Halt...

For some reasons I don't understand, this week had been a disaster somehow with lot of problems on my head - home, work, relations, you name it. For this reason, I can't post much for this week. I couldn't do much work with Geltani nor my camera, except for few self portrait to test my flashes (and some items got broken as well). Guess it is one of these weeks that you wish you are just on a vacation, or simply slept and never woke up till it is over.

I've noticed in the statistics of my blog that I've got many visits from Germany for posts when I posted my Alexander story, some 3 years ago or more. If this person is reading this now, I'd be glad to give a direct link for the whole story of Alexander here:

http://www.writing.com/main/portfolio/item_id/1667340-Alexander

In this link, you will find the English narration arranged in six chapters, as well as an Ayvarith transliteration of the story with sound files after each verse to listen to the language. I'm not a story writer but Alexander was a project to form a dictionary and start making more words for Ayvarith. Unfortunately, the website for Ayvarith was pulled down after Yahoo! stopped supporting GeoCities. I do have the dictionaries still and might one day upload everything back in a new design; it just needs time that I don't own right now...

I'm going to post this for now and have some rest. Things are getting scarier...

Bumble Bee...

Well! It is finally here! A great burden is taken off my back! The vocalization process for Alexander's story is complete and the whole 6 chapters are now represented in text, and voice. The whole story can be found here, while the Ayvarith and the vocalization can be found here.
With this project off my back now, it is time to re-schedule many things and fill the gap with many other things I need to do; reading, learning new things, or pushing myself to go outside take photos - and of course pushing my marketing trend a little bit. I'm thinking of editing my website as well and add a new tab for my services as an architectural photographer. Also, I'm thinking seriously of having online classes in ASL.
On the other hand there had been some events taking places, like the workshop that I've attended with my photography group, which proved to be a real challenge. Anyway, the talk will come to this later.
It feels that there are so much to do in such a short time before I have my vacation. If my visa request was accepted that is. If all goes OK, I'd probably be traveling to the US for the first time, for around 3 weeks. In hope of having some nice catches of photos. Yet, I still have this eagerness for the countryside and the Irish soil.
In the meantime, I do think seriously of doing a medical check up for my eyes and my back, and my heart if possible. I know I have been suffering from back pains for a really long time now, but as for my eyes, I'm not sure yet if I'm subject to the hereditary Retinitis Pigmentosa, which runs in the family. So many things to do, and it is summer, and Ramadhan is on the way in few days from now. My visa interview is coming by 31st of July, after the beginning of Ramadhan that is, and by early morning (8 a.m.). So much to do and even a bee would fall dead I believe just thinking about all these chores. Maybe, just maybe, all of this can block my heart away for some time.

Sadeem:

By Saturday, the photography group scheduled a workshop in a marble factory called Sadeem (and just a note, Sadeem means "nebula"). The factory is situated far from the city and urban areas, and around 30 minutes needed to reach the place. However, the heat was not any better away from the city in that industrial area.
After getting into the factory and after a little lecture from our teacher and the leader of the group, Mr Bahaa Al-Qazwini, we went out into the core of the factory where the marble is cut and prepared.

Hoffnung (hope)
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, 1/250 sec., ISO 200. Edited in DxO Optics.

Beside the heat that made my movement a struggle in between the corners of the place, I've forgot my vest and my VR-head. However, I don't think the place would be a good place for a full panorama, but merely the ceiling would make an interesting pattern. Because I didn't wear a vest, I had to put my lenses in my pants' pockets which made my movement awkward. My ISO was set directly to 200 since the place was not sunny and almost completely in open shade. Yet, the hot breeze of air and the dust blowing in the corners made it a struggle after all.

Mechanical Stare
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/3.5,
1/200 sec., ISO 200.

One of the main challenges in that place is the fact that my mind works in an abstractive way. Maybe the bulk of the photographers went on trying to use their flashes with portraiture and trying to capture facial expressions of the workers, but that was not in my interest. Personally, if I was to shoot people with true facial expressions, I would use telephoto and fix my standing point to a certain location. People usually can't keep the same expression for real when they face a camera and they have to make it up.
On the other hand, the factory was not a devastated place to add an element of destruction to my abstract shooting, not it was very well organized to help my vision on working out geometrical shapes. I tried anyway, and I've taken lot of shots that mostly didn't appeal to me.
Shots like Hoffnung were one of the earliest things to note. I'm not sure if there is another photographer who aimed at this internal side of the pipe, but anyway I've found it a good target for my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. Another trial with my Rokinon took place around the crane that is used to lift marble pieces around the factory, as in the Mechanical Stare.

3D Crane

The crane was a target for several shots while moving my body. My main purpose for such a movement with my body while shooting was to catch as many angles as I can and sort the angles back home to find one interesting point of view. However, I've realized then that I can try out some 3D merging and make an anaglyph from any 2 shots. Finally, I've the 3D shot opposite, which made me realize an important formula when creating 3D images with fisheye lenses. Something I needed to know for a long time!
There were many times when my 3D trials with fisheye lenses did fail because of the big distortion. However, now I can see that the closer to the subject I would be, the better it is to make a nicer 3D effect when shooting with a fisheye lens. The distance between the crane and myself was around or lesser than 50cm (lesser than 2ft).

Dilemma
Canon 18-55mm @18mm, f/3.5, 1/125 sec., ISO 200.

Opposition
Canon 18-55mm @24mm, f/3.5,
1/200 sec., ISO 200.

It was not that bad after all anyway. There was still some abstract shots that I can add a touch of mystery to a bit. But surely they needed a sharp eye to notice. Dilemma and Opposition were taken for footprints off the ground. I don't know how they ended up here, but as if they were waiting for me! After the shoot outside, we went back inside and our teacher prepared a studio to make some portrait session for photographers in the group who are interested in this kind of work. I kept watching trying to analyze the movements and actions.
In that very same day, and after the tiresome session in the factory, we had a little gathering party for the group. My teacher announced some goals, aiming at some contests and rewards, which made me think (and still thinking in fact) about my part in all of this. Do I really want to go into contests? Do I want to win? Or maybe I can use this as an advertising tool? Frankly, I'm not sure about my feelings about this matter, as I'm still flipping its sides and trying to arrive at some decision, when the time comes of course.

Morning Glory:

In a trial to relax within such summer (and for those from Europe and US who wait for summer all year long, summer here is some sort of a taboo. It is simply a hell!), I've settled down in one corner on the beach just before sunrise up to one hour after sunrise. My initial idea was to do a long exposure, but as I reached the place I've changed my idea and decided to take several shots like I do for a time-lapse. My idea changed from doing a long exposure to record the waves' movement, into applying an art concept to record the sun and the moon, or maybe mix the changing hues of the sky into a blend like I did once before from the roof of my home.

Cold Summer Day
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/11

Settling down with my tripod in a low level and fixing the Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens in portrait position, I've programmed my intervalometer to take a shot every 3 minutes. The final result was 33 shots recording the movement of the sun and the moon across the horizon. I had to study the angle of the sunrise carefully from websites like Wunderground; this angle is also called Azimuth (from Arabic: السمت). Because of the depth (or should I say the distortion) that the lens exhibits, the shape of the moon and the sun was recorded merely as moving dots. Safer for the sensor, probably?
Memory issues made me a headache as usual. Blending 33 images was a goal never achieved, and the image you see on the left is a blend of 11 images only and made out of JPGs instead of TIFFs. Even blending the images was done gradually and not all at once. However, for some reason, I have a belief that some of these errors I got while blending is not related to memory issues, but some algorithm issues and some slides could not be merged because of the movement of water and rocks (and trash) in between the slides.

Transition

Another trial to blend, but manually this time. It was an exhaustive work indeed with a lot of Layer Masks. The idea is simple but achieving it needs time. Well, some people might argue this is not photography at all, and simply "photoshopping", but as you can see... I did indeed take these shots! It is just the vision and the idea that plays the role in all of this, even in photography. The only thing I'm regretting about Transition is the fact that the moon is not visible in this blend. However, when I checked the single slides I've taken, I got encouraged for a longer exposure at that same level during a high tide time to record the advancing waves. What lens and what time it would be, this is something I need to check out and study for a while.

Long Exposures:

As I'm a member of a group right now, and as I'm trying to contribute to this community of photographers, I've decided to write down an article about my experience with long exposures. My experience is nothing compared to others I believe, but anyway, I hope it is a guide for the new comers in this community.
The thing is, I'm more fluent in explaining things in English and not Arabic, so I just hope they find this article useful (specially with the mathematics involved). I'm posting the article in parts in the group's forum, but you find it here. Pardon for the lousy format; writing documents is not my thing at all!





Remember this is all about my experience. Not a professional advice I would say, but I hope they are beneficial for other readers.


Now, with this heavy head, I'm not sure where I'm heading with my life, but maybe I should start thinking of getting busy is far better than getting wrapped up in my own emotions. Now with my chores in my work place being over with gradually, I do have more and more time at hand and maybe even reading books won't do to fill the gap in time right now. What to do, I just don't know...

Administrative

General scheme of the week is "administrative." Not much have been done so far with my camera, only few experiments on some old images.
Beside that work, there is of course the work with my Ayvarith and the vocalization of Alexander's story. The new pack stretches from 1008 up to 1728, with a rate of 6 verses (24 lines each) per day. Unfortunately, as I'm writing this post, something went wrong with my Sites Google account and I can't upload any files to it anymore. In hope this issue would be resolved, I would be posting the sound files again.

One of the things that I've been working on this week is completing the registration of my own logo. After paying some fees back in April to "post" the logo in the department of Trade Marks and Patents, it was written on the invoice that I have to check back with the department after 60 days, which was due few days ago. One thing I didn't realize, and that is 30 minutes of our time, we earthlings, accounts for around two hours in that department's time.
However, after paying the rest of the fees (17 KD), and also correcting some spelling mistake, I've been told to check back after 4 months to get the official registration form. Voila! What a speedy work. Anyway, I'm supposed to watch for the official newspaper to check my logo there for 3 months. A period when other people get the chance to see the logo and know its copyrighted, beside people who might argue that the logo violates some rights.

I had a short meeting with my teacher, Mr Bahaa Al-Qazwini, to ask him more about the business trend and about many other topics. Most importantly, I received a much-needed dose of encouragement and optimism; something I rarely find nowadays. He also guided me through with my "job request" paper, which is supposedly to be a paper given to the customer before proceeding with the job (a sort of an agreement). I'm doing the edition still, in hope that I will show him the new version again soon for more check-ups. One precious advice on the line was: chase after the customer.

Historical Boats
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 @f/22

I've been working little bit on some of the images from the Scientific Center taken last month, and I can't say I've done much about them, but I was experimenting on converting this image into a 3D anaglyph. However, this was hard to achieve but I've discovered some new methods to make out for a 3D image out of a single image (instead of the typical 2 shots for right and left). The method was sort of complicated and might not be feasible to any type of images, but it was nice to learn about it. It's called the "depth map" method, and depends mainly on the Displace command in Photoshop.
Checking on the complexity of the image above, I've realized that it might not be a good idea to waste my time on this for now, but I better move on to do something else.

Despite the fact that I have some plans ahead that I need to chase after and apply in my life, yet, I do feel so tired. And despite my general hate for portrait photography, I suddenly get the urge to grasp on some aspects of this field, and hopefully I will be on the way to that with a workshop concentrating on Canon flash units with my teacher in the coming days soon, hopefully. A holiday next Sunday is coming up, and I'm hesitated whether to sleep as much as I can, or try to do something out with my camera. My life seems to lack the fun...

Gushing and Jamming...

Not much in this week, except that I'm trying to somehow put down my camera for a while and have a bit of fun. Fun that is needed. The gene of traveling is hitting on my nerves again and I wish right now if I was somewhere on some tropical island with exotic scenery. I do miss Ireland so much.

I've been working on a regular pace with my vocalization project doing 4 verses everyday. The process is now going smoothly and fast rhymed. In the beginning there is something like a fear from the mic, but after few trials, everything becomes normal and the engine goes fast with vocalizing and editing. Hoping to increase the amount of verses done per day from 4 to 6. With such a pace, probably I would be over with this project before the end of June! If no sickness occurs that is, like last Monday. The recent portion done expands from 433 to 1008. Such a gap in one week that makes me... optimistic.

I've been working on some images from the the Scientific Center the past few days and trying to prepare a sort of a digital portfolio to show the management of the gift shop. Anyway, after some phone calls, seems they are not interested even before they see what I've got; all what was there is a promise of a phone call, and I know this usually means "back off".
As I was working on some of images, I've noticed some images in sequences that, with a little movement between one image and the next, inspired me to try out and do a 3D images out of them. They are included in the CD portfolio as well.

Chlidonias hybrida (?)

You can see the depth of the image for yourself, that is if you own a 3D glasses, by staring at the point where the legs of the bird meet the rock surface upon which it is standing. The first image encouraged me to look further for other sequences I've taken. I think the best sequence was for this bird, and it was unintentional of course. However, another chance somehow showed up with a shot of a fish (which I don't know its exact name).

3D Fish

This anaglyph (i.e. 3D image) is not as good as the previous one though, for some reasons. In the making of the 3D image, two images are needed with a slight tilt in the viewing angle, and the two images are then aligned at a certain point that would be the center of the focus. In the fish's image, this point was the head, which is not in center of the image. It gives some good depth when looking at the end, but a strong ghosting occurs at the tail because of the wide angle movement between the two slides.
These two images were enough to spark my hunger for more 3D images and experiments. I just need the proper environment for now.

Nirvana Penguin

There were some images that I did adjust some aspects for, like the Nirvana Penguin, where I added an additional blur to the penguin of the right, to make the eye concentrate more on the other penguin.
But there are other disappointments; some big ones. The panorama that was supposed to be a major one, that is the one for the main tank in the Scientific Center, did not turn well with lot of smudging points. Such smudging points usually occur because of some high differences in exposures between various areas under the stitch. However, this panorama is a single-shot panorama (i.e. not a HDR one) and probably, adding to this reason, the movement in some scenes added to the confusion. Trying to fix it in the stitcher itself failed, and definitely not a good idea to fix it in Photoshop.
 On the other hand, there was a good, to some extent, panorama that I had some hopes for.

Corridor Silhouette

I was hesitating as whether I should stitch single shots, or do it in HDR. However, after mingling a bit with the single-shot panorama, I've decided to go on with the HDR option since it gives more control over the light. I had some portions cropped from the left and right to centralize the silhouette (I hope the lady won't mind me taking her picture!). Many adjustment layers were added to emphasize the silhouette (which was lighter) and add some contrast and enhance the level of other lights in the scene. Another area benefited from the HDR technique is the topmost portion (the ceiling) which was completely black with no details showing.

Greenhouse (LP)

Beside the images above, I've added some projections of the same panorama of the Greenhouse (as I call it so) and other panoramas for the outside portion of the Scientific Center. However, up till this post is written, not all images (single shots that is) that were taken that day were explored still.
Maybe one of the significant discoveries if I should say is the interesting look made up by the Full-Frame projection for the panorama of the outside portion. This projection is seldom used, and I've realized now that it just mimics the effect of an extreme wide angle lens (say, sunnex lens) on a full-frame sensor. I can say it is a new artistic consideration to be considered now whenever I do panoramas.

Outside (Full-Frame)

Another discovery is that, what I used to call a Wide-View projection and spend few minutes adjusting the angles for a proper view (starting out from Little Planet projection), it is called, simply, the Stereo projection which is implemented in the software itself already. However, that doesn't mean we should leave it at that, but certainly there are some changes in the viewing angle after all. It is such an expansion in the viewing horizon for any panorama that I would do in the future that makes a gush of feeling and a mix up of emotions; think of it: Every projection yields a specific feeling!!!

However, the Outside panorama gave me some hard time with the nadir as usual and the patching or cloning process was not to my liking but I guess it is the best I can do for now; and no there was no chance I would use other techniques to capture the nadir point. The nadir point in the previous panorama, The Greenhouse, was relatively easy to be fixed for the nature of the ground itself which was almost plain.
Ironically, despite all these troubles with the nadir, more or less, the stitching and linking the images together went smoothly and very well. I seldom stitch such easily-done panoramas! This anyway encouraged me to do a QTVR though I didn't have any plans for it.

QTVRs

Sometimes, doing QTVRs is just about what kind of convention we have in mind prior to the beginning of the work. I did spend some time thinking about it myself and I've asked: Why would someone want to look to the ground? What's so interesting about it? Is it really worthwhile to take all this hardships to snap a shot for the nadir point in whatever method?
After all, I've realized that only in rare occasions, the nadir point is that important. In most cases, just like the coming two QTVRs below, the nadir points are not that important and do not add a significant texture to the whole scene; since they resemble the ground itself which is viewable from different points of view. Only in rare occasions as I've mentioned above, the nadir point is important, like when the tripod is placed on top if a textured tiles cluster and the design is important because it has a significant look and view.

Some logo can be added to the QTVR process in the place of the nadir point, in case of authenticity is required of course, but if that is not even required, the QTVR can be simply done with limiting the vertical viewing angle. If you think about it, it is not only more practical, but also more reasonable and realistic! People do not walk and stare at their feet while they walk all the time, do they? This said, however, it is better to stitch a nadir slide because it has some portions of the background on the sides of the tripod head that would show up. After that, we can limit the view while making the QTVR. The resulting image would be a small circle at -90 that don't add much to the whole wonder of the QTVR viewing, thus it is removed by limiting the vertical viewing angle. In my case, the vertical range would be typically set from +90 degrees down to -60 to -80 degrees.






The quality in the small versions are not quite good as it is in the large versions of course. In the previous QTVR I've converted a whole panorama with the nadir point being cloned out. Since the original image was also intended to be shown, it has my watermark as it is.
In my second QTVR, however, the nadir point was more critical and hence I've limited the tilt (vertical view) to the range of +90 to -70. The QTVR is smaller because there were issued with the clarity of the pixels, but such problem is not an issue with the original large version.






Well, it has been a busy week for now and I'm thinking of having some rest and play some games while continuing my vocalization. After my last phone call with KSC, and after being forgotten by the Marina Mall directors, I feel so tired of trying out to pronounce my name. I know it is not easy to start such a business trend specially in such a place where I live, but I need to gather myself little bit and have some fun. A fun that I didn't catch up with for a really long time....

Fertig!

A very busy and quick week to pass (but filled with bad luck ad bad events as well). However, much relief for now. I've finally managed to finish the report that I was helping my friend with. Now, I can get some space free in my mind to do other things, specially those regarding my photography projects.
Also, I'm taking this time and the free space in my mind as an opportunity to go on and complete the last part of my Alexander project: Chapter 6 vocalization. Chapter 6, however, is a long one and for sure this is going to be a long process, and if I was lucky to work on it daily, I might be over with it in about 40 days (but this won't happen for sure!).
However, I've recorded the first 5 verses of the chapter, and I've corrected some spelling mistakes as well. You can check the Ayvarith version with vocalization here. The English translation is here.

My activity with my camera had been minor, but I took the chance to further work with my new Macro lens (Canon 100mm f/2.8). This time I've connected the camera to the TV and I had to sit near by because the wire was short, and then tried to click some shots for my eye.

Auge (Eye)

Auge BW

Eclipse

Farbenfrohe Furcht (Colorful Fear)

The trend with me had been to name some of the images in German. I believe it gives some strength to the feelings. Of course, there was no chance to do HDR processing to the images, but the exposure for the images after all was fine with more or less editing for the RAW file. I think the Black and White theme fitted me well in this small series. In Eclipse, specifically, there was no need to do any manipulation to extract the lines of the eye; editing the Black and White levels was enough. Farbenfrohe Furcht on the other hand required some of the typical work I do with the eyes when I work with other people's pictures.
And yes, the eyeball veins and lines are true. Not edited.

On the other hand, I've printed the Failaka Folio, which for the time being I plan to make it a simple folio to show my work in a series form, and hopefully will start working soon with the other folio: Good Morning Kuwait. After printing the folio, I've laminated the prints for more of a glossy look, and for protection as well.

Failaka Folio

Now, I have to keep this folio for showing in some container or album. I have further plans with this folio but they are on hold for now. I better do some other things until I figure out the means to do this particular project with this folio.

I've started to fast now with the first day of Rajab (7th month of the lunar year) and in hope that I would continue this fast for the next month and attach it to Ramadhan later, making a 3 months of fasting. Sounds like torture in the beginning, but I think my body will benefit from this reduction in food and drinks consumption. It is a matter of adapting to the new condition and weather for the time being and I'm pretty sure that it will all sound normal later on.

Geltani is a name I shouldn't forget as well. I have to work with this along with Ayvarith projects. My powers are getting scattered I believe but this is mainly, as I believe, for my lack of time-management skills and the ability to stick to programs. Work, on the other hand, is another burden which sounds, sometimes, like a waste of my time...

Ex-Fantasies...

I just can't believe it's Thursday (or becoming Thursday). It was a slow week, and to make it worse, it feels that I couldn't do much within it, except for one thing that is not very brilliant from my side: Daydreaming. Fantasies are chasing me back and that urge to scribble and doodle all the time is hovering in my mind. I keep an eye over my camera with sorrow not knowing what to do about it. I need to move on. On the other hand, there is that recording I'm supposed to do for my Ayvarith project and the story of Alexander, but everything just hit the Pause button and like if I lost the remote to let it go on again. 

I. Fantasy Strikes Again:
Fantasies are attacking, back again. Maybe they popped up in the form of Ayvarith, a project that I'm trying hard to keep up with, but now they are back, chasing me back and urging me to get out something out of my head; Something that was kept in this head since high school in fact.
When the story of Alexander was created and many places or nations were mentioned; like the Bulughman and Zimuran, a writing system was devised then even though I didn't proceed much deeper into these systems, other than creating the script. The nation of Geltan that I've mentioned in Alexander's story, however, and which was one of the first nations that Alexander encountered, was left without a mention to a script related to them. After I finished writing the English version of Alexander's story, it was then I thought that I might break the spell by doing a "pictographic" system this time instead of Abjadic or Alphabetic systems. However, this pictographic system will be based on "radicals" and these radicals are based in their origins on Arabic. The whole system is somehow complicated, and all was formulated in high school. I was fascinated with Chinese back then.

Some of my doodles in the new script

This system was not concrete back then and I've left it untouched for a long time. Now, however, I need to push myself to do more about it and finalize something that I've left for more than 12 years. The main task for now, to me, is to transform the regular straight lines into a curve form and deviate the script from the general Hanzi or Kanji look, and along with that comes putting some basics. Exhaustive job for my brain, but this is not the bad part of the story, it is the fact that I can't stop thinking about it. I call it bad because, as much as I like it, it is a new project that I must dedicate some time to. I think this what happens when I stay away from my camera a bit and not doing panoramas as I used to do for some time. More about the camera work will come later.

The system as mentioned before, based on Arabic as well (just like Ayvarith, but without Hebrew and Aramaic) and the main "algorithm" to create words comes from assigning each Arabic letter to a Latin letter, which means some additions will be there since Arabic is composed of 28 letters while Latin (English) alphabet is made mainly of 26 letters. The radicals and their shapes were inspired also from Arabic letters, and there are Arabic features or letters that a radical was made for directly and a phonetic value that do not exist in the English alphabet was given. One of these features is the Hamza [ء] and its unique phonetic value is [chi], with "ch" as in "church". As you can see it is largely based on Arabic, because back then in high school, I didn't have the resources to get into Hebrew and Aramaic or other languages - all what I had in my pocket was Arabic and English.

Another example

The idea, for now, is to divide a word (after converting from Arabic to Latin) into syllables, and in each syllable there will be a leading part and the other is an effect on the leading part. Example:

Honey [عسل] = RLW

RL/W

Rung-wə

Only an Example

In this example above, the first syllable is [RL] and [W] is singular and it inherits a schwa (little short vowel almost unnoticed). In [RL] combination, "R" is the leading part, and "L" gives the effect of "ringing" with "-ung", and hence we end up with [rung]. Saying this, it means that for every radical or letter there should be two values given to it. A hard task I should say and the whole thing is not well-cooked yet. I need to formulate a big table with all the letters and make combinations of syllables. Finally, the whole system is supposedly to be memorized (like in any language) like people learning or speaking Chinese or Japanese would remember Hanzi and Kanji.
The idea is threatening. I never thought something from that era of high school, when it was the time that I've developed my interest in codes, ciphers and secret writings, never thought such ideas left behind more than 12 years ago, or in fact more than 15 years, would come back to this mind. It is a burden to my mind and I can't neglect it and it will be a burden over the time that I'm already screwing it up being unable to manage it properly to work on the various aspects of my life.

II. Camera Work:

Last weekend I've been to the beach around dawn time trying to capture that special light quality of that time. This time though, I didn't head to the vicinity of McDonald's on the seaside, but to a place near my home, and I wanted this place mainly to reach it as fast as possible before the sunrise begins. The place near McDonald's here would take me lot of traffic lights to pass and hence more delay to reach the place, while this location near by BK restaurant can be reached with almost no traffic lights in between (one only and doesn't make your day harder).

Caeli et Terrae

When I reached the place I started to work directly, but I was disappointed in the beginning because I was hoping for some clouds in the sky, and later the next day I found out that clouds form nicely somehow in McDonald's location as if the sky is different on both locations. Anyway, I had to forget about some long exposures with blurred skies for the time being, but then I headed downward when I saw some rocks showing (as the sea level was a bit down but not a complete low tide), and there, I've tried to do some long exposure experiments, but the adventure just began when I had to go with all these clothes on me and trying to stand in between the rocks on a muddy ground.

Nuclear Morning

With many trials, using the 18-55mm lens and holding the pack of ND filters in my teeth and wearing the camera backpack on my back, I did some long exposures but not exceeding one minute, as 60 seconds do really sound such a long time with all the struggle with the tools in the middle; it is a time when I thought I must hire someone. However, the sun was going up and up and finally I shot a 30 seconds exposure for the scene, which turned out to be better than the other 60 seconds shots. Also, something weird happened (which happened before in fact) when the original image was actually purple or violet and I had to fix the WB. Probably because the WB was set to Fluorescent. This same effect happened when I made one-hour exposure to my wall clock.

Hurry Up!

The colors were then fixed when the RAW file was edited. It seems that when using ND filters, the white balance becomes more critical and it is better to pick up the right one. Even though it can be fixed later on using the RAW editor, but after what I saw with such strange shades of purple and violet, I would say the results are unpredictable, and I wouldn't count on my luck every time to fix the colors that way.
In Nuclear Morning (a.k.a Den Nukleära Morgonen), I did an exaggeration with the WB to turn the image into a warm scene instead of the cold one (even the real scene was cold too).
The real struggle on location was to put the ND filters in the slots and re-focusing again and again. In the beginning I used 5 stops (ND8+ND4) but then I added 3 more stops (ND8) and the total became 8 stops. Such situations make me wish if I can use the welding glass, which alone would provide for 11 stops at once. Re-focusing the lens was done manual each time I put a new ND slide, mainly because of the low light level which won't make the autofocus function properly. At the end, I had a minor accident when I dropped one of the ND filters, and I would need to clean it with special cleaners then.

Working with long exposures of course didn't hold me back from taking some HDR sequences, which turned out well. I tried to keep them normal as much as possible (i.e. no dramatic light) but there was a scene that sparked my imagination a bit while working it out in Photoshop.

Unbekannt (Unknown)

Right now and after this little adventure in this mayhem, I have the urge now to do some panorama in the open there somewhere in between the rocks, with such cold weather. Something to think about for some time, and in winter, it is certainly hazardous.
Away from that, and just for fun, a scene at home captured my eyes. After going around with my camera and tripod, I decided to go for a two-shot stitch, which also had its own errors! I wasn't using the VR-head of course...

Esperando El Amor
(waiting for love)

Dramatic effects while tone-mapping gave out some nice views, but that wasn't really my intent. I just wanted it some how dark and gloomy a bit. Manual tone-mapping was a fail from my side, as usual, so I got back to Photomatix as usual. However, many other adjustments were made later in Photoshop, specially the glamor haze in the highlights. A picture that comes in a time in which I need every quark of hope in my heart...

Cerebrum Mysticum...

A mystic week of some sort. I've suddenly felt the urge to go on and read about mystics and occult. Well, I did have the urge for some time in my life and such things are really normal to strike in my head now and then, but this time I'm thinking of doing more to it into photography.
Now it is the time of the last week in Ramadhan and sort of the time is clogged (specially with my disturbed sleeping pattern) with many things to do. I'm also planning to register in a photography class for beginners after Ramadhan directly, by September 6th. Yes, for beginners. No matter how or what I did before or what advance level I might be in, it is always good to look back at small things that you did not know before. Despite my work so far, I still think I need to learn more about the basics of the camera and exposure. After that class I might take other levels as well (more expensive of course) but we'll see about that later on.

At work seems more busy days are coming on the way with new phases in our "little" experiment taking place now, thus I have to check that I need to type this blog entries as early as possible to be posted in time! Well, which means, in return, that I might have lesser contents to put in here. That is if... anyone cares anyway :)

Because of the disturbance this week, I couldn't put my mind into reciting the 4th chapter of Alexander's story. Well, I'll be frank. I was lazy and playing a game I like. Hope that doesn't count as a sin! But hopefully the engine will get to work by next week or so and more recordings on the way.
The lack of work on my Ayvarith projects, however, poured something on the other side. Ive finally had the mind (and courage) to write something down. But this time, since staring on the notepad on my monitor was not enough to gush out words, I referred to my old method; a paper and pencil/pen. I had the words for some time now but I didn't pin them down until I faced the pen and paper in my office, after working on that experiment. I called it No Superman.I've submitted this one to some websites, and in one website actually, some user notified me asking how did I write such a thing! Well, Thanks! I really don't think I'm good at all. It's just a gush of feelings to a certain matter that makes you spill it out.

I. Mysticis:

Seems my night on the roof last week under the full moon made me literally lunatic, or maybe inspired? Call it whatever you want to, it is just a weird feeling of seeking opportunities to take photos of anything in rhyme of Mystics. I will get back to that panorama taken from the roof after a while.
One of the first ideas to do something mystic kicked in when I finished reading the holy book.

Chapter of Mary (19)

There is a little story behind every aspect of this image. First of all, it was taken with a fisheye lens and hence, even with a high f-number I realized I might not be able to grab everything into sharp focus; so it was a call for focus stacking. However, I had a problem with the shadows' cast on the book itself thus, I had to turn off the light and use only one source of lighting (the usual old desktop lamp with power-saving light!).
I've fixed the WB value by using the custom K-value in camera. Since the power-saving light is bluish and I wanted to add a sense of antiquity to the book, I had to exaggerate a bit with the color temperature (K-value) and probably pushed it to something lesser a bit than 10,000K! Anyway, while working with these photos (taken with bracketed exposure for HDR merge) there was another story. Because when I was testing the different WBs before the final approach, I've realized that Tungsten makes some interesting hue, by turning the book blue and the red lines in it were glowing hard; so eye-capturing, but later on I had to give up this idea in favor of Daylight WB when I started to merge into HDR (you can change the WB before starting to merge into HDR in Photomatix).
Now, all the HDR slides, after merging, refer to different focus points. In total they were about 5, with each slide bringing a certain area of the open book into focus. I had a little problem merging first because I didn't use the alignment in Photoshop (I thought it's not needed because everything was relatively stable) but then, seems I was wrong and I used to correct for the broken lines. I made 3 versions of the HDR slides changing the WB from Daylight to Fluorescent to Tungsten BEFORE merging into HDR, but seems the desired look in my mind was in Daylight (the other WBs made some weird noise and hot pixels occurring here and there).
Maybe keeping the front portion of the book, where the title of the Surah lies, and blurring the background (the other page) was a nice effect, but because the name of John (first word in first line in second page) sounded a bit important to the whole story of the picture, I've decided to include it into a focus-stacking method as well. Cropping and rotating the image (it was originally in landscape orientation) was done later on after tone-mapping (Photomatix of course) and adjusting in Photoshop.
This was one trend of mystic (and I mean mystic not as mysterious only but also on a spiritual level) and in fact I was doing more work before that with long exposures (since I became a bit obsessed with the idea). Maybe working with clocks is not a mystic thing but the concept of time and using time was always an issue in my life (and probably of many around the world), hence, we can consider it a mystic concept of our lives, as we try hardly to catch upon life. More about it to come later.
Left to say one thing. The image above was rejected by Bigstockphoto because of some "copyrighted material" issues. Seriously? I'm going to ask God for a permission to take a photo of the holy book? Sorry dudes, that doesn't make sense...

II. A Treasure of Perspectives:

Since having a night with a full moon is not something you be able to catch every day, sorry, every night I mean, I've decided to mangle and go through the panorama again and again trying to extract more perspectives, and in return, more meanings from every picture I could make out of this (spherical) panorama. The first version, however, was a typical little planet form (posted previously):

The Lonely Planet

Well, I guess the name tells it all. I liked the effect myself and I went on trying to extract more from this panorama by changing the perspective. One of these changes makes up for almost a landscape orientation (or let's say a full-frame) image but with simple difference: everything is twirled.

Over There

It is not a panorama, but it is extracted from a full spherical panorama itself. After setting the stitching projection to "little planet" in PTGui, I started to play around with angles of Pitch and Roll trying to discover more perspectives. Until I've finally arrived to this angle which resembles the full moon at the end, in the horizon, like calling as it is a light at the end of a tunnel. A spark of hope in the middle of the night. I didn't mind the distortion in the surrounding structures, as I was reliant on the moon to grab the sights more than the surrounding structures. However, they do add some surrealism if you are up to that!
Before, I've stated that in long exposures at night, sometimes the stars that do not appear to the naked eye can be recorded, and they are here in this panorama, but they are usually erased with cleaning the noise and doing other techniques to smooth out the sky. Here, however, I decided to pick (some) stars and exaggerate their sparkle by using the regular brush in Photoshop. After all, I added some Photo Filter adjustment layer to put on a reddish wash on the whole scene to break its severe blue shade. Hmm, I think it adds a bit to the mysticity.
A vertical panorama was done as well, naturally (but I didn't think of it first!) and here I needed to move the central point to make some interesting perspective, of two skies, up and down. I didn't experience though how it would look if the skies met in the middle!

The Underworld

But I was taken more by the tunnel view for this panorama, which many people liked on MostPhotos...

To Another Universe

This perspective specifically was just an experiment to test how good it is to do a Twirl effect like in those Sci-Fi stuff. The problem with the Twirl effect is that it might smudge too much and not achieving the proper look I'm aiming for, and, you have to work in 8bit format, since it is disabled in Photoshop in 16bit format. In other words, you have to step down a bit with color's resolution.
The original work was stitched with 4000x4000 pixels. Usually I go for 8000x8000, which requires a lot of processing power and time. Since I was thinking it might be a failing experience after all, there is really no need to aim high and 4000x4000 is just enough.
The looks at the time of tone-mapping this tunnel-view was totally different and dull, despite the fact that the HDR slides were merged using ProPhoto color space. However, after tone-mapping and opening the image in Photoshop (which I've fixed on ProPhoto as a default color space) the image appeared as you see it above with cyan patches around the ground. Comparing the two looks, the Adobe 1998 and the ProPhoto, I thought the ProPhoto space is more adequate to the mystic and sci-fi look I'm seeking, and this is what you see above.
The twirl effect was done to the image on a separate layer and I made it carefully in a small amount to add curves but not diffuse the image totally. A twirl alone is not enough as a good effect and this is the reason why I made it on a separate layer, so that I can retain the position of the moon in the horizon back to its place by using layer masks (to erase the twirled moon and put on the original moon back in its position from the lower layer). The name is obvious I presume; did it take you to another universe!?

III. Tick Tocks and Blinks:

As I've stated earlier, I was (and still) obsessed a bit with the idea of long exposures, time, and, clocks. This obsession raises up from my interest to see things, slow things specifically, run fast. How would it be to take a long exposure of a moving snail, or a turtle, of a long night sleep...etc? Maybe my interest in night photography lead me to this point now, but however, it is not something new really. I've already created an image of a little long exposure before (and unfortunately rejected from major stock sites).

Busy Life

Maybe the above image was one of the best I've did so far. In fact, and because I used my Tamron lens raised up high above the watch, I didn't use here any ND filters to control the time. I don't have an adapter to fit my Cokins. However, this effect after all was not done by long exposure alone, but I had to take several shots over a period of around 6 minutes and then blend them together in Photoshop in layers (using Soft Light blend).
Same concept was done but with a more time-stretching aspect this time, taking shots at an interval of around 3 minutes and some few seconds for one of my watches. This time I've faced a problem with the proper WB, as I wanted to add some more luster to the golden patches in the watch itself but then there was a problem of being "over-average" with that effect.

Mixed-Up Schedule

The WB was fixed as the RAW files were opened in Photoshop and the effects were synchronized with all the slides. The reason for setting the time to 3 minutes AND few seconds is that I didn't want the seconds hand to end up in or around the same place with every shot taken at exactly 3 minutes, so I had to add few seconds (something like 10 or 15 seconds) to the interval between every two shots to give more chances of finding the seconds hand somewhere else, other than the previous position. Each image, in fact, was itself some sort of a long exposure (my room was partially dark) extending from 15 to 30 seconds each.


Still though, I didn't quite achieve the effect that I want, that is recording the seconds hand going over in a full circle around the clock face. Tried this already with my wall clock for which the seconds hand ticks continuously non-stopping in every second, but it goes smoothly all over the clock face. With the help of some ND filters, I've managed to get a long exposure of one hour. Despite the weird reddish shades that occurred in the final image (which might be related to the change in the sun's angle outside, because sun rays still pass with my curtains off, but I'm not sure yet), however it was not a big deal to fix the image and make it look normal, but it was a big issue with the noise. Anyway the image didn't achieve exactly the desired look I'm seeking.

Hurry Up!

The Median method was a companion all through the cleaning process (along with cloning to remove the brand mark, otherwise it won't be accepted in stock sites!). However, the small circle inside is formed by the seconds hand, but the seconds hand is larger than this and should, probably, made a bigger trace. Same thing for the minutes hand which appears blurred between 3 and 4. This is natural since the light is introduced (with the help of ND filters) slowly into the camera and to register the final movement just before the close of the shutter, the minutes (and seconds) hand will be in a certain place. The shutter then closes finalizing the image and the hands' movement all the way were not recorded except in a few portion of the clock face. In other words, to record the movement of the minutes hand across the full clock face, then we need an exposure time more than one hour. This will make things harder to do indeed.
The look of the blurry movement and the stable background of the clock face cannot be compensated by taking photos in intervals and layering them with a blend. The blur has its own taste and feel. I'm trying to find any website (official that is) related to the manufacturers of these watches and clocks just to seek my luck in asking for a permission to put an image of their products for sale. It is not possible to clone out the brand mark all the time!

That was the ticking part of this final portion. Comes then the blinking part. Just for fun I was running with my camera in the house taking pictures of my niece playing around (and getting on my nerves as well) when I decided then to take pictures of my brother's eye. This little experiment made me believe more than not ever overexposure is a bad thing and not every "bad" image is really bad. The image got accepted in some sites and rejected from some stock sites (for model release aspects). I have to give credit to my brother though because the poses (or looks) were his ideas in fact.

Photographer in The Eye

In case you wonder about the name, it is because my reflection is there, inside the pupil. This is one of my favorites, and it is not a tone-mapped HDR at all. Simply taken with a flash unit mounted on my camera and zooming into the eye with my EF-S 18-55mm Canon lens. Some adjustments were done later on of course in the RAW editor. The thing is, I didn't plan it. I merely took the image to see the details of the iris later on, but the whole image just happened to be awesome for me. More sharpening added a grunge look, which somehow might be not good looking for other images and concepts. See, overexposure is not a bad idea at all, to limits. I've printed this image on a white photo paper, which probably if mounted on a white wall (and erasing a bit of the edges in the image itself) would be an awesome effect on the wall! Surprise your fellows with an eye popping out of the wall!
The other two images were also done with the same lens but without flash, and the pose was also suggested by my brother. They are interesting, but don't beat the one above I believe.

Enlighten
looking at the ceiling.

The interesting thing about "Enlighten", beside the reflection in the eye, is the sharp eyelash line and eyebrow. I added even more sharpening (with noise cleaning) and also some change in saturation and hue to pop out the eye in between a dark skin (his skin isn't that dark really!).

Psycho

"Psycho" on the other hand was a good concept in color, but two reasons made me convert it into Black and White and try to increase the contrast from there to give a tougher feeling. The first reason is simply the idea of  a psycho, which I believe is represented better in Black and White instead of color. Remember that Black and White images tend to make the viewer concentrate on the concept and the composition instead of the color gradients in the image. The other reason was that a bluish streak around the eyes that I didn't know exactly how to remove properly, so along with the first reason I thought it is better to have the whole thing in Black and White. Maybe I should have done some skin smoothing (Median method again). Well, it might intensify the effect of a Psycho with such a skin!


Almost, this is what I have been doing this week. I'm still looking forward for more experiments to do but I need some planning. I took some photos for some instruments and devices in my work place, but I don't think I'm allowed to put those here. However, I think they are sort of boring, except for geeks of course!
T.G.I.T. Finally a day when I can't complain about my sleepless night, nor I have to wake up so early....

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...