Slow Dolphin (Review)…

 It's my first blog post after my birthday (or second, if I count the previous one which was posted AFTER my birthday, automatically!), and guess what? I've gone pleasant gift from an online friend (and I'm very thankful for her for such a mindful gift!). In this post, I've decided to give some review of this gift. Not to criticize of course, but it is for any fellow photographer reading this and might find this useful.

I will present here some simple experiments I've done so far with this tool and hopefully anyone reading this would find them useful. 

General View

So, this Slow Dolphin light box is, well, a… light box! (Duh!). Sometimes also we might call such light boxes as "tents". Before I go on and review this product please bear in mind that I didn't go through the products line for Slow Dolphin, so maybe what I will be saying here is already available in other products of theirs, but this is just my impression about this light box alone.

Now, the product comes folded and in a fabric bag for easy carrying, and it spreads up as a cube as shown, and it comes with a number of backgrounds. So far, I've tried 3 of them, and I thought at first that all of them are plastic sheets (or PVC as mentioned in the leaflet) but turned out some of these backgrounds are actually paper-made.

The cube or box is black from the outside, with a circular hole on top which can be opened and closed (and can be used for shooting from the top if needed). The inside is lined with shining silver sheets with bits of velcro on the sides (to attach a diffuser sheet to soften the lights from the ring light at the top). I thought of taking a picture but I think it's not worth it anyway, things will ravel hopefully as I talk with the test shots I've made. Also, inside the box and on the upper edge on the back, there is a rubber band stretching from side to side which is ought to hold the background sheets from the top when placed in.

The box as mentioned already has a ring light on top. Actually, to be precise, 2 ring lights; A large one and a small one, and lighting them is controllable by a switch that is attached to the power cable (just like bedside lamps). One can light both rings or one of them, and also control their luminosity. 

The power cord is somewhat tricky here. I would say it is a double-edged sword. The cord is actually a USB cord, and probably it is common now to use such heads (for saving energy and other flexibility issues) but where I live, such sockets are not quite common yet (they exist but not common). Thus, to solve the problem here, I've used my mobile's charger plug to attach the USB head of the light box and plug it to power outlet.

G-Shock

So, I'm skipping here my initial shots using my mobile phone which I did right away with this product. Controlling things with the mobile phone are kind of tricky for me and I really hate it, but I just needed something to post on Facebook anyway!Thus, my real test was to be done with a "real" camera (yes, old one but still real you know). As a target, I've picked one watch (which ironically was a gift as well from 2 years ago or more, from a friend and I could never wear it!). 

Settings for shooting the G-Shock watch.

The light box was prepared first with the black background placed inside, and it covers the background and the ground or the bottom portion of the box. The bend in the corner of the sheet was highly reflective and I'm not sure really if it intended to be so (later on, this somewhat proved to be problematic). Anyway, for my subject here, the watch, I've wrapped it with a fishing line and pushes the line through the opening on the top of the box and held it firmly to the edge of the box with the help of a paper clip, and thus the watch was hanging in the air. Shaky situation, but with a gentle touch, the watch would be stable enough for a quick shot. The lighting inside the box was bright enough to allow a quick shutter speed which ensured a stable image after all. You can see here also the diffusing sheet attached up in the box held firmly with velcro, and it has a circular opening as well to allow for shooting through the box opening or, like in my case here, pass the fishing line through.

In the set as well, you might notice some pieces of paper at the bottom and a mirror (just outside the box on the left), and these were my extra props to add more control to the light. It took me a while to settle down with these, as I was actually using the mirror to reflect the light at the bottom under the watch, but then I've realized that a simple paper sheet would do the job, and I've used the mirror on the side to cast some light on the face of the watch (even though I should've used a polarizer here to have a clearer face).

G-Shock
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM @f/2.5, 400⁻¹s, ISO100.

Been a while since I've posted an image on this blog with all the shooting parameters! But here you go. Shooting with Canon EF 50m f/1.4 allowed me some freedom here with increasing the shutter speed without having to push the ISO higher a bit. I had to adjust the aperture though to get a proper depth of field as f/1.4, the lowest depth and widest aperture in this lens, can give somewhat a fuzzy look. 

Working with this lens was problematic somewhat despite the flexibility in the aperture, because I had to get far off from the watch and the box. Tried to fix the situation with some extension tubes, but nothing worked, so I had to get back as much as possible. The image seen here, G-Shock, is actually a cropped final shot. 

I've picked a black background on purpose here as I wanted to separate blacks (which is quite a hard process and in fact involves a lot of editing work rather than on-set work). The remnants of the fishing line were removed in Photoshop of course and here we go; a watch hanging in mid-air. I had to use some dodge and burn to lighten some areas of the watch (specially the face and sides). One might ask why not use a slower shutter speed or raise the ISO to get a brighter shot; Well, this is mainly because of the background which is highly reflective despite being black, so I had to keep my exposure value low, and fixing that in Photoshop would be somewhat tedious. Also, my original idea do require some dark sense of the whole thing to add an element of mystery. Such mood would require a low-key shot but here as it can be seen, I'm depending only on lights from the top which reflect from all directions inside the box, and nothing else. So, a low-key here is out of the question.

Madly Red

My next test was to be done with my favorite coffee mug (I think I've had it for more than 20 years now). In this test, I didn't take a shot for the setting unfortunately, but hopefully I will explain what I did here by comparing two shots put together.

Mug Shot
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM @f/2.5m, 25⁻¹s, ISO100.

As can be seen here, I've picked a red background for this shoot, since the mug is also red, just as was the case with G-Shock. In this shoot, I can't quite recall if I've used the diffusing sheet on the top or not, but it wouldn't make any big difference since the red background here is actually a matte paper sheet and not plastic. It did "diffuse" the light coming from the top still though and at large a band of light can be seen behind the mug. This is even after reduction and post-processing in Photoshop. I think the problem here lies with the depth of the box itself as the distance should be greater to hide the bend in the background from the shot. Since the ring light is at the center of box at the top, I'm assuming it is designed so that the product should also be lying at the center at the bottom, and thus I don't think putting the product further more forward is the way to go here.

The two shots in Mug Shot here are for comparison between adding a "contour" to the subject (left) and without anything (right). The contour here is usually a black body added on the sides (or if the background is black, it can be white sides) and it is usually done with glass objects or any polished surface. Here though, I do have a red surface so not quite the ideal surface to show the contour clearly, but nevertheless, it is clear that it makes a difference compared to the right shot, and it made the mug more defined. The problem here though was in adding the black sides, as I used the black sheet that came with the product and placed it under the red sheet after a struggle. It was still shaky and some part of it was protruding into the shot, so I had to put it down by placing some objects (and cropping the image after all). 

During this shoot I've also tried to use a speedlite in some way but the space was quite small and in fact placing the speedlite on the top didn't make much difference except for the fact that my shutter speed had been faster, but not much change in the quality of the light (or should I say the mood of the light); so using a speedlite or the LED ring light within the box kind of yielded the same result. Out of fun, I've also shot bracketed shots to merge as HDR and tone-map. I felt like doing some crazy HDR stuff as I didn't do something like that in a long time. I call it "creativity venting".

Royal

My third test came about with another black object, and a black background. Having learned about some of the difficulties already with the past 2 tests, I've tried to fix or go around these issues with my third test with this black perfume bottle (which I think was a gift as well!). 

The (final) shooting set for "Royal"

Here, as can be seen above, I've tried to place 2 thin foam pieces on the sides to add contour to this black body. The right one specifically was quite essential to light the face of the bottle (the bottle was turned a bit facing right as can be seen). Meanwhile, I've tried to go around the bend in the background sheet but pulling it a bit forward and placing the bottle even off-center and closer to the front of the box. Alas, that didn't do much to hide the reflections at the back. However, I've taken several shots with such reflections that might add to the mood after all. Also, I came about with the idea of combining several shots since such a thing is actually a usual and practical thing to do in product photography as I've seen in some YouTube videos before (no arguments here about the ethics because we are just combining images of different lighting, and this is not cheating!).

Royal (1)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM @f/1.4, 60⁻¹s, ISO100.

I've made a mistake here when I didn't care much about putting the foam pieces straight vertically and closer to the bottle (in some way). The side of the bottle as can be seen in Royal (1) is not lighted completely to the bottom, but the reflections of the foam boards look fair on the cap. Here in Royal (1) you can see the "halos" in the background caused by the reflections of the light from the ring light. Diffusing the light with the diffusing sheet didn't change a whole lot really. Here also, I was using a polarizer which I hoped that it would enhance the reflection of the bottle on the black sheet but it didn't do much here, but it was quite remarkable in blocking other areas of light as I rotated the filter, and from there I got the other idea of combining several shots (not in HDR, but manually combining several shots of different lights). 

Royal (2)
Canon EF 50m f/1.4 USM @f/1.4, 60⁻¹s, ISO100.

Thus, after taking 3 or 4 different shots of different polarized light component, I went on merging them (with other enhancements of course). Personally, I do like Royal (2) more but some people do prefer Royal (1) looks; For this reason, as I was saying, these reflections in the background off the black sheet might be a desirable thing. But what if they are not? I guess here, there is no escaping doing a composite while editing the shots. I think I've missed illuminating the right side of the bottle in Royal (2) so this is something to bear in mind as well when doing such a work of composing. Yet though, in all conditions, i couldn't get the reflections of the bottle off the sheet to appear, however I rotated the polarizer.

The Peel

So, at this point, many ideas had been crossing my mind on how to expand my usage for this light box (despite its relative small size). Like one idea came to my mind is using it as a set for high-speed photography, but seeing how it worked out with speedlites in Madly Red above, I've omitted this idea from my head completely. So, I had to think of something milder, somehow. The idea came about while I was looking at my "collection" of walnut shells! Why not make a peel effect out of one; I didn't do such project in a long time now. Before I go on with this test or shoot, there was one essential "hurdle" to tackle first. The rotation. 

The rotating part
of SPH-303

For starters, I've figured maybe I could use the rotating base of my panoramic head (Manfrotto SPH-303); After all, this usage was actually proposed in the original instruction manual of the head. However, the base proved to be hard to move as it required a grip on the lower part of the base while rotating the top part. I tried oiling the base, but yet it was quite firm and could not be easily rotated. Even though I did such "peeling effect" before for various objects, and using this base, but the base was always placed on a tripod, and I was thinking that I would use the 5° interval to be very precise; Such short intervals are used when composing Object Panorama which are typically used for viewing products in 3D almost on some websites. However, my aim here was different as I'm doing peeling. I thought maybe my usual stitching program(s) would somewhat have it easy with such short interval of shots to align and stitch the images together. i tried that before and failed, and well, proved to be a fail now too when I've done this test!

CamRanger MP-360
Motorized pan head

After the fail with the rotating base, I thought of using an item that I purchased long time ago and almost NEVER used it; The CamRanger MP-360 Motorized Pan Head. I've purchased this item in hope to do some astrophotography of some sort with it but turned out that the head could be tilted only 15° up and down and it was just impractical for my own good. Anyway, I thought of giving it a try and see if it can help with the situation here.
It is a bulky item and occupied a considerable space inside the Slow Dolphin light box, but I thought it could be worthy because it has a remote and could be rotated for 360 degrees. Moreover, it has a scale to gauge the rotation angle. However, all of that disappeared into thin air; Turned out that it needs a tripod as well to stabilize the base and be able to rotate properly, as the surface of the light box was too smooth. Moreover, the cable of the remote and the scale that shows the angle would rotate along, making the situation cumbersome further. Thus, I had to put it aside and improvise something else. 

The final setting for shooting
the walnut peel.

To shorten the story, the idea was to place the walnut on my phone while running the compass app on the phone (and keeping the phone on of course, never putting the screen on sleep). By looking from the top through the circular hole, I was able to check the amount of degrees to rotate the phone 5° for each shot. Not a precise method, but the best I could do in this situation. I've placed the diffusing sheet here as well to help me look better at the screen from the top as the LED ring light was too bright and my eyes couldn't figure out the readings. As for the walnut, it was another hurdle to deal with as I didn't know how or what to fix it upon. Finally, I've picked some metallic container (purchased this as a prop years ago) and glued the walnut with wax (candle wax, yes). I think wax here is the best solution ever for quick and light work; Glue was messy and took considerable time to dry. So, the whole thing was placed on top of the phone and started the shoot, using my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens, at f/16. 

The shooting was such an exhaustive process as everything was done manually; Looking through the top, rotating carefully, and shooting (using the camera wireless remote). I think the whole process (and the breaks in between for every 90°) lasted for more than 1 hour. During the shoot, it was apparent that the walnut would drift to the right side so I would have to pull it back to the center and I just hoped for the best when it is time to stitch the images together. Also, because of the size of the phone, and because the rotation was not precisely around the center, the phone would nudge against the bend of the sheet (which I needed to add to keep the background white instead of silver here).

Walnut Peel (1)

After the shoot, the first step was to edit all of the RAW files and make minor adjustments to the contrast and exposure or brightness, and then covert all files to JPEG. I was almost sure of the failure of automatic stitching but I gave it a try anyway, and well, it failed! So, it was time to do the manual work and to stitch about 72+ images manually in Photoshop, using layer masks. As I've stated before, I've done such projects before but not for that number of shots. The work was exhaustive and took more than a day (actually more than 2 days) and proved at some point to problematic (specially memory-wise). As for the final result, Walnut Peel (1), I've cropped the final outcome from the top and bottom to remove some parts that were not capable of being aligned. This lengthy process actually convinced me that working with such a high number of images was not really a good idea, at all!

Walnut Peel (2)

Thus, I had another go with the blending but this time I picked a fewer number of shots from the set, almost for every 30°, and tried to blend them together. Still, I've faced some problems, but relatively, it was much faster and better than the first trial with more than 72 images to work with. Here, in Walnut Peel (2), I've kept the topmost part of the shell and tried to blend it with the rest of the image. I think from now on, it would be wise to work with fewer images in such projects. Worth noting here that I usually do "peeling" shooting using a tripod and some platform and the rotating head sometimes, using either speedlite(s) or ambient light to do the shooting, but never done it in a closed space (semi-closed actually) like this light box before.

In the process of reviewing the images, as I've stated before, the walnut started to drift away from the center and even though I've used f/16 to ensure a proper depth of field, but yet this drift caused some images to have some out-of-focus parts. It is true that macro lenses are quite sensitive to distances but I think the distance of the drift here was not quite problematic, and using f/16 (I thought) should have been sufficient to ensure a good depth of field all across the shoot. I'm starting to doubt this lens really, specially with few images having over-exposure and needed to be fixed before converting to JPEG. I'm not sure what caused such over-exposure while working in completely manual mood, with fixed f-number and fixed shutter speed, but this is not the first time that this lens specifically caused such anomalies. Which makes me think of having another macro lens or maybe next time I better be working with my 50mm lens and extension tubes to avoid such anomalies. Anyway, I'm not a heavy macro shooter so such matter can wait for now. 

Conclusions

So, before I head to write down my own points about Slow Dolphin's light box, I would like to note, again, that I'm not sure about the line of products the Slow Dolphin provides. Maybe some of the points that I will mention here have been already dealt with in another line of products from Slow Dolphin.

So, firstly, we have the issue of the bent sheets here which can some times provide unwanted reflections (yet they can be desirable as I witnessed). Thus, in between the two opinions, there might be something out there to compromise. Adding to that, since the reflections are mostly produced at the bend of the sheet, so maybe the depth of the box has to be increase to allow for a more gentle curve for the sheet. 

In relation to the first point mentioned already, some props could be useful with such box, like some platform to raise the product for example (to avoid having the bend of the background in the shot), or something to provide reflections of the product since the provided sheets don't quite give strong reflection (as seen in Royal above). It is true that such items might be (most of the time) provided by third-party, but it would be nice to have a wholesome package here with essentials and basics for product photography. I would add to the list of props here as well, some capabilities or tools to enable hanging of jewelry and other items; Those can definitely be handy. As for a rotation prop, well, I've seen such products online somewhere but I'm not sure if these would quite essential for product photography but I think it would be wholesome in some way to complete the set, probably.

The box is designed to be self-sufficient, with its own LED ring light and it's opaque. However, usually tents or light box like that do have translucent sides to allow for external light uses. The ring light does a nice job, yet though some flexibility issues might arise here if the photographer has other ideas (e.g. shooting with lights from the side for more low-key feel). Having one source of light in one direction is somewhat limiting for the creative endeavor in general. I believe with velcro, things can be managed in switching between opaque and translucent sides (maybe?). Or, on the other hand, more LED lights can be provided for directional light when needed, with a control for switching them on and off.

I believe that Slow Dolphin do provide variety of sizes of such light box, but one thing that a photographer has to bear in mind here is that the product to be photographed should be in proper proportion to the size of the light box. Here for example, as seen above in Madly Red, the mug was somewhat bulky and the diffusing sheet over the ring light wouldn't do much to soften the shadows of the mug at the bottom, mainly because of the distance between the light source and the object. To properly apply diffusing, there should be some distance between the light source and the diffusing material, as well as between the outlet and the object in general; That way we can have soft diffused shadows of the object. Actually, this is one of the reasons also that makes translucent sides and using outside light sources a good idea. I guess though using a white or a black background would reduce such problems after all (if desired).

So, this is my humble review and experimentation with this marvelous (and dear) gift which I've received for my birthday! I hope this review is out there to help someone about going about shooting some products. The flexibility of this item is surely admired and I think I will do more experimentation with some products to shoot, hopefully. Thanks galore to the sender :) ; it is something that surely put a smile on my face more than anything else around me :)

Macro++

That was some amount of rains that we received this week! It's just amazing, but sad in the same time because I couldn't do much with it. I'm not driving my car, and didn't do any photography in such weather (and it would be better to have weather-proof protection stuff). My car was supposed to get fixed this week as the garage called me and said the chip they need arrived from outside and needed my permission and my agreement for the price to work on. According to them, they said 1 or 2 days will suffice. But with such rains, I didn't get any calls yet. Probably the rains are the reason for this. I can't believe I will see this car again. I'm growing sick driving other cars.

Macro Plus

I've been continuing my work with trials to do macro shots (or extra macro I should say). The work wasn't much of a success in fact for many factors. It made re-think my approach to do the whole thing really.

The System!
Click to Enlarge

As you can see on the left, the system is truly cumbersome. Long set of lenses and extensions, portable monitor, (shaky) tripod and lateral arm, with weights (dumbbell weights) added inside a sack to keep the arm and tripod balanced. I didn't make a glass surface for the macro experiments but I've been using the glass door that fell from the cabinet (the one in the picture). Sorry about the image quality as the image was taken with my mobile. I kind of suck at such images!
For the purpose of lighting I've bought two somewhat powerful LED torches or flashlights that got about 24 LEDs on one surface, plus 3 or 4 on the side in case a narrow beam is required. I think I might need to add a mirror.

Leaf

One of the shots done with the system shown above is a shot for the surface of a small leaf. As you can see above, the image is out of focus. Focusing is one of the big issues here and this is why such system as the one above is a cumbersome technique. According to some websites (they are a lot you just have to Google around) the magnification factor can be found by: Focal Length (1) / Focal Length (2), that is, the ratio of the focal lengths of the two reversed lenses, where (1) is for the lens attached to the camera, and (2) is for the reversed lens.
Hence, it is logical to attach the longest focal length possible to the camera, and the smallest focal length possible in reverse. I think I will use the notation "FL1/FL2" when it comes to image descriptions later. In my case, the largest focal length I could achieve is using the (broken) Tamron lens at 300mm plus two teleconverters, yielding 1200mm in total. The smallest focal length that can be attached in reverse is 18mm (with my old 18-55mm), and the result would be 1200mm/18mm, equals to 66.66X or approximately 67X! Meaning an object would be magnified 67 times its original size! Unfortunately, this was just a theory and in practice, working with such tools isn't plausible at all and can hardly do any good. Thus, I've neglected this approach for the time being and started to do it in other ways, like using the Canon EF 100mm macro lens in reverse with the 50mm lens.

Shaving Razor

Onion Peel

One of the issues that I was investigating is the placement of the teleconverters and the extension tube before the first lens (or the primary lens, attached to the camera). In some websites, they emphasize the placement of the extension tubes in between the converters and the lens. However, practically, seems the situation is the same in terms of magnification power, but probably it works better with the teleconverters attached in between the tubes and the lens. Maybe it is just a coincidence that it worked that way with me anyway, as most of the images here like the Shaving Razor and Onion Peel were all taken with such configuration. Later on, however, I started to use that system without reversing the lens, but simply using the 100mm macro lens with extension tubes and teleconverters.
The light direction was drastic for some shots, specially for translucent objects. Again, No lens reversing this time but I did have hard time focusing. The shake took its toll on the shoot.

Comparison

The leaf shot above is taken once with LED lights below the glass plate, and once on the sides of the leaf. One of the somewhat awkward features for using LED lighting is the bluish streak. The Automatic WB setting wasn't enough to correct the colors but it was (somehow) corrected in post-processing. Anyway, it is obvious that the look changes drastically with the change of light direction, like if it s a 3D object. Personally, I do prefer the lighting on the sides. However, this might not possible all the time, as the set of lenses can get to the subject so close that leaves no room for the light on the sides, the lighting from below is the only solution.

Beard
Canon EF 50mm+36mm extension tube,
f/22, 40^-1sec, ISO400.

RoundFlash
Source: B&H

Along with it, I've decided to do some test for the RoundFlash. This time, it's not an extra macro shot but a simple one with my 50mm and 36mm tube. This simple trial did indeed show me how the length of the lens (not the focal length but the physical length) and the closest focusing distance do play a role when using this flash add-on. I think the optimal use would be for a lens that does not protrude much outside the limits of the RoundFlash and if the subject is considerably far from the RoundFlash to allow the light to fill it properly. Here with my beard experiment, the distance was so close (and literally part of my chin was inside the RoundFlash!) because of the extension tube, and that caused a bit of smooth light and shadows (but with the help of relatively high ISO as well). The RoundFlash seems promising but I'm sure it's not a complete replacement for the typical ring flash, and for that I did place several items in my B&H wishlist which are both, expensive and cheap.

Thoughts

With this work with some macro ventures, I've somehow formulated some ideas and thoughts that might lead my work in the future:

• Practically, using extension tubes alone is enough to get a magnified and well viewed image. I think I was obsessed with the idea of turning my camera and lenses into a microscope and I didn't look at the validity of such practice and how it would reflect on my artistic side.
• I've been using a remote cable with a delay, plus the 10sec timer in the camera itself, and yet seems the images do have a shake. Probably it is because of the mirror (even though I do use the LiveView mode to hold the mirror), and the mirror lock-up mode doesn't work with the remote cable and Bulb mode (as some of these exposures took a minute to achieve). There must be a way to reduce this shake at least if not stop it.#
• Because touching the system with so much lenses together does produce a horrendous shake on the macro level, probably it is better to move the plate or the surface and keep the system stable as much as possible; and this is exactly how a microscope works! This, however, requires some mechanism work!
• I do own an old microscope. Is it possible to implement that system into my camera and lenses? It is easy to talk about afocal system when it comes to astrophotography or bird watching; but on a macro level? I'm not sure if this is even possible.
• Aesthetically: what do I want? It is obvious in such field, most of the shots would be scientific-like or simply abstract. Now if it is an abstract, arranging the lines and the edges of the frame is of a prime importance. The possibility of such arrangement, though, is yet to be questioned and experienced practically.

These are some of my thoughts so far about macro (or extreme macro) shooting, and more work has to be done soon and yet I have to discover some good subjects to shoot at!

Nostalgia

Among the other things that I try to do to keep me busy, there are some photos that I've decided to turn into something else. simply by converting them to B&W. Probably I was looking for some venting for my feelings specially that most of these images are those taken while traveling. I guess it is a case of nostalgia, for some days that can't be repeated, not in the meantime at least, to say.

Ghostly Room (B&W)
The Victorian B&B, Staten Island, NYC.

Thornbrook House B&B (Re-Visited)
Cashel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland.

Re-visiting old photos and converting them into B&W can be fruitful in a new set of images, specially in a time where my activities are hitting low. However, the trend is always to convert color images to B&W (for various reasons and not merely just to change the feel), but would there be a trend of changing B&W photos into colored ones? I'm not talking about the technique of coloring the old photos and movies, like those documentaries done for WWI and WWII, but I'm talking about digital photography and RAW files. I remember one time I've created 2 albums for a set of photos from Ireland, in which one was colored and the other was B&W for the same set of images, but probably I've done that without thinking deeply into that matter back then. Initially, what I think, is that coloring that B&W images adds almost nothing, since the B&W gains strength in its composition in the first place, and in the tonalities involved second. The introduction of colors into images that are already strong and fine-looking in B&W seems to be breaking the harmony and should be avoided, unless there is some good reason to do this! Generally speaking though, the B&W style seems to be the proper representation for nostalgia after all.

Geltani

This project has been on hold for weeks. Anyway, I've started to work a bit more right now and I've almost finished the set of leading parts of the syllables. What's required now is to polish this set, and try more grammar and more sentences. Initially, the order is supposedly to be S.O.V., mimicking the Turkish grammar. On the other hand, there are still some details that should be worked out. I have to check how to make a simple introductory page for Geltani to represented on Omniglot, in case it is to be accepted. Moreover, the syllables to write foreign words and names into Geltani has to be checked out again since it seems that I've made up some mistakes before.

Finale

Currently, it seems that I'm under pressure to do the most I can do with my camera, just before my eyes get bitter sooner or later. Next Monday will be the day of my appointment to do some tests. I'm still waiting for my car as I see some hope that it will be fixed soon according to the garage's statement. All this time, they were waiting for the spare part to be delivered from outside, as it is cheaper than the local vendor. As soon as I get MY car, I have to plan for a trip to Failaka island. Such weather is not to be missed on the island!

Source: Amazon

I've mentioned before that doing a panorama with my new IR gel filter is on the list of things to be done. However, this can't be done right now easily after the wave of rains that we received this week, and needless to say that I do need some "nice" location, to say the least. Yes, I can do it at home, but I'm bored of this place already. On the other hand, I'm planning to put Allison Earnest's book into practice by implementing her ideas and methodology. The book is quite good and systematic in its approach. Probably it doesn't give much details concerning calculations and evaluations of light levels, but it does provide great deal about sculpting light and how to approach a project. My work though would be using my two speedlites with some of the light modifiers I have already. The difference is, with studio lights, you can use modeling light to properly position the light and check the expected shadows location before the actual shot is taken. However, with speedlites, the modeling is limited to the pilot button which casts a fast light strike into the scene. Thus, understanding the power of the speedlite is critical. I guess I will be starting with simple objects around the house.
Finally, this leaves me with my own self at the end. With all these projects in my mind and these trials to push myself to be active by force, all seems but just a trial to escape from my own feelings about life and my own self. I think I'm in a status where I'm not sure if I should embrace loneliness, or curse it. Even a loveless marriage didn't work out with me to leave this house. It does sound more like being in a jail rather than a home. Even a prisoner might have someone to talk to, to share thoughts with,  to have hopes with - yet, I don't see this coming my way at all. It's simply a dead heart walking...

New Watches!!!

So tired, and sleepless. I barely spent 3 hours in bed before coming to work but I didn't sleep at all in those. Frequent awakening, and I can swear I've heard voices in or near my head, I just don't know. I heard a child. I'm pretty sure it is not something normal at a time like 4:00 a.m. or even earlier than that. Now at work, I can't even have a nap even though I'm extremely exhausted. Something is messing with my mind and not putting it on ease. I'm trying to revive myself a bit with some classical music. These overtures do really have a blood-bumping effect at times!

I was, and still, so upset about this damn watch which is not to be fixed at all. After getting it back from the shop by Monday at 10:30 a.m., the next morning, Tuesday at 6:45 a.m., the dial fell down in my hand again, simply like that, in less than one day! I got so upset which made me go to the nearest shop and buy me 2 watches from some money I got from my sister as a gift.
My aim was really for one watch, which costed around 40KD, but I liked another one, which was cheap. I liked it simply because of its simplicity! It has a luster indeed. I've decided to take the two then, and keep one (the cheap) for regular use, and the expensive one for going out at nights only.

Back home, I reckoned that this might be a good opportunity to try out some "product photogaphy" with myself. But I have to admit things were done in a haste specially that I was planning to go to bed earlier (which didn't happen), and with problems in plug points to help me settle the lights around my home-made softbox. I made a real fuss! Anyway, it went along, and I shall explain things below.

Version one. RAW processing.

Well first of all, what I like about this watch is the convex lens and the simple design that makes everything clear like a crystal. Before catching this one, I already had made several trials with my telephoto and then my normal lens and so on until I got into a reasonable distance with my camera. Many settings for the light was fixed around the softbox (mainly 3 desk lamps with tornado-like energy saving bulbs, cool daylight). Finally, the settings that I thought was appropriate the most is this one here in Version one. Two lamps on the sides and the larger third one was sit on the edge of the softbox directly hitting the face of the watch. In the beginning there was a reflection of the bulb on the watch face, and hence I decided to use the camera's built-in flash to increase the luminance and overcome the reflection of the lamp. One thing here was missing though. The luster of the outside frame. In fact my desire for this luster or sparkle was the #1 reason to choose a small aperture (f22), but because I didn't pay much attention for the reflection and concentrating mainly on the watch face, I've completely forgot about it.

After this trial (and some others), I've decided to go as well for an HDR version in the same position. My idea was to reduce the light reflection a bit from the face if possible to make it more reasonable, or in other words, controlling the light and luminnance more if I can. Alas, my Photoshop and Photomatix gave me hard time with some weird erratic shapes showing on the display that made my mission uneasy at all and I had to resort to other methods, but finally, the tone-mapping was done in an uneasy way in Photomatix.

Version two. HDR tone-mapping.

I had a go with my fisheye lens as well but it was not that good at all specially for use wit a softbox. Mainly because of spacial problems in the place and I would need to get closer than what I used to be with my 18-55mm lens. However, I don't consider it a big deal since my first aim originally for buying a fisheye lens is to achieve suitable panoramas. Well, with a full-frame camera it would be awesome and I can get a panorama done in simply a flick of a finger!

Now I've finished with this watch, it's time for the real baby. This time, I didn't waste time and I went directly with HDR shooting (and probably I will consider single RAW files processing). This time, it was HDR shooting on 3 phrases. This is mainly because in such a close distance, it was hard to catch the full depth of the scene, and I planned to go on with focus stacking. With my problems in Photomatix now and these erratic shapes blocking my view, I created 3 HDR files in OpenEXR format in a batch process altogether.

After checking each EXR file, I've stacked them together but the blend option didn't work and simply gave an error (not a RAMs error this time but something in the software itself!). For this reason I had to go on and save each file as a PSD in 32bit format in hope that the stack blending would work, and it did indeed!

Second watch (final).

I faced some problems in the beginning with some weird noise showing up when blended together, and also manual tone-mapping was not a good option and I didn't want to resort back to photomatix again because its useless with the current problem. Also, I realized that the bluish hue caused by the lights generally and specifically by the WB settings (fluorescent) was not a good choice for this time of watch which has a golden hue in it. It's better to show the golden bands as more golden I presume, isn't it?

Finally, to overcome all, I've planned my own tone-mapping myself with adjustment layers and adjusting the exposure in specific areas, the sort of like dodging and burning in regular workflows. Then I added an adjustment layer to change the general hue into something "goldish" looking and more reflexive I believe to the real colors of the watch. However, after the final image was saved, I've added just tiny bit of cooling effect, just because I was afraid of "color bleeds" within the golden range. Color bleeds are when you have a specific color going so saturated and would look abnormal in an image. This cooling effect also helped with clearing the glass of the watch little bit instead of the heavy yellow hue that it had already.

I don't think I will be able to submit these images to any stock sites even if I removed the brand names anyway. As far as I know, the shape and the design of such products are also registered. Well, it was a good trial I believe and I might give it a try again tonight and this time I'll try my best to pay more attention to details.