Speed Gambling…

Somebody, anybody, just tells Winter to come over, please? PLEASE!? It's officially the fall season, so they say, and it is actually worth than summer itself even. Stinking humidity, allergies everywhere, and the worse of all, malfunctioning ACs and cars. Aaand let's not forget the boiler's problem at home where everyone still thinks that the water is "hot" while my body shivers violently when I take a shower and they refuse to turn it on because they think the weather, or the water, is still hot.
Anyway, I was going to post a bit about some photos I've shot from the Geology department, in my workplace, and I've edited these photos later on my PC. However, I think I'll skip that. It's just one photo which I've uploaded to the stocks already (you can click the stream at the end of this post to check my stock), and another one which I've turned into a 3D anaglyph. Not sure if I'm going to upload or do anything with the latter though. Anyway, Let's jump right into the experiment I talked about in my previous post.

Speed Gamble

In my previous post I've talked about some idea, using all my speedlites in a high speed photography set, like in the sketch on the left. Well, things weren't easy at first because, as usual and typical, I ran into a battery crisis and I had to give up on most of my rechargeable batteries that I've stocked for such work and got myself a new set of alkaline batteries, which are not rechargeable but hopefully more reliable. Another trouble was to set the table and stack the speedlites side by side and pointing at a specific point. It's a minor problem but it was quite vexing specially with connecting 3 out 7 speedlites with external power-pack (I have three 430EXII and one 420EX and these models do not accept external power sources unfortunately). All along the work process, I've changed the height of the tripod, the angle and few other settings; Most importantly from all these settings, maybe, would be the shutter speed, the ISO, flash zoom, and the flash power.
Now, flash power (for all speedlites of course) was set to manual and was controlled via the main speedlite which acts as a trigger as well (the one on the camera). I have to do this, since this is the only way to work with HSS mode AND control the rest of the speedlites wirelessly. I don't have a special trigger for that purpose. I lowered the power down, in hope that I can shoot in burst mode continuously (as this would reduce the recharging time). However, I was wrong. It didn't work that way and technically, I was limited to one shot. Anyway, I was also limited in raising the power too high up for the speedlites, because it might make my work with post-processing harder than it should be (by eliminating unnecessary parts from the metallic black tray I was using for my set).

Slow motion during a session.
For some reason I'm not sure of, the image turns black
when the flashes burst out.

As you can see from the video above, I had to work manually as usual. I've tried to set up my laser gate later on in fact but till this moment, it didn't work quite well. I'll explain the reasons below but first let's see some of the results that I've got in this way (and remember, all was manual, nothing was automated). The following images were, of course, edited and adjusted like a regular photos and they are not right out of the camera. So, there are adjustments and cropping involved; This is beside changing the lens from 100mm macro to 50mm:

The Falling One
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/3.2, 5000^-1s, ISO200

Fallen Luck
Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/2.8, 4000^-1s, ISO160

Левитация
(Levitation)
Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3, 8000^-1s, ISO200

 

 

Let It Go
Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3, 8000^-1s, ISO200

This is a sample for some shots. Some of them had reflections on the water surface clearly and some (well, most) did not. I've used my polarizer to enhance such reflections (and also to protect the lens front). If I remember correctly, there were around 347 taken (the majority were dark frames) and been sorted down to 91 or so, and the process out is still ongoing. At the moment of typing this, the editing is still ongoing and I didn't check all images. Out of the camera, many of the images were dark in fact and did need a push in exposure while editing in RAW; Sometimes +1 and sometimes +2. Not much editing was done in RAW beside setting the exposure and controlling the highlights and shadows in various manners, including Fill, Black Point, and Contrast. As can be seen also, the shutter speed was fluctuating between 4000^-1 and down to 8000^-1 of a second, trying to freeze the water motion as much as possible. I've also changed the flash head zooming for most of the speedlites here, and in the final stages of shooting, I've settled down with 14mm (by pulling down the diffusing panel over the speedlite head) in order to spread light as much as possible on the tray, as it was hard to point the heads down at the water surface.

Not Enough Speed

Now composition-wise, I was not very happy, and probably using the 100mm Macro lens was the perfect solution, but still then I do think using 50mm was a good choice to add some elements around the action and fill the space with something; But my arrangement was a bird absurd! I did indeed try to fix that in some shots but recomposing, cloning, and cropping. At this moment, I think using 1/8000s is the perfect speed (and it is the maximum allowed by the camera).
After finishing a session or two with the manual work, I've decided to try and use the laser gate (from Ubertronix), which I got long time ago and I've seldom used it sucessfuly; In fact, never used it successfully! And this time, was no exception. I've tried at this point though, and according to some old advice from a professional, to connect the trigger to the speedlites instead of the camera because this will reduce the lag time significantly and would yield better results. This method, though, requires opening the shutter for second and allowing the speedlites to be triggered and then close the shutter (either by using timed shutter or using Bulb mode and a remote, which I kind of prefer in fact). That means, working in a dark environment. The location I was in gets considerably dark actually, but I'd have to wait till evening to have a darker atmosphere. Anyway, a quick glimpse at it (after hard work trying to align the laser beam to the receiver to form the laser gate) - told me that it's not going to work; Not the way I like it at least, for a number of reasons:

• The distance between the laser and the gate is wide across the tray (even after changing the orientation of the tray), making it almost impossible to precisely drop the dice across the beam. Thus, the gap must be narrower to drop precisely.
• The height to which I was able to set up the laser gate was relatively higher than required, as I guess. We are talking about microseconds here if not nanoseconds, thus things should be properly close to the water surface as much as possible without showing in the lens's field of view.
• Without finding a mechanism to adjust the level of the gate, it might be a quite troublesome way to use such a gate to capture the moment. If for instance the dice is captured in motion before touching the water surface, then adjusting the height of the gate is required to capture the perfect moment; Otherwise, all shots will be similar. 
• Part of fore mentioned points, I think this keeps us at the level of macro shooting.

Personally, now, after checking the situation and how things work, I think I do indeed prefer using the manual method despite its drawbacks. I think it also gives various results and unexpected results that makes the work amusing to some level. All that hassle with the laser gate is really not required unless I need to work with something quite delicate (like droplets) in the future. Otherwise, I think I will stick to this manual method for the time being. Now, there are a number of things that I think I want to try (planning to but didn't have the time before typing this blog post in fact):

• Try to merge my workflow with stereoscopic flashing, if possible.
• Use variety of lenses if possible other than 100mm Macro and 50mm.
• Try different angles as much as possible.
• Increase the power of the speedlites and use single shot method since the burst mode doesn't work here.
• Maybe change the container or the set to something smaller to give out a better composition and background, and have better control.

Finale

Now, this is it for now. Let's if I can post more about the new trials that I'm going to do with this experiment of high speed photography. Let's hope I get the time and the mood to work! This week has its toll on me already and I'm trying to hard to slow down and simplify my life.

Lately, and after closing down some settings on Duolingo website which makes me theoretically out of the "leaderboard" or whatever they call it, which is about contesting and doing more exercises for more points - after closing that down, I think I'm having more time to myself to do more useful things, specially in the Arabic section of that website. Beside that, I'm thinking of typing a blog post for my Arabic blog about this high speed photography experiment. So, my next week will definitely be busy, but I'll try to manage my time here and there - Let's hope!

Is it weird that I'm fascinated about astrology these days? Well, I had my interest in that but it's been a bit more than before nowadays. It's all just some trials to re-discover and understand myself further. Maybe forgive myself for some things as well? Well, absolutely not wasting much of time with this though (otherwise, I wouldn't be typing this blog post right?). I think all of this condensed work and thought is part of my efforts to forget about my pains and disappointments. Nevertheless, it leaves me just exhausted… Now, if only I can jot down these words that roam my heart into some poem hmm…

Touch Down
Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3, 8000^-1s, ISO200

Schnell…

Messy, messy, messy. This is how my life is right now. Thus, this post won't be going long for the time being. Good thing is I'm doing some new experiments with my camera and trying to capture some still life, applying some ideas out of imagination so to say.

In the air there is a chance for another commissioned work, to be gotten via a friend. On the other hand, I'm surprised that the client of my first commissioned work (back in October) doesn't want me to spread my own work. The agreement first was until the calendar they are going to do is produced, I have to keep custody of the images. Now, however, the calendar is made and the client doesn't want the images to get spread. I'm wondering about the legality of such action since the rights of these images are not taken. I'm trying to consult some people in the "know" but yet no reply so far. In the meantime, I decided to make a glimpse about one the panoramas done for my first client! Well, this wouldn't count as spreading the image, would it???



This is one QTVR only (and there is a larger version for it). I'm planning to do more from this location on QTVRs, but it would need further work with composing a nadir stamp or logo. A somewhat lengthy task.

Kbir Qaddis Ġużeppi - BW

On the other hand, I've started the process of converting some of the new panoramas into B&W; mainly those from Oman and Malta, but the start was with panoramas from Malta, as it can be seen with the first one to experience that: Kbir Qaddis Ġużeppi. Under this impression, it struck me with a surprise that I did not even think or tried before, to do a QTVR out of a panorama in black and white! Most of the QTVRs Ive made or even those I've encountered personally online, were in color. Panoramas in black and white would probably give an atmosphere of what I like to call now: Jonathan's Style, in reference to Jonathan Boakes and his famous game "The Lost Crown." Probably the only problem here would be with the seam line between left and right edges of the panorama; because this was usually done by Photomatix in the tone-mapping process for the original HDR panorama altogether. I'm not sure I've turned this option on when processing most of these panoramas (if not doing them in Photoshop already instead of Photomatix).

My mind now is so busy with many ideas. Visiting some art events like the famous Den Gallery (here in Kuwait) and the 16^th Theater Festival - these visits did spark my mind a bit and this what made me turn on the camera and work on bits of ideas (while abandoning some old ones). I wished to spread the results here today, but there is much to be done still and a long sorting process must be made to these images. I'm trying to extract every bit of possible angle for the set.

Time to post this and head to bed now… I'm not sure I want to see tomorrow though, but the only thing I want to do for tomorrow is work with my dear camera…

What is "Sleep"?

I can't believe it! I'm seriously typing this blog now not because I have to, but just to pass the time and leave work in around one hour from now. Not much was going on except that I've been going around images, old images, and can't find anything new or any idea to start on with with my camera! Besides, I'm having sleeping problems galore. Mostly, as I think, because I can't keep myself awake after getting back to work. It is something that I needed to master in many months of hard work and, of course, coffee drinking. Now? Because of fasting, I can barely walk when I get back home. I tried so hard to keep myself awake by playing games and working on some photos, but the problem is not in being tired at all, as for the thirst or hunger, I've seen worse days in the past when I used to fast in mid-summer with a long period of working hours more than it is now in Ramadhan. The main thing is psychological. Working or playing, I just need something to release my stress with, and that is usually a drink, or some snacks.

On my games list now I have now a queue waiting, as well as on the books that I've downloaded, I can barely read something. I noticed that I do read PDF magazines better, maybe mainly because of the design and the layout (and the many ads!), and mainly, if there is some topic I'm not interested in, I just skip it and that's it. On the games side, I'm currently playing "Delaware St. John, Seacliff tragedy, volume 3". An adventure game, which unfortunately I didn't play it from its beginnings, but apparently it is about someone with some psychic ability and keeps seeing visions. Seems there is a side-line story about his life and history and where did he come from, but all, I guess, would be present in the previous volumes that I didn't play.

Generally, the game looks nice with a spooky theme, but I believe the controls are somewhat weak. Sometimes it is a hard task to find an object in some scene, and hence I've been using the walkthrough a lot. The graphics are moderate I would say, still, it is nice and not too lousy. I'd give 4 out of 5. Other games now on the list are the Dark Fall 2, or which was renamed "Lights out". One of the creations of Jonathan Boakes. Despite the fact it is relatively and old game (made before the amazing Lost Crown), but I didn't get the chance to play it still. I've downloaded it for now, and kept it on the queue to play with it after Delaware St. John, or, I might take a break with some hidden object game, like "The Haunted Hotel - The Lonely Dream".

As for my work with images, specially those taken from Ireland last year of course, I've noticed that now, I'm less dependant on the HDR capabilities in forming my images. I still use it though, but not as frequent as before. This perspective was also pushed forward with strange erratic behavior from photomatix and photoshop, which produced some weird noise over the windows that I could barely see the images displayed or the controls and sliders, but in Photoshop it was there, but less problematic because it all concentrated on the upper side of the window. Now, the problem had gone suddenly without doing a reboot, and I remember I've turned off something from the "processes list". Yet, I can't remember exactly what it was.
However, I'm trying to find those shaky images and, since I've taken triplets most of the time, I try to take the most stable version of those and work on it hard with the RAW converter to make a suitable one. If all fails (or sometimes without it being a failure), I just flip to black and white and enhance the contrast then.
One of the images that I've re-worked and unfortunately, was not accepted for the second time now, is the arched wall of Cong's Abbey, which the chromatic aberrations took the best out of it. On the way of Jonathan Boakes here, I've tried to make a vivid image out of it by converting it to black and white, yet, it was not accepted still in stock sites I know, but some people liked it, and I guess mainly because, as I think, they could see the minimized version only which almost hides those noises.

Cong's Abbey Arch (vertical panorama, originally in HDR)

Other than this image, there had been lot of photos that I've been working with. Some of them I've even discarded without saving the file, and some were only uploaded to my Photobucket. One of the images however, that frankly, I didn't expect stock sites to accept it, is an image I've called "Valhalla". Valhalla in Norse mythology is the court of gods or the place where gods live. Something like mount Olympus for the Greeks. I don't know why I thought of this paganic name (because I do hate to use such terms), but the clouds were so gorgeous here.

Valhalla

The scene was taken afternoons. It was not a storm, nor it was rainy or anything, but simply clouds passing by in various colors over Lough Corrib. I expected this image to be refused for many reasons, but well, I think I was lucky! This image was composed already by HDR, but I tried my best to show the details of the clouds and not make them plain, while in the same time trying to keep a somehow natural look. The tree and the far-side shore made a problem with the noise level in these areas when the RAW file was edited alone which made me think of making it a silhouette scene. Yet, with HDR the problem was almost solved, but with some minimizing to hide the artifacts! HDR itself produced me a problem when some banding in the blue color in the topmost portion of the image persisted. I had to choose that portion and go with gaussian blur as minimum as possible to hide this banding. Isn't it gorgeous? I remember myself literally raising my hands up feeling like I'm touching the clouds with my bare hands. I do miss Ireland already...

Another image, single RAW this time and not HDR, was the mushrooms beside the oak tree in Brigit's gardens. I took a triplet of those, but they were mostly shaky with one being stable somehow. I needed excessive sharpening to get it, somehow, into normal.

Yet, I didn't feel quite satisfied, so I went along and converted it to the typical mysterious black and white version. Gives me an impression of witchcraft on the go...

Both of the images above were submitted to stock sites. I've noticed recently though that I'm just too lazy to add a watermark on my images. I wonder if this is... right? or wrong? I don't know. But it is there on the mushrooms anyway. Some people said to me directly and openly that they are downloading my images after viewing them in Photobucket, but anyway, I don't mind since most of them are watermarked.

Well, time for me to pack things up and leave this place at once. I need a real shower today!!!

Alexander 6, V101.

It is sort of a busy day, with me being busy fixing the motor in the lab and figuring out some stuff. With fasting now, time seems so narrow and yet so boring in the same time. At work, it is boring and I would get tired reading or working with anything so fast without my usual power drink or coffee, and while I get back home and because of the tiresome body, I have to sleep directly upon reaching home and that, wastes a lot of my time, and even when waking up after 3 hours of time, I would still need some refreshment and some mood to work on what I plan to do, and that is something I don't get so often...

Been reading 3 books today at work, and also thinking of some words to write. I didn't write anything in weeks now and I just don't want to cool it down like that. Should I stop my fasting now just to retain some aspects of my life? It's so hard for me to decide really...

__________
2401. Juvvál brought a stool and sat beside the hero
2402. and with a soft and slow voice he started his speech
2403. "O hero, why do you like to make things harder for you?
2404. life is life, everyone has a matter in it by every single day,
2405. see those merry men, they work by day so hardly,
2406. and by night they sleep happily for what they have done,
2407. life does not matter if you have faith in God,
2408. because you will always know that He has His ways,
2409. and from His ways, the wisdom comes to you and guide you,
2410. tell me O hero, where are you from? Your name is weird to me!"
2411. thus Alexander went on explaining the story of his life on Daynur
2412. and how he became a dweller in the lands of Uhir Daynur
2413. it is then when Juvvál said: it is a great matter indeed!
2414. it is the Hermit then you are seeking in this place,
2415. no one from the farmers dares to go to the place of the Hermit,
2416. it is dark even in midday, and beasts roam all over the place!
2417. but I presume you have no problem with that with your Cadid!
2418. then Alexander said: and how to reach that place?
2419. then Juvvál extended his arm and pointed to a tip
2420. the tip of the mount was like if it covered one moon
2421. and the bluish halo surrounded its tip like a saint
2422. thus Alexander said: is it there what I am seeking?
2423. Juvvál answered: yes, your Hermit lives there on the top,
2424. in a place so to be called, the House of the Hermit

Headache, Headache, Headache...

An awful day. The headache just doesn't leave my head. I don't know what pill to take, and the humidity just makes it worse.
After going around as usual on Thursday's night, and after dropping my friend back, I went to the seashore to take some photos finally after delaying the plan for one or two weeks. The humid weather makes it good for light sources, so I didn't want to miss the chance for taking photos that night. I got back home finally at 2:30 a.m., and worked directly on the photos. I'm not so satisfied with the results though. Each snap took some seconds for the shutter to close and open again, and in that time, the camera might have shook a bit, despite the fact that I was using a tripod but there was some breeze in the air. I tried as well to make a panoramic shoot for one building (which I don't know what it was exactly), and like any panoramic shoot, several pics are taken, but this time I had to take 3 shots for every part of the building going all the way up to the top. I could have taken all the building in one shot but with a zoom-in and making a panoramic shoot, you can enlarge the building enormously. Still, I am coping with the noise in these images.

On the other hand, there is always the typical shooting for the Kuwait Towers and this time from afar (and I did this one before as well). The humidity I guess helped to add to some sparkle and halo around the light sources in the image. The image is composed in HDR but also been twisted around with colors and contrast. Otherwise, I think it would be a dull image.

As for now, I have to find something to eat (though I don't feel like it) because it is the beginning of Ramadhan, the month of fasting. With this headache I can't force myself to eat, but maybe some dates and milk would do. I don't know what pills to have now to calm down this damned headache. Maybe some Cataflam would do! Not a weekend that I would like to have again in my life...

Brainstorming Needed...

Today, I decided not to do any translation for Alexander's story, and concentrate more on writing something for my story in writing.com. I can't say I did write much but in general sense it was more than I did before in the past few days. As for the translation it can wait. I had to do this to keep on catching the ideas that were afloat in my brain at the time of the writing. Up til now I can say the story is still so short. The latest count are: 8048 words in general, and 268 lines. I have an idea of naming the story "Ear to Ear" for some reason mentioned in the story, which I won't tell for now!

I stopped fasting today, as I have some plans to things out tonight and I'd need to have dinner. I hope the day passes out fine, since the mall I'm going to is a mess... specially with kids not having any schools right now. It won't make much a difference if you go by weekend or in the middle of the week now. I have to go to buy some gifts for my niece, who will have her birthday at the 23rd of the month.

Thoughts were and are racing in my mind for the time being: If I had kids, should I be tortured like those parents I see nowadays? Why having kids is a pain? I had a thought that, what if I had a kid, and I made him be part of my activities... like surf the net together or playing the games I play together? If the parents nowadays are doing the same and still complain about their kids, then I surely have no idea about the real situation of the parents nowadays!

You might ask about the photo in the beginning of this entry... well... there is no occasion really. Just felt of putting it there! I shot this photo on the seashore with my old Sony camera. It was sunrise, and the play in th exposure rate made the view to be sort of tropical. You don't want to see the real thing... it was just a punch of old dry branches and trashed sand on the ground! Camera tricks sometimes are a "must" !

Disappointment!

Disappointment... it is very disappointing. I just discovered that my abilities to sketch is not up to the task... at all.

I might have done some ornamentations or so, but sketching figured, specially in a away similar to those used in medieval manuscripts, is out of my skills. I asked my brother though to see if he can do something similar but he did not answer me at all on MSN!

As for the time being I'm continuing my work with the translation as I finished 2 verses and finished the transliteration for the 1st and the 2nd verses. OpenOffice might have created some problems for me with the foreign letters (foreign: not used in the English basic letters), I might have to switch back to Word, which is something I don't like at all. I might consider doing a manuscript-like effect without doing any sketches for persons. I will concentrate on translating and transliterating for the time being.

It's Thursday, and few minutes from now I will be out of this place and back home to have a nap and get out at night. I'm planning to start fasting starting from Friday, and with this hot weather it is really a challenge. Also, I might be able to go to Failaka island again this Friday (and hopefully I'll be fasting as well!!). So much pressure as it might seem... fasting and hot weather and also cruising out in this hot weather... well... fasting is about challenge in the first place.

If you ask why I'm gona start fasting, well, it is the month of Rajab now in the lunar calendar, and it is said fasting in this month has lot of rewards... not physical rewards that is! I did the same already for 2 months + Ramadhan (that is 3 months in total) in hot summer days last year, so hopefully I shall continue on the same path this year. Wish me luck!