Cashel...

Here I am. Finally, in my final destination, the Thornbrooke House in Cashel, Co. Tipperary. I couldn't write something yeterday when I was in Cahir because the wireless service in the hotel was only downstairs in the lobby, and I really didn't have the time to go there. I was so tired that after showering in Cahir House Hotel, I fell asleep for most of the day and woke up by night.
Cahir is a little town, and I was surprised by the simplicity and the beauty of this town. There is so much to see in that town and since I was planning for one day stay only, I didn't have the time to go around so much. There is a place called the Swiss Cottage which I aim to visit some time from now. The way takes around 15 to 20 minutes from Cahir to Cashel. I had my morning walk after breakfast around Cahir and snapped some images, but before that and the day before, I snapped a picture for the castle from my window, and at night it was also glamourous.

Cahir Castle from my window

Down there and beside the castle, there is so much to see. Long walks and chestnut trees, and the river or the stream, which I've forgot its name!

The Little Waterfall Beside Cahir Castle

There is so much to see in this little town and even it has an antique shop that I SHOULD visit beside a gifts shop that it is a MUST for the family and friends. But the thing that really pleased me there is... SHAMPOO!!! YES! They do have a shampoo in the bathroom in the hotel! Silly isn't it? Well, after being in Travelodge in Dublin, I decided to buy my own shampoo, and I found out a pharmacy in Cahir that got plenty of hair-care stuff. Beside that pharmacy there was a photography shop that got me interested to see. It might be a studio, and they might still have the old camera stuff!

Cahir House hotel is a fine place but not for people who expect high level of services. It's quiet, sort of. The squeaky floor was a problem for me since I move a lot inside my own room, and there is no lift (elevator). I had to train my muscles a bit with carrying my luggage, because I didn't want to anyone to carry them for me. It's a habit of mine not to trouble others with my own stuff!

Now this is my first day in Cashel, I'm not planning to do much other than organizing my stuff and settling down a bit. I have 13 more days to come ahead. The owner was so generous to offer me 2 muffins! They were so yummy! I'm trying to remain awake so far and thus adjusting my sleeping habit. On the technical side, my Photoshop CS2 on this laptop, beside the laptop's speed, is giving me some hard time. The RAW files taken with my Canon 7D are not supported, and hence I have to adjust the terms and the size to post them in here with the DPP (Digital Photo Professional) that comes with Canon cameras usually. Beside that, All the images here won't be adjusted in anyway to be tone-mapped HDR like I did last year, but directly put in here, from a single RAW file.

I need to get up now and do other things!

Dublin, 2010.

Here we are, in Dublin again after one year, and after a tiresome trip to Istanbul then to here. I reside now in Travelodge hotel in Ballymun, Dublin, the same place I stayed in for one day before my leave last year.
I'm so tired, and discovered there is no shampoo in the room here, but since I stink, I had to take a shower just as it is and put some mousse to pull my fussy hair back. I think I've taken a lot of clothes this year; unnecessary. The weather in Dublin is nice though, not so cold and not HOT or HUMID! The problem though with this hotel so far is the noise outside. The window is not much of a muffler.

I'm not so much interested in the city life and I can hardly find something (providing that I do have the mood to go outside!) to take a picture of, thus I don't think I will be working on my camera. Or maybe I shall try the bulb mode this time. It is noteworthy to mention that the Bulb mode in Canon EOS 7D is fixed in a separate mode on the dial and not like my old 350D, when it was merged originally within the Manual mode.

By tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be leaving to Cahir; a town in Co. Tipperary, not far away from Cashel, my final destination. In Cahir, hopefully there are more things to capture with the camera. There is a long way waiting for me on the railway heading to Cahir. Maybe I should leave by the early morning to have enough time for the rest of the day (and also to look for an hotel to stay for one night there).

I didn't change the time on my laptop, but only on my mobile (which doesn't have an Irish sim card yet) and my watch. I hate to change all the clocks. So far so good, and tomorrow will be a new day...

Amazing Grace!

It's here!!! It's finally here!!! My Canon EOS 7D! After spending 2 weeks waiting for it it is here finally. It has been in clearance delay for around 3 days and the guys in DHL called me and sent me emails to send them some links or catalogs about this product! Why? I don't know. After all, and when I went to pick it up, I was told there was no duty on it. What the hell is going on?

 

Of course along with that came in my spare battery. Now with the arrival of this beauty, there is sooooooo much work to do. Preparing a place in it and getting some adequate place for my old camera, Canon 350D, and also getting a remote control (and I will check if I can get a wireless one for it too), because I didn't buy a remote along with it thinking that my remote cable will be sufficient for it (I got mixed up with descriptions in various websites and I was lead to think that my remote will work with this as well). So far so good. The modes dial on the left is making a real difference for me, but I didn't try real photography with it yet and I'm still to this moment trying out the various functions in the LCD preview and also the functions assigned to the buttons. So much reading for the manual to do as well, and also I have to write a decent review for this camera on Amazon and B&H. I like to be honest with camera-related subjects. I'm going to be busy beside being busy already reading the printing book, which is about to finish so far. This book is a mine of information. Thank you Uwe. Thank you Jürgen.

Beside reading this book, I'm trying to apply some of its concepts specially regarding the calibration of my monitor which is not easy at all. I've been looking for more information about my own monitor just to get an idea about what kind of monster I'm dealing with. The first you are expected to do when calibrating your whole system for printing process, is to calibrate your monitor. My monitor is LG L1954SM, and for my ill luck, I've found out that it has been discontinued since 2008 maybe. Typical luck of mine. However, I got to install some drivers and a software from LG website called Fortemanager, that is supposed to help you out in the process of calibrating your monitor. Because of the hardship I'm facing in creating a profile for my monitor and creating an idea about what I'm expected to see, I'm thinking seriously now of getting a colorimeter. I found one that is relatively cheap in Amazon, and might do the job perfectly.

Some "relatively" cheap colorimeters

The thing about these tools is, you don't have to use your eyes for calibration or anything. Relax! The more digitized the process is, the more objective and reliable it is.

While checking again about the procedures to calibrate the monitor (which seems that I have to do using the controllers of my graphics card in Control Panel because, simply, the controllers of the monitor are not suitable at all!), I've realized the fact that before doing the tests with the usual test images, the conditions for my monitor MUST be unique in a certain way:

• White Balance must be set between 5000K and 6500K (mine is on 6500K already).
• Gamma must be set to 2.2 (my monitor does not display any values for gamma except 50/0/-50 !).
• Luminance must be in the range of 100-125 cd/m2 (candela per meter square).

Of all, the third was the hardest to check. Until I found out some website that suggested an objective way to measure it using the camera light sensor, and even though it is not a professional or unique enough, it does some work and approximates the desired results already. You can find this method here. This method solved something, but still more to do. An idea popped into my mind as well, which is to try this camera method for
 checking how much light does the media (glossy paper...etc) would reflect. I'm not sure if this is really an objective way, but it might shed some light on the matter of reflectance of papers, and also the opacity of papers. The theory is to measure the light source in a dark room by the camera (i.e. checking the shutter speed while setting ISO400 and f5.6 in Av mode). and then reflect this light from the media and check it again with the camera. Then check the ratio of the two values. This might be a deciding factor later on in case I want to make special prints in a less or more reflective surfaces (for a desired effect for example). Yet, it's just an idea still.

Along side to the monitor calibration, a printer set-up and calibration is required as well but this one is going so slow. Just recently, I've printed out another test image of my own and tried to compare various settings. The colored ink though was finished of blue and this really PISSES me off. I bought new inks, but didn't fix it in the printer yet. After all, from the talk that goes on in the book itself (Fine art printing book), seems my HP Photosmart C4783 is simply, a simple printer and not really made for advanced use or printing, although it gives some nice results somehow on various glossy types, providing that you'd know how to manage the ink and know when to print in Best (not always good) or Normal mode (but never Fast because it shows banding).

The Cracked Marble. My test image.

About the image above, it was taken for one marble from my collection (yes, collected them when I was 10 years old or younger), and it is a tone-mapped HDR. I made several experiments in fact with this marble but I've found out that the most beautiful version was this one. My main aim was actually to try out making a SR image out of it, but once I've seen the beautiful colors, I went on and did the shoot for HDR as well. The HDR shoot though was not regular by the camera only, but done with the dedicated flash, Speedlite 580EX II.

Speedlite 580EX II

Now, fixing the flash sync with the shutter made much difference, as well as pulling down the diffuser (which is mainly, according to the manual, for fisheye lenses to avoid vignetting on edges), and the ISO - all of these factors changed the nature of the image (which was taken inside the home-made softbox). One setting, which unfortunately I don't remember quite well, made the perfect image by almost lighting the background as well the marble as well. Notice that in all of these shots I was using FEB (flash exposure bracketing), because I can't use the camera's bracketing (AEB) when the flash is in work, and also I was still using daylight bulb on the side.

After this little experiment I decided to do some others, but they were simple. One of them was done for my shaving cream brush, trying to make a suitable pattern or texture from a SR image, and then taking a picture for my pine cones that I've collected one year ago from Ireland.

Brush pattern. Suitable for photoshop too!

Pinecones from Ireland with background removed.

Nothing was so special about these images, except that for the pine cones, I've mounted the 500W halogen light on my monopod to light the pine cones and I didn't use the flash at all. Removing the background was not completely an easy task anyway because the white background was not quite unique (mainly because of dust particles accumulating on the box's ground). I think I should change the background translucent paper already.

Now, everything is on busy mode. Trying to do everything as fast as I can, and experimenting as well as much as I can before going to Ireland with my new camera. There in Ireland, I will try to do it as I did last year, writing a blog for every day of my stay and putting pictures here, if possible. So far so good with the camera for now, but I didn't install any software that came along in the CDs with it. I need to do this ASAP in my laptop and my PC. I hope though, my 8GB+1GB CF cards would be sufficient, since with such high resolution and with my desire to shoot in original RAW always makes the average file size around 18MB with this beast! For this reason, I got myself today a 16GB CF from a local Canon store, and the price was not adequate at all. The price of this "unknown" brand to me was 32KD, and for this same price I would get something similar from the US delivered to me, and from SanDisk. The problem now that I didn't count for is the recording speed (in terms of MB per seconds). But probably I won't use this property a lot.Most probably I will be using the 8GB CF then 16GB and then if things got worse, I will use my old 1GB CF. The 8GB and 1GB CFs are from SanDisk with different writing speeds.

My current CF.


The thing I got today, and please check the price
and compare it to 32 Kuwaiti Dinars!

Beside this CF, I should mention that I went there in the first place for something completely different. I was there to get myself a remote control for my new Canon EOS 7D, because my control was not adaptable to it. Now, the shop owner surprised me that the remote is wireless too (not a complete surprise but the surprise is that he has it!). He told me it works with AAA size batteries but when I checked the shape just now, it runs with lithium CR2032 battery, which I think gives a longer life. But I have to check the manual for this little thing to check how it would work for successive shots and for the the bulb mode (shutter speeds exceeding 30 seconds).

RC-6

Well, I guess this is the end of the story for today. I've been writing this post for 2 days now, and probably it will be the last for me for the time being here in Kuwait. I have to prepare things and re-check everything before my travel to Ireland next Tuesday's after-midnight. See you till then!

After Math...

Well, well. Ramadhan is over and we are back on the busy tracks on the everyday work. I wished for one complete week holiday though, but anyway it was not possible at all, with Eid starting out on Friday, and since Eid lasts for 3 days, it was over by Sunday, and then Monday was given as a substitute for Friday since Friday is already a holiday originally (weekend).
I wonder if I'm going to write here daily since I'm back to the fast pace life and the coffee-drinking in every morning, but if it is to be so then it must be limited to the size of material at hand. As I'm writing this today, I do have some material indeed and some news, as I am waiting as well for my travel to Ireland to arrive on the 28th of this month. Two weeks from now. Two long weeks...

In the meantime, I'm waiting for my shipment of the new Canon EOS 7D to arrive, which surprisingly is still in my Borderlinx box in the US (according to the website). This got me worried so far. What if the shipment took so long (abnormally to DHL!) and I didn't have the time to pick it up myself before going to Ireland? Even if it was to be here before 28th, I do have my worries of getting used to it before going to Ireland. I have to train my fingers with its controls and my eyes with its LCD display.

Canon EOS 7D

I like the idea here that the modes knob is on the left instead of the right side of the camera. I guess it will make me more flexible and easy to change modes easily (specifically between the Tv, Av and M). The thing which didn't appeal much to me is the fact that the LCD panel where information like EV and other criteria is fixed on the upper side of the camera, not like my old 350D, where it is above the LCD display and everything is done in front of you. I hope the situation is like my friend said, that Borderlinx website is just not updated regularly. Days feel so so so long when you are waiting for something, and I just hate that.

My friend, thankfully, presented to me 2 books as a gift for my birthday. Well, it took so long but anyway he wanted to do that anyway! I gave him a list of books in my Amazon's wishlist and told him to pick whatever he likes to pick. Too bad he doesn't blog but I might consider put his email address here to send him your requests :), he is a generous man! 

The first book he got me is the one book I need so urgently since I'm working with my inkjet printer and printing out my photographs: Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers, 2nd Edition 

 

I'm just starting to read and so far it's all in the circle of an introduction to printing systems. With my work start right now, seems work time is the only time I'm able to read this book for now, specially with my Ayvarith business being idle for some time now.

The other book was also a book that I was urge to own, but for some time now I've been delaying this in favor of photography books, upon which I'm concentrating to expand my horizon in this field. The book is: Introduction to Manuscript Studies. I've been always fond of such artifacts and eager to see them with my own eyes, and take snaps of them with my own camera. These objects gives you a vivid imagination even if you can't read them, and if you can read them, some wisdom is added as well, something beyond our physical world and the wisdom of the internet nowadays.

 

But this book is large and big, and I can't start reading it right away. I'm thinking of having it with me when I travel to Ireland but even with that I'm reluctant. I have 3 books in my mind that I need to pick only one of them. The printing book, the manuscripts book, and a book that I got last year from Ireland about Irish myths which I just started to read recently. Mainly it is a set of stories.

Beside these books I'm concerned so far by the weight of my luggage and the security procedures in airports, as I am trying to transport with me a tripod, a monopod, a mini-tripod and the heavy VR-head 303SPH Manfrotto.

All I have to do I guess is just pray for some good luck my way. I might need some bigger case for all this mess I have at hand right now. Or, I might just end up making my backpack for my own clothes!

Back to printing, I gave a try on calibrating my monitor as it is usually adviced for people who process their photos and print them out. The calibration process is aimed at giving the processor (me) to see on monitor almost the final product that would be printed out with the inkjet for maximum quality. I surfed the net a bit for some methods to calibrate my 19" LCD monitor. One of the methods that I've tried was using a special chart displayed on monitor and you'd have to adjust the brightness and the contrast of the monitor in order to view the chart correctly.

from http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php

In this chart, you are supposed to see different grade of whites and blacks over all the letters from A to Z. In the laptop's monitor (14") this is the situation by default, but with my LCD back home, the struggle was tiresome. I tried everything in the monitor's control but I gave up in favor of fixing the brightness and the contrast in the NVIDIA controls in the Control Panel (along with the Hue and Vibrance). I was able finally to almost see the different bands, but the general light of the monitor was greyish and so hard to see clearly with it. Just in case, I saved the profile in a separte file just in case I want to load it when I work with my prints. So far, and after looking at my laptop's monitor and see how it is clear, I think I will work again with this problem and see if I can find a suitable compromise. Probably I'm supposed to fix my LCD at a right angle.

The other method for calibration involves printing out a specific set of images and changing the parameters of the monitor to match the tones of the printed image. Despite the idea which sounds logical, but yet I don't feel it is a practical way or should I say, a systematic way for calibrating the monitor, but when all fails, seems there is no escape to follow this as a last resort.

Behind the camera now, I've decided to have fun my own way with Eid's visits. Personally, as a loner and so much isolated from the social life in here, I don't go out and visit the rest of the family members like my family members do usually in such occasions, hence, I decided to go on and work with my camera when my brothers and sisters started to visit with all the noisy kids (and adults as well). I mounted the flash of course, which I didn't master yet, and went on splashing the light pulses all over the place (and blinding people sitting around as well). I realized again that I still need to practice the basics to use the Speedlite flash before I think creatively with it, but anyhow, the whole thing was a point-and-shoot process with a high shutter speed (but not higher than 200 since the flash unit automatically limits the speed). I'm still trying to figure out some way to shoot in higher shutter speeds like 1000 and above with the Speedlite flash, and probably this is only possible in single shot mode in the camera and setting the flash unit to Manual and full power as well. The Canon EOS 7D has a wireless control which would enable me to control the flash without any need to attach it to the camera. If only I had it back then.

 

Canon Speedlite 580EX II

No trials in HDR field this time of course, but only trials on catching the moments. Although I tried to take on bracketed exposures later in a group photo with my brothers but it failed as well for the shake. Now I realized how hard it is to mke a HDR for portraits.

My niece! Hilarious!

Angela

Of course along with other troubles, you can expect the hard shadows as well. No softbox in use here, nor a reflective surface to bounce the flash light from. Just a direct hit in the face! I'm thinking of printing some of those images. Usually the time of Eid is something I don't have much fun with, mainly because I don't get along with others as well as being bored more than the usual. But now, seems I have a sort of an effective way to have my fun, my way.

I've finalized the last slideshow with photos from Ireland, and entitled "Ireland - VI," but so far, I'm trying to find some way to send it over to many emails of friends I know. The final size of the WMV file was more than 23MB a bit and with some trials to minimize the size (and quality a bit) the final product so far is an AVI of 13MB. I might put this file into my Google account for downloading and put a link leading to that in the email. I've just found out that in Google you can't upload a file larger than 20MB into your account.

Just before I finalize this post, there is one hilarious event that took place few days ago, and I really would like to mention this here, problably some reader would find me an explanation for this. If you followed the previous post, you might read something about creating a SR imge of a toast texture and produced almost a 31MP image out of three 8MP images. I had to fine-tune the final image a bit and fix the tones and contrast. The image was submitted as it is then to Canstockphoto, which accepted it, and also to Bigstockphoto, which unfortunately, refused it. Now the reason for this refusal was hilarious a bit. Grainy image. Do they realize the image is of a TOAST surface?!?!

Could Not Resist...

Well, been many days now since I've posted stuff here. Mainly because my work is boring and slow going, I spend it all watching stuff on youtube waiting for the working hours to finish and sometimes I sign up for a short leave to leave work earlier than the regular time. My life at home though is not that idle, however. I have a list of games to play for now, and just recently I've finished the Dark Fall II - Lights Out. It is a ghost story of he Sci-Fi type. Despite my fascination with the story itself and the great design of the 1912 lighthouse and the sea village, despite of all of this, I had to go on and depend heavily on the walkthrough all around the game, mainly because of some minute details and my fast-paced way of playing such games wouldn't help with that! However, I've been always fond of Jonathan's games. Made me think seriously of being a ghost-hunter myself! The only thing here is that in the oriental world, we speak of demons and rarely ghosts as it is in the western part of the world. For such a task, Failaka island would be the first target for such investigations I believe, after the turmoil and the war and the deserted houses witness that.

I've been weak. So weak. I couldn't control myself and my expenditure. I fell in love with a new tool that costs more than one thousand dollars. In the beginning I was so ambitious to own a full-frame Canon camera, namely the 5D or the like, but the prices got me into shivers and I almost wanted to cry! Looked again for something "cheaper" and yet I couldn't find something that satisfies me completely, except of the Canon 7D and the cheaper variety of Canon T2i. I was in favor of the T2i mainly because of the price.

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon EOS 7D

Canon EOS Rebel T2i

The 5D Mark II is 21MP in resolution, while the 7D and the T2i are both 18MP. The T2i is cheaper mainly because the type of memory cards used as it seems. Generally speaking, the 7D and the T2i are both the same except in some criteria like the memory used and maybe the timer option. Also, the Canon 7D has a wireless control over Speedlite flashes which benefit me a lot, but I'm not sure that the Canon T2i does have that or not. I even went down with my ambition and thought of getting 15MP camera, like the Canon EOS 50D,

 

Canon EOS 50D

I was frustrated. I have limited time because the B&H stores are closing for the Rosh haShanah, the Jewish new year's holiday, and in the meantime, I have limited time as well because it would be nice to take this camera with me when I travel to Ireland by the end of September, and hence I have to make a decision so fast. It was really a turmoil. Add to that frustration, I'm thinking of saving a bit as well to get me a used car by the end of the year or by the beginning of the next year. I've found one store based on UK that sold the 7D for a bit of cheaper price (in dollars as well) but then I was struck by the fact that I have to pay extra charge for using my credit card! I never saw such regulations in my orders from USA before, at all. Hence, I've canceled this idea from my mind and mainly thought of ordering from the B&H only. Finally, I decided to sacrifice with some money for the sake of some long term investment, and I placed an order for the Canon 7D with an extra battery for it, for an estimation of something around 518KD, which was something a bit more than 1,800 US$. The main problem here is that those cameras now have a video recording capability, which is something I do not need and do not use at all, and that, as I think, contributes greatly to this price!

Because of the previous commitment to such equipments, I'm thinking of seriously pushing my limits with photography and arts in general somehow in some way, but yet, I can't find a way. An exhibition seems a good idea, but yet, I can't really figure out how to do it or how does it work and how much would it cost! All I can do now, is wait to be noticed maybe.

Back to my simple life now and my regular work. I've dug some more websites that mainly sell photographs from Ireland, and I've emailed some to see if I can be a contributor or asking about some regulations but so far, no reply at all! I'm planning to dig for more and find some opportunities out there.

In the meantime, I got some ideas going through my head, specially when I started doodling again in my office trying to pass the time to escape that prison. I've decided after some sketches to make a series of vectors suitable for weather broadcast and seasons of the year, and submit all to Canstockphoto (and who knows, probably Bigstockphoto too).

Some vectors so far. (Top left) Circular ornamentation made by a repetitive pattern of a single shape, 

(Top right) A tide, (Bottom) Wind vector.

I'm still working on these sketches so far, as I'm planning to make doodles for the four seasons. I have to resolve some problem with the vector uploads in Canstock and waiting for their reply so far. The JPG display does not show and makes it hard for me to organize my files.

I made an experiment again with a software that I've forgot about some time now. That would be the PhotoAcute and its options for producing Super-Resolution (SR) images. I really can't remember how I thought of it or what sparked the idea, but it was about making a serious trial for a SR image, because I don't remember I did something similar. The target was the texture of a toast surface in a close-up. I've bracketed the exposures like I do with HDR, but here I've used a short distance, mainly a 1/3 stop only, with a small aperture (f32), at 55mm.

Toast Texture (minimized)

After converting the RAW files into TIFF (and this is one awkward thing about PhotoAcute, that it does not deal with RAW files directly), I've put them in PhotoAcute and set the option to increase the resolution. The resulting image was saved as TIFF as well, and the size was 6904x4604, making the resolution up to 31.7MP, or rounded to 32MP (the resolution is simply a multiplication of pixels dimensions). The TIFF version was already 225MB! While the JPG version was already exceeding 25MB. I've submitted the image in hope of acceptance now. I might be using this method a lot lately, specially in a close-up images for patterns and textures. Now imagine this peaking in resolution, accompanied by a proper gear, like a 18MP camera!

By a simple comparison, if it is accurate to state this, my 8MP camera produced at the end a 32MP image almost, which means 4 times the original resolution almost. Hence, a 18MP image, would produce I suppose a 72MP image at the end. My hand is itching.

Beside all of this work, I'm trying to make a final collection of photos from Ireland, but this time I'm trying to fit it into a movie file by using Windows Movie Maker. So far, I suck at this. I can't manage to put it as I like. This way though would be fanciful and better than clicking images to see a larger version in the email message. Plus, I can add music to it, and so far I picked some "noisy" music that I like; The March of The King of Laoise. A tough bagpipe tune. Let's hope I figure this thing out before my vacation (which I'm burning to start ASAP).