Alexander 6, V41.

Welcome to Kuwait, where everys possible and impossible in the same time! I just discovered a new equation that I might go over and study it for my M.Sc. thesis. "Student Allowance" means, also, "Employee Reward". Yes. After having some amount of money in my bank account days before the actual date for my salary, I went on trying to investigate about the source of such money. If the money is not reported and, well, not rightfully awarded in the first place, some legal consequences might follow as why I did not report it. Hence, I had to go over and investigate the source. I spent most of my day yesteday (after fixing some stuff in the car) calling the beloved admins, but none answered except of one who advised me to go and ask someone else. Thus, today, I decided to go myself to their offices and ask and found out that this money is actually the employees' annual reward but the bank enlists the amount under the name "Student Allowance". Perfect.
Away from the fuss of the admins and back to my world where everything is not as pretty as it appears! I spent most of my day yesterday struggling with my RAMs limitations and eventually I had to compromise more so I minimized the panorama I talked about yesterday more than before. I was ablem finally, to tone-map it but eventually, more problems occured as well.
The black area in the bottom is supposed to be filled with sand (since I didn't take a good nadir point). But then I changed my mind for filling it up with a texture that might not look the same as the original, and thus I decided to make a water reflection effect. There are many tutorials on doing this effect but maybe the most realistic one I could get was this beautiful one here. As a consequence of the previous tutorial, I've discovered as well that some effects in Photoshop do not work even in 8-bit, if the ratios of the image are not adequate enough to do so. I had a problem with the displacement filter because it goes disabled whenever I stretched the 2 sides of the reflection layer to 400%. So I lowered this down to 200%. Everything went fine but then again I had the RAMs problem again and again but I managed to lower down the values till I got it right. Although I didn't like the strength of the effect (I would liked it to be more than this) but well, I have no choice here at all. Anyway, I made my QTVR later on with PTGui, and made 2 versions; small and big. And here you go:

I called it "A Walk on The Moon"

It looks though like you are standing in a wet spot or a lake while taking this photo! The difference here is that, it is completely 360 panorama where you can look at any direction. The horizon is fixed properly and not like my first trial with a cylindrical form of QTVR, when it was bulged up making the viewer like peeking from a fisheye lens! I think I can see now that the proper ratio for a good spherical panorama would be 2:1 (WxH), or in other words, the width must be twice the height. This consideration might enable me to make some tricks on less fortunate panoramas and try to make them, somehow, spherical ones. Like my house cylindrical panorama before!


This panorama though, might suffer from the lack of zenith more than a nadir. I remember I've took a shot for the zenith, but I did not align it because I couldn't realize how to do it back then, and hence, the regular cylindrical panorama was enough for me! Some plans are still in my head concerning the Gamma Lab here that I might consider re-shooting it, but this time, the shoot must be in HDR and I shall try to make it into QTVR. Somehow, this is a plan for the future and not now. I have stuff to do other than this currently.

Gamma Lab, CRER

As for now, I need to work more on my transliteration and book reading that I left for long time now! But finally I retained some thoughts and wrote something yesterday and published it on writing.com already. I called it, Father.

__________

961. Alexander held the hand of Birbuár firmly
962. and asked him to come in with him
963. but Birbuár refused to go in and stepped back
964. and this he said: they did not like me when I was alive,
965. and now who is going to respect me when I am a Shágí?
966. I will cause you more troubles if I went with you
967. but Alexander replied: I will not go inside,
968. and I will never help you with your body,
969. until you come with me into your own village
970. and tell me by the way, what is your village's name?
971. and Birbuár replied: its name is Táhús,
972. and there to the north of it lies the Táhús river,
973. it is the river I wanted you to do things with it before,
974. but if it is a must to go with you as you requested,
975. then I ask from you to protect me from the people
976. and Alexander asked: and where does your body lie?
977. is it still under the ruins of your house?
978. then Birbuár made a long sigh and said: yes
979. then the two of them took careful steps
980. and both of them got inside the village from the gate
981. they looked left and right but people were busy
982. some of them in the markets and some were craftsmen
983. they walked beside the walls of the buildings
984. when suddenly a small stone struck the head of Alexander

Alexander 6, V26.

After working on typing the whole thing yesterday, now, and thanks for the auto-save option in Blogger, I've lost everything by a wrong keystroke that deleted my whole post. All of that was to set on an Amazon Associates account. My aim is not to get money via Amazon really, as I barely find people to read this blog anyway, but it would be helpful to have the search bar on the right and just put the image directly into the blog editor instead of opening a new window for this task. Well, I can use images of lens as well!
Here I go writing up what was deleted, or some of it as much as I can remember.

I brought the camera to my work place yesterday as I wanted to take some pictures of a device, to put it up with the text I'm writing for a friend about radiation measuring devices and such, but by almost the end of the day and before 30 minutes of going out from the work place, I felt the urge to snap some images for the building I work in, again. But this time, I was to use the 15mm Fisheye lens, and it proved very helpful, or should I say extremely helpful!

The old panorama that I made for this building was, well, awkward if I should say in many aspect, but yet lot of people liked it and it was given to the German Ambassador as a gift! Yet, I've found out some stitching mistakes that I didn't notice before at all in that old panorama, and people barely notice that before of the relatively small size of the image.

The old panorama for my work place. Check the larger version by clicking on the image and notice the first pillar from the left (top part) and the first square on the roof on the right side of the building (from the left). These were stitching errors. Also The front of the building is taken off a bit, and the vertical lines are not supposedly, vertical, and that made removing the building on the far right a difficult task. The image itself is also somehow, too much elongated I presume.

In this old panorama, which I assembled by my EF-S 18-55mm lens. Almost, as far as I remember, I needed 20 angles or more to take up for the whole building in 2 rows, and that was in portrait position as well. 

EF-S 18-55mm

 Now with my Fisheye everything had changed, and even in the stitching process. It took only 5 angles in portrait position to take up for the whole building, and in stitching process there was a bit more creativity and guess what? The optimization in PTGui itself was more friendly to my necessities and showed "Very Good" sign even!

By the stitching process, I worked out 2 versions for the new panorama. The first one was keeping a straight look to the building and giving a sense of spaceous surrounding, while the truth is, actually, I barely had a stand in front of the building because of all the junk behind me. Not only that, but also, any slight movement or change in position was to block my view, and hence, the camera as well.

Rectangular and straight new panorama.

 There had been a problem in stitching as well but they were not as serious as the previous one. It is the same square on the roof that keep on breaking... I wonder if he has something against me or so!
Anyway, the good part is that the vertical lines are kept vertical and still, and the building part on the far right was removed. The bad story here is that, and because of the stretching to make the panorama straight, the 2 green pillars on the far left were stretched as well, giving unpleasant look, but maybe in a small size they do well? The reason for this is that, as I think, because I was not standing exactly in the middle point of the building but rather in front of the door (which is not exactly in the middle) and that makes these pillars far away and hence more curved originally (vanishing point concept?), which makes them stretch in a hard way when straightened. This is one point to bear in mind next time - Always try to take a middle point in such cases.
The sun glare was also stretched along with the image here, making bigger than the original spots. But that I think is left for the viewer, maybe some of them think the glare is nice while others like the image to be glare-less. 


The second case or version of the same panorama and the same collection of images of course, was to keep the fisheye look as the old one but this time, we have a more elegant look, and compact space with vertical lines being vertical indeed and removing the bits of that annoying building on the right;

Fisheye look panorama.

The fisheye look is my favorite for wide buildings if I should say, and specially when the horizontal lines are curved, but the vertical lines are kept straight.
Personally, I underetimated the importance of keeping the vertical lines as vertical when taking photos of buildings. This was one of the tips that I've learned in Adrian Schulz's book, "Architecture Photography".

 

I did wonder all the time what is the importance of keeping the vertical lines as vertical, and why shouldn't we have more like, fanciful looks for the buildings in photographs or so, but seems elegance has its own ways. I do now prefer to try hard to keep my vertical lines vertical indeed, whenever possible.

The new panoramas were all prepared in HDR and then tone-mapped in Photomatix (seriously, I don't the time to play around with manual tone-mapping now). The looks on the web is not really what I did see on my monitor when I was preparing these images, because I was using the ProPhoto color space (gamut). For people who do not know, it might be useful to read the Wikipedia article here. It is a color space founded by Kodak. You can think of the "color space" or "gamut" as to be, "how much colors I'm allowed to use in here?". The original panoramas had this turquoise look and splashes of green and blue intermixed, but I think it all goes back to sRGB color space (standard RGB) when the pictures are uploaded. I don't have much experience on what is allowed where when it comes to color spaces, but a ProPhoto color space is something huge and I think it gives more freedom when it comes to color picking and creative venturing. In fact, many stock sites advise the uploaders to make sure that their images are in sRGB format, because it is the most common, but I do hope a change comes on the way, because such colors are amazing. We would end up having the same problems of preparing and adjusting the colors from RGB to CMYK just before the final print comes out. It is a non-pleasant experience according to what I've done so far.

By coincidence, and as I was roaming the net looking for stuff to fill my junk yard with, I came across a software that seems it would fit my needs when it comes to viewing HDR files (Radiance and OpenEXR). It's called Panorado, and although the name looks it is specific for panoramic purposes, but in the description it mentions that it can view the HDR and EXR files, and this is my main aim. It has nice features mentioned as well, like viewing a panorama in 360 degrees, but of course I didn't try it so far, so I cannot tell. However, my main purpose would be to view HDR files (Radiance or OpenEXR) without the need of opening up Photoshop to do so. It costs $29.95. I think it is fair enough with multi-tasker of a program!

Now all what you've read so far was actually the product that I wrote mostly yesterday to be posted today, so now imagine I'm re-typing all of that now. When I had the time to do that? Well, after coming from the garage. I really discovered there is a new meaning for the word "Garage" actually by this visit to that place. "Garage" can also mean "torture". Supposedly the weather is still spring and I felt my brain cooked in the sun waiting in that queue line for more than one hour, just to get my brakes in merely 10 minutes. Very nice.

Recently, I've been feeling a bit sorry after reading the latest entry in Jonathan Boakes' Blog, about selling a cottage. This cottage was part of one of the most brilliant games I've ever played, which was designed mainly by Jonathan himself of course - The Lost Crown: A Ghosthunting Adventure.

 The cottage in the game itself gives a calm atmosphere (in daytime scenes!), and when I see it now in real in photographs, I still keep on that opinion about it. The situation reminded me somehow of Failaka island and how it became such a deserted place by now, although it has some potential of being a resort or anything, along with the other islands like Miskan (which is said to have still a lighthouse built by the British soldiers back in 1918).

Some deserted places in Failaka island, which was greatly depopulated during/after the war in 1990.

Although I hope to see some life come to such places, but I also do not wish to see it condensed like a city. I always hold the belief that an island, should remain an island; some isolate place away from the troubles in the city.

__________
601. while the men of Beten Yamta went to Ázúf
602. Alexander remained in his place preparing for his journey
603. and the last memories of Ázilis sparked his mind
604. then he remembered how Ázilis pointed to Charnagút
605. and he was wondering for the reasons of this point
606. but Ázilis did not say anything about Charnagút
607. although he was pointing to it during his speech
608. Alexander knew there is something hidden and some secrets
609. all might be clear when he reaches the appointed lands
610. just before the next full moon of Shaieb
611. then the hero went out of the tribe place to the desert
612. and to the south he traveled away for days
613. all the way he was feeling someone is following him
614. between the dunes and the mounts and hills
615. but he never noticed anyone, and thought its only an imagination
616. for the heat of the desert can make false images to the minds
617. some days the hero spent in the desert passing through ruins
618. and wondering where the promised land could be
619. until he reached the coasts of the Great Lake
620. the largest lake in Daynur and in the middle of lands
621. and Alexander walked along its western coast going south
622. without any rest either in day or night time
623. because the night of the full moon is approaching
624. and he must be in between the two waters

Alexander 6, V21.

A sort of a busy day. Working in the lab a bit and opening the labs myself since the janitors are in strike as I heard. To tell the truth, I'm happy for that. One day without looking at the janitor! Woho!
In order to help my friend, I went on roaming the place first thing I came here, before even connecting my laptop to the net as usual or anything. I got my camera bag and connected the camera already before going into the building and carried the bag just if it was a normal student's bag or case. I went over the ground floor, then up to the first floor into some classes to take pics. Well, despite the fact that I didn't take the tripod with me, but I couldn't resist the urge to take panoramas standing up with a shaky hands, and hence, the aperture size was to be maximum (f-number is low). I think it was f4.5. Not only this will give me a faster shutter speed and compensate for my hand shake, but also it would be better for a faster job on location. Without any doubt, the shoot was run for HDR. If HDR compositing was not feasable because of some shake, at least I would be able to pick up a suitable one from the different 3 exposures. When HDR is made up, that would be extremely fine, since I can control the contrast and the light level in various areas, or even just hit the Photomatix and give out some magic.
I made out some experiments with the pictures taken yesterday from here, and I was just AMAZED for the level of noise and spots on the images when I started to tone-map! The cleaning kit and the whole shipment in the DHL arrived, but is not released yet as per writing this. I hope it wouldn't reach my Judgement Day to see the shipment released!

I've suggested to my director that we might print out something as a gift for the German ambassador. Although I feel a bit awkward and not in mood for any public show off or any formal meetings, but I felt the urge to do this. Don't ask me why, but it is something kicking from the inside and tells me to do something. The choice fell maybe between 2 images; our building, or a picture of our biggest lab...

Printing out these should be done the right way now. Converting to CMYK, correcting the color shifts and then print. It's not going to be an easy task to compensate for the loss of some colors I would say. I heard that correcting the colors under CMYK is a hard task indeed. I shall experiment with that soon as I go back home, and this time I have to do it on my own expense as well, and no time for any excuses or delays. The visit is scheduled for next Wednesday, and it is Monday here already. I would wish if I would think of days coming so fast like this when it comes to my weekend plans!

__________
481. Alexander asked the huge man in a hurry
482. "Ayvar! you know them? where they are?"
483. the man smiled slowly and calmly then said
484. "O good king, we are verily said to be their children,
485. but I do not know anything about their places,
486. and I do not know if they existed even,
487. but for long time, other tribes used to call us like that,
488. children of the Ayvar, and who speaks almost like us,
489. are called the ayvaric children of the deserts,
490. I apology if my knowledge is not what you are seeking!"
491. then Alexander remembered why he came here in the beginning
492. and said to the huge man: I came here to see a man of wisdom
493. and the huge man answered: this is verily not me I suppose!
494. we are the children of the desert take care of days when they come
495. but we worry not about the upcoming future!
496. then Alexander said: the man I am seeking is named Ázilis
497. do you happen to know him O good man?
498. the huge man was surprised and said in a slow speech
499. "Yes O good king, he is our wise man and our guide,
500. but it might be hard to speak to him at the moment,
501. or you might not be able to talk to him so soon"
502. Alexander asked in a questioning tone thereafter
503. "Why is it so O good man?"
504. and the huge man replied: because he is dying

Alexander 6, V11.

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

 

Gamma Spectroscopy Lab - CRER, Kuwait University.

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday again...

This is the place where I work... everyday. You check the tags for some of the "strategic" points that we have in this place!
I was called to take photos around the place and for some new devices that we don't have pictures of yet, to upload the images later on to our website. I can't recall what's the address of our website though! I took photos around, for some labs and for the class room, and at the end when people started to leave the building, I moved my car away from the front of the building and started to shoot. I didn't bring my tripod to allow my hands to move freely. It is either my sensitivity for captivity, or it is the tripod's weight that made me think twice to take it out with me for this occasion.

The composition of this image was a bit of a hard work. It is simple, but the memory in my PC now sucks big time and made me think seriously of changing the system to something faster. Anyway, I had a trick to go around it and minimized the originals to make working with them a bit faster and easier. Also, with the help of other softwares (beside the usual photoshop) I was able to produce vibrant colors out of the HDR composition. Another difficulty showed up when composing the image with photomerge is when there was a plenty of empty spaces and the image is rectangular (naturally!). It might not be a big deal if I want to save the image as a GIF (because transperancy is saved) but since JPG is required here for web and other purposes, I had to work around the lower left corner and cover it with the Clone tool.
I wonder if this occasion is the beginning of some side-career related to photography... who knows!

I've put some books on my Amazon list in order to order them later on... when I balance my budget again after the stupidity that they made with my salary here. I'm thinking seriously as well of getting a new set of lenses, and a camera body, and a dedicated flash. All of that will seriously be around 1000 K.D. if not more. But first, I have to clear up my visa a bit.

I made a scan for some of my gibberish and sketching that I usually do when I'm partially unconscious. Might submit them to stock sites later for fun. I'm trying to make a vector image in EPS format or something if possible. I didn't work with EPS format before and I don't know anything special about it, yet when I save a file I get some dialog box with some options that I didn't understand any! Just saved it anyway!

Yield for today is 2 verses... and it is Thursday, let's see how the weekend goes this time...