Aspergers?

A Quiet week, sort of, and thank God it's Thursday! I can't believe it has been 2 weeks since I got back to work, because it feels already like I'm here for the past 6 months already. Not because of work pressure, but because stupidity pressure around me. Sometimes I feel if I eliminated the stupid people from my periphery the population on land would count as much as 12 persons only.

I feel a bit of relief now as well, because my friend made an interview in my work place and technically he passed it without my intervention but the only thing left now is the paper work in the administrative office, which takes in an optimistic season, 3 months. After all, sooner or later he will be here eventually, I hope.

Camera-wise now, I've been doing things slowly here and then and trying to fix some of those bad ones I made already. I've already sent a collection of 20 images so far by email to several people, and it is the second mass email if I should say. I decided to change my practice of making a batch of 30 images and send them in one email. Instead, I will be making folders inside my Photobucket for each batch of images, with 20 images only inside each one of them. After that I will be sending a link to the album itself instead of putting the images in my email composer, which takes really long time to fix. The link to the album of the first batch can be checked here:

First Album

The work after that started with a panorama for Hore Abbey. Specifically, for the main hall or it seems the place where masses were held probably. I call such places with different names really and most of the time, I call them "Yards" mainly because now, they are either filled with grass or pebbles like a yard outside any house, but I'm quite sure that such places were once roofed and had many facilities and chairs or benches and the floor was tiled in most cases I believe. Probably I should call them "courts". However, Not much troubles, gracefully, in this panorama except of some chromatic aberrations that tend to show up strongly because of the fisheye lens usage with a strong sunlight.

Hore Abbey, Cashel. The main hall (court).

Of course after doing this flat spherical panorama, I wouldn't miss the Little Planet projection as well:

Hore Abbey, little planet projection.

Despite the geometrical shapes here with little planet projection I do feel it's not quite well specially with the cut out wall on the far left side of the image. However with a QTVR, it was a nice view specially to see the ceiling with its unique geometrical design; a fingerprint of medieval art, and probably this is what is to be the gothic influence.

It was until I made the QTVR, I realized that the left and right sides of the panorama are not coherent in tones, and hence a thin line cut through one side of the QTVR because of this. I did all the process again all over, but in a haste and maybe made the QTVR look paler and sharper with white sparks. However, I do keep a larger QTVR with higher quality, and in case I need to do it again I would do it slowly. No need for the rush. I will try now to concentrate on more single images to process.

In case you are wondering now about the title here, Aspergers?, well, that might be some false alarm, but nevertheless, got me interested in the subject. Asperger syndrome is like a special case of Autism, and with some cases of Autism in the family, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that I do have some degree of this. I don't have quite the information about it, but one simple test called the "The Autism Quotient Quiz," which I did online, yielded some high score. Some friends said that such tests conducted online cannot be really taken seriously but they are only screening tests, and they are somehow, culturally dependant. I did the test two times, and the results were 36 and 38 respectively. 

I've been reading some texts online and figured out some people do some things that I do: cleaning shining objects, untidy room, sleeping problems and hard time waking up, repeating things, listening to a song all over again several times until all words are memorized or so, routine and feeling disturbed when something changes with some specific routines. All of the signs above had been partially diagnosed for some people as Asperger Syndrome symptoms. Now this makes me more thoughtful of visiting a professional to do what it has to do to know myself better. I might solve an everlasting problem of mine, that is the inability to focus for long time (only in rare occasions).

Alexander 6, V87.

 TGIT. WOHO! But unfortunately, I'm not going out tonight. But at least I will have a break from the humdrum of this work place and some time for myself to stay all night as much as I like!
I've left home this morning leaving my PTGui doing  stitch for me. The trials with Autodesk Stitcher did not work as well yesterday. The process was chaotic really. I tried this morning to stitch triplets or singles together but that didn't work as well or maybe I just didn't find the proper controls. The thing is, Autodesk Stitcher is completely automatic, with a sort of a powerful algorithm.

By coincidence I discovered a tiny mistake in Harald's book, in Page 42, where 2 captions and 2 images are flipped.

The only hope for me now is PTGui as it seems and this time I have to work the hard way. The way that I hated the most before. When I left home this morning I left PTGui stitching my office images in storing them as separate layers (with their correspondant layer mask). Later on, I will have to stock these in Photoshop and fix them manually to hide and show what I like, as I like. The name Photoshop brings the shiver to my PC's memory. I;m frustrated more about Autodesk Stitcher by the way, and I'm determined to find some use for this software by any cost!!!

I'm thinking of seriously ordering some new books about Photography and other things, but afraid to do so because I won't have the time to read them. These books were stored in my Wishlist long time ago. The main ones I'm planning to get are:

 

... and there might be others as well. As you can see not all the books are from Rookynook this time. The last book is something I've added recently. WIth my love to Archaeology, I do love manuscripts so much, and wish if I can touch one with my own hands one day! Isn't it amazing how much theories and mysteries lie ahead just by studying a single manuscript?

For the time being, I do need to work a bit just when I get back home, and then fall asleep to have a lonely fiesta of my own...

__________
2065. Alexander did not know what was happening
2066. until he heard the voice that he heard before
2067. and the voice spoke to him: O hero of Caqobia,
2068. you have proved your nobility in the tasks given to you,
2069. thus I shall do what was written in destiny for you,
2070. the air I shall command to be with you,
2071. and the thunder I shall leave by your hands,
2072. the air shall make you walk like a Shágí,
2073. and the thunder shall make your wrath like Khaznútím,
2074. but all of that is yours if you grant me one thing O hero
2075. and Alexander raised his head and asked: what is it?
2076. Aramramátáníth said: they are only used for goodness,
2077. do not use them for personal attitudes or in moments of rage,
2078. I shall be very disappointed if you do so O Alexander,
2079. now Alexander, come near the tree of the valley,
2080. and repeat after me this ritual of healing,
2081. and you shall transfer portions of this brave heart,
2082. to the heart of this tree, that is its Jawsamályá,
2083. after that we can have answers to whatever you have
2084. and Alexander knelt beside the tree
2085. and started to say the ritual after Aramramátáníth
2086. then he felt his spirit being hung in the air
2087. and the tree grew greenish and very alive again
2088. while the heart beats of Alexander increased

Alexander 6, V77.

Calm day relatively and I hope I won't regret saying that. After fixing my PC now without re-formatting everything sounds a bit smooth and easy, except of some mental problems hovering in my head. No, no mental illness. Just some worries.
Started this day with preparing another package of fish samples. Boy, I should work in some factory! After that I roamed around to put gas and buy stuff for home, and I was supposed to deliver a paper for someone but he relieved me from that and asked to send it by fax! Phew! I'm thinking now maybe I shouldt have started to fast this day. Although I didn't sweat much, but the hunger and thirst are taking the best of me.

With my PC back to normal now, thank God, I've started doing some minor photos here and there from Ireland, simple ones though. Lot of them now are not suitable I guess to be uploaded into the stock sites.
In the meantime, I don't feel like writing or working on anything today. As simple as that. All what I'm thinking of now is a cold shower, really!

I leave you with some shots from Ireland now...

__________
1825. with the passage of the cold wind in the valley
1826. the dwarf knelt down as a sign of respect
1827. but Alexander did not kneel and looked carefully
1828. then the dwarf said with low voice of anger
1829. "kneel down O useless one! It is the Aramramátáníth!"
1830. but just before Alexander trying to kneel down
1831. a voice that could be heard from everywhere occurred
1832. the voice said: Kaliván, do not hurt the man,
1833. he is the one to save this land for us!
1834. thus Kaliván replied: yes O Mistress of goodness!
1835. while Alexander stood in his place amazed
1836. he could not see anything but heard the voice
1837. then a cold breeze is felt and the weather changed
1838. and everything got back to how it was before
1839. and Kaliván looked upon Alexander and this he said
1840. "I apology O good man, why you did not say so?"
1841. but Alexander got more amazed and said: say what?
1842. Kaliván said: why did you not say that you were sent?
1843. but Alexander asked again: sent by who O good man?
1844. then Kaliván smiled and said: by Aramramátáníth of course!
1845. then Alexander sighed and looked up
1846. and he knelt down to the dwarf and said
1847. "why do you not come O good man and tell me everything?
1848. there is so much I need to understand in your world"

Alexander 6, V48.

T.G.I.T.
Thank God It's Thursday.
T.G.I.A.E.
Thank God It's April's End. Well, almost.

I'm almost there with my PC. Installed some of the most essential parts of it and some stuff remain that I might see to it later and gradually, whenever I need to use them. There are some data, however, that are not to be retrieved back again, forever.
Certain plans in my mind now. First, I'm going to check with HDR plugin for the web browser, and soon I might be able to embed HDR images (small ones of course) in here. Thanks to Blochi (Christian Bloch, the author of The HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists +DVD). In his website, www.hdrlabs.com, I've asked the question and here you go:

Yeah, there's two methods coming to mind right now.

One is the ancient PTViewer, that's a HDR panoviewer with auto-exposure. I have some demos and a full tutorial write-up here: http://www.hdrlabs.com/tutorials/internet.html

The second one is newer, and is exactly what you describe: an image viewer with exposure slider: http://pfstools.sourceforge.net/hdrhtml.html
The visual interface needs a bit refinement for my taste, but its big advantage is that it works without Flash or ActiveX components or all that bogus. Just plain Javascript...

(actually, I'm pretty proud they used one image from our sIBL collection as demo piece )

And that was his reply. The first option seems a bit complicated for me though but I have to go through it again and again and see. It uses the FJPG format (compressed HDR) and, as Blochi says, it produces artifacts (seen in the tutorial he provided). The other choice seems better but it is an open source and I didn't try anything of it yet. I'm not sure my programming or my commandline skills are up to it, but it gives a nice result and it is exactly what I want to do: a slider to change EV and see the image consequently.

Also, lies in my head some ideas for creating a turntable to place objects and rotate them easily and coherently for Object QTVR. Like the usual QTVR which is based on a 360 panorama, Object QTVR is the same but let's say, you taking an image to the INSIDE instead of the outside. Such thing enables you to have a 3D object in your hand and probably ready to be used in games and so on, and all is based on a REAL object and not a 3D rendering! Along with this turntable I have to work more on my new little tripod. If you visit the HDR Labs website above, you will notice exactly the opposite of what I'm thinking of! Like 3 meters long tripod. I wonder how they operate the camera to make a panorama from that level! It's surely a hideous work, but I'm pretty sure that such views are just AWESOME.
As for my little fella, the little tripod, it might help on taking panoramas on low level despite the fact that the head is not steady and easily shaken probably. I didn't get the chance to test it with my camera just yet because of the PC problem that almost took most of my time now and then. I might have to use an extra screw to fit the thin screw of the little tripod to the wide hole of the camera body. Thinking about it now, I think I might do something in such a way to rotate the whole tripod without moving the head after tightening the camera to it.

On the "domestic" plane, I'm trying to be active on www.writing.com this time and trying hard to push myself further with my writings. Wish me luck!
The work is going on with the translieration and recently just trespassed the limit of line #2350. The end is near!

__________
1129. thus Alexander and Birbuár agreed to the conditions
1130. and after Khaznútím and his Khákaluts left the place
1131. he started to dig the ruins with Birbuár to get the body
1132. and searched for a decent place to be buried in
1133. then Birbuár asked Alexander not put a grave stone
1134. to avoid digging the grave again by the people of the village
1135. thus Alexander took care of the whole task
1136. because Birbuár could not touch his own body
1137. or else, the fires shall burn him deep within himself
1138. and all was done, under the light of three moons
1139. then when everything was done and the body is in rest
1140. Alexander looked back at Birbuár and this he said
1141. "shall you prove you are a wicked man again,
1142. I shall let your body out to the ground again by my hands,
1143. and now fulfill your promise and answer my questions"
1144. Birbuár smiled with a calm soul for Alexander and this he said
1145. "be sure O good king I will never be a wicked one now,
1146. tell me your questions and by God's will shall I answer"
1147. then Alexander started his questions as follows
1148. "who am I? where am I? what shall I do here?
1149. what is the secret that I am searching for?"
1150. and Birbuár raised his eyebrows and smiled
1151. and this he said: O good king, maybe I shall answer some,
1152. but verily your case is a difficult one to answer

Alexander 6, V28.

Whoever invented court houses, is a devil, or a lawyer indeed. No difference between the two I guess. from 7 o'clock till 10 waiting for the judge to give one damn pack of papers. The judge said it will all be decided by 29th of April. I hope I don't have to attend instead of the guys with me in the case. All of this, left me without any mood to do anything and so tired and sweaty. I can't even think of transliterating Alexander's story.

The night was hard. I spent my whole time (after the afternoon period) trying to fix the new panorama for the Guest Room. PTGui, beside the regular control points between adjacent images, gave a list of some separated images that could not share control points, and hence, I had to work on the list of pairs. It was a long long list. Concentrating on features in the monitor made my eyes reddish with veins popping out like a drug junkie here, and still I'm not finished yet, and the panorama still got broken lines here and there. If all of this did not work at all then I might have to do it the "even" harder way; Photoshop. I hate doing the fixes in Photoshop recently as they are more often, not useful in covering the erros that much, specially for broken lines. Maybe it is useful for cloning out noises or undesired spots, but as for broken lines, the whole process and workflow is different and in many cases, you end up creating more erratic features than the original image!
I slept earlier than the usual. Really earlier. Then in the next morning, today, I could barely wake up because of the "lack" of sleep I presume! Thank God it is Thursday today, and what  good day to go to court anyway!
Weekend is here and time to sleep... after getting outta here...

__________
649. the groove looked infinite deep into the ground
650. while Alexander looked in all directions
651. he was looking for a land to move on around him
652. then he found some space to move backward under the moon's light
653. but at the end there was someone with a dagger in hand
654. he heard some laughters and he looked after Charnagút
655. but the Charnagút seems lost by now and maybe went into the groove
656. and Alexander looked into the stranger and tried to see
657. but his eyes tricked him and he could only see the dagger's luster
658. and the stranger went running into Alexander like a raging bull
659. but the hero with his strength held the hands firmly
660. and the hero shouted: why? who are you?
661. and a harsh sound went out from the mouth that was covered
662. "you do not know me and will not take away my treasure"
663. Alexander amid his amazement was struggling with the dagger
664. the dagger looked blue with the reddish moon light
665. thus he knew that the dagger is poisoned
666. and a single scratch will make him a dead man
667. the two rolled over the narrow land violently
668. and Alexander almost fell down to the groove
669. while the dagger was getting closer and closer to his chest
670. when suddenly the stranger made a shout out loud
671. and his strength went down and Alexander knocked him off
672. while Alexander glanced an arrow planted in his back

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 6, V14.

Somehow, an active day. Yet, in the middle I felt so tired that I can barely open my eyes and still, till this very moment of writing this.
I've placed an order just few minutes ago new tools, and this time the order was expensive indeed. But what to do? I really need these stuff. For someone with a budget like mine, yes they are expensive I believe. The placed order almost was going to hit the limit of $1000.00. No problems with visa anyway. Hopefully I shall be able to zero this down in two or three months with careful payments.
The order placed contains ONLY 2 items. One item was the Canon Fisheye EF 15mm f/2.8 Autofocus Lens;

This lens however, has a fixed focal length. I don't know how does it feel to have such a tool really. I'm kind of used to zoom in and out but this one here has a fixed focal length. According to a friend of mine who is more of an expert than I do, he said that such lenses with fixed focal lengths are better in quality and in stability. Well, the lens does not have an IS system, otherwise the price would be even more than it is already.

The other tool is actually a set or a kit for cleaning the sensor. It is made of brushes only and no liquids included as I read in the description. Maybe I can get some liquid later on after the purchase of these brushes, or maybe these brushes are enough to clean the sensor already? At least to the level of dust particles. I hope it goes well with that, because there is no way I'm leaving my camera for 5 days in the workshop.

Visible Dust SD-800 

In the mean time, I've made no further snapping around with my camera. I'm spending my time playing a game or doing a work-related work. It is supposed to be a simple work, but you might know already how things go with Microsoft Office stuff. It's worse than studying physics, trust me.

I'm thinking of starting a "hobby" or a project let's say that I had in mind long time ago; Photographing haunted or deserted houses. 

It is funny though how the concept of "Ghosts" is quite different between the west and the orient. Mainly you see in western culture, the "ghost" is to mean something, some apparition, with the shape of someone (who is usually dead). This is of course not the case in all occasions, like the poltergeists (noisy spirits, الأشباح الضاجة) for example. In the oriental cultures, I've rarely encountered "ghosts" with the meaning of shaping someone dead. Most of the literature go by talking about paranormal events and paranormal creatures. The main talk in Middle East, is about demons or the Djinns, who are part of the faith as well. Just an explanation for none-M.Easterns, Djinns are believed to be creatures just like human beings, but no one can see them unless by practicing some specific spiritual "sports" as they call it. There had been some events that happened to me personally related to that topic, like seeing some smoke going here and there for no occasion or fire and some other stuff and stories that had been told by others. Anyway the main point is, Ghosts in the west, are not exactly the Ghosts that are meant to be in the eastern world.

It's Thursday and time for TGIT...

__________
313. as Kadmún ran to the shepherds with rage
314. Alexander put his leg and obstructed him
315. and Kadmún fell down on his face to the ground
316. while the shepherds wanted to take his soul out
317. but with a gesture from Alexander's hand they stopped
318. and then Alexander said: it is not an honorable act,
319. to kill a creature lying on the ground defenseless
320. get out of his way, unless he attacks you
321. if he made me dead, then he wins
322. if I got him dead, then I win
323. and if I was dead do not hurt him
324. if you believe in God, He shall take my revenge
325. and if you did not believe in God, it is my sorrow
326. and the hero finished his speech with the shepherds
327. while Kadmún praised his bravery in the field
328. and asked him to stand up again and fight back
329. thus, Alexander, stood up again and raised the sword
330. and the sounds of iron deafened the ears again
331. while the rains of the north started to pour
332. but the rain did not stop the might of the two
333. and the fight was between equal powers
334. until the time when Kadmún stroke the leg
335. and the hero seemed to fall on the ground
336. it was then, by a trick, the hero took the head

Alexander 6, V8.

It is one busy day, and full of dust. The weather was nice in the morning, but suddenly after a visit from my director who asked me to get the "air sampler" out to collect a sample of air in "such" weather, I suddenly stopped and looked through the window, and voila! A yellow planet was there! The time was almot 9 a.m. even (and not exactly 9).
After some trials again with my tortaloza (my beloved turtle, going to call it tortaloza from now on), and my watch with my rings. Not so much to be mentioned really, but I did, somehow, make up some sparkles on the surface, but yet I had to use the flash head as well. I made 2 images different in DOF and tried to combine them with Exposure Fusion option in Photomatix, but the result was not what I did expect. The image was a bit of what I call "dreamy effect," where you have some blurred fog like texture over the original image (and with some sparkles as well). Anyway, I discovered that the shallow DOF for the two images can be combined together in Photoshop by stocking and blending (not an option for CS2 users);

 

Two images of different depths combined by "blending" as "stock" in Photoshop CS4.

As you can see, in the first image the ring was sharp and the turtle is blurred at the back (it gives a sense of a distance) and the opposite is on the right image, although the ring might not seem so clear whether it is blurred or not. However, with Photoshop and not by exposure fusion, I made a new image with both objects sharp.

I felt that Photomatix's EF option is not what I need, so I found, as mentioned in some site, that there is a freeware named EnfuseGUI. It is a software based on a command-line program made before. "GUI" stands for "Graphical User Interface," which is the type of softwares I do like the best. However, the software got a glitch and crash every time I drag and drop some files in it (or maybe it is because I was using RAW files rather than JPG or TIF?). There is no "add" or "open" buttons in this software, and the only method is to drag and drop. I think I shall try again today and see if this problem is related to the files being RAW or not. I have to convert the files first.

The software has many options that I've never heard of in Photomatix; many sliders and check-boxes here and there and something about maps or the type of map. The map here, as I believe, is the map created from one file in order to measure the weight of each pixel (usually done by doing a Threshold effect in the memory, i.e. not seen in front of you on the monitor but merely something calculated and data collected for usage by the CPU). I could be using Photoshop less now, but I think this is for good.

__________

169. a man got closer to Alexander and started
170. and the story of his folk he went to tell
171. "we are from far away lands there near you,
172. in greenish mounts just before Caqobia,
173. we are the Shepherds, and I am Ikilis,
174. every year at a time like this,
175. we come to this spot with sheep to pasture
176. and the volcano god Kadmún won't allow us,
177. until we pray for him and slay some sheep
178. and if we did not do that, all our fortune will be gone"
179. Alexander boiled with rage but kept silent
180. and talked slowly to Ikilis the shepherd
181. "dear Ikilis, what kind of god is that,
182. who has no mercy for his followers?
183. and what kind of god is that,
184. who cannot make other people worship him?
185. or what kind of god is that,
186. who asks for fortunes of others?"
187. Ikilis thought about it for a moment
188. then asked Alexander: what do you mean O good king?
189. Alexander smiled to know that the man is able to think
190. then Alexander said: no gods on this Earth,
191. except of God who is every where,
192. and that Kadmún is certainly a demon of tricks

TGIT...

The last day of the week and the weekend is here... but seems this weekend is going to be interrupted with work somehow after my boss asking me to be available, if possible, in the work place on Saturday to help on some exerperiment. Despite the fact that I always prefer to stay awake all night on weekend days and sleep till almost or past the midday, I don't really have any problem with being in the work place on a Saturday and doing some work. The only thing that bothers me, something else would and should be with us to do the experiment, and I'm sure it won't go without complications.
I had a go with my camera today around the place, and, I snapped some garbage dumbed near our building... you might ask what a garbage has of beauty, well, in HDR composition everything can be made into something... trust me!
This time, I shot 6 shots of RAW keeping almost 1 stop between each exposure set. It is a tiresome work and of course I won't be using it always specially if ghosting (shades of moving objects in the final image) would be a must. The process was to put a bracketing for the exposure with +/- 1 gap, and then with the AV control I moved the 3 cursors of bracketing to the far left and made 3 shots, and then move them back to the far right and made another 3 shots, and thus the final result was 6 images with -/+ 2, -/+ 1, and two 0 which after canceling one of them, we settle with 5 images. I don't know how the results would be, anyway, I read before that 3 images with +/- 2 gap is enough to make a fine HDR image, but the more bracketing you have, the smoother colors you would have as well.
The brochure is amost settled down for now and my boss gave me the permission to add my credit on it. Of course you might think it is natural since I'm the designer but well, I didn't feel like it until my boss announced it for me. Since it is a brochure that would be given to people and I didn't want to corrupt the facade with a little name in the margin! The next move is convert everything into JPG and tell the stupidos in the press to print it as it is with no addition or edition and fix it in a 3-fold brochure as we want. Still, I'm expecting problems in that way.


Continuing my work with some photos from Ireland again, and as I expected, Canstockphoto refused the HDR tone-mapped images. It wasn't a surprise really. However, I will try Exposure fusion more this time if I'm planning to get softer gradients of colors with more natural look.





These two images were taken almost at same location around the Waterfront, the place where I stayed in Ireland. I hope they look more natural here than others made before!
Now, with my camera with me... I'm planning to shoot The Dome again, but I need to come here earlier than I used to be. No need for parasites in my way as usual or people who greet me all the time. This time, I'm planning to keep my camera low as much as possible and try to revolve it (while it is flipped in 90 degrees) in a full circle. The previous shots were taken at each column holding the dome up, but the result was, of course, disastrous.
The yield for today is 3 verses, and I'm approaching the end of this torture to being another torture later on!

TGIT...

This is a perfect day. Rain and winds rocked the place! Amazing!
I spent the last night working on some images here and there and I've began to understand more about the panoramic shots and why I get errors when I merge images together. Unfortunately, most of these errors are somehow unavoidable for my case, since it required special instruments to rotate the camera around certain axis, and they cost so much.

Alpha and Radon counting lab

The Previous shot was done in 360 degrees and I cropped in the middle to avoid the excessive mistakes from the stitching process. Still some errors might be visible anyway in some corners. Another image that was disastrous with colors as well, was for the Gamma Lab:

Gamma Lab

I made the white balance here into a bluish hue and increased this hue later on after the stitching process, but I think this was not a good idea. I feel the image is not consistent with dark and light areas in general, while some spots are too dark (even in the original large image).


Despite these bad experiments, I got some nice results by mixing one image of different white balances into one by using "exposure fusion" facility. The result was weird and yet, it contained lot of Luminascence noise even after the usual filtration. But I do look at it from some artistic perspective after all;

Alpha Counter With Open Sample Doors

It got a mix of blue and white mixture and I think it is pleasant for the eye in general. But yet, the picture that made me happy was none of the previous ones, but it was one that was regular, but I was happy to achieve such effect with this;

Alpha Counter Doors (Top View)

The angle and the blur at the back, as I believe, give a sense of great distant between the two (actual distance do not exceed 10 centimeters). This was an effect I'm happy out!

Away from photography and the waiting list for some images to work on, there were actually other reasons that made me happy about the rain today. In previous post, I mentioned that I was planning to go on ferry to Failaka but I didn't. The thing is, actually, I made what is called "Khirah". It is to ask for guidance to make some decision by using Quran (and there are other various methods as well). When I did this, the phrase that showed to me was:

وَأَرْسَلْنَا الرِّيَاحَ لَوَاقِحَ فَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ السَّمَاء مَاء فَأَسْقَيْنَاكُمُوهُ وَمَا أَنتُمْ لَهُ بِخَازِنِينَ

 

Translated as:

And We send the winds fertilising, and cause water to descend from the sky, and give it you to drink. It is not ye who are the holders of the store thereof. 

 

From chapter 15 (Al-Hijr), phrase 22.

The phrase speaks of winds and water or rain, yet the weather was so nice that day. Today, I was checking the schedule for the ferry again to see if there is any possibility to go today (beside work time), and seems like if the phrase from Quran applied itself perfectly for today, 2 days after from my enquiry! I don't know if there is a connection between the two, but it is something that makes me meditate into the nature of the universe and the events the surround us in general. Everything seems connected...

The yield for my translation process for today is 2 verses as usual, and I could not continue further since my eyes are almost closing by themselves. I did not make up much words for today though, and the translation process was going smoothly almost with no delay for looking up or making up a word. I've exceeded the limit of 2000 lines now, getting into line #2041. To me, it is a breakthrough, to get over 2000 lines being translated into Ayvarith. I try to say some words while writing in order to increase the grasp of the language and its sense.

As for now, it is Thursday, and it is time to take a nap in the afternoon, and go out by night, and then play some games all night IF my eyes helped me out with it!

TGIT...

TGIT. Thank God It's Thursday! I didn't do any post yesterday because I did not have the time to do anything, since I was busy taking pictures in the morning from the working place here, and then I took a leave from 10 o'clock to the rest of the day. I spent some time with a friend visiting the Scientific Center and going through the Aquarium. Too bad that I did not bring my camera. I thought it is not allowed, until I saw someone using a camera with a flash.


At work yesterday, I was taking some pictures for documentation purposes, but later on I had to work my mind a bit and trying to find some "inventive" spots to take some pictures from certain angles. Maybe I was good at that but I did a mistake with facing the sun rays sometimes while shooting;





And guess what? My boss embraced my job with the photos! I'm flattened! (or is that flattered? Well, same yield!).

Been discovering some multiple word make up in my dictionary and it's going to be some hard time to settle down some issues with this. There are even some words that I'm sure I made up before, but yet, I cannot find any traces in my dictionary or in the margins of my draft. Yet, I do remember I made such words. That may cause me some even hard time even after finishing the translation. I'm reaching the limit of 2000 lines for now, and the contents in general should be smaller than I thought because, as I stated before in previous posts, there had been many errors in the numerbing of the lines (skipping some numbers or repeated numbers and so on), and that makes the number of lines lesser than stated before (that is, 3000 lines). More than 15 pages remain on the queue list to be translated with an average of 2 verses per page (more or less), in other words, more than 30 verses are waiting for my translation! Each verse has 24 lines... my hand is going to have muslces and my brain and tongue will play tricks with my own native language. Just imagine that I have to spell check the Ayvarith version after that, and check the grammatical composition! Yes... it is breaking down my back.
After translating three verses today, my brain felt a sudden shut down and I can't continue anymore with it for now. So I'm going to spend the rest of my time until I get out of here with reading, and coping with this silly connection that had been playing tricks since the morning... until the postage of this entry.