Nemo Audit...

Trying to pour all the jam of anger and despair about the stupidity of this life in some words. I call them, words of wisdom. For this, I've decided to make a document file into WDC, and there, I type all the foolish words in some sarcastic way, just to try to mock my life and have a laughter, at myself. The document will be edited and added to every time I think of something. Since it is about life, it has a bit of "adult" terms, let's say. Thus, I won't recommend reading it for someone under 18 years of age, even though I know, children of today cuss and swear more than I do in my leisure time. But oh well, just to be honest.
I'm trying to squeeze my brain even more to write something new, after all the turmoil at home itself. Sometimes, you do feel that you speak a completely different language that no one understands except of you alone. I think the frustration is on increase and hitting hard on chords of melancholy and daydreaming. Music don't stop. I don't allow it to stop. I want to just rock my world away. Maybe in my daydreams people do understand me a bit? Maybe.... I was almost gone into some accident today as I was driving because I was completely absent. I don't remember my thoughts though. It's dark, in bright daylight. Nemo audit, nemo videt, nemo considerat.

However, finally, my stuff are here! It took around 2 weeks of waiting (and lot of payments) to get these stuff here. I'm still in the process of trying those things, and my progress is slow so far. I want to do it slowly because writing a review for these things is important, for me at least. I'd say, I enjoy being honest!

Some stuff I've ordered (top to bottom): Adapter ring for Cokin filters 52mm, 

Canon backpack, Tamron 70-300mm macro lens, Velbon Panhead.

And beside these, there are the two 8x ND filters from Cokin, and a cap for one of my lenses (in place of the one I lost in Ireland for my 18-55mm). The test for the ND filter will require some work though. I have now 3 of 8x ND filters (each one of them reduces the light by -3EV, totaling then -9EV), and I want to test this in some moon photography, hence, I need some time to think how to do this thing. I do wish for a star trail photography but this needs to be in some isolated place, far far away. The Velbon panhead (or tripod head) is for my monopod mainly but seems I will try to use it on my tripod as well. The head has its topmost piece that attaches itself to the camera, detachable. In other words, it's a click-system, where you can attach the camera to this piece and lock it to the head and whenever you want to remove the camera for a handheld shot, you just need to click a button and there you go. Useful for an old tripod like mine I guess! Besides, they provided also something I was looking for in a long time now; a converting screw, which makes a small screw fit into a larger hole. This head, I believe, will solve much of my problems with tripods. Only thing left here is to try and make the monopod more stable when using its 3 small legs, somehow.

I'm trying also to do more test with the new Tamron macro tele-lens (70-300mm). It is decisive somewhat and I need to get used to the way it works and focuses on objects. Of course, tripods or monopods or anything to make this ting stable is a must here, also a flash. Could be useful to get nice image of the eyes of some sort. Lot of ideas for the time being but I'm not sure I will be able to do them all. However, once I got it, I went on shooting randomly, handheld, like a mobster. One of the shots, so far, was good but maybe not to the level I want it, generally because the image was dark.

My niece

This shot actually was taken while I was standing somehow far from my niece, a toddler, and took it without any flash at around f5.6, and at ISO800. Despite the settings, the image was sort of dark. It was quite a normal and regular shot so I tried to add life to it somehow by doing what you see here; a black and white image with a colored eye (with some effects on it a bit). I wonder though if the distance was closer than it was, would I get an interesting shot for the eye again? I'm not quite sure. The macro lens makes me feel I'm using a regular telephoto lens but with some extended range! I will have to read the specifications paper again there might be some tips I'm missing. There was also another trial to catch my "tartaloza"; my metallic turtle that I keep coins in. This time, and with a monopod again, it was sort of hard to stabilize. The longer the focal length is, the more sensitive your picture will be to any shake.

Tartaloza

I used here f32, which means a longer shutter speed (or time), in a dark room with a desk lamp concentrating the light on tartaloza. I've put the monopod around one meter away from the subject here as it is the optimum distance for doing a macro with this telephoto lens (as mentioned in the specifications paper and on the lens body itself generally). The main part of the face was sharp but the rest was gone under blurring effect like if I was using a larger aperture. I have to check the Hyperfocal distance principle again here.

I have to post this now and, get lost with my music. The only thing I can talk to right now...

Alexander 6, V39.

It's a nice thing when you plan to get back to work after some vacation, and you start out the day with an accident in the very early morning.
I don't want to start complaining about my luck, anyway I don't think I will be able to post some of the images I did for today, thus I will post this now, in the early hours of the morning. Well, I might add a picture of my damaged car. The real pain now is the paper work and going here and there. This is the real pain of accidents, not the accident itself. I have to finish everything or most of the things today, so I can go to work tomorrow at least. I'm already signing for a casual leave for today.
__________

913. then Alexander gazed with a strange look
914. and this he asked: a Shágí? what is that?
915. then Birbuár replied: it is a tortured soul,
916. not to rest for eternity or to die peacefully,
917. it is something between living and dying
918. it is a pain in every moment that passes
919. thus Alexander said and wondered
920. "you mean to say you are not a living?"
921. and Birbuár replied: not at all, and not dead as well,
922. I left my skin and flesh long time ago,
923. and here  I am wandering in these lands,
924. because after I killed the poor man,
925. my house collapsed over my head,
926. and the people of my village did not bury me,
927. and I cannot touch it or bury it,
928. oh I just cannot imagine the pains if I tried that,
929. but it is indeed what I deserve for hurting others,
930. and this is what I deserve for my wickedness
931. after this talk from Birbuár, Alexander thought for a moment
932. and then he said to Birbuár: if I helped you to bury yourself,
933. would that help you to rest in peace forever?
934. and Birbuár made a big smile on his face
935. and this he said: and I shall be your slave
936. but Alexander laughed and said: a dead slave?

Alexander 6, V23.

One of the most terrible 2 days just passed away and here I am. I couldn't post anything yesterday for the bad condition I had with my headache... apparently my head hates me so much!
Yesterday was also the supposed day of the visit of the German Ambassador to our work place and after only 4 hours from his visit, I received an email message from the Public Relation as a notice or some news item about his visit with pictures, and of course no pictures from the center were presented there.
The headache that took over my right side of the head left me for my own business later on after taking some pain killers finally, two times, on Wednesday; that is yesterday. I didn't go to work because of it, and as I said before I was not there when the ambassador was here. It made me idle a bit and I had some sort of weird feelings... pardon, I don't mean this is the first time I get some weird feelings, but well, it was like connected to the headache somehow. Feeling yourself living alone and can barely see people, or you do things and then think "why did I do this or that?".

Amid my meditation in the house yard (if I can call it so) I thought of trying out my new lens, the EF 15mm Fisheye lens. It made me discover some stuff that I didn't think of before unfortunately, but well, I can say it is doing a nice job already.

The work is still going on with this one, and here you can see only a regular version. I tried to fix the exposure range perfectly in between +/-2, but maybe I missed in one or two angles. The other thing here is that I tried my best to rotate the tripod head at a fixed rate of 50 degrees for each angle. The result was 20 something shots for each row (3 rows of them at different azimuthal angles). So, I can say it is far much lesser than the usual work. I feel that even my work with 50 degrees can be expanded to something like 60 degrees, thus making the number of angles I have to shoot at lesser.

My fisheye lens (picture from BH website)

First of all, it was a bit awkward to work with a lens with a fixed focal length, and hence, without any zooming in and out, but well, as a friend of mine said (and who taught me everything I know about photography) told me that lenses with fixed focal lengths, in general, tend to give better results and sharper images. I think for a first glance, yes, it is true.
However, there are some things that I didn't think about before buying this, but I'm not regretting anyway since I think it is a very nice lens already. The lens is from EF series (not EF-S), and that means it is dedicated for a fullframe camera. The specifications say that it would show you a FoV of 180 degrees. It is not said (as you can see in the BH website link below the image) whether this is a horizontal FoV or a diagonal. Some websites reviewing the same lens mentioned that it is a diagonal. However, I think this FoV is indeed 180 degrees ONLY with a fullframe camera, and not with a camera like mine with a sensor of some crop factor (crop factor: a factor of cropping related to the original 35mm film size). In other words, part of the image that the lens collects only, falls upon the small sensor of my camera, and hence my camera cannot take the whole FoV literally. Well, the only shame in this is that I won't be able to do nice skydomes maybe. Nevertheless, the lens is also good for a close-up photography and doing some effects as well.

While I was working on the cleaning kit, which I didn't find any manual on how to use it but it should be simple (later on I found out the instructions leaflet was here in the office), I noticed that when I put the sensor loupe (some lens with bright LEDs to lighten up the sensor for cleaning) that they make nice patters when I put that on the lens. I tried hardly to get a pic of this, but it was so hard since I have to put the camera vertically above the loup and lens combination. After all, I think I managed somehow, although I'm not sure it is that good;

I use the loupe also to find out if there are any fingerprints on the lens surface, as they are hard to see in regular light. The image was taken with the fisheye lens as well, but here I already gave up my chances with the tripod because of the complicated settings that I need (and some levers in the tripod do not move adequately).
Apparently, I'm lucky to be alive now to write down all of this rubbish for you people. I almost got myself killed in the lab after some device was blown up because of the vacuum pressure. The sound was extreme, I'm looking at it now and laughing... for real...

The Freeze-Drying Machine that blew off today

Right, I have to get to write some papers now, and than God it is Thursday (TGIT).

__________
529. then Alexander asked Ázilis about his words
530. then Ázilis replied: you should know O good king,
531. there are things in this life that destiny had decided,
532. I've roamed the lands to gather the wisdom,
533. and for a look into the stars I knew days will come,
534. when a young king of faith shall come to me for guidance,
535. thus I spent sixty of my years waiting for the promise,
536. and here it is I see it come true,
537. go ahead O good king and ask your questions,
538. verily my days are numbered in this life
539. then Alexander put his palm on Ázilis' forehead
540. and said with a low voice: Ázilis, O good old man,
541. verily you have faced many a troubles for this wisdom,
542. and verily God will reward you in the afterlife,
543. and may sooner or later we become your companions there,
544. but tell me O wise one, about one saying in the old papers,
545. the papers of your ancestors when you were a shepherd,
546. one saying that might resolve my problems forever,
547. "when the full moon over Daynur,
548. becomes reddish in its light and hue,
549. then watch the shake of Uhir Daynur,
550. it is then you will have the Ayvar bless"
551. and Alexander went silent and looked into the eyes
552. while Ázilis smiled a yellowish smile of sickness

I Hate Mondays...

Although Monday is not the first of working days, but I hate it so much... even before they change the old system for the weekend. Most of problems occur in this day.
The amazing thing is, someone called me and said that I have to pay 20KD for the Traffic Department for an accident I made in 2007. No one was hurt in the accident and nothing in the street was damaged except of my car, and yet I have to pay 20KD. The thing is, they called me on Monday and my accident was also on Monday.
We have a fuss around the campus where I work because of some visitors from highschools for the open day. And it all happens on Mondays.
I was planning to go to buy some gifts for my nieces but my colleague said he want to leave at 10 or so to do some stuff outside, again, it is Monday.

Still writing the story of Alexander and I reached line 480, which makes it as 20 verses with 24 lines in each verse. The journey of Alexander continues to Beten Yamta nomads to the north, to seek some knowledge of an old saying about the Ayvars.
Will I reach the 1000-line limit?

Guess what smart action I did today?
I bought a new DVD-RW and I found out that I don't have a DVD RW writer in my laptop!
Yes.... Welcome Monday...