Diaspora…

Saying "Exhausted" is not enough to fulfill the description of the current situation. At some point, I thought I would need some dose of adrenaline, and some Prozac at other times, just to get me through the past 2 weeks.
Rolling over many ideas, I kept my gear and camera scattered around the place, and that would require one day indeed to be collected back again. Some ideas were simple, but I was hoping to get through the project with something acceptable.

Spotting Red

Many props and items have been purchased or improvised trying to establish some ideas for some photos. I have to say that this project, The Color Red, was beneficial at some point for making my mind run wild and made me connect to my world; trying to express feelings by using the power of still life and setups. Something I rarely do in fact.

Broken Love (I)

The first thing to do was to repeat the rose and ice heart experiment according to recommendations given by the leader of the group. The new instructions involve removing the random petals and including the rose into the ice mold. That proved to be challenging somewhat, since the rose went afloat and froze just like that. Breaking the ice mold (resembling a broken heart) caused the rose itself to "break!" You can see that clearly in Broken Love (I). The rose being afloat was not a good "view," so to say. Thus, there was a third (and a final) trial.

Frozen (I)

Frozen (II)

The last trial involved doing layers of ice to stabilize the rose inside the mold. This was done in two days of time by pouring a layer of water and wait for it to freeze, then pour another layer and wait for it to freeze and so on till the pan or cast is filled (almost). I had to compromise here with the idea of freezing a boiling water (to make a transparent ice) as I did in the previous 2 trials. However, the shape and the translucence of the mold was even better that way! I liked it shape so I snapped several shots as it is without breaking it first as can be seen in Frozen (I,II). I had to break the mold then to mimic the main idea in mind…

Murder

Breaking the mold was a challenge by itself. This is because the ice was formed into layers and not frozen all as once piece. This made cracking the ice out of uniformity and was hard to be done in a soft and easy way like the previous trials. Had to hammer so hard and then collect the scattered blocks into one position trying to make a heart shape (somewhat!). At this point I've removed the plastic piece underneath the block (which I used to give some reflections); this would help keep the blocks stable and not easy to slide off the table. I cropped the final image in somewhat panoramic format to give more direction for the water (blood) coming out of the heart.

Murder (II)

A friend of mine then suggested to change the colors (in fact he was pointing out to doing the experiment all over again), making the heart red if possible. Hence, I thought of using the typical channel swap method which is usually used in infrared photography, where the Red and Blue channels of the image are swapped. However, upon inspection by the leader of the group, Murder was favored more (probably for its calm atmosphere). According to him, this can go into contests as well. I'm happy that I've finally made something!

愛 (love)

The "Red" project didn't stop at that point still though. I kept on trying to do more ideas. Many ideas proved problematic, and more problematic even was to spend valuable time trying to achieve them instead of skipping to other ideas on the queue. Painting strawberries, for example, was one of those ideas which I've abandoned for good (but came back later in another form as will be shown). The next idea on the line was simple: a mother and daughter writing the word "love" in Chinese. I chose that word specifically for its duality: it is the word for "love" and it has a radical for "heart" used in it. You can see above that the word "heart" is painted in red. Well, my writing wasn't that good specially that the brush used is not calligraphic in nature (Chinese calligraphy uses special kind of brushes and special types of inks). Anyway, I used the help of my sister and her daughter to show their hands with the brushes as seen above. Setting the speedlites was a hurdle, as I was trying to depend on camera settings and light setting as much as possible to approximate the scene to a high-key. I've reflected 2 speedlites on the sides off large white surfaces (papers or so) while a third speedlite was held in one hand with a "bulb" diffuser. Lot of work had to be done in Photoshop though, to fix the colors and contrast and also flip my niece's hand to make it a left hand (but the edit was a fail and the I uploaded the original as it is to stock sites). The image anyway did not pass the sorting process, but it was accepted in a number of stock sites.

Artificial Nature

I stopped for a while from the project Red, and chose to work with something else. I thought I was over with it back then but I got struck with some idea, but it involved editing more than just mere photography. However, the concept is the same one I was thinking about with strawberries before, and in fact I was looking for strawberries first, but then I realized working with apples is more appealing because of the larger size. The idea about the food consumption in our modern world and how it is "edited" with genetics. Without going into the details of the make of such "design" but opinions were mixed between a pro and a con about this edit. Personally, I do feel there is something missing but I can't put my finger on it yet.
The funny thing about this shoot though is the improvised "cube" or "tent" for lighting. Three large white surfaces (or hard papers, or whatever) were placed as a background and on two sides, while placing 2 halves of a car shade on the top and at bottom. Using only two 580EX II speedlites and each one of them is pointing to the opposite side, the lighting was good enough and almost similar to that of a cube or a tent usually used for product photography. The idea is to bounce the light from one surface to another just like the beams inside the microwave would do. That way, the scene is supposed to be lighted from all directions.

Side Dishes

In between those "red" photos, there were some older ideas were put on queue to be done. Specifically, some ideas related to the marbles' images I've done before. As suggested by a friend, an image of an eye reflected into the glass marble would be a better idea. For this idea, I was going to use my brother to sit behind the marble, but a better idea and more stable one was to use my laptop as a background.

They Are Watching…

The drawback here was the inability to fit the eye image to be completely full screen, and because of that some white lines appear on its sides. I've simply loaded the image into Photoshop and put the window on full screen. I had to use some extra stack on the top of the keyboard and then put the marble on top of the that stack, upon an acrylic sheet I usually use for reflections. This was essential as the keyboard was getting into the final image and this was undesirable.
In the beginning I was trying to fit the marble or the whole scene into the frame but then I realized a crop is inevitable.In fact, adding more space to the image and cropping later would give more flexibility in terms of design and placement for the marble and its reflection. In the editing phase, despite cleaning that sheet, I had to work for long time on cleaning the area below the marble.

They Are Watching (II)…

As I was working I had this idea of doing an inversion into an inversion. That is, inverting the eye image, and then inverting the image while processing it in Photoshop. When that was done, I've rotated the image for 180 degrees upside down. Why? Not sure. But it looked more pleasant that way. However, the overall look still not so appealing, probably because of the blue and black combination. The eye reflection here is also weak and somewhat lost despite the simplicity of the image. I'm eager to show the first to be sorted, but not the second! I'm sure the second would not have any chances.

Another side dish was served to me on Wednesday is when I got the news for the arrival of my second camera (finally!). It is another EOS 7D which I purchased from a friend and then sent it to LifePixel for conversion to a full-spectrum; That is, supposedly capturing infrared and ultraviolet spectra. Just as a simple test, I've tried this selfie while standing next to a glass door allowing the sun to come in, and also using the on-camera flash to quicken the shutter speed a bit (at ISO400). Interestingly, as I was working on LiveView (essential for focusing precisely), with the absence of clear IR sources (e.g. sun, flash), the scene would be as it is in normal images (i.e. the shot is not reddish). My initial position was in front of a mirror with CFL lamp on top, and since such lamps do not issue any significant IR radiation (and has a coating inside that blocks UV), the image in the LiveView was plain normal. The IR influence did not appear in a clear way until I moved near the glass door. More ventures need to be explored in that field, specifically when it comes to panoramas. The selfie you see here is plain and direct from camera RAW without any modification (except for resizing of course).

Finale

Many things are going and racing through my mind, which makes me more serious about having a vacation away from my camera a bit. However, having a vacation from my camera doesn't mean not, supposedly, stopping the experiments. I do have special concerns as I plan to jump further with my panorama processing, and I'm thinking seriously of putting my relatively-new Voigtländer 20mm f/3.5 lens into work with panoramas, and my initial checking tells that I wouldn't have to re-calibrate my VR-Head for this new combination of camera-lens. It needs time for further testing and inspecting and check that no parallax-error or minimal parallax-error is achieved with this lens without re-calibrating the whole set. If re-calibrating is required, I might give up the idea. The reason for going after this, is my belief that the optics quality is better with this lens more than my common and usual Canon EF 15mm lens. Another testing series should check for the amount of chromatic aberrations. In my previous shots like 愛 (love), which was shot with the 20mm Voigtländer at f/18, the aberrations were somewhat visible on close inspection. However, the final say is to be told only by direct comparison between the two lenses taking shots for the same scene under the same circumstances. On the other hand, I need to look after possibilities of doing HDR shots with my newly-converted camera, as well as shooting panoramas as I do with my normal camera.
I'm not sure when I would carry all these plans, because I'm thinking of resting for a while for real and try to organize my life all over again. Well, I think I'm failing at this already but I might do something at least. Heck, just thinking of my gear which I need to pack back into the proper places I get a shiver down my spine! It is not only the camera that is giving me some stressful times, but everything else around me seems to be doing so. I can almost swear that if I was a brick, I could have been cracked or smashed already for such amount of mental stress. Anyway, who cares… and I'm trying not to care, the best to my capability…

Geltani Galore…

Well, this is a quick wrap, since I didn't post anything last week (and in fact I was not going to this week as well!).
Life is going slowly in this heat. Man, I wish I can sleep and wake up and it is winter again. Not much action with my camera lately but I do have some plans that are on my waiting list. Been trying to do some clumsy DIY stuff with a Kleenex box (yes, tissue paper box) and make it as a light modifier for my flashgun (Canon 580EXII), but it was a failure so far. Never mind anyway, it was not a big deal but something to get active a bit. I have other plans in my head now.

The poor box.
Let's not go about how I made it. Should be obvious.

Ramadhan is here already, so blessed and happy Ramadhan. I can't deny my fear about it though; there shall be a lot of exhaustion more than it is there already, specially with students in college (where I work) are still on their summer classes. It surely means traffic jams galore, and with Mom's dialysis schedule, the situation is not pleasant at all this year. I don't think I would have much time for my own projects till the month passes.

Meanwhile anyway I've been keeping myself a bit busy with my Geltani project and I'm already starting to write a brief about it in order to send to Omniglot. I've sent an example already to the author just to see how it looks (because the look of the script is important if it is to be added to the website). In addition, I'm still fine-tuning some aspects about Geltani, and changing some previous rules.

Transliteration: jewno uwibañwoš', wá núc zing reñy'ču vá zing ča-xungči
Meaning: men are like bagpipes, no sound they give until they are filled.

No need to go on and explain the transliteration and the sounds of these characters. I'll keep it for another time hopefully. As I was rummaging back through my notes about Geltani, I've decided to re-adjust the Genitive case and make it closer in concept to Japanese. I had to look into this matter specifically because I'm planning to name Geltani in its own speakers' tongue as "people of rock." Modeling that on the Japanese (の) [no], the order should be then as "rock-of people." The character which will act as the  Japanese (の) [no] will sound as /xə/ (with IPA "x" sound as Scottish or German "ch").

Genitive character
/xə/

There are other things to refine as well, like the syllabary system that comes with Geltani (something close to Katakana in Japanese). However, I'm trying to keep the language agglutinating (like Turkish) as much as possible. Geltani is not supposed to be a tonal language like Chinese, but it seems I would have to refine the values for some syllabic combinations further in order to make them distinguishable in sound. If that does not work as such, I would probably have to go ahead and hit the tonal approach just a bit.

Goals

Now with Ramadhan being here already, I do have a list of goals, but of course without a specific time table to do them. I'm thinking of seriously stopping the blog during this time until the month is over. But I'm not sure about this decision yet. Some of these goals include:

1. Doing a B&W panorama out of JPG images instead of RAW (as a challenge).
2. Doing an Infrared panorama from a bridge (previously done in a normal mode).
3. Doing more doodles and sketches and convert them to vectors. A project I stopped long time ago was to make a set of sketches about a specific theme and convert them all to vectors and upload them to stocks.
4. Maybe infrared portrait with high flash pulses.
5. Staying alive.

Bridge-O-Rama
Where I want to do an infrared panorama.

I've been busy with the group and specifically with some aspects of the website (raising it up after being down), beside working on getting an international recognition for our group (or club so to say). All that kept me a bit busy as well and away from thinking about my camera. But hopefully I'm coming back to this soon.

The past few weeks had been full of headaches and sleeping problems (though I've always had them but the rate was higher this time). Now, wishing I did indeed sign for a leave for Ramadhan already…

Blessed Ramadhan folks…

Yggdrasil…

This blog post contains a QTVR which uses QuickTime plugin to be displayed. The page might load slowly, and might not be displayed properly on tablets or smartphones. 

Summer is officially here. It is already 43°C (~109°F) at daytime. I wonder how much that would be around "real" Summer? I can't even bear the idea in my mind with getting a splash of melancholy more than it is already.

I've recently finished an eye check-up (last Sunday), which is a regular one done every 6 or 7 months since I've been diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP). Sounds a bit of good news now when the doctor said that the situation seems stable. I do have my problems already in walking around specially in confined spaces, but compared to my eldest brother, I can well take care of myself so far. Probably the Vitamin A treatment is doing its job in slowing down the process of decay of the retina cells. Hopefully!

Success with Mess

I've finally managed to stitch the tricky panorama taken from Al-Hamra tower about two weeks ago. The panorama was tricky because of the moving subjects AND stable subjects in the scene; adding to that, the hardships with moving the remnants of the tripod in some projection styles.

Inside Al-Hamra

Of course, the series must start off with the regular and the most humble project: the flat spherical. The major problem here was with slide 7 specifically (center, to the right a bit). There were major stitching errors in that spot specifically and there was a "gap"; because slide 7 was removed completely. Adding any bit of it would scramble the whole area, thus I had to remove the culprit and try to mend it manually. In a small size it would be fine to look at I presume (and the QTVR looks good I believe). The tripod remnant in this version is not a problem since it is at the bottom, and a simple crop was enough to remove it.

By The Crown

The next "play" was to change the perspective. When trying the little planet projection, I personally didn't like the results, thus I changed my mind directly to see what the tunnel projection would yield. The result was By The Crown. One of the major problems here is the fact that, despite my attempt to centralize everything, but, as usual, things should go astray when the final image is made! I've spent quite a time with By The Crown trying to wrap, mold, and fix the axes to meet my vision. I wasn't lucky in other styles though!

İmparatorun Avlusunda
(in the emperor's courtyard)

Before heading to the little planet projection, I paid a minor visit to the Mercator projection (usually this is one of the "last" projections to explore when I do panoramas). The shape of the straight lines in the architecture and the uneven ceiling of the place did not help in achieving a good twisted panorama, adding to that the fact that the group members do appear in a crucial part of the panorama. Thus, a simple vertical panorama using Mercator format (to have a proper width instead of a slender one) is all I could do for the time being. Yet, I allowed myself to break the normal attitude when tone-mapping the HDR panorama and tried to add more drama to the scene by using "harsh" techniques, so to say., which caused specific halos around some elements in the image.
Yet when moved to the little planet projection style, there was not much to be done in this projection. It did not yield interesting results as much as the tunnel projection did. However, changing the viewing angle in that projection was enough (in fact the tunnel projection is just a planet projection with 180 degrees reversal).

Παλάτι του Ηρακλή
(Palace of Hercules)

Changing the viewing angle in the planet projection format did in fact yield 2 interesting results as we'll see; with 180 degrees of difference between the two. The first attempt, Παλάτι του Ηρακλή, is probably the most interesting panorama in the collection so far. When posted to 500px website, it was ranked as "popular" in just 30 minutes from posting it. This panorama caused me a lot of headache when trying to fix the axes of the image to make it as symmetric as possible, and removing the remnants of the tripod was a great deal of time and effort and yet it is not a perfect render still - it might look good only in the small version. Here too, I've decided to push the HDR tone-mapping further and try to make a harsh impact on the eye by exposing the black levels and increasing the contrast (and the vibrance of colors too). The tiles of the ground were hard to keep in symmetry and I believe they were not meant to be symmetrical in the first place! I think I'll revisit this panorama soon for B&W conversion or so…

Yggdrasil

The second, or the opposite angle for Παλάτι του Ηρακλή, was named Yggdrasil. Originally I was thinking of something related to spiders, but it crossed my mind that Yggdrasil is more interesting! Yggdrasil is the tree of life in the Norse mythology. To add a twist to Yggdrasil, I've added a Photo Filter to the original HDR panorama before tone-mapping. It was a magenta tint filter. However, I have to say I somewhat regretted this decision, as working with the panorama later on proved to be harder than I thought and the tones were problematic. I'm seriously considering re-tone-mapping this panorama without this tint. Anyway, it did reach the "popular" status in 50 minutes after posting it to 500px website. Removing the tripod remnants from Yggdrasil was relatively easier compared to Παλάτι του Ηρακλή, but it did take a long time as well, and discrepancies did occur in that area later on when tone-mapped and processed. The visual impact was sealed with sharpening the panorama with a bit of overdose. In this panorama, I couldn't hold things in a square format as it was with Παλάτι του Ηρακλή before, because some features at the bottom were not adding much to the scene (and cropping from the sides a little did help eliminate some stitching errors and avoid me the hassle of fixing them). These are the panoramas done from that specific location so far…

QTVR-wise, there was only one QTVR of course, since it is all about one panorama. Again, when making a QTVR right now, I don't have to worry much about the nadir point. I've started to adapt the logo approach at the nadir point mostly right now. However, because of some recent developments, I'm thinking more about changing the style in which I represent my QTVRs on the web; even though it might takes up some learning curve in the field of coding and webpage development…

 

The difference aspect here though, is the fact that I didn't render the QTVR at the size of 400x300 pixels as I usually do for this blog - but it was rendered here in a larger size and the window is fixed at 400x300 size; I think this way is better for representing the details better in such a small space. At the bottom of this QTVR you can find the information about the location.

Revision

In the past two weeks I've been ignited again to have a peek into Chinese and Japanese, specifically after my follow up with an old cartoon: 三国志 (Jap: Sangokushi), or Romance of Three Kingdoms; a famous work of Chinese literature made into an anime.
Digging further into the names of the characters and trying to understand more the tonal system used in Mandarin Chinese, made me sweep through the language as a whole and specially some of the sounds and notations used in the Pinyin system to note down Chinese. Some of these sounds used in real Chinese are not implemented in Geltani, but I did add some Semitic sounds already to Geltani which made it a Sino-like language with a Semite touch. Some of these sounds are: voiced and voiceless alveolo-palatal fricatives. I think applying the tonal system is out of the question here since this would complicate the matters further, but it would be nice to understand AND comprehend the tones by hearing them in spoken manner. I know, things like that sound natural to a Chinese person probably, but as an Arab, tones are used to distinguish a style of speech (as in most languages, e.g. in question or sarcasm), but to use tones solely to distinguish meanings is pretty much a harder task for someone without trained hearing. This ignites in me a question of whether or not such languages do help, naturally, their speakers in musical endeavors. Would someone learning Chinese get, by nature, the capability to distinguish musical notes more easily? Is learning Chinese easier relatively for someone who deals with musical tones?
Anyway, there might not be a space for extra sounds in Geltani already, but I think it is worth some consideration. I do have some plans regarding some revision for the Geltani - and I know, I've been saying this for long now, but most of the processes regarding this project are mental and not noted down! I think I must start building a webpage for it soon and send it over to Omniglot and see what happens.
By the way, probably I should stop using the "semite" and "semitic "notation by now since lot of people, as far as I know, are reluctant to use them because they are remnants of the Orientalists who based their classifications upon the Bible majorly, and less on scientific evidence. However, in Arabic books that I've encountered so far, some authors tend to call this language group as Arabic / Arabian languages or Ancient Arabian languages sometimes, referring to the fact that most of those who speak such languages, specifically Akkadians (the first Semites to arrive in Mesopotamia and lived along side with the Sumerians) were immigrants from the Arabian peninsula, and hence it is logical to call such group as Arabian languages as a whole. Anyway, in modern Western styles, such group is called mostly Afro-Asiatic languages as I reckon.

Finale

Feeling a bit down since I couldn't accompany the group to Dubai this week to attend PhotoWorld Expo. Too many things on my plate that I couldn't really afford to go and come back just for 3 days. Anyway, many positive feedback are coming already and I'm glad that they've made it as the only Kuwaiti corner in the expo.
I've got visiting visions in my mind about writing some short story of some sort (many topics crossed my mind actually), beside writing poetry as well. Yet, when I look at the time I do have and all the things that I must attend to, makes me scared to even think about adding one more task into my daily scheme and schedule. For this reason, I might have, at some point, to give up some of my time that I do spend here in front of the PC and processing images, as well as dwelling on some social medias aspects, to pour that time down on other sides of my own self. 
Meanwhile, I'm trying to re-collect myself; my judgements, actions, reactions. Many things to go through in my life, as I get more isolated. Sometimes, leaving and relocating yourself in some far away places might be the only solution available, to gain some respect that you deserved in a long time…

Dilemmas...

Here we go, and as expected. Ramadhan has arrived and the unneeded stress started along. There is never enough time to do anything. Majorly, the main problem is the after-work nap which takes from 2 to 3 hours and sometimes even for 4 hours, and that makes me awry at night and unable to sleep early as in regular days. People in Ramadhan do indeed make a time shift and sleep late (because working hours are also shifted as well) but for me, I always try to fix my sleeping time as in regular days and never stay late unnecessarily. Now, I need to do that more than ever because Mom's dialysis timing is not changed and I do have to pick her up to there in the same time as in regular days. Moreover, I have to make her something to eat before leaving home (while we used to grab something on the way in regular days). In Ramadhan, it is insulting (and illegal) to eat in public while the whole nation is fasting. Well, we do have a medical permit or reasoning, but still, no need for embarrassment.
I've been to the doctors to check up with my nose and see the reason for bleeding. He said that the capillaries are probably weak and I need to have more vitamin C in my diet and provided me with some method to stop the bleeding as well. Finally, he said if that didn't work, then I have to go back to cauterize, probably by laser (?). I think in this week alone, I've lost a quarter liter of blood just through my nose!

The Dilemma (1)

This week I've been working on an idea for a panorama (and barely did) which I've been cooking in my head for a while. However, unfortunately for me, I'm having technical issues and a sluggishness in my skills. The panorama was taken twice in two different days, and two different lighting conditions, and with two different techniques.
In the first trial, in order to fix the bracketing for the HDR merging later, I've used my light meter and measured the light (incident) from different angles to the camera. There was a considerable gap in the EV values. In the beginning, the expansion of the bracket was from -2EV to +2EV but apparently that some shots were somehow dark and the +2EV shots appeared as if they were taken at 0EV instead, thus I've started all over and made the expansion from +3EV to -3EV. However, the story was not over here.
In the current time and because the memory issues in my old PC, I've decided to work with my (new) laptop as I'm still preparing my new PC before plugging it online completely. Sincerely, I'm so lazy to do all of that and it's connected to my TV at the current time; Not a pleasant view and my room is a mess. However, in my laptop and after merging the RAW files into HDR slides and trying PTGui to stitch them out, it turned out that the slides were apparently dark and PTGui could not find control points at all!
This matter triggered me to do another trial and this time, instead of working in Manual mode and taking light measurements, I've decided to go back to the old methods (tried and true!); Working in Av mode and letting the camera decide for the shutter speed, and I had this occasion to increase the f-number from f/8 (as in the first trial) to f/16, to make sure than things are sharper.
The reason I've decided to do a second session is the assumption that the dynamic range was so wide that PTGui could not assemble some control points in between any two images. However, even in my second trial, Photomatix and PTGui followed with the same behavior: dark slides, and unstitchable panorama. After many trials to install and re-installing older versions of both programs, I've finally came about to some solution and finally the panorama was stitched.

Wooden Hall (trial stitch)

I've spent several days trying to figure out what was going wrong with my (usual) procedure and why things do not work out in the laptop as they do on PC. The panorama above, Wooden Hall is just a trial and not a final image to be submitted to stock sites because of the weird (and usual) blue spots, but I've decided to put it online anyway without any fixes and ask for help about this matter, if there is any available! I'll try to summarize my thoughts here in points:

1. Apparently, the main problem was in Photomatix and not the (new) PTGui. After installing several versions of both, it turned out that Photomatix v4.0.2 yielded clear HDR slides that are viewable easily in PTGui (any version), but the new version (v4.2.4) was problematic. I'm not sure why this is happening but there were already some issues when I moved from Photomatix v3.0 to v4.0, like the ability to tone-map without opening the HDR slide - a problem I used to encounter with large little planet panoramas, and my way around it was to set the values in v4.0, save the settings and use the side-cart file (the XMP file in which settings are saved) into v3.0 using the batch process facility. The thing is, because of the large file size, v4.0 used to give me a memory error and stops responding when I try to process the tone-mapping at once. Why don't I use v3.0 to tone-map already? Well, it turned out that v4.0 has a better on-monitor representation of the actual image after the tone-mapping is done. When tone-mapping in v3.0 (as far as I remember), opening the image in Photoshop later would yield a completely different image in terms of colors and shades and I would have to work around this with adjustment layers. The situation here is somehow similar in between v4.0.2 and v4.2.4. Advice: Don't always jump on newer versions of any particular software. It is good to try new stuff but always make sure you will be going smoothly with it. Keep older versions in store somewhere, as you might need them at any time!.
2. The new PTGui (v9.1.6, and I think v9.1.7 is out there) has lot of interpolation possibilities, more than I had in the old stuff in my old PC. Interpolation is the way that a program would interpret or "read" the pixels across the image. The three basic ones were Bilinear, Bicubic, and Nearest Neighbor. Each one of those of course got a specific usage (some of them are explained in Photoshop resizing facility), but in PTGui there are no descriptions about any of them. In the new version, however, the list is expanded further to include Lanczos and Spline (with each one of those got several types). Speak about new stuff to learn and burn the time with!
3. I've merged the RAW files several times and stitched the panorama several times (and thanks to my fast laptop, the stitching process takes merely 5 minutes for a 10,000x5,000 pixels panorama!) as I was trying to figure out the reason for these blue streaks across some regions in the panorama. My conclusion is (and I've done that before actually) it is more related to the color space, and it might be related as well to some gaps in the dynamic range of the HDR slides; I'm not sure yet. However, merging in different color spaces and stitching the panorama after, proved to me that the blue color spots (you can see them in the image above) were reduced significantly (in saturation let's say) when merging the HDR in a lesser color space as sRGB. Also, the streaks appear more or less around regions were there happens to be some stitching errors. Stitching errors cause such problem? Color space? Dynamic range? All of them? Not really sure, but it is surely annoying. I couldn't edit the panorama and fix it in this laptop mainly because of the size of the laptop and my sluggish movement with it and the display is small already. Thus, I've decided to upload it as it is and might try to fix it later when my new PC is ready.

My world is spinning right now and I have to finish up with this PC and try to hold to my camera again, and work with more panoramas even.

The Dilemma (2)

Well, this second dilemma is somehow to a lesser degree. It is just a dilemma about Geltani and some aspects about it. I've been working a bit with the sounds that are to be used in Geltani and I've figured out that it is almost impossible to avoid repeating some sounds. I've decided here that it is time to introduce some sounds that are unfamiliar to the far east in general, thus giving a touch to alienate the conlang from a typical Asian sense. With these new sounds, like the Arabic ħ [ح], I've decided to add some possibilities for creating dual-consonants and doubling (or stressing) some. Even with those creations, it is impossible as it seems, to provide a distinctive sound for each combination of leading and driving couplet. Would there be two words with similar sounds and different meanings?
In that sense, the scenario would be a mimic of reality of the far east languages, and specifically Chinese and Japanese, where is typical to find one character with several pronunciations and even meanings. However, I don't think Geltani would be close to that level of complexity of the real languages, but it has a comforting effect to think that having a repetitive scheme of sounds for different types of couplets is not really a bad thing, and it somehow mimics the real world to some extent. The characters (or logograms) would be definitely different if, at any chance, two words or more bear some resemblance in the sounds. The question now is, on what basis I should base the driving sounds?

Finale

David Schap's book is over with right now, and I'm trying to find something to replace it with from my arsenal of old books. As I've mentioned before, probably I would go through my old languages books.
Many ideas are racing through my mind right now, like having a leave for the rest of Ramadhan just to have my own timing and not to worry about work and waking up in the morning, but Mom's dialysis schedule holds me back from this idea, because the center is near my work place and eventually, the torture won't stop (but yes, I would have more time for myself).
Because of all this pressure, in the work-front and the home-front, all what I'm trying to do right now is to break all the cuffs and find a way out of obligations to work with my own projects and my camera. Feels like being married without a real partner, I guess.
Also, I'm trying to consider some way to integrate myself through the group back again, but without the work load that I used to get. Probably my membership would be changed from special to regular because of the low activity level I'm participating with. There is also a crazy idea cooking in my mind: to write a book in Arabic about the basics of photography. This idea arrived to me looking at the arsenal of the photography books that I have that are all in English, and many people here can't have the benefits of such books despite their love for photography because their lack of expertise in English. It is such a sorrowful thing that a language can stand a barrier in learning. Not sure this idea will go further but it is worth considering anyway!
I'm typing this post and watching TV in the hall, with some show about the Canary islands; It makes me dream of vacations and traveling again. I want to see the world again out there... if only I can find someone to take care of Mom as much as I do...

Roaring Engine...

Attention: QTVRs ahead - give some time for this post to load, please!

Amid the political dilemma in this country, I'm cooling down my head and trying to carry a grin wherever I go. Despite the fear in the eyes of everyone I meet, I just feel delighted. I'm on a vacation until November 17^th and I'm going to enjoy my time even if the sky is falling down on Earth.
I'm coping still with my sleeping time and somehow I managed to fix it little bit. But I know myself, I'm going to screw it up again soon. It is amazing how time flies, as I've prepared already my first album of 20 images from New York (and Staten island specifically). I remember when I used to work on images from Ireland, it did take me more than just 2 weeks to prepare a single album (of 20 images). I have to prepare a mass e-mail with all 20 images now.

There are lot of panoramas here to deal with and naturally, lot of problems to deal with. Unfortunately, some of them have problems that are not resolved so far; mainly problems in flare and exposure settings, but less problems in terms of alignment of slides and broken lines.

Enlightenment

Working with panoramas is a weird business indeed. Hardships can arrive at any point, and easiness might come from points that you thought were hard - or vice versa. The panorama taken from the Chinese Scholar Gardens on Staten Island, Enlightenment, can be an example for this phenomena; if I can call it so!
This panorama had no need to add a zenith point (topmost slide) because the upper range slides make up a closed region on top making the panorama perfect. As for the nadir point (bottom) it was relatively easy to work it out with a logo. The hardest point in the panorama, however, was the White Balance (WB) and I've struggled with the color cast and the shade in general. I think I've learned my lesson here: a gray space is not as easy as it seems! I had to do many editions in HDR mode before baking (tone-mapping) the HDR here. One of the fixed things is selective exposure reduction which helped adding a halo around the lanterns.

The Porch

I'm trying hard to make a QTVR out of any panorama I've taken already but some of those just don't make it as good as the flat version, just like the The Porch panorama; taken from the porch of the Victorian B&B. I would describe my struggle with panorama as a moderate one, but the magenta tones and the dramatic noise level made the QTVR a bit of a non-pleasant experience. Anyway, I've added the QTVR below. This particular QTVR was limited with its downward tilt because the logo got really awful after tone-mapping - which taught me a lesson here: Add the logo AFTER tone-mapping.

The Victorian B&B

Just before leaving those panoramas from the 1^st set or album, I'd like to bring here one panorama that is already to 2^nd set. The Victorian B&B panorama was/is one of the hardest panoramas that I've worked with so far. In fact, it was stitched and re-done twice. In the beginning, I stitched the panorama making the middle line of the house (the partition between the first and the second floor) in the middle, which makes it a horizontal line. Why? Because at this point I was able to clone the tree branches on the top and I would no need a zenith slide to be placed there. However, after making the QTVR I've found out that the result is weird a bit and the view does not resemble how the scene is viewed with perspective of a standing man.
On the other hand, the clouds and the exposure related to them were a major problem and even though I've reduced the effect of the plain color patches by changing blending priorities, yet there was some cloning job waiting for me in Photoshop. Tone-mapping this HDR panorama was done in such a way to emphasize the green factor in the scene, which required Photoshop processing too.

Bent Not Broken
Canon EF 100mm macro, f/2.8,
800^-1sec, ISO 100

Of course, not all my work had been on panoramas, but I try to spread my efforts equally between single shots and panoramas by doing some single shots in between panorama projects, but there are times when I just didn't feel like touching anything at all. Bent Not Broken was already done when I was on Staten island, but I've re-done it when I arrived back home and I've increased the sharpness dramatically to make it more pronounced. The crop is made into a square as I felt it is more pleasant for the eye and serves the bending stem perfectly rather than a wide empty space on the left side (even though such space can be used for some text if any need arises) - yet, I've felt I should make nature speaks with silence and no need to give much unnecessary space.

Happy Halloween

However, not all single shots were easy. I mean by single shots, shots that are not prepared for a panorama here. Most of them though are bracketed shots for HDR merging - even though I frequently see my chances with single RAW file editing before proceeding to do the HDR - unless I'm pretty sure and know exactly what I want to do with the HDR, then it is the time to head directly for merging. A shot like Happy Halloween pronounced to me that I need more dramatic light here. After mangling with Photomatix for several minutes if not one complete hour, the effect I really need to do was not available just like that - so, I had to approximate and carry the job into Photoshop to take care of the rest. I can't remember how many adjustment layers did I add, but two words can tell it all: Too Many!

Basket Maker House

Basket Maker House (BW)

There are also some instances where it is hard to decide which to upload to the stock images websites like the Basket Maker House sample. The Black and White version was done back in Staten island with my laptop (since I was planning to to work with color with my PC alone for better resolution and view). Both versions are tone-mapped from HDR and to me, I like them both. I leave it for you to decide which one is closer to your feelings!

QTRVs

Now, to the real stuff. Well, skip this section if you don't have QuickTime plugin installed already. I've prepared small QTVRs for posting here but also some of them were prepared in large format.
To reduce the size, I've started not to render the QTVR using 100% quality, but something between 70-90%, even for large format panoramas sometimes depending on what I'm aiming for. I've noticed though at 100% large format QTVRs tend to be crisper and sharper more than the original sharpness - I hope this is not an eye trick.
First we have the temple place at the Chinese Scholar Garden:


You can get the large format from here.

In this QTVR I tried to do an elegant move by putting the text in a circular form around the nadir point instead of just putting the text in the middle as I did before. I think it works nicely that way - but the mistake was that I didn't put the nadir point after tone-mapping, but I did it in HDR Mode and tone-mapped the whole image making the text, sometimes, illegible.

The porch's QTVR isn't really something I'm happy about, but I did try after all. The weird textures and patches of colors in such a small size QTVR makes it weird looking and doesn't really reflect the comfort reflected in the flat image itself. I didn't prepare a large format QTVR for this one though.


 

Then comes the irony with the hardest panorama but the easiest one to fix its nadir point: The Victorian B&B from outside.



And you can find a larger format in here. You can see that the nadir point was easily fixed by cloning the concrete ground. I love such grounds! But alas! it's not always that easy!

With these panoramas, I've done mostly all of phase one concerning my panoramas, which is supposed to be about flat presentations of these panoramas, and QTVRs along with that when possible. Only few panoramas like my room's remains to be checked, and also the pond of the Chinese Scholar Garden which is prepared already but unfortunately, has a flare and changing colors problem that can't be easily fixed in Photoshop. Probably I have to work hard on this one. Phase two, however, can be anything; Litte planets, wide-view, tunnel view, I really didn't decide yet.

Thoughts and Condolences

Despite my short stay in the US, on Staten Island, I think my experience and interactions with people there was rich - richer than it was in Ireland I presume.
One of these interactions were not physical, nor even direct, but something ethereal, if I can call it so. It was Saturday, October 20^th when I headed with my friends from Staten Island to a nursery where Mr Harrison is kept for extensive care, specially for his condition of Alzheimer. It was a quiet little family gathering and I've been introduced to the members, but not directly to Mr Harrison. However, I've remained and took some pictures, and in one weird moment, this old man, who was celebrating his 91^st, raised his head with a smile looking at me for some reason that I couldn't realize until this moment I'm typing this - yet, after being paralyzed for a moment and looking into his eyes, I've started to shoot some pictures of him with that look.
Now, after Sandy hurricane that swept through the eastern parts of the US, and which devastated Staten Island, and after 2 weeks and getting back home, I got the news that Mr Harrison had died. Maybe we should be happy for him because he didn't live in torments for long and now he is in a better place. But the fact that such a connection was made between us, without even a chat or a touch, that, is something to be revived and remembered.
Now, I do have a firm belief, that everything that was done -my travel, my stay, meeting friends, and getting back home before the storm, and being there with the family of Mr Harrison, and being with Mr Harrison- all of that, was done and planned in my fate for a reason and a goal. Now, it is the time for me to think and recognize the lessons. R.I.P. Mr Harrison.

3D Hunting...

Been a lazy week on one frontier and a busy one on the other. Lazy in the sense of my own projects, and sort of my photography, and busy with my work place somehow. I've been roaming around looking for chances to get a scholarship, again. I stopped looking for some time because many events took place and I was not in the mind for it but I'm in again and trying to find my way around. Still, there are many places to ask in. All of that gave me no time to write a poem, which is annoying really because I do have a sort of a wave of feelings, but yet, I can't write them down for the lack of words. A line or two and that's it. Also, been looking around for some other host to build my Ayvarith page, since the discovery I've made, which is: Fortunecity, sucks. I can barely upload some images there; no audio, no clips, no MOV files and probably no SWF (flash) files as well? The thing is that publishing the Ayvarith transliteration of Alexander's story online via WDC is on hold, because I need to add these vocal samples, which I need to dumb online first. I'm still looking and didn't make a decision yet. There are lot of webpage-building websites with ready-made templates, but those don't suit my needs.

Grabbing my backpack wherever I go, trying to get my eyes on anything I can catch, but with not much to be done. I'm trying to get back to the 3D realm, that time when I used to take pictures and convert them into 3D anaglyph (red-blue) images, but so far, I couldn't find good subjects. Only once though, with that scene from the beach...

3D Infinitum

I'm on the look for more appropriate subjects, and taking my backpack of cameras and lenses and the tripod wherever I go almost, even to work. At home too, trying to come up with something, but the trials aren't always successful. Not successful in the means of having my own satisfaction with it. You can tell I spend so much time alone and have nothing to do, yet my mind is in turmoil and barely able to do anything. It's like being paralyzed "ethically". However, doing more trials with my Tamron 70-300mm telephoto macro lens, I remembered that I do have an old collection of seashells that I've collected from the nearby shore, and it was a thought, long time ago, to take a close-up for some of them. I had to settle it down somehow (and it hard, because I didn't want to use glues) and went on shooting (with brackets of course)...

Seashell

I had to stay away from my self-made softbox for about one meter or so (~3 ft), and I think the zooming factor is good, having in mind that the shell is actually the size of my thumbnail (or less). One of the hardest things in the image above to settle down, was the White Balance (WB). With HDR tone-mapping you can change the WB as you wish but also the original WB used plays a role, and I think the original was Daylight WB. I figured that Daylight WB is more flexible to change when doing tone-mapping after doing HDR. Having Tungsten or Fluorescent WBs (i.e. cool temperatures for the images) makes the original images bluish and when tone-mapped and changing the WB to something close to "hot colors," usually the images end up with a violet or purple hue that, most of the time, won't be suitable for the general mood of the image. However, doing this, will still require some extra work for boosting the contrast and tweaking the general temperature or fixing the color balance, and all done after tone-mapping in Photoshop. I tried to do some 3D effects here but, unfortunately, the fact that the subject is in a softbox and not much of an interesting background makes it really dull and useless to do it in a 3D anaglyph image.

How to do a 3D Anaglyph? 

Just some steps that you might want to try out to make these things, but remember it doesn't work all the time because it all depends on the composition of the image and also depends on the visual capabilities of the viewers themselves. Have in mind that you will need some editing software like Photoshop. I believe some other freeware stuff can do. So, here we go:

1. In this process you will need to take 2 images of the scene to mimic the human vision; one left-eye image and one right-eye image. You can do this by 2 cameras if you like, but for me I always go with one camera and after the first shot I would pan the camera (or rotate it around its body axis) for few (not much). This distance in few degrees is just to mimic the distance between the two eyes. You can as well simply, while standing in the same position and being stable, move the camera's viewfinder (if you are using it) from your left or right eye to the other eye and focus on the same subject. Remember, there should be one object at least that is the center of the focus in the image, because this point of focus is important for later process. Having this idea in mind, you can go around with your tripod if you like for more stability, if you like.
2. Now processing. You got your images correctly hopefully (and maybe you'd better be shooting in JPEG rather than RAW but the choice is yours). In Photoshop (or any other software) you should open your images and layer them one upon the other. You should mark carefully which one is for the right-eye and which one is for the left-eye. You can check for yourself easily as you notice the relation between the focus point and the background; things tend to shift to the right when viewing with the left-eye, and vice versa. Put the right image on top.
3. Reduce the transparency of the top (right-eye) layer to 50%, or to whatever suits your level of vision, and now drag your layer around to make the focus point coincide with the focus point in the lower layer. Remember, it is not necessary to make it 100% perfect, as there might be some difficulties coinciding the two foci. The major idea here is to make the distance between the two images as minimum in that particular area of the image (parallax error?), while neglecting (somehow) the rest of the image for the time being. Once this is done, get the transparency back to normal (100%).
4. Now, the setting is Right on top, and Left is below. Now take the Right image and suppress the RED component (I'm supposing you are working in RGB color system). This can be done in Photoshop by pressing Ctrl-L (or by using the menus to get to Levels command, or by adding an adjustment layer of Levels over the Right image). Once you get the dialogue box of "Levels", change the drop down menu from "RGB" to "Red". Now, move the White arrow at the bottom (not the one below the histogram which corresponds to highlights, but the lowest one) to the far left (or simply put "0" in the number box). Thus, you will have the black and white arrows all together in one place and your image will look bluish. Make a mind connection here: Right <=> Red channel. For me, I got the habit of using adjustment layers and I don't edit the images directly, thus whenever I use them in this case, I make sure I use the clipping (right click the adjustment layer itself and it's there). This will make sure that this effect will affect the layer just below the adjustment layer and nothing else. Just in case.
5. As you did with the Right image, you will do with the Left image below, but this time you have to suppress the Green and Blue channels, and your image will look reddish.
6. Change the blend mode of the topmost layer (Right image) to Screen. You image now should look something similar to what I've done above. Crop the excess on the sides as you wish, though I prefer you do it with respect to the aspect ratio between the height and width. To crop with respect to the aspect ratio of the image itself, pick up the crop tool and mark the whole area of the image. Then, move the corners as you wish but while pressing the SHIFT on your keyboard to ensure that the ratio is preserved.
7. After cropping and everything, your 3D image should be ready. Try it out and view it through the special glasses if you have any. Remember, you might want to try it more often to get some satisfaction and not every scene is capable of producing some astonishing results. To my experience, I think spherical objects have the potential of giving out great 3D view.

 On the beach still, trying to go out there specially in the times of low tide to fish for some chances. I was lucky one time which kind of sparked my mind on another purchase on the list of my endless dreams...

The Observing Heron

I was working on my monopod (because the tripod was fixed inside the car to take some videos while driving) and it was sort of flexible with me, with its 3 mini-legs expanded. The monopod was collapsed o its minimum height and using the full zoom of Tamron 70-300mm and switching to Macro focusing as well, I had some how a nice shot of this fella. I took so many images (of course not bracketed) trying to get everything i can from his own movement over the surface just before he flies away, and then I would sort them out back home. The weather was dusty and didn't help much in this, but at home I picked one image and did the "magic" to eliminate the yellowish hue and enlighten the body of the heron. Herons by the way are immigrants, but by time they somehow settled down in Kuwait. This is what I've been told by someone in the know. Despite the dust that day, HDR imaging somehow improved some images as well...

Infinitum II

Processing the previous image was not an easy task for the level of noise that was present with tone-mapping. This is one awkward point in doing HDRs. You have to develop some strategy to overcome this somehow and after all, several ways might not work at all. Been receiving some attacks on HDR images and that it is not a real photography, and I'm tired of explaining myself that my goal is doing something beautiful and HDR is merely a technique for me to extract as much details as possible out of the scene. Strangely, in the last image, I did things unconsciously. After I got back home I remembered the advice of Alain Briot in his book, when he talked about capturing interesting lines and shapes, and specially the S-curved lines.

Also, this short trip to the seashore in the last weekend made me find out a fact about the Tamron lens I have; it has a tendency to show some strong chromatic aberrations. Now, this is somehow contradicting my own belief that wide lenses are the ones that exhibits such phenomena the most. I've read somewhere that it's a common feature for wide lenses and fisheye lenses to have chromatic aberrations specially if the object is back-lit. You would find some thin lines of red (or magenta), blue, cyan and yellow around the edges of the object. This is exactly what showed up in some of the images I've taken with this lens. Fixing it should not be hard task but when HDR technique is involved, it is worse than solving an equation in physics. HDR, and because you are combining several exposures, tends to somehow intensify the effect of the aberration and adding some contrast. Hence, it's hard sometimes to remove it with the usual "lens correction" procedures provided in Photoshop or any other software. I did go around it sometimes, but still it is not a practical mean nor successful all the time. One of these procedures is using the Hue/Saturation adjustment layers to suppress the magenta or cyan channels and confine these changes to the edges of subjects in the image. Photomatix, my favorite so far, got an option to remove chromatic aberrations from the RAW files as it combines them into HDR, but this option seems not quite the useful one here. It doesn't work most of the times. Maybe the best thing is to give up the RAW (and the stored dynamic range in them) and fix these aberrations in RAW then convert the images to TIFF16 format, and start the HDR from that point. One of the ways to go around this, is what I did with this image. Simply, converted to Black and White:

Terra Algae

The sun reflection from the water surface was strong even in a dusty haze, making all kind of aberrations around the edges of the rocks on the ground. Final solution I had in my mind is to give up colors and go Black and White! So much green in the image anyway and it sort of lost its magic in my eyes.

Currently, I've been worried about my tendency to be an "addict" to chocolate. Now with my life style like a single guy trying to do his own food most of the time, I do tend to eat some snacks rather than "real" food, and most of the time, it is chocolate. Well, I do change to candies but that's seldom. It's chocolate all the way. To be more specific in fact, it's only one brand that brings me joy: Kinder Bueno! Can't have my enough of that!

I do cook sometimes, say thanks to the microwave. The guy who invented the microwave got to be

a single guy as well. Turkey sausage wrapped in egg (stuffed with cheese, tartar sauce and cucumber with some spices). 

All done in microwave.

Majorly now, all what I have in a day is one meal, and the rest is just bits of this and that and some snacks. In fact, once I get back home I don't feel like eating (probably because I've already filled myself with chocolate and candies in my work place). Most of the time this one meal is a dinner; be it a simple corn flakes dish, or some cooking I do when I have the mood for it, or simply and order or a take-away.

It's Thursday now, TGIT. Hopefully, I will try to take a second try on shooting the Chinese restaurant from the inside as I was planning. Few days ago I was there as early as 7 P.m. just to reserve that corner of the restaurant for my work but unfortunately, there were already some people there in that specific corner. Maybe I should work late, despite the fact that the owner wanted to show the dishes on the table to add "life" to the image. However, that night I got several shot from several angles for the restaurant from outside, but none was what I aimed for. The long exposure time and the large f-number (small aperture) made it hard all the way.

Golden Chopsticks

Although I used somehow a small aperture to make a star effect as you see, but seems my choice was wrong. I think the star shine effect is not good in such a scene, or maybe it was way too hard on the scene. As you can see, the cars didn't spare me here. Some of them even had the mind to come forth and then go on reverse in front of te camera (the big white beam on the left). Unintentionally, the speed-lights covered the number plates of the cars in some nice effect. I don't want to expose these numbers to the public!

I took images with my 15mm fisheye and 18-55mm, but this one was the most appealing to me so far despite all the wrong-doing in it. It's taken with the fisheye, as you can tell from the edges of the image. The WB here is set to Tungsten, but the scene didn't go bluish in an ugly way. I should memorize this lesson now as I might as well use it for shooting inside, which has a reddish atmosphere as well. The WB here emphasized the bluish trend for the spot lights at the top while keeping the main building within its hot colors atmosphere (reducing the red a bit of course). Next time, I will try using a larger aperture (small f-number) for fast shutter speed, and to avoid the star shine effect which is not appealing here. I hope I can do this tonight.

I leave you now, with two videos. First one is one of my trials with time-lapse photography, with me going back home from work. The camera was programmed to take a shot every 2 seconds, and to minimize sizes and make sure that the memory card will take it all, I've changed the settings to shooting in medium sized JPEGs only. In the traffic jam who knows when will you be reaching home!?

The FPS (frames per second) here is 10, and I made several versions to check for the speed, and probably this is the best one. At the end it gets fussy because of turning around like a bee trying to reach home from the other end of the street. However, the generally quality is reduced of course for web purposes.

Secondly, I leave you with something I got addicted to at the moment. Old stuff (relatively), but addiction-trigger, to me...