Alexander 6, V23.

One of the most terrible 2 days just passed away and here I am. I couldn't post anything yesterday for the bad condition I had with my headache... apparently my head hates me so much!
Yesterday was also the supposed day of the visit of the German Ambassador to our work place and after only 4 hours from his visit, I received an email message from the Public Relation as a notice or some news item about his visit with pictures, and of course no pictures from the center were presented there.
The headache that took over my right side of the head left me for my own business later on after taking some pain killers finally, two times, on Wednesday; that is yesterday. I didn't go to work because of it, and as I said before I was not there when the ambassador was here. It made me idle a bit and I had some sort of weird feelings... pardon, I don't mean this is the first time I get some weird feelings, but well, it was like connected to the headache somehow. Feeling yourself living alone and can barely see people, or you do things and then think "why did I do this or that?".

Amid my meditation in the house yard (if I can call it so) I thought of trying out my new lens, the EF 15mm Fisheye lens. It made me discover some stuff that I didn't think of before unfortunately, but well, I can say it is doing a nice job already.

The work is still going on with this one, and here you can see only a regular version. I tried to fix the exposure range perfectly in between +/-2, but maybe I missed in one or two angles. The other thing here is that I tried my best to rotate the tripod head at a fixed rate of 50 degrees for each angle. The result was 20 something shots for each row (3 rows of them at different azimuthal angles). So, I can say it is far much lesser than the usual work. I feel that even my work with 50 degrees can be expanded to something like 60 degrees, thus making the number of angles I have to shoot at lesser.

My fisheye lens (picture from BH website)

First of all, it was a bit awkward to work with a lens with a fixed focal length, and hence, without any zooming in and out, but well, as a friend of mine said (and who taught me everything I know about photography) told me that lenses with fixed focal lengths, in general, tend to give better results and sharper images. I think for a first glance, yes, it is true.
However, there are some things that I didn't think about before buying this, but I'm not regretting anyway since I think it is a very nice lens already. The lens is from EF series (not EF-S), and that means it is dedicated for a fullframe camera. The specifications say that it would show you a FoV of 180 degrees. It is not said (as you can see in the BH website link below the image) whether this is a horizontal FoV or a diagonal. Some websites reviewing the same lens mentioned that it is a diagonal. However, I think this FoV is indeed 180 degrees ONLY with a fullframe camera, and not with a camera like mine with a sensor of some crop factor (crop factor: a factor of cropping related to the original 35mm film size). In other words, part of the image that the lens collects only, falls upon the small sensor of my camera, and hence my camera cannot take the whole FoV literally. Well, the only shame in this is that I won't be able to do nice skydomes maybe. Nevertheless, the lens is also good for a close-up photography and doing some effects as well.

While I was working on the cleaning kit, which I didn't find any manual on how to use it but it should be simple (later on I found out the instructions leaflet was here in the office), I noticed that when I put the sensor loupe (some lens with bright LEDs to lighten up the sensor for cleaning) that they make nice patters when I put that on the lens. I tried hardly to get a pic of this, but it was so hard since I have to put the camera vertically above the loup and lens combination. After all, I think I managed somehow, although I'm not sure it is that good;

I use the loupe also to find out if there are any fingerprints on the lens surface, as they are hard to see in regular light. The image was taken with the fisheye lens as well, but here I already gave up my chances with the tripod because of the complicated settings that I need (and some levers in the tripod do not move adequately).
Apparently, I'm lucky to be alive now to write down all of this rubbish for you people. I almost got myself killed in the lab after some device was blown up because of the vacuum pressure. The sound was extreme, I'm looking at it now and laughing... for real...

The Freeze-Drying Machine that blew off today

Right, I have to get to write some papers now, and than God it is Thursday (TGIT).

__________
529. then Alexander asked Ázilis about his words
530. then Ázilis replied: you should know O good king,
531. there are things in this life that destiny had decided,
532. I've roamed the lands to gather the wisdom,
533. and for a look into the stars I knew days will come,
534. when a young king of faith shall come to me for guidance,
535. thus I spent sixty of my years waiting for the promise,
536. and here it is I see it come true,
537. go ahead O good king and ask your questions,
538. verily my days are numbered in this life
539. then Alexander put his palm on Ázilis' forehead
540. and said with a low voice: Ázilis, O good old man,
541. verily you have faced many a troubles for this wisdom,
542. and verily God will reward you in the afterlife,
543. and may sooner or later we become your companions there,
544. but tell me O wise one, about one saying in the old papers,
545. the papers of your ancestors when you were a shepherd,
546. one saying that might resolve my problems forever,
547. "when the full moon over Daynur,
548. becomes reddish in its light and hue,
549. then watch the shake of Uhir Daynur,
550. it is then you will have the Ayvar bless"
551. and Alexander went silent and looked into the eyes
552. while Ázilis smiled a yellowish smile of sickness

Alexander 4, V3.

Quiet day relatively, despite the fact that it is Monday! Well, not quite quiet, since I had to pick up back my sister's laptop from the damn workshop. The filthy technician requested extra 5 K.D. for installing the "right" Windows XP, which he did not do in the beginning. He installed an Arabic version and yet, a non-genuine one and I could not do an update. He was acting like beggar really. He made me angry again after I made a decision to calm myself down, but he is a rude one indeed.

Back to work, I had to prepare some samples of tuna and sardines to put them in the freeze dryer;



Believe me guys, with all due respect, the guy who invented sardines is an idiot! What's wrong with flexible cans? My can opener did not work and I made such a mess (and a horrible smell) all over the lab just to get these samples out into some plastic bag. Sardines ARE rocket science guys!


I spent the last night on doing an experiment in a dark environment with only my censer lit (can burn aromatic oils and candles). Well, it was a chance as well to try my filters out and try some long exposures, however, generally speaking the experiment did not go very well (specially with lot of noise in long exposured images). I tried to take images of the lit censer as well in several shutter speeds and I also got my flash involved (and that was an awkward move). The flash's problem is, I can't work with it solely without being connected to the camera (I can, but the control is cumbersome since it is not designed to work that way). This matter is a problem for me now since I want to give some instant light to the objects I want to take a picture of, but from a different angle other than the camera's direction (specially the sides). I will think about it and see if there are some cables or so. My camera is old and do not have the wireless control over the flash, thus, it must be done by a cable of some sort. Combining the images later on was awkward as well, in Photoshop and in Photomatix. Lot of noise and doubled or tripled EV values. All of this, as I believe, is for the lack of my understanding for EV concept. Anyway, I'm looking forward to make out something from these images already.

For the time being, I've finished reading my HDRI handbook, the one written by Christian Bloch (he is apparently a nice guy please visit his page, and, don't forget the credit as well!).

It is a magnificent book, specially for beginners. Before reading this book, I used to tone-map my HDR images down and I thought this is the core of the event, but now the whole concept had changed in my mind and there are lot of things that I could have fixed in old images that I made (specially those from Ireland) if I was to read this book before this time! However, there is no solution for any blured images!
As for now, and beside working on the translation work for Alexander VI story, I'm starting to read the books that I've already got from Ireland (from a souvenirs shop!). They had been in the dark corner for long now, and I think this is the right time. But, I will still think of some photography books to purchase, specifically from "rocky nook" series. As for the time being, I picked a little book entitled "Irish Ghosts" by John J. Dunne.

 

The cover is different, but the title and the author's name are the same, so I would say they are the same book. By the way, I might be fascinated by ghost stories, but I didn't say I like to meet one, ok?

I've forgot already how many books I've purchased from J.P. Keogh & Sons shop, but I remember I've purchased something about the Irish dancing and something about Irish music with music sheets (or notes) in it.

This one here is a small book, I shouldn't take much time to finish it all! I hope! But the most important thing for me now is, to burn my writing skills back as I did stop for a long time now in favor for photography and experimenting with my camera.

Words got beauty in my heart.

__________

49. and by arriving there the villagers shouted
50. "Alexander O Master, let us get back
51. the lands is not ours and shall not be!"
52. thus Alexander was surprised and wondered
53. "what is that you are saying O good people?"
54. then a villager named Chidhwárthí advanced
55. and with a weak voice full of fear he did say
56. "O Master of the good, you never heard of Zimúrá,
57. the land of mischief and the heaven of mutants?
58. the forefathers were sinners and so they were after them
59. like animals they live and hunt, and mercy left them out
60. cannot you see how black is their place?
61. cannot you smell how it is full of bad scents?
62. cannot you feel how gloomy this place is?
63. come on O Master, let us not waste the lives
64. there are so much good can be spread elsewhere"
65. then in a humble voice did the hero say
66. "O good man, I was not ordered to retreat,
67. did you not follow me asking for glory
68. did you not forsake the justice to be all over
69. what is the value of your lives amid the fear
70. and what is the value of your deeds for no good
71. who is afraid to come let him be back to his wife
72. and I am not leaving this, until God commands me!"

A Busy Relief...

It had been a long time since I've been busy like this. Busy with work I mean and not with my own business. After finishing the translation of Alexander's story VI, I'm thinking of taking a bit of a break for the time being. A break from Ayvarith, but not from other things that is.
I brought my usual book about HDR to read today and also the manual of my new baby dedicated-flash to read for today, but I got so busy with the motor in one of the labs that I didn't do such readings in the early morning but later in day. I think I will snap a further picture for this machine that I'm preparing my samples with. It's called "Freeze Dryer". Ever wondered how come there is a milk powder? Well, this machine can do it. It sucks all the air in a space enclosed by some plastic or glass container, and freezes this space. Depending on the sample's weight this process can take some several days. The larger the sample is, the more time you'll need. But there is always a regular check for the oil level in the motor, which is critical for the work. There is one motor that is dead and I'm working on fixing it, if possible, so I don't want to go on with another damaged motor and hence, no work to be done with those fishy samples.
And I just discovered that when someone interrupts or interfers with what you were doing oiginally, is something fishy indeed.

Keeping my work with the pictures I took in Ireland, specially around Aughnanure Caslte, I've come to test some theory with composing HDR. This time, I wanted to apply one of the things that I've learned from the book I'm reading already, and that isharpening before tone-mapping. In fact, I never thought of mangling with the images in HDR (or 32-bit) format because in Photoshop, lot of options are turned off and you can't do much, and hence, I've never thought of doing something other than tonemapping my images and fixing the lights in some areas, and for this reason alone I seldom use Photoshop now for HDR purposes. But now, I've learned that I can do sharpening to the original HDR image and enhance the image before tone-mapping. Sharpening the image usually pops out some artifacts or noise in the image but with HDR, we have an open space of values assigned to each pixel in the image and hence, we can sharpen the image and not affecting the data. This is the theory. However, in my trial I wasn't successful (and maybe misunderstood some concept or Mr Christian Bloch does not want to give me all his secrets!), and I produced lot of artifacts that I need to remove. Anyway, for my image, I decided to sharpen the normal way after tone-mapping in Photomatix, and I will give another trial later on with a new image. Maybe my image was not so good after all... specially with the chromatic aberration on the edges (I'm supposed to clean those in the original RAW files before I merge to HDR, anyway too much headache for me now!).


I have one Panoramic HDR that is making a headache for me, and so, I think I will to do the whole process with Photoshop this time instead of Photomatix, since Photomatix has a problem with memory usage. I know, my PC is not a competant but well, I could handle the file only in Photoshop so far.

This day seems different since I was busy with my hands mostly and not writing as usual. And tomorrow I think I will be alone in the work place! Yeppieeeee...