And The Game Continuous…

Again, this should be a quick wrap about the last week, and in fact some of the stuff done before the expo. There had been some work with older panoramas in order to achieve new perspective and projection styles with these old stuff, and some of them apparently paid of somehow! But first, let's see how the game began and going on with the panoramas taken from our booth in the latest expo.

Center View

Left Wing

Right Wing

Probably you have seen these three in case you checked the slideshow in the previous post. Anyway, those were "regular" flat spherical panoramas (with exception to the left wing which is in Mercator format). The right wing specifically was taken at a higher level (almost eye level) in a trial to eliminate the flare reflected on the prints. It did work well I presume, but the situation is not as lucky as this on the other areas like the center and the left wing. This is why I shot these two on low level specifically. I did learn my lesson here though: a low level panorama will compress the upper part severely. As we say here, "every slap comes with a lesson." In order to fix things just a little bit, I made the left wing panorama in Mercator format just because this projection stretches the height, and compresses the width. It did stretch the height of the prints in the upper row just a bit. However, it didn't fix it all. A lesson learned.

Twisted Booth

Then the game begins. Even though there is technically no roof for the booth, but yet it has a slender opening which does act somehow like a roof (let's call it: negative roof!). The perfect environment for a twist! I didn't try this approach with the left and right wings yet, as I believe this projection must be applied in a point that is supposed to be a "centroid" for the place under inspection. Thus, it was applied only to the first panorama taken at the center of the booth. Another twist to the story with a Wide View panorama (or so I do call it)…

Willkommen auf BPF!

Probably the chair at the bottom is a troublesome feature, but at least I tried to keep it symmetric as much as possible as cropping and/or cloning it out is next to impossible! However, as it can be seen from all these panoramas, the first three were actually, in essence, documenting panoramas. Only the last two were "artistic" panoramas, where the appearance of the prints is not a priority - but architecture is.  Despite the simplistic design, the abundance of lines, specifically straight lines, was a general factor to build up a complexity in looks. Seems quite philosophical to me: complexity, grows off multiples of simplicity.

Durch

Before the expo (and after it) there had been lot of work as well with older panoramas in a trial to squeeze out more looks and ventures. Even those panoramas with apparent stitching errors, like Durch which was taken from a pedestrian bridge, was target. Probably the stitching errors are forgiven here a bit? In fact, this bridge panorama was one of the first panoramas to try out "twisting" with by a mistake (as I was changing the coordinates of the projection). However, I still had to try something with Mercator format (Mercator had been my favorite for a twisting effect right now). The result can be seen in Durch. In the beginning it was almost symmetric (along a vertical axis) but still the look was a bit "less dynamic"; it was good, but less dynamic. For this, I moved the central point a bit and made it look like a slider or a swift moving object from top to bottom. Adding to that, the colors had to be changed to give out a dramatic look and impact. Gothic look? Maybe. With some arabesque design that would be such a weird combination I presume!

Leathchruinne
(Hemisphere)

I even rolled back to some older panoramas from my visit to Ireland, Co. Tipperary in 2010. Specifically, one of these panoramas was of interest for me: The yard of Thronbrook House, in Cashel. This is where I stayed back in 2010. It can be categorized as a regular landscape panorama with the addition of the house. I did many projections before (planet, wide view, you name it) for this one. However, because of the open space, I doubted this would be good in a twisted Mercator panorama (like our group's booth above); you'd need a straight features and not an open space for this type of projections. Anyway, the idea was totally different here, but done before. The hemisphere style, or the elevated surface style. In fact, this style stems out from the planet projection with a little change in the "pitch" value (pitch: the vertical angle at which the camera is pointed, as if you nudge your head for "yes"!). The interesting point comes then after with the edit I've done to this panorama specifically…

Leathchruinne (B&W)
(Hemisphere)

I've asked if the B&W version or the colored version is nicer, and I got a response from an Irish (more than one actually) and said they prefer the colored one, because the B&W version is "terrifying"! Somehow, I can say I did succeed! Here, of course, it is a B&W version but with tone split between orange and blue.
However, I do find the combination of orange and blue is quite plausible in such situations with "dynamism" when tone splitting is done (both compliment each other on the color wheel). In the other hand, there must be an element that added to the emotions, other than the colors alone. In any photo, we generally face two main aspects: colors, and composition. For this reason there is a common saying that goes like: B&W photos neglect color and make the viewer concentrate on the composition. Probably I can say that the position of the clouds and the curve of the horizon added much to the dynamic appearance of this shot, and with the removal of colors and adapting only a duotone, it had some direct impact on emotions. I think if I want to put things in some formula that would be: clouds + curve = dynamism + emotions. Yeah, sorry. I like to put math in everything I see wherever I go.

And away from Ireland, and back to Failaka, which I should plan some trip to there in the near future, I hope. Along with the trend to make out something new from something old, I've re-visited a really old panorama: the Ghost Bank.

The Ghost Bank

I believe I've extracted enough already from this panorama. The destruction makes it a vivid target! Anyway, it is the time to do a vertical Mercator for this one, but yet I don't feel quite satisfied yet and I do feel there is more to be done with this panorama. If I remember correctly, there was no Wide View panorama for this one. We'll see about that…

Dunkel unter dem Licht
(Dark under the light)

Again, even with Dunkel unter dem Licht I did have a problem with centralizing the roof. It seems that this would be my eternal problem! Anyway, the patterns of columns and windows in this shape aren't quite "interesting" but yet some people liked it anyway. The blue hue and shades in some areas are caused by originally taking the shots with Fluorescent WB if I remember correctly. I had to put the saturation for the blues down a bit though, for it was like a color splash rather than a lighting effect.
There are other panoramas that I'm experimenting with right now but I might keep it all for the next post.

Finale

During the past expo, a weird conversation occurred with one participant. I remember this conversation particularly because of a "paradox" or so it seemed to me. I was explaining how some photographers' brains used to work and I went like:

Some photographers got an eye for details wherever they go because this is how their minds work or programmed, while some others, as of me, like to see the general shape or picture, and for this reason I adore panoramas.

The paradox here lies in some idea that I had plans to achieve and do (though never fulfilled so far), which was about implementing the idea of Retinitis Pigmentosa (which I suffer from) into my photography. If I think about it, I do usually see the usual work here is to be done in macro level where details are abundant in a small area relatively. However, I did state already that I do like the general view and I'm fond of panoramas because of that. This passion about panoramas, seems to be a reflection from my disease; in other words, I do like to do panoramas because my eyes are limited in vision.
The difference between the two ideas here is, the former is a result of conscious thinking about implementing the idea of RP. The latter is a natural given (or so it sounds with me). Which way to go? Well, for sure I'm not giving up my passion for panoramas. Yet, I do indeed have some passion for the macro world but to extreme levels, and it was just an experimental phase. In between the two, probably I should find a balance.

In the meantime, away from this "psychological" venture, I'm planning to get a bit of an "exercise" with some activities with the group in various activities not related to panorama making. The first target would be a "monodrama" event. Supposedly the target is not complex since it is a single performer acting on the stage. Yet, I do not have much faith in my Sigma lens, but we'll see. I'm not sure what's the lighting conditions will be there. I'm not sure though if I can completely do the whole course of events but I shall try. I need to break the routine, and the tiresome body…

Sonnenaktivität

Here we are; a new year. I won't be talking about resolutions here as, in fact, the new year thing is not widely separated and the concept of New Year's resolutions is just something weird for most of the people here - needless to say that we grow up without really considering it something special that a solar year passed and a new one began.
I can't say my beginnings of this year were good, but I really couldn't care lesser about my bad luck, or the troublesome conflicts with other people around me, specifically at work. This, by now, became like a daily dish for me.
One of my great sorrows for the past week is that I wasn't able to go out at night during the long "weekend" which consisted of 4 days and shoot at night. Mainly because not much scenes were available, and some of the locations that I've used to visit for some solitude and silences, were bugged by annoying people and their trash. Luckily, I did some of my homework the week before and did shoot something at night.

Blaue Nacht

From the early beginning of that night, it was a helpless endeavor trying to find out something to do and not to sleep that early in a such winter night. My first pick was a location that I used to visit years back, and specifically at such time of the year (and even did a panorama there deep in low tide time). This time, however, the situation had changed. People (specifically the annoying type) were still roaming the place. I tried my best to stay away from the rest and do my own business.

Ausstrahl
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/11, HDR.

I have to say that the main reason for visiting old location is some inspiring kick that got to me when I viewed some old images (specially those I've made into 3D anaglyph images) of a broken shade on the beach. Back then, I didn't have the fisheye lenses that I do have now, specially the Rokinon 8mm. Thus, I've decided to re-discover the area and this shade specifically with my Rokinon because, simply, the geometrical patterns were inspiring as they are.
As I settled down in the place, over the soft sand, I was faced with two main problems: a) setting up the tripod on a soft ground, and b) the flare from the harsh lights of the restaurant at my back. In the final image, Ausstrahl you can still see some traces of the flare even after the crop. One of the problems with fisheye lenses like Rokinon, with a large field of view, it is the hardship to use a flag to block other light sources that cause the flare; simply because there is a big chance that the flag would get into the frame, and when moved out of the frame it does not technically block anything!
On the soft sands it took me some time to settle and to take some test shots with ISO12800 to judge my composition. I've decided then to go with long exposure brackets; something that became a favorite activity at night exposures. Can't remember the exact timing but it ranged from about 8 minutes down to around 30 seconds. Almost at the end of the exposures, some guy was peeking from the top of the concrete wall behind me and started to make comments. His comments weren't bad or vulgar, but they were simply nosy. Thus, when I felt the situation being like that, I didn't stay longer and picked my stuff and left the place.

Altar
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, 4m, ISO100.

Leaving the first location, I still had the urge to work a bit more, thus I've visited Soog Sharg dock place where I made some shots several times previously. This time, it was relatively quite (as the time was nearing dawn by then). Even though I did take several shots with different times thinking of bracketing and merging into HDR when I finish, but at the end I only picked the first shot that took me 4 minutes. The rest was a play in the RAW editor (DxO in this case) to fix the shadows and highlights as much as possible, along with the distortion but not to the extreme flattened look. That night, however, wasn't the last activity for me in 2013!

Pajero

As I've mentioned before, I've got a new car just before the end of 2013. A Pajero. I really like driving it and it was a great help with the rains that hammered over Kuwait this week. I'm grateful.

Pajero 2014

The day I picked to shoot my new car was cloudy and prior to some light rains back then, but with HDR rendering I was able to show details in the clouds above. For such an elevated car, it was hard to pick up a proper angle to shoot form a lower level, unlike my previous car, Seat.
I've taken several shots as well from various angles. However, no need to put them here as they are just regular ones. The main interest for me now is to do a panorama from inside like I did with Seat. I've managed to check the rear and I've almost settled with my mental process on how to setup the gear inside - but I do need a proper place to work (for some long time) and it should have proper light level. Let's not forget that I must wash the car prior to my work!
There is one old panorama taken from inside of Seat, which I've done in the parking lot of my work place, but now with my sickness of this place, I've neglected the idea of heading there and shoot a panorama.

Sonne

In the past 2 weeks I've picked up a new hobby. Shooting at the sun. Well, it can be classified as astrophotography, but the case with me is that I'm not completely within the reach of astrophotography; but my main interest is the sun, and the moon of course.
This main interest was sparked (again) in fact when I was surfing B&H website to find what was new for me back then, the mirror lenses. With some little research and study, it seems that those lenses are in fact just small telescopes to be attached to the camera (with the help of some adapters too). This even sparked in me the desire to, maybe one day, get my own telescope and try some astrophotography - but we would need REAL good locations for such hobby, and the urban areas where I live and roam are, of course, not suitable for such task.

Sonne I
Red arrows point to noise bits from the system itself.
Blue arrows point to features on the sun itself.

My first trial to shoot at the sun was with my relatively-new Sigma 70-300mm. As I used to do with the moon, with my Tamron back then, I've attached two x2 teleconverters to raise the focal length to 1200mm. Using the two teleconverters can be awkward in normal conditions because the light quality becomes lower, but with the sun, we would still need some filters to block the harsh light, and here comes the welding glass (green) to do the role.
The welding glass provides around 11.7 stops which was enough to look at the sun thru the LiveView LCD at the back. They say, usually, if it is safe for your eyes, then it is safe for your camera when it comes to shooting at the sun, and this is what I've done in fact. Focusing, however, was a bit troublesome; typical for such a long focal length and a shaky system. I think I do need a collar to hold the lenses to the tripod like how it is done with typical large telephoto lenses.

Sonne II

I did another trial few days later but this time the harsh spots from the system itself did vanish, and I'm not sure why! Maybe it has something to do with the focus itself. When focusing at a subject like this I usually zoom the LiveView to the edge of the sun disk and try to make it out as sharp as possible visually (which is not always a good solution). With two teleconverters (and f-number exceeding f/2.8 in multitudes!), the AF function is simply idle. Just to note here that the image were corrected for colors later of course. In Sonne II, the spots (or flare?) are more obvious than in Sonne I. The best has yet to come though...

Sonne III

My third trial with the sun was done differently. I've used the IR filter instead of the welding glass. The thing about the IR filter is that I can't technically measure the number of stops it reduces, because mainly it is intended to block visible spectrum and pass the IR band of the spectrum - this is the main goal for producing it, and using it! Thus, with this uncertainty in my mind, I kept some ND filters at hand just in case I do need to reduce the light even further. Just to notice, my IR filter thread is 58mm and my Sigma's thread is 62mm, thus I had to use a step-down adapter between the two which causes a bit of vignetting at the edges, but here it's not really important.

Sonne III
Original IR shot.

The light level, however, was easily controlled then by the shutter speed and the aperture (which was kept at maximum) and reducing the ISO too (back to 100!). All that was done as I was watching the LiveView. Not so surprising, focusing using the IR filter was much easier and I could achieve a relatively sharper edge focus. This is understandable since the welding glass is bulky and it technically hangs in front of the lens, while is IR filter is screwed in. What I'm not sure of though, does the IR radiation has any part in any of that? Meaning, does the IR radiation come into focus and NOT the harsh disk of the sun itself? Logic says that I've been focusing with the help of the IR band since I'm using an IR filter - but who knows! However, with Sonne III I was even luckier to find several spots at the center of the sun. Adding to that, the original IR shot did have some "halo" around the disk, unlike the dull image done with the welding glass. Seems to me that it is all a good practice for now before, one day, getting my hand on a mirror lens or even a telescope.

The f-Problem

One of the problems that accompany using a teleconverter is the fact that not all information might be recorded in the EXIF of the image file, or even communicated with the camera itself. In my case, my Bower x2 teleconverter would communicate such information, but the Vivitar x2 teleconverter does not communicate any of such information with the camera. Thus, the camera would show f/22 for example, but in reality the f-number is supposedly larger than f/22; after all, the f-number is a ratio.

When shooting at the sun with my two x2 teleconverters, the recorded f-number was f/64. I thought, if someone would try to track the information of the shot to try and do something similar, the consequences might be not "pleasant". Also, I have to think about the future use if I want to mention such information with my images, like in this blog for example, and definitely such information would be misleading. All in all, there must be some accuracy in the information represented with the images. Sigma's maximum f-number is f/22, and it is recorded as f/64 when using the two x2 teleconverter, and this value comes from the Bower teleconverter alone.

Hitting mathematics, let's see what does that mean. That is, having f/64 with two x2 teleconverters and the lens zoomed to 300mm. First of all, let's get the diameter of the aperture here without teleconverters:

N=f/D;

Where N is the f-number, f is the focal length, and D is the diameter. Simple algebra, and we get the equation of the diameter as:

D=f/N;

Thus, in normal conditions with 300mm focal length and maximum f-number of f/22 (as in the Sigma 70-300mm lens), the diameter should be: 300/22 = 13.636mm. 

Now, the teleconverters are just magnifiers and do not have any aperture control. In return, then, the diameter doesn't change with the addition of teleconverters, but the focal length does. With two x2 converters, the focal length is theoretically expanded to 1200mm! (300 x2 x2). Now, if we supposed that the f-number is indeed f/64, and the diameter of the aperture is not changed, what would the focal length be in that case? Again, simple algebra would give the equation as: f=ND. Meaning, the focal length is: 64x13.636 =872.727mm. A wrong answer of course.

Using the above equations again to find the correct f-number, it would be: 1200/13.636 = 88. It is worthy to note that in the specs of such teleconverters, it is mentioned already that they double the f-number, but the problem here lies a bit in the mathematics involved, because f-numbers are not based on the rule of stops of 2ⁿ, but rather on 2^n/2. I find the method of finding the diameter is more "direct" if I can call it so!

This item of info, though simple, I believe it would play some role in critical times when calculating the required exposure becomes essential and finding the correct f-number would be a must at such times, along with other uses.

Finale

Gaston Bachelard
The Aesthetics of The Image
Ghada Al-Imam, PhD.

Husain Ali, PhD.
The Philosophy of Art
A New Vision

My arsenal of books is about to finish, but that's going slowly for the time being. Two interesting books (somewhat) are on the list for now. The first is a discussion of Gaston Bachelard's (1884-1962) philosophy. In fact, despite the title of the book, I thought it would be a direct impact on the matter of the arts, but it turned out to be a highly deep and sophisticated discussion for various themes, and generally for the relation between science and art. I had to stop when I reached around quarter of the book or even lesser than that because, simply, I could not comprehend a single word from the text. Thus, I've just decided to put it aside for later and start reading the second book on the list. The second book, The Philosophy of Art, is more clear in its aspects about art and the philosophy related to it. I've just began reading it though and I need to see what comes next; at least the talk is clearer and I'm able to follow the ideas so far. I'm not expected though some tips about how to criticize a work of art or the likeness of that, but at least I might develop my own sense and evaluation of art in order to see future work with a philosophical eye, and not simply with the visual attraction.

Aside from the cultural venue, I've been suffering a lot of downs with no ups. Mom's condition is not getting any better (though stable), and in my work place things are getting on my nerves more and more. In fact, my work right now is the last thing I do care about. The mediocre, if not poor, treatment from the administrative people in my work place makes me question the value of my dignity and respect relative to those people. It's not the first time to think of seriously leaving that work place and be on my own doing my own job and the things I like - but it is better to be with moonlighting; that is working with a stable job and a side job until the situation becomes concrete on the side job. I didn't start this yet even and makes me wonder what to do next. What angers me the most is to realize that I've spent 6 years in this college to get a scientific degree, to be controlled then by a bunch of monkeys that barely know how to do algebra and simply got no considerations for our simplest rights.

The situation is vague. I'm simply living each day to its extent and trying hard not to think of tomorrow. It's hard to neglect that because of the hammered mind, an expectation for a new trouble arises with every morning I turn my opened for the daylight. My heart is tired.

Synchronizing Engine...

Well, my first week being back to work and a really one hell of a week: stress, mood swings, road rage; you name it. In the same time I'm back to my readings and to photo processing, specially those from the US, while trying to regulate my time as much as possible and to be more involved with the group's activities. I've discovered lately that some people do take me an example as it seems in some way - either in photography or something else, but I have to say this feeling is frightening as much as it is pleasing. I've received some questions lately from members of the group about how I do what I do and how I choose my angles, or how do I envision the shoot. Some questions like those need a philosophical answer and long conversation.
This all comes in a time where I'm under pressure somehow to having one of those new smart phones (mine is HTC running on WindowsMobile v6.0) just to keep in touch with the rest of the group via some Apps. The matter is still ongoing in my mind to consider having one of those - yet, I'm not so convinced about it and I do think it is a waste of money, because I would be using it only for the group, supposedly. Also, I've been submitting suggestions to the group as well, concerning new ideas for workshops and establishing a system for borrowing books about photography between the members - and waiting for any further advance in these fields so far.

Now back home, I've somehow started a rhyme for my work pace but I don't think I will stay on this theme for long. I usually stitch a panorama overnight or start the stitching in the morning before I leave to work, then come back from work and start working on it, and then after posting it I would turn to a regular photo and try to process one or two if I can. The end result is 2 to 3 images a day. I've already even filled the 2^nd album with 20 images and feels like it was yesterday when I've just finished the 1^st! However, I won't send the album in mass email yet as I've just also sent 103 images from the Constitution Day festival by email to lot of friends (same images in the slideshow in my previous post). 

In between working out the images from the US, I took another peek at some of the images taken from Sharg mall, and specially the panorama which was done inside in the main hall of the mall.
I've done only a flat version of this panorama and a QTVR, but now I've discovered how amazing this place can be under planet projection.

Planeta Aurea Orientis
(Eastern Golden Planet)

Here, in this panorama specifically there are several points and work that have been done and I'd like to note out here:

• One important elements that works as a guide line for the eyes of the viewer and helps on standing this panorama specifically out, is the fact that the ceiling was made of straight wooden boards. This gives an effect of absorbing the viewer to the center.
• The usual weird color patches appeared. They were blue, and as a new approach, I've added a Photo Filter layer to the whole image while in HDR mode to counteract the blue color. Naturally, the opposite color to BLUE is YELLOW and hence it added more golden shade to the whole image. However, this approach didn't eliminate the blue patches completely of course but it reduced their intensity in some areas.
• Any place with pillars, is worth shooting in panoramas and converting into a planet.
• With added contrast and other adjustment layers I've realized the potential of pulling the viewer further from the outer side to the center inside by darkening the outer edges where the wooden boards are shaped like magnetic field lines. Here, it was a work to be done with the Burn tool.
• A notice which I cannot completely confirm, but most of these weird blue patches, would appear around areas of stitching errors.

Beside Sharg mall, there was also a shot taken from the roof of the mall itself later that week when I was preparing my camera on the top before the fireworks display for the Constitution Day. In fact, this image was just a test to the see the general framing and the exposure along with the white balance settings.To check for the exposure, I've taken a bracketed shot (with 3 different shutter speeds). However, after all the sorting was done, I re-checked the folder and thought of some of these test images. I wasn't serious about it and didn't think of uploading it to stock sites, but the image gained some likes specially on Flickr.

Civitatem Felix
(Happy City)

Again, some points worth mentioning here, and even though lot of people like it, I have to say, to me it is just an experiment and I don't really consider it a nice one. However, here are some notes about this image:

• The main factor here after merging HDR and tone-mapping the HDR, is the color space. Assigning and not Converting the color space from Adobe 1998 to ProPhoto. This step alone is responsible for pushing the contrast and the saturation of the colors, specially the blue, to a higher and a vivid limit.
• Many adjustments for the orientation (as the tripod seemed to be tilted at the time of the shoot originally!) - but here I had depend on my eyes and rotate the image manually instead of relying on the conventional tools in Photoshop for fixing the tilted horizon. For some reason, the fixes done by this tool didn't look right to me eyes.
• Even though it was f/8, but I didn't expect the sparkle in the light sources to be that strong. I would love to make halos around the light sources now rather than sparkles.
• Used Faux Dynamic Range method (or the false dynamic range method) to extract some details from some shadows and highlights and increasing the contrast.
• Finally, since this image is for a small display and not for stock sites upload, I've exaggerated a bit in my use for noise and sharpening plugins (before and after minimizing the image). Seems it created a strong and a pronounced look after all. Of course some details would be lost but in a small size display, that is not important really.
• Spent some time trying different crops after adjusting the tilt as I was trying to find proper placement for objects along the edges and the corners.
• The image in general is unplanned and typically a chaos. There is no specific order, no specific trend, just a view for the city. Yet, people like it. Something weird is going on here!

Now, on a different note, I think I have to change my usual printing shop. I'm getting somehow sick of the service they provide - always something broken, no material, and you have to go the main branch which sucks. I would like to go to somewhere else but the other places I know so far are far expensive as far as I know. However, I will check out when the time comes. As for now, there are games on the queue line need to be played and finished with...

中国的星球
(Chinese Planet)