showed a trail somehow but not good at all. Well, I was happy that at least I find the moon moving!
I have some ideas for now about the nature of light and how to use the filters, yet, this will be improved by experimenting. More cash needed I think for more tools... and books!
__________
Alexander did understand the test of his Lord
thus with a point from his hand ordered an attack
While Chinchán's Son, Wirchán took the lead
seeking the revenge and chasing The Kákhbár
The armies met, just like a fleet of locusts
nothing can be seen but blood and heads
While the ringing of metals deafened the ears
and the shouts of agony and wrath filled the air
Alexander was not any less with his fierce heart
knocked down the heads reaching for his Karnagod
Finally they met together amid the twirl of blood
shield to shield, sword to sword, and eye to eye
Yet though the fear among the army of the hero
the grace of the Lord was revealed down on them
And when Wirchán seized the head of his enemy
did Alexander plant his sword, and Karnagod no more
Thus, when the men of Geltáns heard of the disaster
ran like insane in every direction seeking refuge
But many of them were seized and captured
and prisoners they became with dignity no more
After war, the peace and the belief spread over
and Alexander assigned his men to hold this land
Wirchán and Dómí held the matters of this
one of the north, and one to the south of West








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