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| Kenko's DR655 |
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| Tiffen's hot mirror transmission chart acquired practically and posted in the link above. |
Thus, I can say with a degree of confidence: People, do not get that filter even if you want to use it on a regular camera to enhance the colors of your shot. The filter is not even effective at 750nm as I thought. Just for comparison, here is the transmission chart for the filter mentioned above, DR655.
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| DR655 Transmission chart |
Well, we don't need to understand Japanese to really realize how perfect this filter is for my needs. As you can see, DR655 has a steep slope down at around 650nm and indeed blocks at around 700nm, while still allowing ultraviolet range (~ 300nm-400nm). Why I didn't figure this out years ago? Of course, there is the option of having a proper ultraviolet filter other than the one I have already (B+W's) but that alone would cost more than the combined price of a hot mirror and B+W filter. Besides, would shall I do with the B+W 403 filter then? Sell it? I don't think people here do realize this kind of art nor would be interesting in it, not to say what would they do if they discovered it is leaking IR. Yeah, getting a new hot mirror is my best bet for now, and I need to do it fast!
There are other items I would be ordering beside that, not related to photography, but I'll talk about it in some other time maybe.
Ath-Fháil Amach
Most of my activities in the past weeks were focusing on re-discovering some of the old images from Ireland and Malta. I was specifically looking for some chances to make out some more Anaglyphs. Along the way, I was able to identify some images with some potential after neglecting them before, mainly with some focus on enhancing the colors (using LAB technique generally). Well, the potential I mean here is not a potential of being classified as "Top," but I mean an image that can be enhanced and, well, be viewable; Instead of being neglected and deemed useless.
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| Yellow Caps |
Shots like Yellow Caps made me, though, re-consider my approach with editing in LAB. In this image (and few others) I often had trouble with the saturation, so much that I did need to do some extra work to fix the problem. This is beside the "curves amendment technique" which is practically re-assigning the values for the Blacks, Whites and Gamma in the image to enhance the contrast and at some point fix the white balance. In Yellow Caps, it can be noticed how the background contains a large red spot, which is there originally but it got exaggerated in saturation with LAB technique, but then I had to do extra work to reduce the saturation, and yet it might feel a bit popping out still. I've reduced the visual impact further by using Lens Blur on the image (despite having a shallow depth of field already); My main goal with Lens Blur though was to pop out the front element further (with the help of sharpening).
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| Around Ashford |
On the other hand, despite all the extra work that editing with LAB would issue, there are images like Aroound Ashford where the lengthy work paid handsomely with somewhat a mystical look in this ordinary shot with pale green hues (originally). The major thing about this image which made me neglect it is, actually, the spots of highlights between the trees. This is a problem in many of the shots along the years and right now I'm trying to fix some of these images by overlapping (not cloning) with other areas of the same image (sometimes from another image). Most of the time, it gets all natural-looking, and if not, there is the cloning tool to fix some minor issues about that.
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| Islamic Display Room |
One of the things that I work on re-discovering them is the punch of panoramas done back in 2015 for the Al-Uthman Museum, which was a comissioned work. Since I've done these panoramas, I was asked to keep them "in hiding" and not show them, and it was not till 2017 when I started showing my panoramas on Instagram, apparently with no objection from anyone related to the matter. Anyway, right now I'm starting to re-discover other projections for these panoramas and specifically the planet and tunnel projection styles (technically they are the same but with a change in viewing point), and boy, what did I see!
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| Magnetum Marinum |
Some of these panoramas were, well, nice looking. Some of them were, well, SUPER-looking. Examples here, the Islamic Display Room and Magnetum Marinum were both done in tunnel projection instead of planet intentionally. As for Islamic Display Room, I had to switch to tunnel because of some bar in the ceiling which broke the symmetry awfully, while for the other one, Magnetum Marinum, obviously it was the flooring boards which astonished me. I've been always a fan of lines; Harmonic lines specifically and those that just make up swift and smooth geometrical shapes. This is why I fell in love with this panorama in such projection so much that I didn't even dare to put a watermark on it so I won't disturb its harmony, even though that this would put the image in danger after all. I'm still processing these panoramas and still checking and I think there is some good potential. The problem is, though, whether I have the right to submit those for contests and stocks, away from the social media thing. We'll see…
Finale
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| Bloomless Bloom (3D) |
Life seems to be getting weirder as I go on now. I'm trying hard to understand myself in the first place and that makes me a bit more isolate than before at some level. It is weird how I get attached easily with people out of my reach and yet find it hard to get along with people close to me. The question of my mental capabilities and whether or not I'm right or wrong about my relations with people around is a continuous hurdle to my mind. It's just amazing how one can find someone similar to a great extent, even in simple things like handedness, and feel attach to, yet they are just out of reach not only by distance, but also by core beliefs; And despite that, things get along. At least from a distance. Meanwhile, everything close seems to collapse with no glimpse of hope about a bright future. I really need to get back to my camera and work non-stop if I can, and a vacation… ASAP…
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