Gallería …

This post contains a QTVR, which needs QuickTime to be installed. It requires some time to load and probably won't show properly on mobile devices.

Here we go now with the gallery (or expo). It really made my week busy, and made my plans go on halt for the time being, despite the fact that attendance there was almost a zero for most days. Yet, I had to attend and be there for some time now and then (except on Friday, in which I was really tired and needed to sleep). In the beginning I was reluctant to do any documentation, but then I decided to do some simple documenting, specifically for my own work, and add a twist to it by using anaglyphs.

Section where my prints are kept (on the right side of the hall from entrance).
They should look hovering above wall level when viewed properly.
Click to enlarge.

Doing a panorama, too, was out of question, but then I thought again why not document that whole hall by doing a panorama? Specially that I didn't touch my tools for a long time now (while trying to work indoors at home to no avail). This panorama specifically was a unique experience on certain levels. I've discovered that empty spaces do have their magic at some point, this is for one. On the other hand, some features were not quite obvious on location until I started working with the shots, this is for two. As for the third, it was the usual pizza-behavior as I call it - panorama stitching gone erratic. Something weird is going on with this behavior, and I must try to figure out the reasons behind it before heading to Oman on September 9^th.

The pizza!

I did the panorama shooting in one day, but since it didn't go well (as I said, pizza behavior!), I came back the second day to shoot. However, after inspecting some images, I could probably relate to the reasons for such erratic behavior in the stitching process; it could be the dirty lens which left some spots (probably causing the computer to calculate some control points for them), and to my surprise, I've found out that there is a whole angle or corner in the panorama which was left without shooting! It was definitely a job to be done again (and carefully this time), and after cleaning the camera and lenses thoroughly.

The Gallery

This panorama shooting was done in manual mode and I did some light metering around the set yielding 1sec exposure at f/11 and ISO100. This is the base from which I've expanded a bracket to take shots at -2 and +2 EV (that is 2 stops below and above the basic exposure time). However, the next day, the settings in the camera didn't change but I thought of reducing the f-number to f/9 while reducing the base exposure to half a second. This was done mainly for two reasons: a) reducing light source burst (star-like effect) which might corrupt the stitch later on and add unfavorable effect, and b) just to make sure that +2EV shots don't go way too bright but just enough to control the shadow areas later on. Moreover, I've used my white balance disk to pick up a Custom WB image, because the lighting conditions there were all mixed up (CFL and spotlights). A decision I didn't regret at all!

Initial tone-mapping settings before adding further adjustment layers.
I got to say that I like the shape of the final curve!

Tone-mapping the HDR panorama was done in Photoshop rather in Photomatix. This is because I needed some control over specific zones (to make the whole scene look as if it was a high-key shot), while suppressing some other zones; in a nutshell, Photomatix would be way too general to my needs here. The only mishap here is that the virtual reality (QTVR) would have an obvious seam between the left and the right edges of the panorama. Strangely, that did not happen, or maybe it did but my eyes are failing me! Photomatix supposedly is the only application that would make it possible to equalize the exposure and tones on the left and right edges. I was thinking of fixing that manually if I had to, but strangely, the QTVR was seamless!

QTVR

 As I usually do nowadays, I don't play it hard with the nadir shots (even though I do take them in the process, just in case). Thus, I've made the usual tag or title nadir shot on my own, with information about this QTVR (location, event, …etc). As I've mentioned above, I was surprised that the QTVR did not have a seam line, OR it might be just my eyes failing me. The irony here is that I didn't notice the arcs in the ceiling on location, but only when I started to work with this panorama already! Anyway, it was a lovely addition which transformed my work from documentation to working for art.




For this panorama specifically, it is better to see it in a small size, as there are several stitching errors even in the second trial to take the panorama (however, they were minor). I do suspect that Moiré effect does have a relation to this. But I need to check my no-parallax point in the configuration as well.

Finale

This might be my last post for now before heading to Oman next week, on September 9^th. Four days only, but surely they will be tiring. I've seen the proposed schedule for the shoot and frankly I'm not sure I will be able to cope with that but I'm hoping to do some panoramas there and night shots as well. Until then, I'll be wishing myself some good luck…

A surprise this week from m&m's. A heart-shaped chocolate legume!

Hektisch, a panoramic story…

One word: Hectic. The week was so in fact, but this word describes more precisely the panorama that could not just give some easy time to be done. Been three weeks trying to fix this issue, and I won't be mistaken if I simply called a "panoramic adventure!" However, it was a case worth of a study, thus I'm hoping to dedicate this post for this panorama alone. I've made 3 trials already with this panorama and despite the hardships I'm having about it, I don't think I will be going there again to do it a 4th time!

The Beginning

The story begins not the in the current time. The idea of doing this panorama was actually planted in my head long ago before I even travel to Ireland at the end of September. Many factors were holding me down, but the number one factor was: Summer. The second factor was the security guys around the place. This place, Soug Sharg (Sharg Market) was specifically a scene of some confrontations in the past with security guys; day and night. Doing a panorama close to that place (and I guess belonging to it) might get the beehive disturbed. These two main factors held me back, and the rest was left for the proper timing and the capabilities of the body.
After coming back from Ireland in mid October I got busy with many things, and I need some time to settle my mind on how to do this panorama. I paid first a visit; just a plain visit without anything in hand, but simply walking around the place. Of course, the visit was nocturnal by nature, as this place actually shows more beauty at night with the "lantern" of lights glowing then. I did simple shots of this location long time when I was a beginner in photography and I did indeed, back then, made a simple vertical panorama for the face of this corridor in the outdoors. This time, however, the story was different.

The location under inspection,
right behind Soug Sharg's Marina.

The difference comes in many aspects: the time, the size, the intent, the procedure (the erratic part of the whole story). In this plain visit I had to check if there is a chance to do a centralized panorama in this place. The answer was positive; there is a distinctive center for the place. The lights in the place would provide sufficient light for simple exposure timing in case of catching up with the architecture of the place. However, long exposure is needed if the sky is to be given some color and not keeping it simply dark. Hence, HDR comes to the mind naturally. However, for the factors I've mentioned before (i.e. security people) I had to think thoroughly to work as fast as possible and hence "real" long exposures were not an option naturally, neither metering the light on location to find out a proper intermediate value (and it won't work because the difference in luminance is far greater than 2 stops).

Versuch Eins

The first trial was a failure by nature. I went out too late to the location thinking that too late is better to ensure not much activity around (people or security). One important point was forgotten here: lights are automated, and they switch off around 4 a.m.; Ironically, this is something I used to know from last winter's experiments with long exposures on the beach but my mind was completely absent.
The result was, a short trip, to say the best. In fact, I spent a significant time trying to centralize the set to make it in the center as much as possible. With places like this, symmetry is of the optimum importance and I had enough already with my left-handedness temptations, where everything looking normal to me with the naked eye is, in fact, tilted or skewed to some direction and not perfectly central. For this, my work was greatly done with the LCD of the camera. Shifting the tripod around was not an easy job too - moving a heavy set just for few centimeters with some delicacy is never easy, specially with the tripod been extended to its full length, as I was trying to have a slightly upper view than the normal level of the eyes.
After doing all of that and all this back-tiring work, I started to shoot. But first, I had to make one shot using the white balance disk to set it as a reference point for the camera's white balance point. The work then started and as soon as I reached the 4^th angle in the process (and that would be at 120^o), the lights simply turned off, leaving me in the dark. It was a mixture of anger and disappointment, naturally. But I guess I can blame myself because I should have been more attentive to such matters from previous experience.
Settings used here were f/9 (while using the hyperfocus principle), and bracketing (of exposures) to merge as HDR slides later.Metering here was set to Evaluative, which is meant to measure the light from different areas in the scene and then evaluate an average for the different zones of the scene, and naturally some exposures took 30 seconds already (because of the camera limit to this time in Av mode, otherwise it should have been longer).

Versuch Zwei

The second trial was set the week after the first. This time I've decided to head earlier than the previous time, and that was around 1 a.m.. Again, centralizing was essential and did take some time to do. The white balance was still saved from the last trial and the aperture too; all I had to do is shoot. This time, however, the tripod was lowered to around the chest level for easy control and viewing. No nadir (bottom) shot was taken as I would need extra work and careful planning for such a shot so I had to neglect it despite the fact that it bears a significant detail in the tiles underneath the tripod. I thought that I will manage to get over such a problem later. Almost same settings were used, except that metering was set to Center-Weight (thinking that the light areas are greater anyway from those dark areas in between).
Back home the surprise was on its way to shock me. It is regular practice for me now to work with modeling; i.e. using simple JPEG images to stitch a correct model of the panorama and apply the mold of this model on the HDR panorama, since the stitching program (as of lately) doesn't recognize much details from HDR images. To my surprise, the computer made a pizza out of my panorama!

The pizza made by the computer trying to stitch my panorama

I did not really understand what was going on here. Why did that happen? Did I miss some angles while shooting? Even optimization (i.e. correcting control points) did not work on fixing this "Pizza". I even tried to use Black and White images to make the model but the same issue occurred - a pizza! The thing is there was no problem generating control points at all (except for one or two slides beside the zenith slide and this is normal).
Investigating further down the road of making a panorama, the natural culprit to be suspected first here is the rotation axis, which if not picked out right, can cause the parallax error - an error that is a nightmare for panorama makers. Checking on some numerical values with a little research about the matter, I've found out that my camera and lens combination was indeed under a shift - This is my first full-panorama to be done after coming back from Ireland and apparently the VR-Head had some screws loose and there was a shift in the arms which I didn't check thoroughly.
Checking the images on computer to see if there is really any significant shift in virtual spaces between objects in the scene (when camera is rotated) I did indeed notice a really tiny amount of shift and change (e.g. the small green barricades and their background had some relative motion with respect to each other), but I was skeptical about the seriousness of this shift - Was really enough to do such a disgusting shock to my eyes, and even squander the computer's mind to the limit of losing control in that way?!!! Anyway, the shift of the rotation axis was fixed according to the numerical values I've obtained online and I was ready for a third trial.

Versuch Drei

For this trial, I was already tired of going to that place (and it had a non-pleasant stench to it), thus all what I picked was my tripod with the VR-Head, and my camera. This time I didn't wait for the weekend to come, but I did it in the middle of the week as my sleeping pattern was disturbed (after some headache issues which forced me to sleep afternoons!). All settings were already set (including the white balance from the first trial 3 weeks ago before this third trial). This time though I've returned to the Evaluative metering.
Back home I've converted the images directly to Black and White slides (thinking that colors can add to the confusion in connecting and stitching the images of the panorama) but again, to my surprise, the modeling process didn't work and just like in the second trial, the computer made a pizza out of my panorama! And again, the optimization process did not yield any useful result.

My third trial's pizza!

At this point I've realized that the shift in the rotation axis was not the only problem in paly here. There was something mysterious going on!
In a desperate move here, I've tried to apply templates (i.e. models) from other panoramas not related to this one at all. Specifically, I've tried to apply a model file for a panorama that I've somewhat faced some problems like this with: an taobh istigh an Waterfront (inside the Waterfront).

An taobh istigh an Waterfront

I have to say it was the first time I try such an approach; applying a model of completely unrelated panorama to another. Yet, the results were significant! However, the stitching errors did prevail and were hard to fix too.

Some of obvious stitching errors (and some were cropped from below) after trying to apply models not related to the same panorama itself. Just to note, this approach was done with the panorama done in the second try.

At least for this point here, I was able to discover the other projections and how well would they do and the results were astonishing (but not to be published now). This made me more eager to solve the matter of this mess. Despite the promising look of this approach but the main problem is that optimization cannot be done to correct for such stitching errors, and those stitching errors would need significant time to be fixed, if they were flexible enough to be fixed anyway!

Versuch Vier

At this point I was tired of the situation and really, really did not think of going further. There must be something related to this issue other than a simple physical attribute such as a shift in the no-parallax point and axis of rotation. Thus, my 4^th trial now is to be done completely digital and on computer.
Despite the stress (yes, it was a real stress) the accompanies such unexplainable results when a panorama-making process goes erratic for no obvious reasons, I tried my best to organize my thought and work.

In the beginning, a general check up for the whole set of images yielded a fact that there is no problem in generating control points, and yet, optimization gives the "very bad" indicator. This usually means really bad control points (points connecting between two images) - that is, some points do not match or simply very distantly related. Anyway, after deleting these bad points, some images were left with no control points at all. In other words, complete images here were a major reason for the whole upset in the "pizza"! Now what to do?

First approach was to divide the work: dividing the panorama to 3 zones and work on the control points for each. I've reloaded the images anew, and canceled the repeated shots (those at 0^o and 360^o, keeping just one of them instead of the two). Then, I've generated (manually) control points between each 2 images in the first set of images which compose the middle zone of the panorama. At this point, optimization for this set of images alone was "good" or "very good" and them middle zone virtually out of stitching errors so far!

The same approach was done for the lower and the upper zone of the panorama (excluding the zenith point) with varied degrees of optimizations, but all were good so far! The tricky part now was in connecting these 3 zones together, as the panorama now was divided to 3 perfectly-matched zones! Thus, I've went on generating control points (again, manually) between vertically overlapping images in between the middle and the lower zones, and then again from the middle and the upper zones. It was tricky here as when optimizing any two sets of images after adding the control points, the third set gets corrupted and out of sync. Needless to say here there was a great deal of work regarding other options and properties needed to be controlled, mainly the Blending ratio for some slides in the lower zone. The situation was settled when I optimized the whole set of images from all zones; optimization then yielded "not so bad" - which was good for my purpose here at least and the three zones were matched with minimum of stitching errors. The zenith slide (topmost) was then matched with some images from the upper zone and optimized alone. Things look relatively perfect now except for few minor stitching errors AND some smudged zones resulting from luminance problems when merging into HDR (which is a resultant related to the exposures making up the HDR itself). Those are not a big nuisance for the time being but I guess they can be dealt with later.
Anyway, there was a minor problem of keeping the pillars at vertical lines which proved to be problematic. The beauty of the place is in fact in the vertical straight lines and such twist and tilt in those pillars is not a good compromise, so to say.

A model stitch. Notice the tilt of the pillars; some are slight and some are strong. Of course beside the other stitching errors.

This convergence of vertical line does effect the visual strength of the panorama as well as the ability to centralize the panorama and achieve a good symmetry (remember, the main reason for picking this location is the symmetry!). Trying to fix this problem with the usual approach (changing the roll and pitch angles) did not yield a proper solution to this problem. Thus, I've decided to go through the middle zone and assign vertical control points and some horizontal control points. These are special type of control points that tell the computer that such lines are (and should) be perfectly vertical or horizontal, of course depending on specific features in the scene. Thus, most of the pillars in the middle set of images was a target to this addition of control points, and optimization was done once again to apply these changes. The results were a joy to my eyes!

A final test stitch. The arrows point to the stitching errors and smudges caused by HDR problems. Compare the tilt of the pillars here with the black and white model above which was made before adding vertical and horizontal control points.

All what is left now is to apply this model to the REAL thing: the HDR set of images itself. After that, there will be a long journey through the different projection styles and the different tone-mapping (and each would need some degree of fixes of course).
I can feel the steam venting out of my brain. I've finally settled down with 3 weeks of work-failure-work relationship here! I have to say, I do consider it an adventure nevertheless.

Thoughts and Conclusion

The question now remains: Why did that happen? What went wrong here? Despite the simplicity of the situation, yet this panorama persisted in its stitching errors (even with the final results), and despite the reality that there was indeed a shift in the rotation axis away from the no-parallax point of the lens (Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 fisheye), yet fixing such problem did not bring any practical enhancement to the situation. This made me think of some points here that might have caused this problem and some of them if not all are kind of uncontrollable (to me at least):

• Moving shadows. Because of the abundance of light sources on location there were multiple shadows in the place beside my shadow of course, which was moving and probably did appear in more than one slide. 
• The symmetry of the place could be a culprit despite being the reason sought for creating this panorama. The resemblance between two images which are NOT related to each other could have possibly (just possibly) trick the computer on thinking that these two images ARE related. Hence, control points were generated to two unrelated images making a pizza out of the situation!
• Just like the moving shadows, reflections on the ground might have a minor role here in "baffling" the computer and tricking it into generating what I might call False Control Points. 
• By now, it is very common that repetitive patterns in the space do undoubtedly produce stitching errors; Galore! Thus, I was not really surprised to see stitching errors in the lower zone of the panorama where the tiles make a lot of lines crossing each other.

Finale

Well, after this long story (and hopefully not so boring one), I'm just glad and happy to see such an achievement. I didn't get such a feeling of accomplishment for a while (even though it wasn't far back behind when one of my panoramas was displayed in a luxurious coffee table book!).
I dedicate this post to "some" people who thought the work of photography is simple a deed of Photoshop and playing with the camera, specially when it comes to panoramas. I just hope this post would open the eyes to the hassles that we, photographers, must put up with just to come out with something - and most of the time, it is for our own satisfaction and no one and nothing else. For those work already with this venture of photography and reading this, I hope it is of some benefits to you all out there. There are some details that I couldn't mention here of course, but I'm sure you can figure them out on your own!

Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating it, 

or as the Irish say: Nollaig Shona Dhaoibh.

In Failure We Trust...

Here we go, my new PC is finally online, and the process of keeping it up-to-date with the software arsenal is going on in fact. How much I'm relieved. I didn't feel such speed in ages!!
Because of the busy schedule (sleeping time is included in this statement) I couldn't do much work with my camera or with Geltani. Some mental work was involved here though. In a haste, anyway, I tried my luck with another peeling project which was not achieved as I wish (hence the title of this post!) but I got my lessons somehow.

Censer Censer Against The Wall

This week I've noticed that Mom had a small censer, other than the one that I've already used in a previous experiment to capture smoke. The new censer is small and thin and quite seductive to my eyes because of the curves it has, but all of that proved to be a real challenge later for the peeling work (which was never done right here up to this moment).

The previous censer.

The new censer.

This time, and because of the shape of the new censer, I've decided not to light the object from above like I did previously with the mug peeled mug shot. I've realized that if this is done, then the thicker top part will cast a shadow to the bottom. Hence, I've decided to use both of my speedlites (580EXII and 430EXII) on the left and right of the censer - a decision that I've regretted later.
One of the critical aspects of this object is its relative small size, and hence, any small offset from the center of the rotation was drastically apparent in the series of the shots taken (meaning the objects won't be rotating around its own axis, but it will move in a circle around a common center!). Another problem was, as usual, the tilt of the images taken which was not so obvious until the images were examined on PC.

One of the trials done for peeling.

As you can see above, the final stitch had many errors and mainly it became a fan-shaped stretch instead of (relatively) flat stitch. This is mainly because of off-center movement mentioned above which means the base would look nearer and further on different angles as the object rotates. This was also evident when the mug peeling effect (posted in previous posts) but the general size was larger and the offset did not show in a drastic way as in this experiment.
Notice also that the top portion (top right) of the stitch has broken lines and not a smooth stitch. In my mug experiment, when this happened, it meant that I need to narrow my crop or the slit from which PTGui should scan to make the connecting lines smoother. Here, however, this was not possible. The above example is stitched at -/+8^o from a common central point (picked by comparing the minimum and maximum extensions of the body to the left and right during its rotation), meaning the total angle was 16^o.

Cross-hair marks added on feature-less sides to help on stitching later.

Notice here that I've added cross-hair mark by pencil on the censer itself to aid the stitching process, but I have to say it didn't help much in this situation. Going lesser than 16^o for the crop caused much hassle an PTGui would miss a lot of the matching points. One of the ironic things is, why did I use 180^o in previous posts to measure the different in pixels, while I can measure the number of pixels for each degree simply by measuring the move in two successive shots of 5^o.
I've mentioned above that I've regretted using both speedlites on the left and the right of the censer. I've realized this fact while working on PC and comparing images to establish some control points. The thing is, the body is not unique in its shape and has many protruding features, which means shadows on the body itself. However I try to balance the lights from both directions it was almost impossible to eliminate the shadows completely. The problem of the shadows is, as the body rotates, the shape of the shadows will change eventually, making the stitching and matching control points even harder. Maybe I should have proceeded with speedlite from the top as I did before (or one from the bottom, but I would need a glass surface below the censer as it rotates).

Comparison between two shots few degrees away. Notice the change in the shadows and the light levels.

It wasn't till I've installed DxO Optics again when I fixed the tilt perfectly. DPP (Canon's software) was not much of a help and cumbersome when I tried it. Probably the less problematic stitch was achieved when the images were corrected with DxO.
As I was going on to find a solution to the problem, I've tried to make the crop literally by Photoshop. I'm lucky now that I have a faster Photoshop (32- and 64-bit) and what would take 30 minutes is done in the matter of 30 seconds or even less! Anyway, such method didn't work as well, and even blending in Photoshop didn't go much far away with the results than PTGui did. However, one interesting experiment in Photoshop yielded something of fractal-art quality I would say and I really liked the result and might upload it later to some stock sites as an abstract art.

Fractal Censer (blend of 72 images)

I'm not sure how the colors were produced in the image in that way, but I do appreciate abstract art anyway and I don't mind the extra colors!
I need to go further and study this matter further. I might try to do it later but one thing for sure: I need a new base for rotating, as the current one is not precise with its center of rotation.

Γλώσσες

As I've mentioned in the beginning, I didn't spend much time doing a practical examination for Geltani, but there were some mental notes, specially that I've started reading a book about learning Turkish. Well, I'm not intending to delve much deeper into the language itself as of to speak it, but it did give me some insight on some matters (mainly grammatical) that were absent from my mind even during the make of Ayvarith.
However, I'm not intending to copy-paste features from real Turkish into Geltani but it is worthwhile to think about some grammatical cases and special verbs. Turkish, being somehow similar to Arabic in some aspects, got a special features in its verbs to denote the verb that acts on itself, and the verb that acts on something else (sorry I don't know the exact name of this grammatical case). Just to explain, here is a simple example:

Arabic

Study: daras [درس] (someone studies on his or her own).

Teach: darras [درّس] (someone teaching or making someone study).

Turkish

Study (learn): öğrenmek.

Teach: öğretmek.

Notice that in English the two verbs are completely different, and this is how Ayvarith used to work. In Turkish and Arabic, despite the critical difference in roots, they do act according to some basic regulations to formulate verbs that act on their own, and those which act on something else. The question is now, how to implement this with Geltani? Leave Geltani; What about Bulughman - an artificial language that I've made it sound like a Turkic language?

In Geltani, the verbs are derived from the noun (mentioned that in previous posts). Hence, the noun "flight" is used with suffixes and prefixes to make the verb "fly". However, I don't have a clear idea yet of how to formulate a verb that expresses the action "made something fly". Would I have to introduce auxiliary verbs in such instances? How that would sound and look with the dilemma of the writing system already? Too much thought and my mind is so tired of thinking much into this matter for the time being. In hope that all this mental power will be boosted after Ramadhan.

Finale:

It was relatively a busy and a tiresome week that just passed me by. I just can't wait to get into the regular time-table. I think what really wears me off is that the whole community goes under a time shift making working in the usual way, for someone who is used to fasting, a hard task to do (with waiting).

Earlier this week, there was a meeting for photographers invited by HIPA of Dubai, to introduce and identify the HIPA reward in its third session. I tried to attend, but with the delay in the opening which was supposed to take place at around 9:00 p.m., and me being awake since 6:00 a.m. to pick up for dialysis and then back home to work on something else, made a 30 minutes of delay such a great displeasure. Thus, at around 9:30 a.m. I've left the scene, before the ceremony would even start.

However, during the waiting time, I've met a friend who was a member of the photography group I'm in, and left after some tensions with the management. As expected there was a chitchat about the quality and the functions of the group, but I have to say he had some points that I share, yet, I'm really so tired of all that tension between photographers in here. It is largely a talk of money-making, and how things are done, but I didn't hear much about the philosophy behind photography. This friend pointed out to some photographers and mentioned to me some names, and when I answered, simply, that I don't know any of these guys (who apparently are famous in their fields) he said "Whom do you know then if you don't know these?". I replied: I'm working with the camera since 2007 for my amusement and never made a contact with Kuwaiti photographers up till 2012 when I joined the group, and now I'm regretting that I've been social with other Kuwaiti photographers. No offense, not to say all are bad, but surely it is something that probably I should regret. I got myself into struggles and wrestles that I should not have been into. I can't remember when was the last time I talked with a Kuwaiti photographer about the art of photography or its philosophy and its meanings; It was mostly a talk dominated by money and gear, and nothing else. Useless talk if you ask me.

Next Saturday it is scheduled to have a meeting to sort out some images. I'm sure I'm going to have another batch of disappointments. The sorting process is aimed for Cyprus photography contest and I'm not sure how it works, but it is apparent that registration is for single photographers and not groups. What I've noticed that in most contests, the most renowned photos are those of exotic places and/or those of portraits and people shots. Now, how am I supposed to get into exotic places (specially with my situation being stuck now with Mom to care for her)? And am I supposed to do something I hate just to please the judge? Am I supposed to please the judges to get some good results in a contest, or am I supposed to do photography for my own sake? The answers to these questions lead me straight to the belief of the futility of such contests in my case and made me even less interested in them. I'm not supposed to take a burden just to have a photo. I'm supposed to please myself in the first place, despite all the criticism I'm receiving from the group.

Peace of mind is a precious thing, and simplicity, I reckon, should be in the core of my goals. Yet, I ask myself, would life allow me to do so? Would there be someone who would help me to be so? The view is blurred...

New Mistake...

 Not a pleasant beginning for the first day of work in the new year, and a not so special new year's eve as usual (well, it should be normal by now). In fact, this feeling was accompanying me all along since yesterday or the day before... a feeling of emptiness and carelessness for everything in this life and all what surrounds me. Feels like hating everyone, and caring for no one, and the pressure with the early hours of the morning today was not helping either.
Canstockphoto seem to be encouraging me to submit more of my doodles! That's a happy bit in my life!


The day went on without progressing much in fact. I went to Canon workshop to pick up my camera and it was still not finished and then went on to the DHL facility to collect my money back after the destruction of my shipment in Ireland before it could reach the owner of The Waterfront, and yet, I couldn't get any money about this because they did not have the cash at present and the guy said he will call me (maybe this afternoon) to go and pick up the money. I hate this. At least, I paid for a US mailbox (in Ohio as he said) and it might be active soon enough. I've made a wishlist already in BH website. The total amount for my wishlist exceeds $600, that's around 200 K.D. maybe. Ah yes, and the other good thing I did today was to drop some of my purchase back home, so I don't have to carry lot of stuff when I'm going out of my work place. But all of that really isn't worthy for all that traffic jam and the craziness that I faced in the roads today, going out fomr my work place or going here and therThe e or coming back to my work place... it was all the same.


I discovered another mistake in the line numbering... jumping from #2485 to #2489, missing 4 lines. I have to count the "net" number of lines, I really did miss around and lost the count of the lines. I think Word and other word-processing programs are able to do so! There is no way to count that myself!
Despite the tiresome roaming of the roads from the morning, I managed to translate on verse before I set off, and some 2 verses (or were they 3?) after arriving. The amount is increasing easily since the control over the words in memory is great, till now. The final stop is line #2496.

At the current time I'm working on looking for a suitable EXR viewer (and there are some of them out there) to view the HDR pictures saved in OpenEXR format, but it would be nice if the program supported HDR and EXR formats, and yet be light for the memory. Unfortunately, my default viewer, ACDsee, does not support the 32-bit images even in the newer versions. Thus, I have to look for some program that becomes sort of a swiss-knife for wide range of formats. Otherwise, I'm going to need the Photoshop every time I want to view one of those 32-bit images... and Photoshop is no little baby!

Where is Canon...!

Today I've been roaming Al-Rai area looking for the service center of Canon. As I said before in a previous post, my sensor needs cleaning. According to my friend's description, the way sounded easy... or so I thought. However, after running here and there and asking many people and everyone got a GPS of their own in their minds that works according to some satellites around Venus or Jupiter but not Earth, I was able to find the service center. The big bang that was waiting for me was, 5 days needed to clean the sensor! I was like what the hell!!! Anyway, I have no choice. Let's wait and in this time, I will try to spend my time playing games, doing photos already taken, and work on the family memories photos! Ah! And just remembered now, I have to do some repairing issues for mom...
Please, shoot me...


One of the images that I forgot about completely yesterday was a panorama of the class room in my work place, and I was working with it in a hurry (amid memory problems in my PC or what it seemed some scripting errors);

The image had lot, lot, lot of errors. However, I guess it is all related to the parallax point. Now, I think I have to spend some time over the net to see if there is a solution (cheap one) away from buying a professional VR head (VR: Virtual Reality). VR heads on a slight check up from some websites might cost way more than $700! No way to buy one, for the time being at least. The parallax error is not a problem when it is done for a field of sight far away from the camera, but it is recommended even in such situations because usually such heads got scales to measure the angles and elevation of the camera, thus it would prevent taking an excess of images unnecessarily in hope to overlap some features in between the images. I believe one of the fewest panoramas that I did, which did not have such problem of parallax (I didn't notice any mistakes till now!) was the field of Aughnanure Castle from Ireland!



Maybe the parallax error would be minimized to some extent if I spent more time with the stitching program and put my own control points? I don't know yet! In fact, with the new knowledge of some of these softwares, I'm reviving my hopes of some old pictures that I took some time ago for the dome of one of the building from the inside, and I'm hoping to make some magnificent advanced leap with this picture. However, I also think that I should snap this dome again with a different technique with my simple tripod. Hope I won't have any troubles till then, because the first shots were made in summer, and it was a quiet time then, but now, it is somehow an active time. I guess I need to be around in the early morning... in the very early morning!


Looking at my work place now, seems everyone had left and left me alone! Who cares anyway! Feels like a free bird!
The yield for today was 2 verses as usual. Amid my struggle with Al-Rai and going around my work place alone to check the samples, surely this gives me no time to write more, and 2 verses is a way forward push for today. I managed to go around many expressions today in order to get 2 verses done and also got lot of sitbacks because of some mixing in words... I feel my brain tied.


I bought a new frame today, hoping to work out an old photo of mom with photoshop then print it out and frame it, as a little gift for a lovely mother...