The Banana Affair…

Breathing some air now and then with the schools being off, and yet trying to get my emotions ready for the stress and frustration with schools' return by next week. Temperatures here dropped down drastically and it was pretty cold, which I like! Unfortunately though, I didn't go out as I was hoping to take photos outside. I managed though to do my promise to myself and took the camera with me to work with Voigtländer 20mm lens and tried to snap some images. Well, I had to admit though that I did a bit of cheating here (if I can call it so) since I did take some accessories with me to help me out with the task. Anyway, this is not the main topic for this blog spot but let's see what I've managed to catch with this lens and camera combination!

20mm Fishing

As I've stated above, I did some cheating here (always in fact) when I did take the 20mm lens and camera with me to work. This cheat was to include, in the pack, some filters and the intervalometer. The filters were: Big stopper (10 stops) and a polarizer. Testing my eyes with this combination of camera and lens didn't happen in a single day in fact. I did take it with me wherever I went for 3 days. I couldn't touch the camera at work in the first day (got busy out of nowhere!), while in the second day, I was actually in a friend's workplace. Initially, I've wanted to shoot something but no one was there and I got bored alone and felt so tired so I needed that nap, until one friend came in and decided then to try something with him, as he was enjoying his breakfast on the desk!

An Taibhse Ag Obair
(the ghost at work)
Voigtländer 20mm, f/9, 10m, ISO100.

 Despite the dim light inside the office, yet the exposure time was not slow enough. Of course, if my desire was to show a motion blur in a suitable manner, I would have used that slow shutter speed and would have asked my friend to do some specific motion. However, this was not my aim. My aim was a complete abstract with a stable background (and for a bonus, a stable object as it appeared with the bowl of cereals!). To help lengthen the exposure time further, I've used (of course) my big stopper which ads 10 stops to the exposure time (and of course each stop is a double), so the total time happened to be 10 minutes. He was shocked at first, thinking how come he would remain stable on the chair for 10 minutes! Anyway, I've explained the idea for him and told him just to stay in the chair but he can move freely as he likes within the chair. I've placed the camera on a small tripod which I got years back (even before my travel to Ireland in 2010; I know because I used it there!) which was sturdy enough to carry the weight of the camera and lens, plus the lengthy intervalometer. It was cumbersome to straighten the image in-camera though, but it was good to some degree, yet I had to depend on the vertical line formed by the board on the wall (its edge) to straighten the image. The bulk of the work on the image was focused on turning the image into a dramatic and yet smooth black and white image; A combination of sharpening and smoothing the noise will always be the nightmare to achieve.

It's Changing
Voigtländer 20mm, f/13, 30s, ISO100.

The next day, in my workplace this time, I had another chance to try out the same camera and lens combination in addition to the same big stopper as well (with the polerizer as well but its effect was minimum). The cloudy weather was encouraging to some degree, even though to my experience, an overcast sky would not quite suitable to show clouds line in the sky with long exposures but I tried anyway and the result was It's Changing. I tried a longer exposure of 10 minutes but the image was so bright and the highlights could not be saved as I hoped. To make sure everything is in proper sharpness, and because the camera was to be placed on the ground near the pillar which did not allow me to see the LiveView or LCD, I depended here on the hyperfocus principle on setting the focusing ring and then I added one third of a stop (hence using f/13 instead of f/11) just to make sure that things are in good sharp level and enough depth of field. I placed the camera on the ground, on the box of the big stopper filter just to avoid scratches to the LCD, and that in fact allowed me also (when I did the 10 minutes exposure) to place a coin under the camera to see the reflection of the red light (which notes the camera is busy exposing the image); That way I was able to see for myself if the camera finished the exposure or not in case I don't hear the click sound when it finishes. Some might wonder why I don't just check the intervalometer, well, for some reasons I didn't want to move or touch the intervalometer: The camera was a bit shaky and easy to rotate on the box, so I kept the cable remote beside the camera, AND, it is better to check the light as I was having a walk in the garden instead of bending close to the camera to see the intervalometer. The red light from the camera's body is way clearer than trying to figure out the numbers on the LCD of the intervalometer. Anyway, I've picked the one with 30 seconds exposure here for processing and the rest of the game with this image, again, was to settle down with proper black and white tones. The highlights were a bit over but I was able to pull them down away from the cut-off region when processed. Strangely how this image was exposed for 30 seconds only at ISO100 with such a filter as the big stopper. I called this image It's Changing because it kind of gave me the chills in the spine for everything that is changing around me and in my life, from simple things such as likes and dislikes, to morals and priorities of people around me. It's changing.

The Two
Voigtländer 20mm, f/16, 1/3s, ISO100.

I wandered a bit around while exposing It's Changing and did notice some good approaches to minimalism and abstracts in some spots, but unfortunately, later on I've found out that many of these images were shaky because I was trying to bend or take them in some hard angle without any help from any tripod or mini-tripod, so I had to forget about them from the time being, unless I can figure our some creative way to edit my mistakes in some form of art! However, I was able to capture The Two here which is, to me at least of some sort, gives and shines some hope in me; About good things that happen in desperate times without me being in control of anything yet make me grow and flourish. I hope. Again, in The Two, I've used the principle of hyperfocus and with even greater f-stop (f/16 this time). I've taken several shots at various distances and angles around these 2 plants but probably the best one was the very first shot I've made (with some re-alignment and crop). Taking such pictures with bent back has never been an easy job, and I wouldn't be lying down in this dirt! I still didn't upload all these photos to the stocks yet. Didn't have the time to keyword them. As for the time being, I need to think about my next challenge and what lens I'm going to use. Should I go with a telephoto this time? Or change the camera and move to my converted 7D? We'll see…

The Banana Affair

The bulk of the previous two weeks, on the other hand, was focused on another experiment done at home, and not a mere challenge with a single lens and camera combination for one day. This, in fact, is a process that took me 10 days to finish! Well, with professionals I'm sure a period of 10 days of shooting is nothing really. The experiment? Rotting bananas. And just for fun, I've called the whole thing "Operation Banana."

 Footage from the 2^nd day.

So, before delving into the details, I just want to talk here a bit about the idea, which was simply to document the process of rotting for bananas, and since I didn't know what the exact outcome would be, I've decided to place a peeled one and unpeeled one, side by side. To get some good contrast with the white banana body, I've placed the set on a black paper (then acrylic board). The shooting took place under black lights (UV lights that is) and, of course, used my UV-pass filter (B+W 403) and DR-665 hot mirror to block any infrared, and after fixing the white balance, the result was a monochromatic image.

In the beginning, as you might have heard in the video if you watched it already, I've set the timer to take a picture every 2 minutes, but then I realized this was a bit of an exaggeration to get a smoother transition when frames are merged into a video. Thus, by the 5^th day, I've changed the interval of shooting to every 5 minutes instead. There was some degree of disappointment though, mainly because I didn't realize some biological (botanical) facts, such as that bananas do not turn brown because of some bacteria of fungi, but it turns brown or black in time because of some enzyme. Also, after the 5^th day, I've decided to warm the set up during the shoot, so I placed a hair dryer not far from the set (which actually made the whole room warm and cozy in one or two hours!). Finally, the end result was actually a shrinkage in size for the peeled banana while the unpeeled turned into a "fluid" form, but I didn't dare open it! They were 10 days full of running around checking batteries and memory cards (used 2 memory cards in the process, exchanging one when it's almost full with the other one), and the total shots taken here were more than 4000 shots (yes, four thousands).

 The Banana Affair

The hurdles were not limited to the physical realm with the set, but also in the digital realm with the preparing of the photos. Shots were all done in RAW. You might see the video here is a bit shaky and cumbersome with some movement? Well, blame my clumsy movement which caused me to shake the tripod in the process many times. Anyway, the video above is the total one and it was adjusted later on. Originally, the video was 2m14s long but I've shortened that later on by increasing the fps (frame per second) rate. 

To do such a massive and huge edit on these files (done in patches each time I would have to change the memory card) I had to dig out the old Digital Photo Professional (DPP), or namely the Canon's software which is installed along with the drivers long ago but I seldom use, if ever. Despite its controls, I managed to achieve the look on one image and generalize the "recipe" (i.e. the parameters of editing) on the whole set of images and then save all those edited as JPEGs with resize and changing the name of each file in sequential manner. All this process was to be so hard to be done in Photoshop - Maybe someone might say Adobe Bridge is the tool for this task? Not sure it would do so, besides, the controls and menus are some what complicated for me to dig out. DPP was much easier to work with and simple (and its simplicity sometimes is what makes not edit in it as well). Oh, and I could even change the color space to Adobe 1998 space along with the conversion to JPEG. 

This was the story of the Banana Affair, and guess what? It is now uploaded to the stocks and accepted exclusively on Dreamstime! It was hard at first because I don't know many aspects about uploading videos or footage to the stocks and they have special requirements, but I've done it after all with some trials, and now I'm up to do one more if I can! Let's see if it ends up well.

Finale

Well, as you can see I'm trying to keep myself busy with the camera as much as possible, but on the other hand I do have my moments of inspiration which I translate into some quote writing of some sort. I didn't write or think of words to pin a poem for some time now (since December if I recall) so probably my plan for the next coming weeks is to focus on this more, but more importantly, to focus on my feelings. 

Many things are troubling my mind; Life, work, future, as well as death in fact. I'm trying my best to stop my mind from triggering panic attacks and anxiety, and to keep thinking that it is all in the hands of God. This alone, is really leaving me tired to the extent of not taking care of what I'm supposed to take care of, or even indulge myself in. I think this exhaustion is even placing some love inside of me to hatred, to some aspects or some... people.

Some people do think that I do believe in horoscopes and the stars, but I'm really reading and checking those to ease things on myself and to feel the pat on my shoulder, not because I do believe in them (even though they are an interesting thing to study somehow because of my interests in occult in general). These things promise a happy and a promising new year; I'd like to keep that thought but I'm sure that the reality has another venture for me. Probably I'm due to a short vacation, not to travel, but just to stay home and sleep or do things and work with my camera without trying to manage the damn bedtime and the sleeping pattern…

Inert...

Another week is passing here with a dormant activity on almost all levels of my life. I'm not sure what is it really, it is just that deep feeling of tiring mind and body. Despite my trial to do some photography but I failed with an honorary degree. Maybe I will talk about that later.
My niece is out of the hospital now. According to the doctors, it seems that she was inflicted with the herpes virus, and probably her teeth are suspected for such low immunity (adding the effects of thalassemia) to the virus and enabling the virus to the reach the circulatory system that easily and up to the brain. Thank God she is fine by now, even though with a dozen of medicines and antibiotics. Just to imagine such a little girl is suffering all of that at such an age makes me hate my life already.

Well, let's see what I've done in the past 2 weeks, if there is anything that I could have done better anyway...

Astro

After getting my Rokinon mirror lens, I didn't have much chances in the past weeks to try it well, but I did enough to see its effect on lunar and solar photography. The solar part, in particular, was a cumbersome experiment which I will talk about in a while.

100% Crop
Rokinon mirror lens (800mm) + 2 x2 teleconverters, f/32, 100^-1sec, ISO800.

The first real trial for the lens was directed to the moon. since I got the lens, the moon persisted on not showing up in the sky; if it is there then it's cloudy, or simply the setting time is prior to sunset itself. Anyway, let's not blabber about the "good" luck I've been experimenting this lately. I've finally captured the moon here and it's shaky as you can see above because of the great focal length (3200mm in total), and the wind was persisting that night. The crop above is a portion of the image which is not resized.

Sonne IX
Rokinon mirror lens (800mm) + 2 x2 teleconverters, f/32, 8000^-1sec, ISO100.

The next test was aimed, of course, towards the sun. In fact, the sun was the main inspiration to get such a lens after all! However, you might have noticed that the ISO was relatively high in the moon's shot and it is low in the sun's shot, naturally because of the light level difference between the two. Ironically though, the sun's shot, to me, was harder to achieve for a number of reasons:

• Sun's position in the sky which forced me almost to raise the camera at 90^o.
• Facing the sun and not being able to cover the camera with

LensCoat as I did with previous shots. The LensCoat is useful to cover my head as well while working with the camera's LCD, giving me shelter against the harsh sunlight. The diameter of the mirror lens and the fact that the camera was placed on Manfrotto telephoto lens support made it impossible to cover the system with LensCoat.

Cokin's adapter ring (105mm) is bent (!) and could loosely attach to the front of the mirror lens.

Focusing with the green welding glass proved cumbersome (it doesn't give a sharp focus after all) thus I had to try placing ND gel filters sheets in front of the lens (as Cokin's square ND filters are smaller than the diameter of the lens). This highly affected the quality of the light and increased the cumbersomeness of the movement of the camera and lens (specially with some wind blowing).

Despite the stack of ND gel filters, I still had to use the fastest shutter speed (8000^-1sec)  for my camera and still it would be somehow a bright image.

Source: B&H

I've used around 11-stop of ND filters in my sun shot. Surprisingly, the shot became desaturated. The blue color of Sonne IX might be typical for images processed from IR shots done before (by swapping channels) but in this instance all I had to do is increase the vibrance (and no channel swapping is involved). In the first instance the image was almost greyscale in appearance. I was thinking for some time about using the gel filters for general long exposure shots with other lenses instead of the Cokin square ND filters because staking Cokin's would yield a magenta tint to the image, and here with gel filters it did give an unexpected result. However, desaturation is way better than a magenta tint, from my perspective at least.
The cumbersome situation with the filters made me rethink about the so-called Rear Filters which are supposedly fitting for T-mount lenses like this mirror lens. On the other hand, there is some hope in developing some way to fit gel filters easily into such a system by placing the filters on the rear end of the teleconverters instead of the rear of the mirror lens. However, this needs some revision as the structure of the teleconverter's rear is tricky a bit. Also one of the things that I need to work with is to innovate some way to focus this lens without touching intimately to reduce the shape as much as possible. For the time being, I might be using some rubber bands and clips!

100% Crop of the sunspot.

Now back to Sonne IX which surprised me with the existence of two sunspots (each spot is composed in a pair of poles in fact, meaning they appear as 4 dots). On the smaller version, the focus sounded fine, but of course as we approach in to view the 100% or the real size of the image we can see that the focus is not sharp enough. That's good enough though. Previously, using my Sigma and two x2 teleconverters (yielding 1200mm), the sun would appear as one big disk in the frame. Now, however, using a mirror lens with the same teleconverters, a quarter of the sun fills the frame, giving a good zooming in for the sunspots at hand. The crop you see here is for the sunspot at 5 o'clock in Sonne IX above.

Nox

I've been trying hard in the past 2 weeks to push it further with my night photography. However, the exhaustion and the lack of interest in most of the locations available made me almost idle. Now, in the coming few days, I have to work as much as possible and as fast as possible because winter is vanishing, though slowly. After all, I've somehow succeeded in only one shot which took me some time around 45 minutes to do.

Ad Borea
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, ISO100.

The location is an old one in fact. I've previously took a shot in this location, with the same lens, and also in one winter night. The difference here is the shot was taken under the roof of the structure (gazebo?) rather than away from it. Also, Ad Borea is in fact a tone-mapped image from a HDR slide. The sequence of the shots was started at 16 minutes exposure and ending at 30 seconds, which one stop difference between successive shots.
One of the embarrassing moments is to discover, after returning back home and uploading the images to the PC, that there was some trash on the left side that the darkness made it hard to see back then. I had to spend some significant time trying to manipulate the image (after tone-mapping) just to remove the trash from the scene. At the end, the only plausible solution I had in mind is to copy the table from the right side and fit it on the left!
Now this location can be inspiring for some panorama work but I need to check my options first in that location.

Failure

I had some ideas sketched down on pieces of paper. Unfortunately for me, all of them do involve some portraiture work. Since I don't have a model, I have to try it all on myself. Of course, this is not an easy task, to be a model and a photographer for yourself in the same time (in fact it is never advised to be so). My room is in clutter; with all the gear splashing in the place. I've tried for several days to catch a decent portrait, but my trials were to no avail on both fronts; posing and lighting. Guess my face is simply not photogenic and doesn't encourage on more creativity with the light! I've decided for the time being to just abandon these ideas and keep on going with something else. Portraiture is a nightmare.

Finale

With the lack of books in the current time, I'm trying to spend time (specifically at work) reading off Wikipedia, which is not a good source of information but it would do the job for general knowledge I'd say.
On the group's front, we are now in the phase of sorting out images to enroll in Austria's international photography contest and I've been given the responsibilities of uploading the photos as in the last year. Not sure how much I will get involved with the group for the time being, but surely I have to be careful in this field. Otherwise, I would slip into a twirl of responsibilities loads beside caring for Mom and the house, and my own projects with my camera and other things (Geltani specifically). Sometimes, I do think that I don't need a vacation from home and work only, but even away from my own camera.

My work is passing through some upheaval in the current time; we don't really know what is going on with the administrative body of the college. Things seem to be in chaos, and more suffering for us, the scientific staff in this place. Day by day, I feel the screws are getting loose on my nerves and I might explode at any moment, with any one. My worries are even extending further on the home front, with some family members being into some hard times (other than my niece).

I have to say that I'm literally losing my faith in everyone around me. I firmly believe that no one out there would really help me with anything, however simple may it be; I have to take things on my own and with my own hands; always. "Don't I deserve some love?" had become a stabilized bell-ringing question in my head at all times.

Geistesblitz!

Why would I even think of doing some exercises while I do have a week such as this in my life. Headaches, exhaustion, frustrations, and arguments ending with fights. I think I'm starting a phase of my life when I just have to toss aside every person leeching on my back for nothing in return, not even some moral support. I do understand such a process would hinder me with loneliness, but what's the difference? Wasn't I so most of my life?
Anyway, moving forward with events from this week. Not much photography in this week because of the hectic pace of events and organizational work that I got myself involved in - beside, trying to work more seriously with my new conlang, Geltani. 

Geltani:
Making some time now to work more on the Geltani project. Mainly this time is during my day work time. So far, with the Geltani conlang, there are three main challenges:

1. Since Geltani is logographic, it is not so clear to me whether should I restrict each single word to be represented in one or two logograms (or even more). There are words that would be too long to be fit into one, but also there are long words that, according to the strokes structure, that can be fit into one logo. On what basis, if I should not restrict this process, should I confine the word into one or two logos? More trial and error probably is the only solution I've got so far.
2. Since Geltani is heavily based on Arabic (language and script) there must be some ambiguity specially when it comes to some verbs and nouns that in Arabic are similar in letters but different in vowels (remember that Arabic, as a script, is an Abjadic system). For the time being, I'm investigating the idea of deriving verbs from the nouns rather than depending solely on the written letters or the roots in Arabic. Only practical work would prove this to me and so far so good!
3. The main vocalic representations for the strokes and the combination for the duos. The chart for this system is still not complete and I didn't check it lately because of my activities with the group that make me busy most of the time after working time.

Scribbles as I try to organize
my thoughts for Geltani

Aside from all of these main three, there is of course the construction of the grammar and the sentence order (which seems, to me, it would be VOS- or VSO-like), and a syllabary system to write foreign names into Geltani. Let's not forget a numerical system as well! I've created a system for pluralizing nouns, but I'm not quite sure of its effectiveness; thus I need to check more on this aspect.
Now, would Geltani be an advanced language like Ayvarith? In other words, would I be able to put on some effort to create more features for Geltani like I did for Ayvrith? I'm not so sure of that, but I see a future of inventiveness in the process, as for sure I won't depict exact Arabic words for lot of concepts (e.g. geometrical shapes that depend on number of lines). Specially that the dictionary would be completely pictorial and would need a lot of effort in scanning images (from handwritten samples) with specific arrangements and a significant space if I want to create a website for it, while in the meantime, I'm struggling for restoring and creating a website for Ayvarith - a project that stopped long ago in favor for poetry and photography.

Geistesblitz:
Geistesblitz. Brainstorming. This is what I've been trying or thinking of doing lately and what a coincidence that all came to me at once with a project.
It began when the group management offered a workshop for coffee photography - a substitute for the monthly contest of December which showed a weak level of participation from the members of the group (and I was barely able to make one shot at least). In this workshop, we first had a meeting and a little discussion on how to work and consider the topic - and that, for me, resembled the seeds for brainstorming ideas but in a more studied and concrete manner. We discussed some aspects (smell, taste, energy... etc) of coffee together and then slowly developed some ideas and scenes from each aspect. That was the guide line and each photographer has to work out his or her own ideas.

A History of Coffee - 2
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @40mm,
f/5.0, 1000^-1sec, ISO 100.

For this purpose I've decided to get a separate note and keep it with me just in case I get more ideas for anything else to photograph and plan my photography as much as possible.
The first trial now doing the coffee photography (for a local coffee brand) was to be done under the slogan A History of Coffee, or We Introduce You to A History of Coffee. One element I've discovered in myself is that I find it easy to work with slogans rather than work in somehow an abstract manner recording words related to each other. A slogan gives the ignition start up to my imagination on what to implement. This said, it doesn't mean I should drop down the abstract, since from these a slogan comes usually!
When I first noted Cultural as one of the aspects of coffee, I noted down a linking word: History, and from this simple word, the slogan A History of Coffee came in. For this reason, I've printed out an image (taken out from Google) of an old map to use as a background. However, there were many problems:

• The printed map was on size A2 (and I was planning on A3, i.e. smaller), which proved to be small still for such settings. Probably A1 size (double A2) would be far better.
• I was planning on using my 50mm lens for its f/1.4 which gives me a greater control for depth. This was essential to drop the map in the background out of focus little bit. However, 50mm proved really hectic and hard to work with in such close distance - I had to change to 18-55mm and zoom in and out without moving the cumbersome tripod. The problem with this (old) lens is, I don't trust its sharpness nor its depth.
• I've made some idea about the positioning of the speedlites around the scene, but practically, my ideas were wrong and I came out baffled and trying out different positions for the main (key) light, while angling the top speedlite in different angles. With trial and error I've got finally 3 workable versions (to some extent). 
• Grouping the subject itself and making out the scene was and is and will be, one of the hardest points to conquer. My mind can't make a regular pattern out of randomness.
• The amount of coffee beams given to me were so little and I couldn't fill the scene with those and I've planned originally. Thus, I had to go around it.

History of Coffee - 1
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @31mm, f/4.5, 1000^-1sec, ISO 100.

Now after this scene, I've planned for another idea (at the time of typing this) under the aspect of Energy and/or Relaxation which will involve my brother if possible. The problem is, I can't see him during the day! The plan required a bit of Photoshop work (of the design type a bit) to make an impression of my brother flying in the air freely. Probably for this experiment, it is fine to use 18-55mm or any other tele-lens, since I plan to keep the background plain - thus, no need for a shallow depth and isolation of subject or foreground.

On a different note, I've discovered from some reading online, that the Digital Photo Professional software that comes up with Canon cameras is better suited for fixing the white balance of infrared images more than Photoshop is! I think, in the future, this means going around with a different workflow when planning for infrared photography. I'm investigating the possibilities of converting my old Canon 350D camera and enable it to capture more IR radiation, but I'm not quite optimistic of the possibilities of doing this here!

Strahlungen!
Last Friday, and out of despair from the conditions at home (as usual) I've decided to do a little venture with long exposure, and I do consider it a little adventure as well. You'll know why in a moment.

Strahlungsaufbau
Canon EF-S 18-55mm @27mm,
f/11, 30sec

Not far away from home (around 10 minutes walking) lies a new junction and a tunnel (with a bridge on top). I had planned to take some long exposure from that place long time ago but I didn't come to apply this idea till last week! I asked my brother to drop me near by and I'll take a walk into a spot on top of the tunnel over the bridge. The thing is, according to my previous experiences with cops, I was expecting some hassles of that kind, but gracefully, nothing happened.
Using a fisheye to have a wider view was out of question. Fitting the gel ND filters at the back of the Canon 15mm fisheye lens is not advisable in such narrow work space. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to use the 50mm because I need a wide view of some sort. Thus, I had to use the lens that I try to avoid the most: 18-55mm.
I picked the moment carefully - the twilight hour and I had to work fast and almost strained a muscle trying to force my way through the path and dealing with my tools. The white balance here was set to my favorite Fluorescent WB as I believe it is the perfect time (beside sunrise hour) to use such WB. Some adjustments were done later of course. The exposure in the beginning was enough to make light trails on the road but not quite enough to make a cloud movement thus I had to resort to ND filters.
You might be asking why I didn't simply increase the f-number (smaller aperture) to increase the exposure time. the reason for this is that I didn't want to make a sparkling star around light poles. As I was checking the depth and I've realized the even at f/8 a small sparkle will be formed still, I've decided to increase the depth to f/11 maximum as I was afraid to go down and lose some details in the far horizon. My focusing point was the first light pole (closer to camera) which was in fact the second pole - The first pole was cropped in Strahlungsaufbau.

Thought: As I was taking several shots and increasing the time, I've used 4 stops of ND (1 + 3 stops) which I've fixed on top of each other but not coinciding on top of each other perfectly. The final image then appeared to have some refractions and double lights from the light poles. This incident and mistake made me think of the usability of ND filters (not GND filters) to cover specific areas of the scene only to some degrees in order to achieve a coherent exposure all over the scene. Is this possible still? I had been thinking for some time to do a long exposure at night including portions of the city lights and the dark sky in a long exposure which would require me to suppress the city lights to some degree by fixing the ND filters to cover for the city lights only. Now, after this incident, I wonder if my ideas would be useful. I wouldn't know until I try, but I should expect failure as well and not get disappointed. Seems using ND filters on portions of the image is in no way a substitute for a real GND filter.

Tick Tock!

The time is ticking so fast before the Kuniv fair on the 27^th and I'm afraid that at this time, we are lagging behind. Nothing is prepared so far and I don't think there is enough time to print photos from members in the group. January had been such a pressure, and I would act on my own if I just know what are the procedures and requirements for such fair and expo. But I can't act alone.

Typing this before Thursday to be posted on Thursday, I have a plan to go on Al-Salmy, an area on the borders almost with Saudi Arabia with some friends to be working with star trails and maybe light painting as well. We didn't work out the details yet, but hopefully it will be a piece of cake.

One week is gone. Just can't wait for January to be over with and start a new (relaxed) schedule. The only bad thing here is, one month of Winter will be gone...

Game Time!

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch. What a fast and a busy week it was. I miss sleeping so much like a lover missing his heartthrob! I'm missing this opportunity even on weekends (but that's not something new).
My schedule had been busy; so much that I barely had the time to think about my camera and process new images. However, I had the chance to test my new toys a little bit - yet more testing is needed. More to come about that later.

Splashing:

Dimensionality
Canon EF 50mm, f/16,
60^-1sec, ISO 100.

By last week we had one of our first practical outdoors workshop in part of the Philosophy of Light workshop with the group. The appointed location was Shuwaikh beach area. The day was windy and really refreshing. While everyone was struggling with jackets seemed to be I'm the only one who was satisfied with a T-shirt!
I was the first to arrive and started to work straight away with some shots of high-speed flavor trying to freeze the water splashing on the rocks. But soon I've moved to long exposures and ND filters.

Nature Paints
Tamron 70-300mm @228mm, f/40,
0.5sec, ISO 100.

Maybe the exposure in some of these shots didn't exceed 30 seconds but it was hard to achieve even a one second exposure with the sun being tough. I ended up setting up 6 stops of NDs in front of the Tamron lens and trying several shutters. I've cut back to do more high-speed shots and then back to long exposures, and then was able to achieve 8 seconds (mainly because the sun was approaching the horizon and level of light was going down), but after all, I've found out that a half second is just fairly enough to give a surreal look. With the waves being so strong and splashing against the rocks (and almost made me have a full shower too!) it is not necessary to make very long exposures. Even times less than half a second might be quite enough to give the desired look. Lengthening the exposure time with strong water waves would erase most of the features on the rocks and too abstract. After exhausting all my options with the waves, I've simply stood up on the concrete barrier and started to shoot with minimalism in mind as in Dimensionality. To me, at least, this image seems a breakthrough because it is a simple structure, but yet has a depth with a vanishing point in the horizon. Maybe I was lucky? One bad thing back then though is that I didn't get my polarizing filter yet.

Der Sanfte Zorn
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 8000^-1sec, ISO 100

Let's Play!

My new toys have arrived with the beginning of this week, and I didn't have much time to test them thoroughly, but few clicks here and there.

Source: B&H

One of the toys that I was eager to try and learn about is the Infrared B+W glass filter. Even though my camera is not converted (i.e. sensor adjusted to receive IR radiation), yet after some surfing about the topic a bit, seems the only problem with this is the long exposure times required, while the converted cameras would react normally with normal exposure times as in normal cameras. This is what I understood so far.

Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4, 200^-1sec, ISO 100

The title-less image above was captured as I was waiting for the TV crew who were supposed to do an interview for a program on TV with the group's members. As I was waiting I've decided to try some aspect of this filter and even it was hard to be done without a tripod. One of the hard things to do is to match the exposure metering done without the filter to the exposure metering after fixing the filter. In a quick inspection seems the difference is 4 stops. However, such calculations are not quite correct, because the type of the light to be received by the sensor (specially unconverted) is completely different. I imagine metering the light and doing a correct exposure would be done nicely only when the camera is converted, or maybe if there are special light meters that read IR only and compare its level to 18% gray!
The image above looks a typical black and white shot (after being converted from a completely red image), but certain details made me think it made some difference, like the details of the tiny clouds (which were hard to notice in reality) beside the building in the horizon on the far left which looks hazy.
I'm reading more about it for the time being and seems I could achieve more interesting shots by adjusting the white balance instead of converting to black and white. This is what I've inspected by reading so far.

Source: B&H

I didn't get the chance yet to test the polarizer thoroughly, but I got a little chance to test the Kenko extension tubes set. Extension tubes works by allowing the lens to focus in a distance closer than it is on the original lens.
After doing my part with the TV interview (which barely went on well), I've stayed away doing my own trials with the extension tubes on some plant leaf. It is a hard task to shoot with such degree of closeness and zooming without using a tripod of course.

Lamellae
Canon EF 100mm macro + 68mm, f/8, 25^-1sec, ISO 100

I've found it mandatory here to use the on-camera flash to fasten the shutter speed and reduce the shake effect. In the beginning I thought it won't work because usually with such long lens combination, the on-camera flash would cast a shadow on the subject, but probably not here in such close distance. It could be time to use rails (or maybe some parts of my VR-head) to move the camera smoothly on the tripod for- and backward.
This test is still not enough, and I'm eager to implement this with reversing lenses technique and see what effect does it yield, specially with my new 58-58 adapter ring which arrived along with the new toys!

Reality of Shadows
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
50^-1sec, ISO 100.

Away from testing the new stuff (and mainly because it was night time already), the TV work was not over by then and boredom filled my head. Yet, my eyes weren't.
I noticed some decorative plant in one of the corners which inspired me for some shot with a shadow, but the problem was that I didn't bring my speedlites, thus, I had to use the available data-show device with its blue/purple light and projected it onto the pot or vase from the side (after hardly stabilizing it over a couch!).
Maybe what I personally like about Reality of Shadows is the fact that I've used the Fluorescent WB to add more bluish streak to the already-blue light. Yes, I needed to adjust the WB little bit later and reduce/add some saturation for some colors, but the starting point was fair enough. No HDR rendering.

Now for the coming week,  I might have some plans, and a busy schedule too. For sure I need to test more procedures with the IR filter. On the schedule, there is giving my own tips about Photoshop in a special session; it is not a paid service of course, but a friendly help. Also on the schedule, there are plans to get involved in more local expos, and one of them is supposedly sponsored by Kuwait University. Bearing such responsibilities do feel heavy though. A shoulder for a burdened head, is all what I would ask for in such days...

Dear Camera, See You Later...

ayħav húþ ğašar mí e-harrá yaw e-dum yi hú báy

lávin anná húþ baZú daynúr majŧún?

šá ąél kil mší yixwan gavvá liQiliváy?

mat hú zmén e-ranáħah, liZú ąayun?

Some "Ayvaric" thoughts has been around, trying to change or edit the literature that I've been inventing for some time now. This time, it occurred to me that usually in English, the word "between" is used usually in combination of two objects, while "among" is for objects more than two. Thinking about it, there is the same thing almost in Arabic and Hebrew (I guess), but it's not a number-related. There is "bayn" [بين] and "ma bayna" [ما بين], but I'm not sure of their exact classical use. To me, I seem to say them fluently according to the speech but without knowing the grammatical reasons for this! In Ayvarith, there is a similar situation even though I've made up some explanations for this without really noticing them myself: (bayun) and (mabyun); clearly close to the Arabic version, but as far as I remember the Hebrew and Aramaic versions are not far from this either. I'm thinking of upgrading the meaning to make (bayun) used for two objects while (mabyun) for further numbers above two. Just a thought.
I've renewed my account on Writing.com for another year. Doing that sort of gave me the pinch to keep up with my other projects. A very bad habit of mine: starting things and never finish them up. I'm looking forward for more tiresome days specially during the summer and the heat here, with the expected renewal of my duties into field trips. Field trips, games, photos, daydreaming, a conlang and poetry (specially poetry. I didn't write in some long time now with all the gush in emotions in my mind). My life truly is a mess that went out of control. Trying hard to keep up and organize my time and even exercise to enhance my physical vitality to cope with my own requirements and my own projects, but even that require time, and to screw things completely, sometimes I'm ready to screw up the world and sleep. Just sleep, like I always wanted (but that never really happened).
I think I do need a vacation from my camera. I don't know why I feel the need to take pictures so often. It's becoming like an addiction, and every addiction is simply bad, be it drugs, drinks or even a hobby like photography. But what you know, once I'm dropping down the camera I'm going to head to that Ayvarith project and web page that I didn't work on for some months now.
I'm back now with my own research about myself, my brain, my skills, and how everything works together. Most of such research is done at work actually not back home, because simply back home I don't have time now to sleep, and if I did, I'm going to screw up the day and just do nothing at all (probably only play those games I want to). With this said, I'm back to some of those free tests online (yep, another addiction), and along with that a belief of some thread of ADHD in my (neurological) blood. While reading The Playful Brain, I'm paying more attention to my simple actions and notifications and trying to analyze them under the light of what I've understood lately. I've noticed what is said to be an "easy puzzle" can take me a longer time to solve more than what is supposed to be a "hard puzzle" of the same type or rank. Also, I've been fluctuating my attention from one object to another (looking at a book to pick it up, and an agenda lies in the way between me and the book, thus I remembered something suddenly for that agenda and picked it up totally forgetting what I wanted to do with the book). Looking at some videos on Youtube about ADHD cases makes me feel superior though. It's not like that with me and yes, I don't think I do have ADHD at all now, but why do I lose my focus that easily? Why I keep flipping channels in my mind? Is it the damned Maladaptive Daydreaming again? I know that I've not been the hard fighter lately against this habit, mainly because I'm exhausted and in fatigue.

Decision is made now. A break from the camera for some time.

I should add to that a break from chocolate and coffee as well. Speaking of my mental status as well, in fact, I don't care much anymore about what people think of it now, but I like to explore my mind little bit further. I'm doing some EIQ (Emotional IQ) tests but I don't count on such results as the questions tend to be highly relative to the culture I guess, but anyway, my score was low. Not surprised though. I'm a loner after all.
On the other hand, I'm back to my senseless sketches as the attacks of boredom do visit me at work from time to time and makes me unable to read the book at hand...

The Devil's Automobile
The idea was to create a head with some brain popping out of it, but with such epileptic art form, expect the unexpected.

Sensory Man
This sketch was done horizontally (90 degrees to the left or CCW), and my mind didn't make sense of it as usual except later when I changed the angle of view and rotated it 90 clock-wise to realize it looks like a man's face.

Now back to my camera before I leave it alone for some time. I did my experiment now for catching a flowing water with the help of ND filters, and hence I couldn't use my Tamron, but instead I've used my old Canon 55-200mm, because I do have an adapter ring for the diameter of this lens (Ø52mm). The result was not exactly what I wanted, specially when it comes to the angle of view, but it was some trial that I hope I've learned something from...

Aqua Viridis (Green Water)

The whole problem is about doing the right exposure under the green flood light. One of the techniques that I've came up with is to use the (M)anual mode completely to achieve this. The (M)anual mode gives you the ability to change the shutter speed and the aperture (f-number) as desired and with a half-press to the shutter button the camera would give out an estimation of the light level in EVs. Everything was fine, except of 2 points that I was puzzled with:

1. Where to focus? to the furthest edge or to the nearer one? Here, I tried to focus in between (I focused without the water flow in the beginning thus it was an approximation).
2. What aperture size should I use? I used maximum f-number (narrowest aperture size) but probably I should have applied the principle of Hyperfocal distance? Though I think this concept is mainly used in landscape photography and not in close-up photography.

The main important thing is that I've fixed the shutter speed. Few seconds were enough to make the water flow in a blurry way like a dream effect (in fact it looks like milk to me!). After setting the shutter speed to 3 seconds, and the aperture to f/29, I did simple half-press, checked the EV and then put on some filters corresponding to the mount of EV I want to reduce. The EV reading without putting the filters on was close to +3, thus I've fixed three ND filters: ND2, ND4, ND8. They correspond to a reduction of -1, -2, and -3 EVs respectively, and thus totaling -6 EV putting the scale down from +3 to -3 (3+(-6)=-3, simple calculus). However, even though the picture was fine to some extent, I had to edit the RAW file as well and adjust some sliders and finally, with the help of adjustment layers in Photoshop, I've removed the green color from the background and kept the water and the mug in green only. I'm not satisfied with the sharpness of the water flow itself.

And still dwelling in the bathroom trying to catch up a panorama for this narrow place. I think it's around 2x2 meters (~ 6.6x6.6 ft). It is indeed a challenge to do a panorama in such space. The only panorama, probably, that I did in such a narrow place (and without the VR-head back then) was for the inside of the little tower back in Aughnanure castle in 2009...

The inside of the little tower in Aughnanure castle field, Co. Galway, Ireland.

But, this panorama, taken without the VR-head and definitely a narrower place than my bathroom, but after all I minimized it to 360 panorama (horizontal line only). The hardships of the bathroom were different, specially that I wanted to take the panorama from a level higher than my head, and this time I used my new tripod and not my monopod.

1. With a tripod, the base was stable, but the tripod's head itself was shaky a bit making a small tilt for the VR-head on top of it.
2. The narrow space of the bathroom made the lower angles, where the tripod's legs show usually, a serious issue.
3. Tried shooting with flood lights and not my usual bathroom lights, but the ceiling's plugging point was narrow and the flood light could not be fixed there. In order to solve this problem I had to think of some way to lengthen or extend the plugging point further. Luckily, I got some converting heads (for light bulbs) in the family shop near by and connected two of them to extend the plugging point. I had to work on smoothing the edges a bit because they didn't fit in the first place so I had to widen one converter and narrow the other. I have to say I was working for more than one hour taking the panorama and afraid of this bulb to be falling down on my head at any moment!
4. The usual problems with the stitch in PTGui, but this time accompanied with a glitch from Photomatix when merging all in HDR format. Seems that the new Photomatix has a glitch in batch processing bracketed images. Usually I see such errors and broken lines when different images are merged by mistake, but this time I double checked my images' sequences and there was no mistake. Simply, this one particular slide which showed a strong error had to be done again alone separately. Only then, the HDR slide for that angle appeared perfect.

The flood light with extension made of converting heads (or plugs). The arrow points to where drilling was used (with a special head to soften the area and not drill through it)

The right side of this HDR (tone-mapped here) slide became partially white with broken lines even though the bracketed sequence is correct! It wasn't the only slide, but it was the worst...

The whole point of using flood lights here and not the regular light bulbs that were already there is that I wanted to avoid the WB (White Balance) problems that I had before in my first experiment in this bathroom. If you read my post last week you'll find an explanation of the problem and how it was hard, somehow, to choose a particular WB with such lights. Here, after fixing the flood lights, I've simply shot the panorama with Daylight WB.
As for the glitch in Photomatix, I thought it might be because I was setting the options for reducing the "ghosting" artifacts to "high" while the camera didn't shake so much and there were no moving objects to eliminate, thus I processed the package again in a batch process but turning of the "ghosting" correction off. Yet, the weird artifacts kept on coming.
It is always hard to set control points for the make of a HDR panorama, probably because of the exposure data embedded in such files that makes PTGui unable to set the control points properly. However, I've tried the old trick which seems to be working fine for now (but that didn't spare me the troubles): tone-map the HDR slides under certain settings, then stitch them and save the file as a model. Then, open the HDR panorama file and apply that model. That way, all the control points that were applied perfectly for the tone-mapped images will be applied to the HDR panorama in the same systematic way (providing the control points are perfectly situated in the tone-mapped model). I've stitched the HDR panorama then without even optimizing. All the errors that occurred while trying to align the HDR images disappeared simply depending on the tone-mapped counterpart. Why not simply tone-map and then stitch? Here you go:

• HDR panorama will have exposure information rather than a tone-mapped version (even in 16-bit TIFF). This option gives you more control over the light effects.
• There are occasions when you think it is better to manually edited the HDR file for some reason (changing hue before tone-mapping, changing exposure of certain areas only before tone-mapping, ...etc).
• If you are thinking of making a QTVR (QuickTime Virtual Reality) file, it is important to match the exposure of the left and right sides of your panorama, otherwise in the QTVR file you will notice a strange straight line while rotating your QTVR. This option, to match the two sides in exposure, is available when you tone-map in Photomatix (and other programs), while stitching already tone-mapped images won't give you such an option and you might have to find other ways to solve the problem.
• PTGui got an option to fix the exposures for the whole HDR panorama before stitching. Useful sometimes to make an average of all the slides' exposures.

After stitching the HDR panorama, there was a heavy load of work with Photoshop to clone out lot of the undesired objects to make the panorama normal as much as possible. Parts of the VR-head did appear so much in this panorama specifically, and it is hard to simply remove by cropping; I have to clone out instead. I think it is time to re-consider the way I work with vertical angles, as it seems a 45 degrees up and down is causing me problems! Beside these parts, some weird artifacts in red appeared as well, and still I can't explain what are these as there is simply no reason for them to occur!

Lavatrinum
My bathroom, and still you can see some red artifacts in a larger view. I had to cut out the roof because the green light was subjected to "poster" effect, or banding artifacts.

And one of  my biggest mistakes, again, is using a large f-number (narrow aperture) causing a lot of sparkles caused by the lights. If I remember correctly, it was f/20.
After this panorama, I think I will get back to the sweet old Photomatix instead of the new one because there are many issues now that I've noticed that are caused for no specific reasons. Such glitches didn't appear in the old Photomatix (version 3). The only problem with the old Photomatix was the weird squares that appear on the viewing window (I think related to the insufficient memory as my PC runs for long times). So just to be systematic:

• The new Photomatic (version 4), has a problem in tone-mapping window. As you work according to what you see while you tone-map, once you hit the "Process" button, the final image would come different to what you have seen in the tone-mapping window.
• The new Photomatix has a problem with batch processing RAW files. As it turned out, some HDR slides were merged with strange white bands or broken lines (like what happens when two different or so much shaky images are merged), while when these specific slides done as a single process, this problem doesn't occur. Talk about time-consuming!
• Related to the problem mentioned in the beginning, some weird artifacts, in form of colors or shapes, appear after tone-mapping (e.g. in my example above, red areas appeared and had to be cloned out, and banding of some colors making gradual change appear as blocks of pixels).

I don't think, however, I'm going to do it all over again with the old Photomatix, but I learned my lesson I'd say. I have to check further with my VR-head and the best way to deal with low angles to avoid including the body of the VR-head itself into my panorama. It's not completely evadable, but at least the effect can be reduced somehow.

Finally, my order(s) had been processed and I'm waiting for their arrivals. I'm doing it slowly so that I'd have more time reading The Playful Brain. Three photography books, one teleconverter, and a sound trigger. Did I say I need a break from my camera? hmmm......

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

Alexander 2, V5.

One heck of a night and a day, that was yesterday. A headache and a high blood pressure that accompanied me all the way to my bed time. I slept earlier (or let's say tried), but yet kept on waking up. I took one Cataflam pill at the end just to knock me off and sleep for 3 hrs before raising up again to go to work.

Had a chance yesterday to snap a a picture from some junk thrown beside my work place. The image reflects my feelings about those people who glue their butts to their thrones. Despite all what they do, they remain stupid in the eyes of others and behated.



As you see, I called it the King of Chairs. The hard part was to fix the blue chair on top and make it remain there. When I did so (hardly) with some broken metal pieces from other chairs, the wind started to rotate the base. Usually I like such chairs but not in this condition!
The shooting was mainly to experience my ND filters that I've just received. I fixed the ND4 Grey filter and started to shoot, and then removed it and shot again, then I changed the angle and shot again then fixed the filter and shot back. Of course each session was for 3 shots to combine as HDR. At the end, I joined 6 RAW files for the HDR make up. This gives me an idea in fact about studying the relation between the exposure value, time and the ND filter type. I might do this soon to study how the long exposures (bulb mode) photography work with ND filter and what do I need exactly to eliminate the excessive exposures as much as possible in day time photography.
In photoshop,  I opened my HDR and started on fixing some coloring. Personally, I like the first version of the image (which was combined into HDR in Photoshop itself) because of the high contrast between the blue chair and the yellow wall, and also the darkened purple floor. All of these were fixed by adjustment layers in Photoshop before tone-mapping. Unfortunately, after saving the file, and for some reason I don't know, the original EXR file got grey spots all over the image (and seems I've pressed some wrong key with all that headache in my head!). However, I combined the images again and worked on the second version with Photomatix. Of course, the second version of the image MUST go to photoshop for some tiny adjustment with the contrast and sharpening and then small-sizing to hide some artifacts.
That's it for now and I'm still waiting for the reply of Bigstockphotos!
__________

The fierce eyes met with the frowned faces
while Chinchán exchanged the show of power
There was Kákhbár, standing there beside the king
a valour general, mercy has no landing into his heart
His drink was the blood, and his food was the flesh
and his jokes were made of spears cut into the throat
Then with a loud voice from the horizon did it appear
Chinchán shouted from afar at the so called Kákhbár
"We heard of a mass of muscles, and a heart of stone
a man called Kákhbár the hero, and I doubt if it is so"
The glorious Geltán had his blood violently out from him
and shouted back with words that no one understood
He walked alone to the field and everyone was watching
while Chinchán was there waiting for him with pride
Two heavy things were meeting at that time of old age
if not men, then it is free for others to imagine the beyond
Copper and Iron, no difference in color they have now
but similarities they hold in the sound they do when beaten
Strike by strike, they exchanged the power so fiercely
everyone saw the fire coming out from swords and eyes
If it was not for a mistake in the steps of Chinchán
his head wouldn't be a target to be splitted into two
Just then the Geltáns released the shout of ego
and the knees of Caqobians shivered of fear