Alexander 6, V75.

 Calm day relatively after all the fuss that happened yesterday. Yet, working with Ayvarith right now jammed my brain little bit. Finally I finished the additions and fixes. Now it is time to pour everything on the HTML files, or rather convert these text documents into HTML. In the meantime as well, I'm going on thinking of a layout for the webpage I'm planning to do, which is something not settled yet in my mind.

Been writing down some words that were cooking in my mind for a while, and finally put them on paper here. I called it Let Go The Passion. I've submitted the same piece into another website that I've known recently, www.songwritingfever.com. A nice website I'd say for wanna-be-artists. I've submitted the piece for opinions only.

Unfortunately I didn't find something really useful with my digging up in the photos of last year's visit to Ireland, but hopefully I shall try again today (tonight) and upload them up into the web. I found some that would turn out great, but neither HDR merging nor Exposure Fusion were successful in eliminating some of the hard artifacts. Most of these photos were taken from the boat. I would still, maybe, make something out of a single shot rather than merging 3 of them together, but I'm not sure of the outcome.

Checking up with DHL now, and I'm glad my shipment had finally moved a bit, though still in the USA. I need this VR head now to try it out with my latest lab projects, since I gave up the hope completely in anything good about the stitch. They were simply, erratic!

Signed out for an earlier leave, so I must submit this now, and go back home and play a game that I've been waiting to play for some time!
Tschüss!
__________
1777. in that moment a shout from afar cut off the silence
1778. "hey you! what are you doing?" someone said
1779. Alexander looked behind him and saw no one
1780. he looked back to the tree and wanted to get close
1781. but the shout again appeared again and louder even
1782. he stopped and looked around but no one he could see
1783. until he felt something that hurts his feet
1784. he jumped a bit and looked down with anger
1785. and found out a dwarf creature close to his feet
1786. Alexander got surprised for the size of that thing
1787. and down to his knees he knelt to see
1788. then Alexander asked: are you talking to me?
1789. the bad tempered dwarf replied: you see others here?
1790. Alexander replied with confidence: no, but who are you?
1791. the dwarf replied with anger: I think I should ask you this!
1792. Alexander answered calmly: my name is Alexander,
1793. a stranger from these lands and seeking my destination,
1794. now would you please tell me who are you?
1795. the dwarf replied with a high pitched voice
1796. "I am Kaliván, and the owner of this half of the lands"
1797. Alexander stepped back then and said: Ah! Sorry then!
1798. I did step here by mistake as I am a stranger,
1799. but what is wrong with this tree of shadow?
1800. then the dwarf sighed and looked down

Alexander 6, V74.

 Monday. Do I have to explain it? I don't think so.
I had a plan to spend this day calmly in my office and work on my Ayvarith project little bit, adding words to the dictionary and fixing some entries...etc. But, destiny had other plans for me. I received a phone call telling me to come and get my car from the garage! Can you believe it?! After being in the garage since April 18th, it is released just now. Of course, I thought this is just some good news. So I thought, with my childish dreams.
I'm going to state the events in a sequence, to be easier to be understood:

1. Took off to the leasing company to get my car.
2. A damage founded in the exchange car and they asked me to bring papers to repair the car.
3. Went to the nearest police station to get the paper, the officer said I must go to my area's police station.
4. Went all the way to my area's police station and in between the paper work I lost like an hour of my time.
5. Got the paper, got back to the leasing company.
6. In the company I had to wait for more than one hour (or two) to get someone to get the car for me.
7. The battery was dead (and I don't know how they moved it), so one more 30 minutes or one hour of waiting.
8. Here I am.

Away from all of that, there has been some delay in my shipment for the Manfrotto head. My friend says it is normal now for DHL to have such delays.

Sick of all the stress, so I'm going to stop talking about it now. Beside my typical work in preparing some fish samples this morning, I took some time to write some words, call it poetry, lyrics, or whatever. I made two pieces, one for a contest the other one was cooking in my mind for some time. The first was called Lady of Glass Shoes, and the second is Be Animal. I just got a word about the first poem now, that I couldn't get into the contest, because the contest was about short stories and not poems (duh?). The second poem was done minutes before writing this. It is how I feel about me being a human being in a fussy messy world around me. So.. let's be animals...

Still digging into those images from Ireland, and I saw one image that I didn't notice before and even forgot about completely.

This image was composed using Exposure Fusion and not into HDR. The HDR tone-mapping proved difficult and produced many artifacts and erratic pixels in the image. All of this because of the movement of the image. The picture was taken on boat on the way to Inchagoill island, and hence, it was so shaky and the main subject in the middle was displaced in great amount from the center point. The exposure fusion at this point solved it all and eliminated the problem with the displacement, and also, produced the bluish hue of the image that was not very to get in tone-mapping the HDR version. Is it nice to have such great tools? Morever, Exposure Fusion option is not like a magic wand, since it already failed to eliminate some of the shaky images in my collection, but still it is nice to see such results at hand at this point.

Time to submit all of this fuss here and get ready to leave back home. I need a good damn sleep...
__________

1753. the next morning arrived with its glory
1754. and the birds awakened Alexander and his Cadid
1755. the two looked at each other and around them
1756. the fresh breeze of air made them forget the pains
1757. Alexander gave the Cadid some food again for breakfast
1758. and he decided to explore the valley and its trees
1759. to make food for himself from these plants
1760. he wandered with his Cadid to different parts
1761. until he noticed no tree had a shadow at day
1762. just like the people of this weird world or most of them
1763. except of one tree that had a moving shadow
1764. he wandered in the valley to check other trees
1765. but it was only that tree that had a shadow
1766. he approached the tree with his Cadid slowly
1767. as soon as they arrived beside the tree of shadow
1768. the branches started to catch the clothes of Alexander
1769. so rapidly, he escaped from it and ran away
1770. while the Cadid kept on barking and howling
1771. the thoughts raced in Alexander's mind about it
1772. then he said to himself: if people have no shadows,
1773. and get shadows when they do evil in their lives,
1774. how come this tree has a shadow of its own?
1775. could it be that someone transformed into a tree?
1776. but Alexander could not find a final answer

Alexander 6, V11.

This is one tiresome day. I couldn't resist sleeping in my office at all, so I had to "snooze" off for about 2 hours! Thank God I got a flexible condition here.
I did one big experiment yesterday, at night, and hence the results still did not show up yet to post them here; I took a 360 panorama of the living room (which we call usually as a "hall"). It was a tiresome task, not for the complexity of the process (which does not change whatsoever), because the people there! Mom and sister were there only and then accompanied by my younger brother and all was such a fuss trying to control and stop people from going into the scene when the camera was working with the shutter.
The total images were around 168 images taken with 3 shots per angle (making it for around 56 angles of view). After finishing I went on right away and combined the images into EXR with the help of the batch processor of Photomatix, and also once again I batched them (in another folder) under Exposure Fusion process with certain parameters. I'm not quite satisfied with the general yellowish-brown hue of the hall (it is really like that), thus I will check later if I can change this to something more pleasant. Now you know why I was awake all night and did not have enough sleep!
This morning I tried to do a sample stitch for the EF version, and for some reason, there was some blurred area in the perview, although I'm almost sure that all images were taken in fine sharpness! I had to leave to damn work thus I couldn't investigate it more, but I shall do so of course once I go back home. It IS going to be a tiresome sleepless day.
Just now, I realized that I did sort of a mistake. I could use the camera in portrait position. I think that would reduce the time and the number of shots radically, like I did with our lab before;

 

Gamma Spectroscopy Lab - CRER, Kuwait University.

The difference here is that this image was taken normally without any intention for HDR, thus the shots were lesser by a factor of 3 than it would be normall for HDR. However, the advantage of using the portrait position instead of the landscape position (for me) in capturing such panoramas is that, and because I use the method of connecting points in the viewfinder of the camera when rotating the camera around its axis, that requires later on to elevate the camera up and down (in case your intention was a 360 spherical panorama). The farthest distance in the viewfinder can be found between the leftmost and rightmost dots, thus with neglecting the zenith point (above ur head directly), you can do 2 rows of images; one is low and the other is high, and then the nadir and zenith come in bottom and on top respectively. In my case yesterday (and I was working on degrees engraved on the tripod and not by the viewfinder), I had to take 5 rows of images in landscape position (not counting zenith and nadir), a row at each angle of: 0, +30, +60, -30, -60 degrees. "0" angle is the horizon of course or the mid-line of the panorama.

Now in portrait you might need only 2 angles (or 3 if you feel unlucky), as I did with the picture above. First, I fixed the camera in horizontal position (still in portrait of course) and I make a note about where the center dot resides. I, then, tilt the camera downward to make the uppermost dot reside in that place in the viewfinder, that was occupied by the center dot. I do the same for the upward direction where I fix the lowermost dot in the viewfinder into that center point. To insure that a stitch would go smooth with control points, I might as well take a third row of images from the center itself. Now if you have fisheye lens with 180 HFoV of course all your life problems would be, almost, over. All what you might need then is simply 4 angles and you're over with it and the rest would be a work on PC to unwrap the fisheye image (and fix aberration). Not only that, but you can just capture a skydome by lowering the camera as much as you can and pointing your camera upward exactly at 90 degrees and hence you got a view of the surroundings in one shot (or 3 if you like it in HDR, ore more if you want a more professional HDR let's say). The work later on is on PC for unwrapping the images.

I'm quite surprised by some manufacturers of photography tools when they put a label or a comment on their products or softwares and say "designed to lessen the time spent in front of the PC and make you spend more time behind the camera," or something that goes like that anyway. The thing is, most of the art is in the PC as I believe. Yes, I do require an easy-going program when I deal with things but if professionality requires complexity a bit, then I wouldn't mind spending more time facing the monitor; this is the fun! I'm not a busy man with my camera, specially with the lack of inspiration these days, and thus, spending more time in front of the monitor is not a big deal for me (the only thing is when I NEED to play a game or so and leave the images-work for some time). If the software is good I presume, for example, and that makes it complex, then it better be able to fix the errors done by the camera or the composition or the lighting coditions in the scene, and hence this is the real benefit as I believe! Less time behind the camera, more time in front of the PC. Why? Well, in past posts (last year) I guess I told you about some stories when I was stopped by security guys and by cops for many reasons and permit is required and all the blah blah blah with that. In such cases, I do need indeed lesser time behind the camera and finish everything as fast as I could and run back home to do what I want, and fix my errors that I HAD to do. I'm not pushing you to be an outlaw like I do (ah yeh), but there are many occasions when you are not comfortable in some situation and MUST hit and go. I think it is just my style that I can't take pre-planned images but I have to hit and run as usual, or just snap something beautiful I saw on my way while driving on some road.

Anyway, I leave you now with Alexander 6, verse 11. I have to look now after some cleaning brushes for the damn sensor!

__________
241. this talk sparked the pains in Alexander
242. he can see the events in front him
243. like it is happening in that moment
244. just like it happened before thirty years
245. when his father, the glorious, fell in a trap
246. arranged by demons and wizards who followed them
247. because he banished them from his lands
248. because he punished them so hard
249. he can remember the image of his father
250. when he fell on the floor unconscious
251. and his skin turned red and purple
252. while his body was like a piece of wood
253. when the wizards and witches attacked
254. accompanied with demons on their sides
255. and started to eat the flesh
256. just before he attacks them with his Charnagút
257. young he was at that time but he never forgets
258. the pains accompanied him all the way
259. until he buried his father under the sea
260. so no one would reach the body or see
261. and he could remember the face of Kadmún
262. the demon who who poisoned his father by trick
263. and the demon who tried to get his father's heart
264. how shall he forget the face of such cruelty?

Alexander 6, V8.

It is one busy day, and full of dust. The weather was nice in the morning, but suddenly after a visit from my director who asked me to get the "air sampler" out to collect a sample of air in "such" weather, I suddenly stopped and looked through the window, and voila! A yellow planet was there! The time was almot 9 a.m. even (and not exactly 9).
After some trials again with my tortaloza (my beloved turtle, going to call it tortaloza from now on), and my watch with my rings. Not so much to be mentioned really, but I did, somehow, make up some sparkles on the surface, but yet I had to use the flash head as well. I made 2 images different in DOF and tried to combine them with Exposure Fusion option in Photomatix, but the result was not what I did expect. The image was a bit of what I call "dreamy effect," where you have some blurred fog like texture over the original image (and with some sparkles as well). Anyway, I discovered that the shallow DOF for the two images can be combined together in Photoshop by stocking and blending (not an option for CS2 users);

 

Two images of different depths combined by "blending" as "stock" in Photoshop CS4.

As you can see, in the first image the ring was sharp and the turtle is blurred at the back (it gives a sense of a distance) and the opposite is on the right image, although the ring might not seem so clear whether it is blurred or not. However, with Photoshop and not by exposure fusion, I made a new image with both objects sharp.

I felt that Photomatix's EF option is not what I need, so I found, as mentioned in some site, that there is a freeware named EnfuseGUI. It is a software based on a command-line program made before. "GUI" stands for "Graphical User Interface," which is the type of softwares I do like the best. However, the software got a glitch and crash every time I drag and drop some files in it (or maybe it is because I was using RAW files rather than JPG or TIF?). There is no "add" or "open" buttons in this software, and the only method is to drag and drop. I think I shall try again today and see if this problem is related to the files being RAW or not. I have to convert the files first.

The software has many options that I've never heard of in Photomatix; many sliders and check-boxes here and there and something about maps or the type of map. The map here, as I believe, is the map created from one file in order to measure the weight of each pixel (usually done by doing a Threshold effect in the memory, i.e. not seen in front of you on the monitor but merely something calculated and data collected for usage by the CPU). I could be using Photoshop less now, but I think this is for good.

__________

169. a man got closer to Alexander and started
170. and the story of his folk he went to tell
171. "we are from far away lands there near you,
172. in greenish mounts just before Caqobia,
173. we are the Shepherds, and I am Ikilis,
174. every year at a time like this,
175. we come to this spot with sheep to pasture
176. and the volcano god Kadmún won't allow us,
177. until we pray for him and slay some sheep
178. and if we did not do that, all our fortune will be gone"
179. Alexander boiled with rage but kept silent
180. and talked slowly to Ikilis the shepherd
181. "dear Ikilis, what kind of god is that,
182. who has no mercy for his followers?
183. and what kind of god is that,
184. who cannot make other people worship him?
185. or what kind of god is that,
186. who asks for fortunes of others?"
187. Ikilis thought about it for a moment
188. then asked Alexander: what do you mean O good king?
189. Alexander smiled to know that the man is able to think
190. then Alexander said: no gods on this Earth,
191. except of God who is every where,
192. and that Kadmún is certainly a demon of tricks

Alexander 6, V7.

After some streak of idleness and a streak of melancholy all over the place, I was able to make one experiment which I cannot say it is sucessful anyway but, well, it was a nice chance to test my softbox again.
I made many sittings and changed the position of the front light many times trying to make that sparkle off from the surface of the turtle but there was no use for that (except a tiny bit of luster). I even used my flash WITH the lights being on. I like the background though and the soft shadow, but I also need a nice sparkle in such images;

 

Exposures made by different apertures merged together and tone-mapped by Photoshop.

I read in some website that Exposure Fusion (which is a new technique that came after HDR), is now a new trend and is pretty much preferable rather than the HDR, mainly because of the skill needed when tone-mapping a HDR. Well, to me, the situation is not always like that. Many times, the EF did not yield the colors and contrast I would like to see in my images. However, there was a bit of information that I really liked to try, but I didn't do well yesterday (my mind was shattered), that is EF is able to enfuse several depth of fields, because the technique mainly compares pixels and picks the best pixel from each image to be represented according to some algorithm. I used EF already to merge pictures of different white balances (WB) and it made some nice images with different, and weird, hues like the locker before;

  

Two different images made by the same collection of images of different White Balances.

I shall try again today if I was able to, and to try out different depths of field to be combined. I think I should have somehow an active background instead of just a plain white background. Anyway, I shall leave you now with Alexander...

__________

145. after finishing their worshipping in a hurry
146. they turned to Alexander with reddish eyes
147. and asked him about his name and origin
148. he answered back and told them the truth
149. they laughed in the beginning so loud
150. because how come the king of might
151. the well known king of Caqobia
152. be walking with no guards or army?
153. then one man showed his dagger to Alexander
154. and threatened Alexander if he did not say the truth
155. then Alexander asked them to see his index finger
156. on his left hand where he kept the royal ring
157. so the men checked his finger and got shocked
158. he was indeed the king of kings
159. the son of Pilippánút, the king of Caqobia
160. the conqueror of Geltans and Ghutans
161. they stood with no motion trying to understand
162. then with a smile Alexander asked them to sit
163. and he told them his story and his destination
164. and how he got down from his riches to poverty
165. then he preached to them about God and this life
166. and why he did what he did for them
167. and then he asked them about their story
168. about their origin and their faith