Constitution...

This week started off with a busy schedule. Well, probably before its beginning even. I'm trying to re-activate myself and re-schedule my time to join the group back and be part of the various activities they are involved in. However, this is coming slowly, as I'm also careful not to flood myself with images that I need to process while I'm having still images from my travel to the US that need to be processed.

However, I did have a short stop from processing images from the US to work on some urgent load, if I can call it so. First, our group gained a permission for photography inside Soug Sharg mall; the place that I used to struggle years ago to take pictures from, and always blocked by security guys all over the place. Now, I had the chance to do some magic on my own!

Welcome to Sharg Mall

After meeting friends there, I've began directly working on a panorama by the entrance. The place was active with people, but thanks for HDR merging, the moving objects, at large, were removed. This is one of the benefits for working with HDR. It's not always about the colors! There are people who were stable relatively and didn't walk around, so for those, their bodies were shown in place with some moving parts.



One of the things that I've been struggling with recently (again) is the weird spots of colors that appear from no where into the scene. However, I've tried to make some notes about this matter seriously now since such thing is endangering my panoramas from the US. I can't go back there to do them!!!
Anyway, I've made some points here:

• Usually appears accompanied with or because of the flare.
• Apparently it has to do with a gap in the dynamic range in some HDR slides when merging.
• The problem could also be related to merging into high color space like ProPhoto, and/or using Radiance format (.hdr, or RGBE format). According to this Link, Blochi (i.e. Christian Bloch) describes something related to the color space and how OpenEXR format excels in this over the typical old RGBE format. For this reason I will start merging into OpenEXR using sRGB space and see if this brings me to the safe side!

The panorama of the mall above had some of these spots and I worked hard to hide some of them, but not all.

Tranquil City

Beside working with a panorama I did take some few shots in the outside facing the marina where the yachts are kept. Unfortunately for me, that time I was awake for more than 12 hours already and I couldn't help myself much to do another panorama elsewhere. As for Tranquil City which is tone-mapped from a HDR slide, my original plans for it was to be in black and white to give such a drama. Yet, and after changing the white balance before merging into HDR into fluorescent WB, I've discovered how calm and tranquil the scene is - and hence the name of course!

Straffung
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, 125^-1sec, ISO 200

One benefit though of working with a group in one location is the freedom, somehow, of moving without being looked upon by people as a weirdo. This is how Straffung was taken, when I saw this large pillar in the middle of the court, I've just laid down on my back and started snapping the images. Even though originally bracketed, I thought one image is enough to work out this shot.

Greenery Lines
Tamron 70-300mm @300mm, f/11, 6^-1sec, ISO 200

And of course there were abstract shots but this one was a far fetched one. In Greenery Lines I've spotted a far building in the horizon which actually had been a target before for my shooting trials with no luck, but now with a tripod and my Tamron, I thought I could do some abstract around it. The shot was originally bracketed but finally I've picked only one slide to work it out. I've used cropping and skewing to adjust the lines in a proper perspective, and with some Vibrance increasing, voila, it became from dull to green!
There are other shots that I might work on later. As for now, let's move to where the excitement was...

Constitution Day

November 10^th. What a historical day. Well, I don't want to act as an ultra-patriotic individual, but after roaming some portions of this world and coming back here and after moments of meditating, I've discovered that it is here where I belong to, and here where I want to be.
The Constitution Day, a day celebrating the issue of the first constitution for Kuwait after independence in 1961, has come now again in a golden jubilee; 50 years passed since its first announcement. Such a celebration comes in a time when this country was (and probably is still) divided - and believe me if I say, I don't know what for the people were divided. Speaking for myself, with all my hurdles and troubles, I still lead a proper life compared to people in my position in other places. This celebration, not only added happiness upon the faces, but also a sense of pride; specially after enrolling Kuwait in Guinness book of records for the highest number of Fireworks used and shot in this celebration. Here comes the excitement.

After a meeting with the group leader, I've headed out directly to Soug Sharg because I knew the traffic jam would be humongous. However, I did face some jam and finally I've parked in front of Soug Sharg itself and I didn't get inside; I thought it is better that way when I want to go out of there. I've reached the place at around 3:00 p.m., while the real firework display won't start until 8:00 p.m., but getting there early is always better!

Map of the locations
Green: my parking place
Blue: where I took photos
White: Kuwait towers, where I walked to.

After parking in my place in front of the mall, I've picked my stuff and got into the mall itself waiting for others to arrive to see what are their plans. However, I've met only one friend and I had to meet him on the bridge, and then we walked to the towers (the white circle) - something like 30 minutes of walking. Here and there taking pictures as much as possible. For a moment, I wished I was one of the volunteers like I did long time ago in college time.
Then we headed back to the mall for another 30 minutes walk or more. After resting, meeting other friends and then walking around to check for the different angles and possibilities - we headed to the roof.

Himmel, Türfe, eine Fahne
Tamron 70-300mm @300mm, f/4.5, 500^-1sec, ISO 400

It was hard to pick a proper angle, specially that most members of the group were thinking specifically about Kuwait Towers and how to include them with the firework. After some negotiations, I've remained with one friend on the roof (The blue spot) even though the towers do not show clearly from that spot, while the others spread to other locations - and then later we were accompanied by a lady from the group as well. Before the fireworks show, we worked on the exposure and metering and made out plans of how to work around with the show. And the play began, some time after 8:00 p.m..
Generally, beside changing the lenses, there were 2 major techniques that I've followed (on two phases):

• Shooting on Manual and changing the time accordingly as I check the brightness.
• Shooting with Bulb mode, fixing the aperture and controlling the shutter with the cable remote accordingly to the timing of the exploding fireworks.

 

There are other techniques involving covering the lens while working on Bulb mode, but anyway it was not in my capabilities to do this. However, I find the second technique above is more useful in my case and changing the time period in matter of seconds was not critical to the overall exposure. The fireworks display provided enough to lighten the sky and the buildings too sometimes!

At some moments, there were series of fireworks that a single still image would be slow and awkward to catch - at such moments I did switch to video mode and captured a glimpse. I think I've taken a total of 4 videos - but the greatest in my opinion was the one just 10 minutes before the end of the show.

 

 

 

 Anyway, I'm really surprised for some people who have really weird opinion that such fireworks is a waste of money. I have to say I don't really care much about this story, and I do feel proud to be part (even a tiny one) from this event, and it is a facade of the whole country we are talking about; some millions are not much for this.

 

I leave you now with a slide show for some of the images I've prepared from this event, with Kingdom Hearts, a music composed by Utada Hikaru (and you can find it on youtube here).

A Bulughman In A Lonely Night!

Officially 31. Not much to do about it really, except of having a casual day to myself and sleep as much as I wanted. Well, that won't exceed 5 hours in best conditions. This week was slowly passing really, but I didn't have much to do with my camera, so maybe this is the reason why I felt it as slowly going. Anyway, I was pushing myself forward with my Ayvarith recording and finally recorded and finished Chapter 3 of Alexander's story. I could hardly stop laughing at myself while recording, so please don't mind the quality and the awkward presentation!
Ayvarith: here.
English: here.
Memorizing now these moments and all that work I had to do with this story makes me smile a bit. I've totally forgot about the other conlangs that I've initiated but totally forgot about them, specially the one named Bulughman.

Beside this recording, which took on several days actually and not a single one day, I took the chance to use the full moon for my benefit and have a panorama made from the roof top. Almost a complete panorama and not only a 360 panorama. Not so satisfied about it but it was an experience that I liked indeed.

I. Outtake #1!
I can say it is my first night-time panorama for the time being. I had to use the full moon to my advantage before it disappears from the skies so I was willing to work whatever the temperature would be. Anyway, the temperature was not as bad as before (gone down to 30s C as told by forecasts, while it was in 40s last week!). It wasn't all perfect of course and the noise played a major factor in this, but well, it's a lesson. But the most significant thing about this panorama is the lengthened workflow, which probably was not a good thing to do after all...

A Lonely Night

The Workflow (The Drama):

1. In the beginning and after settling with my tools on the roof top, I went on doing some metering just to estimate the time I would need. The necessity to work as fast as possible (the moon moves across the sky) made me trade off with raising the ISO to 1600. Since I'm going to take a bracketed exposure for HDR (-2EV,0EV,+2EV) it was essential to ensure that when I go on with auto-bracketing that the exposure time won't exceed 30 seconds. 30 seconds is the limit in Av mode. I've metered some spots across the sky and the building fixing the EV to +2 and raising the ISO to 1600 which was the minimum ISO I could have an exposure time lesser than 30 seconds (15 seconds it was). However, the camera also had other plans of itself! I tried to choose an ISO following the stops starting from ISO100, but not the ranges in between, that is: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, ...etc. Although there are some ISOs in between as 160, 250 and so on, but according to some articles that these would be more noisy because of the circuitry involved in increasing and amplifying the signal, and it is better to have an ISO within the range of full stops.
2. To be on the safe side, I've used the hyperfocal principle again, and fixed the aperture to f/8. This aperture, however, did change by itself as the automated process was going on. There are some spots across the panorama that, apparently, required more than 30 seconds to achieve the +2EV exposure and I've noticed at some points that the f-number did change by itself within the camera to f/7.1 (i.e. larger aperture than f/8) to allow for more light in.
3. The white balance is fixed according to effect and not in desire to achieve a true balance of colors. My previous work with the moon on the roof a week or two back gave me an impression that the blueness of the sky is better and more attractive than a normal regular one. The whole thing was set by using the LCD display (which is not a good judge after all but a good estimate let's say) and from there I've fixed the WB to the minimum value of 2500K. Blue.
4. The work on the roof continued normally and my eyes adapted slowly to the darkness there but I needed my small LED light to check the scale on the rotating disk of the VR-head to make sure it reached a 0 degree after a full cycle. I didn't bother about a nadir but I did take 2 shots for zenith, which later proved unnecessary, specially that I have no intent for a QTVR.
5. Now moving to the lab, i.e. my PC. I think my first mistake was made up here. In order to reduce the noise level which I was almost sure of to be unaccepted because of using ISO1600, I've directly converted all RAW files into TIFF 16-bit format (using Photoshop this time and not DPP). I made this move to run NeatImage on the TIFF files and clean the noise accordingly (and put little sharpness as well) but seems it was a wrong step. Reasons will come later.
6. After running NeatImage and batch processing all the TIFF files for noise reduction, I ran Photomatix for batch HDR processing. I have now 41 OpenEXR files created from the "cleaned" TIFF files.
7. In PTGui now and because of the nature of the HDR files and the night scene on the roof, and because so much sky was involved in some slides, there were many slides that PTGui could not identify any points for, hence the slides were astray and "orphaned", meaning not connected to any image at all. There I decided to go on with "model" method.
8. The model method, as I call it, is simply to batch process the individual HDR files into JPGs or TIFFs and plugging them into PTGui. This way, usually, PTGui is able to find more control points more easily. We save the file, which contains all data about control points and other parameters and positions of the slides and apply this template to the HDR panorama we are working with. A lengthy procedure but at times, it is a must. I went on tone-mapping the HDR files in a batch process in Photomatix, but first I picked one of the darkest slides (and it was one of those that didn't connect to any other images) and tone-mapped it to make it brighter and clear in most of its regions. The settings used in this tone-mapping is saved to be used for the rest of the slides.
9. To my ill luck, after tone-mapping all slides, PTGui still didn't identify some of these tone-mapped images and could not connect them to each other although many features in the scene are obvious. Seems however, and after a close check up, that the difference in the noise level between two adjacent slides makes it difficult for PTGui to put on control points between the two despite the "visual" apparent common features. Here, and at this point, I realized it was wrong to clean all the TIFFs from the early beginning, and later on, more confirmation to this thought appeared.
10. I had to put my own control points here although it is a process that is tiresome and I really don't like it because, let's face it, a human being won't be as precise as a computer and needless to say someone like me who can barely concentrate for a long time. I'm not sure even how I'm typing this! Anyway, the addition was done and the file was saved, and the template or model was applied to the original HDR panorama in PTGui. Everything was organized almost with some few broken lines that I directly decided to fix in Photoshop instead of wasting time doing a game with blending priority.
11. The HDR panorama is now stitched and time for the fixes and cuts in Photoshop. Beside the regular fixes, I had to make an adjustment to the exposure (putting some areas down and raising up some) but before doing all the "local" adjustment, a major (global) fix for the exposure was due by using the white dropper on the brightest possible area in the scene. This is to bring some balance and brightness to the scene (which later on resulted in a good HDR histogram relatively).
12. Tone-mapping the adjusted HDR file proved more that cleaning the noise in the early beginning was a wrong thing to do. It became more obvious that there were batches of noises while some areas were relatively clean. Seems that I have to keep the noise reduction procedure at the every end of the workflow to make sure that I don't get such patches of noisy areas and clear ones. To over come this problem, and back in Photoshop after tone-mapping, I went doing my usual Median trick that I do usually on skin to eliminate rigid features. This though made me lose some interesting dots in the sky with the rest (stars do appear sometimes with a long exposure. Orion belt was even obvious in the images though it wasn't visible to the naked eye).

The histogram of the panorama in gaussian-like shape. Might not be always a good sign to have most of your exposure around 0EV, but it's good that there is no sudden cut in the graph itself.

II. Outtake #2!

Although the previous panorama was uploaded to stock sites (only one actually), I couldn't say I'm satisfied yet. For all the points and the drama I've mentioned above, this time I did make up my mind to make HDR files out of the RAW files directly, without any filtration and noise reduction. As expected, the matter of the noise became lot easier and lot "unique". This time and just for the sake of a change, I've made up a little planet projection, which proved quite interesting more than just a plain flat panorama!

The Lonely Planet

As long the panorama contains big portions of the sky with relatively interesting atmosphere in it, then I guess a little planet projection should always be considered. The moon here looks like a sun, making me wonder if all the "suns" we see in photographs are really, a sun!
The procedure here was the same as above with exception that the HDR files were composed directly of RAW files (in Photomatix v3.0). 
I've used the previously made model file to arrange the points and the stitching errors were the same in fact; the same broken lines, but at least the noise was relatively easier to handle here. When stitching the panorama, in PTGui you are given the option to choose an "interpolation" method and usually I don't change this and keep it by default to Lanczos. The interpolation is concerned with the pixels of the image as a way to predict locations and values of pixels on the image when your image is stretched or squeezed and so on, which is something normal in case we are talking about panoramas made out of several images to be stitched (and the images are distorted originally because they are taken with fisheye lens of course). I believe there is some relation between the weird color spots that I used to see in my previous panoramas and this point of the workflow. For the time being I think I will use the Bilinear or the Nearest Neighbor methods to stitch my future panoramas as these two are more regular in Photoshop itself, as Lanczos method is not an option in Photoshop.
Photoshop editing was essential as well to balance the exposure little bit (but the histogram this time was different and not balanced around 0EV like before), and after tone-mapping (which gave me a headache for memory problems and again, Photomatix v3.0 was better to solve this problem and not the new v4.0. Sometimes I wonder why did they make a new version!!) it was time then to plug it again into Photoshop.
NeatImage was run to clear the noise in general (specially the chromatic noise related to the high ISO of 1600). Yet, there are some portions of noise that were hard to remove by NeatImage and I had to sort it out with the Median trick, again. This type of noise apparently is related to the temperature of the atmosphere and they were more apparent and so obvious to note in the sky area, while in the occupied areas in the middle where the ground and the bricks rule, this type of noise needs a bit of concentration to notice. I've lost some stars in the sky, again, when I did the median trick but well, I smoothed the sky. The lower portions of the image specifically were hardly struck by such noise more than the upper portions.

I think the main reason for such stitching errors is the movement of the moon, which caused the shadows to move as well and with such movements in the scene it is natural to have stitching errors. Beside the moon, my own shadow as well would be a cause for such errors. In fact, despite the fact that I've cloned out most of my shadows with the camera and the tripod combination, I've discovered that are still some traces of my shadow somewhere. Go figure!

This is it for now, and I'm thinking now if there is a way to reduce this amount of noise caused by the heat. Seems next time I'm going to bring a hand-fan with me to cool down my camera while I work! Ah well... just kidding really. I need to look up new things to photograph hmm...

TGIT...

Been one of the most catastrophic holidays I've encountered so far. Four days of complete boredom. No going out because of the jams (jams of celebrations), and barely doing some activities out of home in the mornings, and now, trying to organize my room little bit. TJ, cleans his room! This is what life is coming to!
I've taken the chance one morning to go to the beach, again, to try out some time-lapse with the sunrise and this time with my intervalometer. Because I was so lucky, and please note the sarcasm, the weather was foggy at the day in which I was able to go out in the morning. That was the morning of Friday, February 25th. I'm trying to pull myself back to photography on the beach. I didn't do that in a very long time now, specially at times of low tide. Sometimes, I do hate my work because of missing such moments in my life.
Anyway, In the fog there were some chances worthy for taking. The turbulent movement of the sea (high tide with some wind made the waves crush against the rocks on the shore), made some kind of effect when I processed the images in HDR, similar to the effect of using a slow shutter speed (long exposure) with moving water...

Terra Natantes

Floating Land

I almost got myself wet to take this photo, going a bit deeper into the beach and closer to the water. It was wet sand already and the air blowing almost pushing me towards the water. The fisheye was the first option here to add some weird depth to the image, but I was thinking of getting even lower than this, but the conditions didn't help. I didn't want to cover myself in mud!

The effect of the sea turbulence was greater when I snapped directly into the sea from the top of the rocks, just at the back of some restaurant (I think it was pizza hut)...

Fogland

This shot specifically was merged into HDR under ProPhoto space. I was kind of "missing" working in that space. Yet, because I was concerned about uploading this image into some websites that do not support such space, I had to pull back and put it into Adobe 1998. Because of this change of space, the bluish hue turned dull, and I had to add extra layers to put it back as I want it. By the way, the concrete structure in the middle is in fact a sewage outlet pouring into the sea! And despite this, and despite all the warning signs, people still do go to swim in that area! However after taking that picture I've been snapping with my 70-300mm macro lens, zooming into the rocks trying to catch a splash of water, and I had to use high ISO, as high as 2000...

Splash

Monday now, February 27th and the last day in this boring long holiday, I've decided to go out a bit and do some activities. Had lunch in my favorite Chinese restaurant and at day time, the beauty of the decorations is pronounced more. The only special thing at night time inside the restaurant is the spot lights which make it more interesting. My brain was wandering off in style of a daydream about possible shots inside the restaurant. I made a plan that I might ask the owner for her permission to take pictures from the inside and the outside for this restaurant. The facade of the restaurant MUST be photographed at night, otherwise I believe the image won't be that interesting at all. Even some thoughts for a panorama went on but a complete panorama should be taken away off the center to show a special Chinese-like lantern in the middle of the restaurant, hanging from the ceiling. Being under that won't be of much interest (not even in a QTVR).

On the same day, I've went for a car wash and it was such a crowded place. Took me around one hour to get out of that place! However, I managed to settle the tripod and the camera with the timer remote control in front of the seat next to me and started to take shoots for every 5 seconds. The situation was shaky and the camera fell down with the tripod on my first turn out of the station, thus I had to drive slowly and holding the tripod with one hand while driving. At home, I managed finally to combine the slices to make a simple time-lapse, without any sounds of course...

I still need to learn more about these codecs and formats. It took me some time just to get it in a suitable size! Now since this one is done, I thought of the previously done manual time-lapse for the sunset from the roof. This time-lapse was done in HDR and then tone-mapped, but something went wrong in some slides making the sides of the JPG files go dark or bright (all HDR slides were processed under same settings with a batch process command). I had to struggle a bit with this one to fix the size of the file and the dimensions of the clip.

The timer remote control is a must in time-lapse photography, and I thought in the beginning that I can't take bracketed images with a time-lapse process. I was wrong. Don't blame it on me though because the manual didn't mention any tricks about that. I emailed the support center for Canon-US, and they gave the answer in the very same day (thank you guys):

Thank you for contacting Canon product support regarding the Timer
Remote Controller TC-80N3.  We value you as a Canon customer and
appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

This is possible, though a combination of features on the camera and on
the timer.  On the camera, set the drive mode to continuous, and
configure Automatic Exposure Bracketing (AEB).  In this configuration,
you can hold down the shutter and take three bracketed shots in rapid
sequence, and then the camera will stop after the third shot even if you
continue to hold the shutter.  On the remote, configure your intervals,
and then also configure the exposure time for 3-4 seconds.  This will
"hold the shutter button down" long enough for the three bracketed shots
on the camera.  This should achieve the effect you are aiming for.

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance with your
Timer Remote Controller TC-80N3.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

Sincerely,

Dirk
Technical Support Representative

Such trick was not really mentioned in the manual and I never thought about it. The way that the manual put it is just so specific and to the point. Every mode in the intervalometer has a job to do and that's it. However, I tried what the support suggested and it worked! I spent a nice one hour on the roof of my house just relaxing beside my camera and tripod in the nice breeze while reading. Eventually I had a nap on my chair that got me a stuff neck!



There were 24 slides of HDR after all, and each slide (or bracketed sequence) is taken in an interval of 3 minutes. I wished to make it smoother than this really but I was afraid of my CF memory card limitations. I might try shorter time in some other occasions. The tone-mapped images were then combined into the video you see above and I had to struggle again to limit the size and other things. Now what came as a surprise to me is the following: I was trying to combine several slices into one image (not a movie), as I was aiming to make an image showing the sun on the move. I used the Photoshop's blending, and I never had in my mind (which should be something natural but I think I was dreaming or something) - never had in my mind that the first thing blending command in Photoshop would do is to eliminate the difference to make one coherent image. I'm talking here about "image stack" blending and not "panorama blending". Image stacking is usually used for increasing depth of field when you take several images with changing focus zone (specially with macro techniques). However, the result was astonishing. A nice blend of colors (which is more vivid in ProPhoto but I had to put it down to Adobe 1998)...

 Sunset

Not all the 24 slides were combined actually, but I picked them out on an interval of 3 (i.e. 1, 4, 7, ...etc). This is because I had in my mind the movement of the sun in the sky, but I never thought that Photoshop will simply eliminate the sun in ALL of the slides and keeps up with the color blend. I think this unexpected result is a lesson! I think it would be something similar to the Exposure Fusion (EF) technique that I used before to blend several images with different White Balance (WB) and not different Exposure Value (EV) as it is the usual with HDR images. However, I will try to work on my previous aim, that is creating an image with several suns in it. I did it before but it was simple that time and not many frames involved.

Today, I've finally managed to stabilized the tripod inside the car on the back seat. I did take a video already this morning and I'm aiming for time-lapse from inside the car. In practical use, I've discovered that 18-55mm is better than 15mm fisheye lens when taking a video from that angle. Mainly, this is because the tripod is so tied to the back seat and laid back a bit and a fisheye would show unneeded parts of the car inside. Still though, I might want to achieve such effect later. I learned also that it is better to leave the EV level at 0, instead of raising it to +1 to brighten the things inside the car. The front (the road) was so bright in the videos. Is this a trend towards videography that came over me? This is a bit scary 'cos mainly I've always hated to take or watch videos (movies and shows, ...etc) - but only a few of them. It's fun though with people looking at you thinking how weird you are!

Now Ayvarith-wise. Fortunecity, which was my last hope, made me sick now. I can't upload anything to that website and barely able to upload some pictures. No audio no video, just plain! I'm looking now further to see any place that can host such files. I don't want to squander my files here and there, like building the web page in Fortunecity and host the audio files somewhere else. It's going to be a tiresome process that way. For this problem now, I'm sort of delaying my recording for the Ayvarith text of  Alexander's story. I've finished recording the samples for the Preface (samples of how to say the letters), and all I need now, a place to host them. Yuck!

I'm trying to get myself busy as much as possible despite my physical capabilities, but well, I don't know where I'm heading at... man, I need a shower...

Alexander 6, V19.

It's Thursday! Can you believe it! WEEKEND!


It was a disappointment really. Staying on the roof yeterday before sunset until it was all over and no sign for the promised crescent. Seems the agenda's notes was dedicated more to people with astronomical interests. I do have that interest but I'm just not so deep in it. Professionals got their telescopes I guess. Or maybe, the roof is not a good place amid all that fogged like view. However, I did take some photographs of the sun in its setting with my 55-200mm lens.
What I did was that, I took 3 shots every few minutes totaling 3 shots on 3 times (that is 9 images). With the help of Photomatix, I batch-processed the set, resulting in 3 OpenEXR images. Then with Photoshop I combined the 3 altogether in one image resulting in something like cartoons... a moving sun. Tone-mapping made in 2 ways, the usual; Manual and by Photomatix.

Photomatix Version

Manual Tone-mapping

The noise in the images are really, really, REALLY driving me mad. I still can't recognize whether they are from the lens, or the sensor. But it does seem that the telephone has more of that noise rather than the regular lens (18-55mm). 

The Photomatix version seems nicer to me, despite the noise and spots, but after all I had to add extra adjustment layers for other purposes. The manual tone-mapping produced some effect like a silhouette, but I was surprised then that when I added some adjustment layers to fix the hue of the image that some banding occured. I saved the image that way anyway. I'm not interested in fixing it for now. But this experience made me think of possible shots in the future, for the sun or moon, or for any other movement to snap.

I've been working as well with a photo of my eyes, and I produced 2 images from the same RAW file. I'm not sure they are good for stock sites but I'm going to try my luck anyway.

I called them the "beast eyes" or simple, The Beast. The two images are not produced by bracketed exposures (although originally, I did it for that purpose to compose an HDR later on). I felt like working with the brightest image on that sequence of 3 images. Of course the image you see here is a result of extensive editing, otherwise it would sound more like a dull image, wouldn't it? I'm thinking of submitting the latter for the stocks, but I think my chances are somehow less than 50%, since stock sites deal with the noise or grains as a form of noise always, and not an expressive style. I've tried it already with the images of me giving different facial expressions. Canstockphoto accepted them, while Bigstockphotos refused them for the grains.

Well, not much had been done to the transliteration today. Let's see the fuss next week with the visit of the Ambassador!
__________
433. then the hero prepared for his long journey
434. he took food and water and the blessings from the shepherds
435. and went on to the north over the deserts
436. where he encountered many ruins
437. many castles and many wells of no use
438. just left for the sands to be eaten
439. just like Qafra or even worse
440. and some days passed away until water became scarce
441. then the hero glanced from afar some signs of living
442. amid the sand storm he was trying to view clearly
443. but his power did not help him stand up against the wind
444. and with the heat of his body he had to give up
445. and he closed his eyes and fainted
446. he did not feel a thing until he opened his eyes
447. to find himself in a tent which the wind played by
448. and no one beside him except of a bowl of water
449. he almost wanted to drink that water
450. his throat was sore and felt like thorns
451. but he couldn't drink the water in the bowl
452. for it smelled strong and made him dizzy
453. and while he was gazing around trying to understand
454. when suddenly the tent ripped open
455. and a huge built man-like creature got inside
456. but the hero did not find his sword to grasp

Alexander 5, V4.

 

This image, tells what kind of camping tools I was carrying with me up to the roof of my own house. Filters case, Camera and its tools, a book (under the filter case) and the chair is put up from the last session, flashlight and all is carried in this handbag (crushed beside the chair!). Ah, I forgot the tripod. It was a heavy load to carry and go up that ladder to the roof, and with my fear of height, it was unbearable.

I made out a square black card (from the large hard papers I bought yesterday) by the same size of my filters to be fixed within the filter holder to block the light when unneeded. Anyway, my trials were not successful at all to get a glance of the sun. I ran in buLb mode and minimized the aperture as much as possible (f22), and for all over the 30 minutes, the black card was covering the lens and I moved it for ONE second only and put it back and continued the counter above 30 minutes even. Yet, the image was so bright and features cannot be recognized at all, although I even fixed my ND8 and ND4 filters as well. One second of sun in its height made a fuss for the image. At the end when the sun was gone and I had nothing much to do up the roof, I decided not to leave it just like that, so I made this shot. After gazing for some time into the sun (not directly of course but almost), I did have problems concentrating on whatever I have in front of me. Thus, I was trying hard to focus the lens manually but I couldn't, and fortunately, the auto-focus capability worked just fine even though it was dark already.

The image above is Pseudo-HDR by the way and not a real HDR. Despite the fact that I took 3 images already but I was so careless about the settings of my camera that evening that I did't fix anything, but shot the image directly, and hence, I had to make up some effect with one of the RAW files (i.e. one image only). Some manipulations and noise removal were used as well, but the original image was way worse than it appears here in this small version.

I've really started to like to sit there on the roof. Quiet (despite some children noises from neighboring houses), and fresh, although it is tiresome already to climb to there; specially carrying all these tools. I spend the time there reading my ghost book that I got from Ireland. I'm just afraid that some of the neighbors would reckon my position there and ignite some problems, claiming that I've been spying on other homes. I know the mentalities of my surroundings, trust me.

In some weird spark of thought, I find myself (again) attracted to astrology and the calculations involved. I realy can't say whether I'm fascinated with its history, concepts or its calculations and usage for the human beings, but in general, I'm just chasing after it. Specifically for the time being, I'm running after what is called the "Arabic Parts (Lots)". I found some calculator for these parts (as they are not heavenly objects) but, the main part is, what do they mean when found in some place? The calculator can be found here.

Despite the name, Arabic Parts, these aspects of astrology were actually much older than the raise of civlization in Arabia, dating back to Egyptians, Greeks and Babylonians as well. They are mainly named like that now because Arabs made an extensive use of them and because of the Arabian scientist back then, Al-Biruni, who derived many parts of those. I'm not a keen lover of prediction, but as an Arab, the topic attracted me as well to see for myself where and what is that. I used to read a lot of astrology and palmistry book before for my interests in occults, but now, seems my scientific brain occupied the most part of my life because of my studies. However, I go back to these for fun from time to time... there are certain degree of occuracy within such things and within some limits that would make you surprised sometimes...

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73. Alexander's hair stood up like pikes when he heard of Zimúrá
74. because he tried it wityehnot h his men and he knew the pains
75. and he told the old man his story from Caqobia
76. up to until he reached this strange village of the old people
77. the old man then shouted: you are the promised then!
78. Alexander was surprised for the answer and opened his eyes
79. and asked the old man about the other stories of the village
80. the old man continued the stories of this strange village
81. and he told him that this village is called Hoshea
82. and his name was Nertus, the elder of this village
83. no one rules them and all of them are equal
84. they plant together and eat together and trust each other
85. their graves in the homes to remember death always
86. and no doors to their houses because no thief exists
87. and one day their prophet long time ago foretold them
88. a yellowish warrior will come and save the village
89. from the beast of Tawyátá, the bird that eats humans
90. and in every year the bird eats a young man or woman
91. or eats what they plant for food or drink their waters
92. and only when one man and his faithful nobles come
93. they will save the village from the claws of this bird
94. and their names and numbers are mentioned in the books
95. the old books of the village of Hoshea
96. and the talk of Nertus the old was over

Alexander 5, V3.

Nothing like having some fresh air on the roof of your house. Try it out! It was a bit tiresome just go be there, but it's fun. Of course this is nothing for people who climb mountains just for fun, isn't it?
The idea occured to me at the last minute and like 45 minutes before the actual sunset and that gave not much time to do much and it was a blind shot. Hopefully I can take some more images today (if I have the strength to climb up again with my fear of heights!).
However, the photos were taken every like 5 minutes or less, and I was aiming to get it all later on stacked. Later on I find out that this idea is not a good one and not a good substitute for a good long-exposure practice; which I'm thinking of performing today. I bought some black hard papers (maybe A2 size) in order to do some stuff with each one of them. Mainly, I think I'm going to make a black box which I can use to cover the lens sometimes in cases of long exposures.
Back to the photos taken, I've set the white balance mainly to Tungsten to give some coolish effect on the hot colors in the sky. I took bracketed exposures (3/2), i.e. 3 shots between -2 and +2. Most of the images are best by themselves. However, I tried and merged "some" images (in EXR) and blended them as a stack in Photoshop. The result was kind of nice but unfortunately, I could not fix the banding in the image;

 

Combined of several Photos, the banding around the sun was hard to remove.

You might ask why do I want to combine several images together here. Well, after some time in working in the process of the sunset, the street lights went on automatically (as they work with photo- or light-sensors). When the lights turned on the sun was already gone, and I thought it would be somehow a nice effect to make them on, while making the sun still in heaven. Anyway, I think 2 images for this are enough or maximum 3 images stacked and blended are enough, rather than the 5 or 6 images blended here, which increases the banding.

  

Sun in heaven still. Photomatix tone-mapping.

 
 

Sun almost below horizon and lights still not ON! Photomatix tone-mapping.

The last image was actually tone-mapped and been processed in many adjustment layers to add or remove some hues and colors. I missed the old days when I used to do this to my normal JPG images (specially before I get my tripod and being able to shoot for HDR with a stable camera in RAW!).

I had some pretty load of work today in the labs, with FISHes. I guess you can imagine how stinking it was. I was gridning a complete mass of frozen sardines and putting powdered samples in bottles and sealing the bottles with some special wraps and tapes, and with all of this and that, I'm certain now that I've been watched already. I don't like this at all, but let's see where it leads...

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49. the gate opened as it was by itself without anyone
50. and no one showed up behind the gate but only dust
51. Alexander and his one hundred men got in slowly
52. and wandered around between old houses without doors
53. so old they were like if time forgot about them long ago
54. until they reached a hill where a plain extended behind it
55. and from above the hill and they looked upon the plain
56. they saw lot of people work in their green fields
57. men and women with ancient clothes were working together
58. all of them were old, as old as the village they live in it
59. then Alexander decided to go down to them and talk to them
60. and so all men and women stopped working in the field
61. and they stared at him with his men in a strange way
62. then one old man with red garments approached to them
63. and after greeting them with peace, he asked them a question
64. about their identity and their origins and their story
65. Alexander agreed to tell him everything if he tell their story
66. and the old man started to tell about his people and the village
67. and he said: we are the branches of goodness of ancient times
68. we lived here for hundreds and hundreds of years before
69. we are the followers of a prophet whose people sinned
70. and we were protected by the walls of this ancient village
71. while the remaining of our people were turned into mutants
72. and we banished them there to a land called Zimúrá