OCT?

OCT Results

Again, it is one of these times that I call "Wasted Weeks". I've spent the week going for the eyes examinations in the morning or afternoons and running chores. I did work a bit on some macro experiments trying to understand some aspects, yet though the set is cumbersome still, and with my physical exhaustion of everyday I do barely think of doing something with my camera. This week also, we had a flight show done by the Red Arrow, commemorating the historical visit of our Emir to the United Kingdom last year. Of course, I wasn't there to shoot. First, the show was on Tuesday, one of the days that I do have to pick Mom for dialysis and going in errands from and to my work place. A bad timing of traffic jams and exhaustive demeanor. Secondly, I don't have much of a zooming power with my Tamron 70-300mm broken. Everything that needs zooming power must put on hold for the time being. Thus, I barely had any chances to go to that show already.
Mainly, in the meantime, I'm trying to dig more information about visual aids since I reckoned that it is possible, to some degree, to help people with retinitis pigmentosa live somehow a regular life with their impairment. It is mainly for my eldest brother and one of my older sisters who suffer from RP severely. Who knows though, I might be next.
This week also, the 38^th annual book fair was established. Despite my short journey inside one of the wholes but I did pick up some queue of books that would be enough to keep me busy for some time until the next cargo of photography books later on. Typically, the fair is full of religious books or theological studies books, or for a change, political and political-related books. Thus, just for few rounds I realized I won't gain much. There was one particular book about the Ottoman Empire but it was way too thick, and in two parts, which made me re-think the possibility of reading it all. It was an analysis of the Ottoman state back then before its fall in 1924. I always hold the idea that there is a lot to learn about the past of this state, which ruled for around 700 years. Some people, however, do dream of getting this empire back. How, I don't know, but to me it doesn't sound a plausible idea.

However, for the time being, all I'm hoping for is more experiments and a bit of outdoors activity as winter is looming now and the night time is a refreshing and a relaxing time. Trying to forget the past jinxes of the past 3 months and working with a camera at night seems to be the good way to do it. All what I'm concerned about is getting in troubles again with some folks, in a time that I'm getting really sick of everyone in here, and of those around me.

If you are reading this and can offer some insight into the OCT report in the picture above (and apparently the technician didn't hear of PRINT command and used the PRINT SCREEN instead) I would really appreciate it. In the meantime, I'm going to TRY to have an appointment with the doctor, which left me sick already with the ridiculous attitude of the workers in Al-Bahar Eye Hospital.

All Eyes On Me...

It was one of these weeks that I could call busy. Yet, however, I'm not so satisfied about it because I've found myself too lazy to do a single thing. Seems it's the effect of summer. I've just realized that I had been in almost continuous activity for around a year, without real vacations. Summer had its toll on me and I'm seriously growing sick of it. Temperatures are going down slowly, yet it is still hot. For example, instead of being 46^oC (~115^oF) at around 11:00 a.m., it is now in the range of 41-42^oC (~106-108^oF) around the same time. Where are you winter; I need you badly.
Anyway, after some struggles, I was able to do some work with my camera this week, trying to do more experiments with the IR Filter which I didn't use much. This time, however, not outdoors, but indoors.
I've discovered last week that I've completed (unintentionally!!) the 3^rdalbum for images from Staten Island. I didn't work for some time with these images. At the end of this post, I'll post a slideshow of this album.

All Eyes On Me

Source Amazon

 Seems reading some of my old books did not go in vain after all. Going through Portrait Photography and The Photographer's Guide to Making Money by Karen Dórame did inspire me a bit to do some experiments in combination with the IR filter, and with car windshield's shade. Yes. Car shades.
The tip for using a car shade as a reflector is taken specifically from Karen's book, but I've developed this idea further for my own needs. I will explain stuff later in this post. So, what's going on here? A book, a car shade, and IR filter? This life is filled with silly stuff, no?
The first idea was to use the shade as a reflector, specifically for the hair light. Well, partially inspired by reading into portrait photography for a while. However, in this venture, I've tried to accommodate this the infrared filter for some "toying" around. Remember that portrait photography is not my cup of tea, and I must add something to it that excites me to some extent, and IR filter was the solution!

Side View of the shade on tripod and speedlites on monopod pointing into it.
Don't ask how I balanced this monopod.

Frontal view of the set.
Hope you don't mind the mess!

The first trial to try the shade was to take a head shot of myself (as usual). Because of this, I have to stay a bit further away from the camera, making holding a cable and checking a portable monitor a bit of a hard task, and with IR filter it is just awesomely... difficult. Thus, for this reason, most of the shots taken in this trial are soft and out of focus a bit. Increasing the depth here (i.e. f-number) would result in darker images. The speedlites here are reflected and not directed, making their task harder even with IR filter on lens. However, some poses were fine and I might consider doing the whole set again if possible; some people did like those shots despite the soft focus.

Infra Me I
Canon EF 50mm, f/4, 0.5sec, ISO500

Infra Me II
Canon EF 50mm, f/4, 0.5sec, ISO500

There were other shots of course but probably these 2 were the best of them. The differences in the tones here is majorly because of the different approaches in dealing with IR images. I've tried to process these images in DPP (Canon's software) and also Photoshop (or the ACR) but I have to say that it was such a hard task because of the darkness of the images relatively. In outdoors shots I was able to get some bright areas and correcting the white balance was an easy shot somehow with DPP, as Photoshop didn't do a good job in that manner. However, indoors proved to be something totally different for IR shots, and I had to surf further looking for answers and tips on how to process these images digitally, specially for camera that are not converted for IR photography (i.e. with normal unmodified sensor). This step, anyway, was looked upon after my next trials for eye shots.

Second set for eye shot trial, with car shade torn in the middle.

I've been dreaming of having a ring light or ring flash for a while. Anyway, an idea struck me again since I've got a car shade of two circular sides. I've cut through the middle and divided the shade into 2 parts: the first would act as a reflector, and the second would act as a ring light. To do the ring light job, I've made a hole in the middle of the shade part (as shown above) which would be suitable somehow for a Ø58mm lens. This cut was done in a haste without much measurements like I usually do, but seems it worked fine! The idea is to reflect the speedlites onto this reflector and the light should reflect back on the subject, which is in this case, my eye. The close distance between the subject, the speedlites and the reflector, made it possible for me to use a high f-number and ensure the shot is sharp despite the slight movement of my body. Remember: the LiveView or what you see in the viewfinder is always the scene at largest f-number. Thus, it is kind of hard to judge the sharpness as the body moves in front of the lens but with high f-number, all is OK and a slight shake won't hurt a bit!

Erster Blick
Canon EF 50mm + Extension Tube, f/22, 125^-1sec, ISO500.

Zweiter Blick
Canon EF 50mm + Extension Tube, f/22, 125^-1sec, ISO500.

Despite the many shots I've taken, I thought that one was enough to be processed in various levels and ways. Erster Blick and Zweiter Blick are actually one shot but one with the Clarity option being low (soft) while the other was maximum (harsh). Of course there were some processing in between to adjust colors and clone out some overexposed areas before uploading but the general criteria here was the Clarity issue. In fact, this shot was intended as a test shot before attaching my infrared filter on the lens.
Intriguing as it may be, the reflection of the shade into my eye. This phenomena, despite its simplicity, it was something I never thought of. This reflection can open up a gate of other possibilities and art venues! We have to think about some stuff to do in the near future I believe.

Erster Blick (B&W)

Zweiter Blick (B&W)

As usual with any eye shot done before, I've went through the process of converting them to B&W as you can see above. In all these images, I greatly miss the NeatImage plugin which can do some job automatically somehow with some nice results. NoiseNinja, despite its nice work, it can leave a dilemma in the mind for what's right and what's wrong. I have to say because of these images now, the statistics of my Flickr reported nearly 900 hits that day!
Just before I leave it completely, I couldn't resist the temptation to "edit" this shot further instead of just enhancing colors and tones. That is, adding some features to the iris and doing some work with the colors. Some work was done, and Dritter Blick was produced.

Dritter Blick

The Dritter Blick is actually based on the Zweiter Blick but in this shot, beside lowering the saturation, a Curves layer was used and the black point was set based on the pupil color, thus adding some harsh contrast. As for the reflections in the eyes, probably if the speedlites were closer to my head, the reflection would be more even across the diameter of the iris.

OK. You might be wondering now where does the IR fit in all of this. In fact, all the images above were a result of a single test shot! After testing the light level, I've fixed the IR filter on the lens and started taking pictures (depending on the portable monitor in front of me) trying to find an adequate position and changing the distances of the speedlites and their angle of incidence.

Infra Auge
Canon EF 50mm, f/22, 125^-1sec, ISO500.

All shots were dark and I had a problem fixing their white balance in DPP and ACR. The main problem in fixing the white balance is, there is no real reference point to take the white balance from Usually, in a landscape shot, the white balance is majorly a matter of the green leaves on trees or the grass, or the sky itself. Here, there are no real reference point to depend on in setting the white balance.
I did a bit of surfing and I've learned some techniques not known to me before, specifically for working with digital IR images in RAW (majorly some method to expand the white balance range). What I discovered during my little research is the fact that, in general, the matter of processing IR images, either indoors or outdoors scenes, it is mainly a matter of art and sensuality. You have to imagine yourself to be a designer and work with your images in what you think is proper. There is no right method or a wrong one. There are just some basics and the rest is a matter of processing in Photoshop or other editing programs, after doing initial adjustments in ACR. IR do sound like a fertile soil for artistic venues.
As for the shots themselves, they were (naturally) too dark despite the fact that the speedlites were on full power. I didn't want to increase the ISO further as I know the annoying noise level would make a headache but probably I should have loosen the f-number a bit, say to f/16 or even f/11 instead of leaving it to f/22. Anyway, from all the shots taken, Infra Auge was probably the least in headache. Notice I said "the least." Generally, all of them were a headache!
The blue tone of the image is a result of channel swapping, that is exchanging the places of the red and the blue channels together. The noise level because of the ISO and because of the increment in the exposure level was beyond imagination, and despite the fine look in a small size image like the one above, the real image is not as smooth as it appears here. In fact, even the focus was smoothed out while trying to clean the noise of the image. Here also, to reduce the amount of the color noise (which was specially apparent on the pupil) I've used the Curves adjustment layer again and setting the black point from the pupil itself. The contrast increased and I had to sacrifice some tiny details in other areas which became darker. The iris was brightened out wit dodging techniques. Surprisingly, some say they like this one the most from the series! I'm not expecting such image to be accepted in stock agencies anyway.

Linguamechanic

This week, I've spent some more time (at work) with my Geltani and also reading more into the Turkish lessons. I'm trying to settle with my opinions of what features to take from the Turkish language to implement into Geltani. Apparently Turkish is complex (relatively speaking) and Geltani has to be simpler in form and expressions (and it is already logographic!).
Meanwhile, I'm still working slowly on phonic values for the sounds of Geltani and assigning more possible combinations of vowels and consonants. The progress is slow, and it made me delve (back again) more into the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), and trying to figure more about the sounds it includes. What I discovered here is, somehow, that the IPA is somehow too precise that it makes some confusion. When I checked the phonetics (or Phonology) of the Arabic language, there seem to be more than one representation for the symbol for the simple sound of [خ] (equivalent to Scottish and German "CH"). The only different is the amount of air probably and the friction position (I leave the anatomical names inside the mouth for doctors here!). I believe this is somehow unnecessary. Once you learn a language, the sounds should flow along even with some minor changes in the air flow - if this change was significant, probably our ancestors would have discovered that earlier and decided to make a separation in symbols for such phenomena.
Similarly, in Ottoman Turkish, when it was written with Arabic script, there was no real distinction between "V," "U," "Ü," "O," "Ö." Most of these sounds in modern Turkish were represented simply by the letter [و], and only when the diacritics were used in the body of the text some distinction is made between some of these sounds. I think the Ottomans back then didn't give much importance to these differences in vowels because the general speech was understood and the tonal values would flow depending on the surrounding vowels and consonants in the word. This is apparent in some Turkish words in modern Turkish in which the last letter would change according to the additions. For example, the "p" in [kalp] (heart) would change to "b" with some additions like [kalbım] (my heart). Just to note, "Kalp" is originally an Arabic word and in Arabic it ends with "B" [ب], and only in modern Turkish it would end with "P". Turkish is full of such words that change their ends from light to heavy sounding ones. The question remains though: is it necessary to write and document such changes? Probably a native Turkish speaker would, naturally, end such words with light sounds as "P" (and some others) because of the nature of the vowels and consonants the proceed this consonant, thus even if we wrote it as "B", a Turk would still say it as "P" because it is more natural to his native tongue. The philosophy of precision is under question: is it really necessary to add some complexion to the written words?
In the meantime, I had as well some crazy idea to make an Arabic-based script for Turkic languages, including Ottoman, but this time it would be more to be an alphabetic script rather than an abjadic one. The Uyghur script is already in that way but it causes much confusion, at least to me, because the laws of written Arabic are broken (concerning what letters to be joined at the end and which ones to not be so). Probably I would call it, UniTurkic. The idea is just at the beginning and I need more time to make it grow. For the time being I shall be busy with my Geltani, at least.

Finale

I need a vacation. This is the bottom line of my life in the current time. I do plan to have some leave from work but I'm hesitated. Such leave might give me a break from work, but I'm still faced with duties for Mom, specially after planting another valve in her arm for dialysis.I think this will be the situation for a really long time, so I'm trying to prepare for it psychologically.

source: B&H

One of the things that are on my list to be ordered after some time (after I finish some few debts) is the RoundFlash which is something cheap (compared to the ring flash) and works with the regular speedlite on camera. Probably this what inspired to make the experiment above with the car shade! Anyway, it's on the list with other stuff. I'm considering having another lens to my collection but the matter is still under consideration and I'm not really sure if I do need one. I have something for prime lenses for the time being and wouldn't like to add a zoom lens to my list. Also on my list, a new tripod. However, that would be another story for another post probably.

I need some time to recollect my thoughts about my private life for the time being. It seems to be more disastrous than before under the current circumstances. Scariest of all is the fact that, I don't know where the end of the tunnel lies.
I leave you now with a slideshow for images of the 3^rd album from Staten Island, New York.

Paralyzed...

As the title says. This week I've been paralyzed. Not much activity (except of some self portrait issues) and all of that because of, mainly, the car issues. In the middle of the week we had a special religious occasion and it is customary to fast on this day so I did fast 2 days in fact - and with fasting, my powers go down a bit and I wouldn't be able to do much after working hours. some ideas are there, but to work them out, I would need either more resources or, so to say, more objects to buy and/or help (something I seriously lack).

Source: B&H

My savior cable turned out not much of a savior. However, it still works. After getting the Vello 33' cable, I've found out that I can't access the speedlites via the menu in camera but I have to do mostly everything manually. Strangely, this problem persists only when the speedlite is attached to the far end, but I can access the menus when the speedlite is attached to the main head connected to the hot shoe on camera.
After contacting B&H they did indeed help me out and sent me a Return Form to be sent through UPS, but unfortunately, this service doesn't work out for international destinations like from Kuwait. Thus, I have to keep myself contented with what I have right now. The main thing is applying High-Speed options which might be problematic, but the wireless triggering works just fine so probably I would have some work out around this problem.

Source: B&H

On the other hand, the new ColorMunki is working just fine and I've already calibrated my new laptop and the desktop monitors. What is left is to try out and calibrate some projector (which I don't really need but to get the hang of it) beside doing some printer calibration when possible. All of that is on hold for the time being till I finish my car problems!
What I like about this ColorMunki is the more sophisticated options it has (beside of course the basic calibration which a beginner can still use). It has options to calibrate according to the ambient light or according to a light temperature (e.g. D50, D65) and so on. My monitor now looks significantly darker than it was with the calibration done from the old simple ColorMunki (with monitors settings set to default or factory settings).

Other toys are just fine and the pinhole mount specifically needs more experimenting, but initially the test is fine. For the time being, I'm thinking of using my light meter to initiate the calculations for finding out the required exposure time when using the pinhole (of f/222). To find the required exposure here I would have to measure the light level at a specific f-number and then build up the exposure time up to f/222. I will try the simple formula:

V = 2*Log(N) / Log(2)

Where V is the number of stops needed, and N is the f-number. However, for N here, I would substitute for the difference in f-number (i.e. ΔN) between f/222 and the initial f-number (say f/8 for example). I'm not sure this is mathematically correct, because I think I'm suppose to drive ΔV and not simply V. Anyway, my mathematical expertise is not good enough to derive such a formula. My main, and simple, derivation is from the equation mentioned in Wikipedia's page here.

Of course then, after calculating the stops (V in this case) I would use it in the following formula to get the required time for the exposure:

T = S * 2^V

Where T is the Time that we need to know for the exposure, and S is the shutter time calculated at the initial f-number (f/8 for example as stated above) by means of the light meter. You might think or feel it is kind of ridiculous to work with all these equations just to use a pinhole (while you have a set of lenses that I can use still with TTL systems), but trust me, it takes a physicist or a mathematician to realize the sweetness of such experimenting and the joy when you find out that you've done the right thing.

Away from this mess, I'm still spending some time with other people's photos and trying to enhance them somehow. Lot of nice photos but the noise level makes it horrible to work with such photos. Anyway, I'm advising everyone I can reach to get a real camera instead of a phone camera.

The Gaze
Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3,
400^-1sec, ISO200.

In the meantime, I've decided to work with my own camera little bit and do a half-portrait; after all, I didn't take much photos of myself for a long time, and I didn't even edit much of my photos to make some of them as pieces of art. The setup was time-consuming and I had to stand, literally, in a jungle of tripods. 

I've taken many shots with different setups of the speedlites and among the tens of shots Ive taken, only one that got through, even with some lighting problems. 

The Gaze II (Edit)

The main problem here is that I was using the 430EXII speedlite with a honeycomb grid to act as a spotlight and give extra light to the eye area, after lighting the whole face with 580EXII speedlite plus reflector. Anyway, pointing the spotlight is so critical and I've never got it right after all, and as you can see in the images, the closest I could get is the area under my eye, on the cheek and thus we have an overexposure in this area specifically.

The Gaze III (Edit)

However, I'm glad that one shot survived at least from the tens of shots I've made (and how ironic in the beginning I was using the speedlites on the wrong side of my body). Everything in this experiment was set on a tripod; two speedlites, monitor, and camera. Moving was something delicate. My main idea in the beginning was totally different in which I wanted to use some flash drag technique while moving my face (to create a ghosting effect) but for this case I would probably need a darker atmosphere rather than the hall in which I've conducted this experiment. In hope that I would be able to do this soon. Just thinking about the configurations and the settings that I have to do makes me a bit sluggish and lazy to do all of that. For this experiment though, I might use a simple hatchet configuration, which is made by placing 2 light sources on the sides of the face, and yet because I have 2 different speedlites here with 2 different powers, I might as well have to change the distances accordingly, making the 580EXII further away from my face (or reduce its power accordingly) - and probably the guide numbers would help with this. New venturing, let's hope it goes smoothly without much headache!

Finale

As of writing these words, I'm still struggling with my car yet and I'm not sure there is an easy way out to fix the damn A/C. Living without an A/C in your car in Kuwait means a catastrophe for most of the fields of your life - because you need to do your business outside and with no A/C, you are simply a melted chocolate!

After the shock from the original car dealer which offered fixes for 520 K.D. (approx. US$1500), I've pulled the car from there without fixing it and now I'm trying to find a good substitute. Some times I do get some hope from some garage owners, and some times they get me down, but after all one thing is certain: it's not going to be a cheap fix. I'll be just happy to finish this topic and have some peace of mind before Ramadhan's arrival and the beginning of the fast.
Mom's situation worries me and it does sound more like a chronic issue. Despite the fact that she seems to be in a good health and she goes in and out of the kitchen as she used to do before, but the matter with the dialysis is not finished yet and my elder sister brings some bad news now and then. Poor mother, we keep the bad news away from her to keep her calm, and God knows what's waiting for her. Just wish if I can give her one of my kidneys if that was possible. The least I'm hoping for for the time being, is some reduction in her dialysis times.

All what I want for the few coming days, is to stare at the sky at night and see some stars. Just, some stars...