Approaching Approaches...

Well, I'm not so sure how to describe this week. One thing for sure though: it is exhaustive. What a way to start the 33^rd year of my life. Sometimes I do wish if my birthday was not in summer. However, I've managed to do one experiment at least but it took me around one full week to work with the results, as I was trying to do the peeling effect again for the good ol' censer which I've used to photograph smoke before. I like this one censer specifically; lot of details, great color and design. This time, the effect is done solely by hand, or should I say, the blending of the different layers was all done manually, with no help from PTGui.

The shoot for this censer was done with the help of a speedlite (580EXII) which was fixed with a diffuser to the top of the censer. It was controlled in wireless since I was really, really, not in the mood for cables and wires hanging around. I didn't even use a literal arm to dangle the speedlite on top, but simply raised it up high on a regular tripod and put it extremely close to the tripod carrying the rotating plate.
As I've mentioned above, the process to blend the layers was done manually and took me the whole week but I have to say, I'm still not satisfied, and the whole matter is just as if it ia study for the technique itself.
After the shoot was over, the images were processed in DxO to correct for tilts and distortions (even though the 50mm shows minimum distortion, if any). Yet, it seemed that the tilt was there after all even after correction!

Approach Eins!

First Trial

In the first approach, I've tried to stitch only 180^o using shots at 45^o distances. The total was 5 images only to blend together. Easy, but not so accurate as the base was not coherent at all and showed the usual fan shape. I've tried to straighten the image by PTGui, but to no avail. Anyway, after seeing this, I've decided to work again, and this time using around 36 layers, composing a full range of 180^o.

Approach Zwei!

Second Trial

In the second approach, I've tried to blend layer by layer manually, starting from the far left portion of the censer. However, after working for some time, I've realized that the center of the censer is not exactly centered in that way, and it is more like if it is looking to the right, and I've figured that if I continue in that manner I might have just one large censer with a handle on the left. Not bad though, but I was planning on having double handles on both sides instead of one. After realizing this, I had to stop in the middle of the process and start all over again!

Approach Drei!

Third Approach

In the final approach, the look was relatively better but still it had lot of blending errors (or I would call them stitching errors as well). At this point, I've started with the middle portion of the sequence, which shows the frontal face of the censer, then worked my way with blending to the left all the way to the handle, and then the same thing was done to the right. I would say this is the best that could be done if only I could handle the blending more delicately. The base suffered some problems as well and I'm not sure if this because of the tilt or simply a bad blend. Lot of things to be learned still at this point, but I have to say that the 45^o approach (first one) sounds promising if it wasn't for the fan shape! Without perfecting this technique, I wouldn't be able to upload those into the stock sites.

Approach Geltani

The work with Geltani is slow, as usual. I've started now to assign phonetic values to the leading part of the alphabet and try to test it with some words. Reading into Turkish language and grammar made me formulate a lot of ideas and recall some things that I've forgot before. The Geltani phonetic system is going to be rich I suppose, which might be a bit frustrating. It would be a weird combination between Asian-typical sounds, and Indo-European sounds, with a bit of Semitics.
One of the critical things now is to add more to the vowel system and in fact, I've been assigning some consonants a vowel-value when it falls as a leading part. So far, the "D" would sound as "ü" (as in German or Turkish) if it is in the leading part of the syllable. I can't of course work all consonants in the same manner but it is just a beginning and more thoughts about this to come. The letter "C" was also done but it is so vivid in its phonetic values given in the leading part of the syllable, and at this point I've added Semitic sounds like Ayin [ع] and Chet [ح] (notice I'm using the Hebrew name but the equivalent Arabic letter for such sounds), and some few others were added as well.
Finishing the phonetic system is important at this point because without it, it's not possible to send a brief case about the conlang of Geltani to Omniglot for publishing. Later, we would have to talk a bit about the hard time doing a specific HTML for this conlang!

Approach Finale

Source: Amazon

Now, with the lack of new books, I've been going through some old books from here and there (including some old language books like the Turkish language book). I've been going through the Portrait photography book as well, since I didn't comprehend much of the info inside it back then because, unfortunately, most of the explanations lack visual aids. This is one the negative things about this book, and probably the new editions of it are better, I'm not sure. I'm still not into this field, but I thought having more stable feet when it comes to the formation of light, metering, poses and studio equipment would as well be useful for other fields of photography, as well as being prepared just in case I need to do this kind of photography for any occasion.
For the time being, I'm just dying while waiting for summer to be over. I don't care what people usually say about it - most of them here like it because it is the only time when they can travel (and in fact they do a good job in making my life calmer in summer). Yet, I'm so sick of the heat, and I do feel as if it is killing my brain slowly. Lately, I've been thinking of going back to poetry since I didn't write anything for such a long time but, as usual, there are some words but I can't find the proper stitching form between them. I do pass occasionally on some of my old writings and just wonder how did I write those?
My 33^rd year starts off with some hope inside me... but I'm cautious as well for the slaps of life...

Laboriosus

Something went wrong this week. I don't know what is it exactly but all I know is that I've been idle and unable to perform well, with my mind or my camera. Well, at least I did something last week (after my last post) with my camera, otherwise, the week was vague. I'm trying to push myself to do some work out, even simple ones, just to activate my body somehow but even that was a fail. Anyway, in the "good news" department we have a new recording available, this time for chapter 4 of Alexander's story. You can check the English version (text only) here, and the Ayvarith version with sound clips here.
Now, let's hope I don't lag behind with chapter five.

I. More Geltani:

The progress with the new conlang and conscript is slow, yet I'm trying to work around it as much as I can. I'm settling my mind here and there about some aspects of syllables and seems I will be deriving a syllabic system out of the original Geltani script which will be dedicated for writing foreign names in Geltani. Ironically, I'm not sure how to write down "Geltan" in the Geltani script! Most probably I would make a name completely different in pronunciation.
One of the real problems that face me right now is some of the ambiguities encountered because of the abjadic nature of the Arabic orthography and script. Abjadic systems (like Arabic and Hebrew) tend to record the consonants alone and add only signs for vowels (in Arabic case, short vowels only are represented with signs and long ones with letters). Just an example from Arabic to elaborate this idea, the possibilities branching from the letters MLK.

MLK [ملك]

Mulk [مُلك]: Kingdom/Ownership.

Malik [مَلِك]: King

Malak [مَلَك]: (he) ruled/owned (Also "angel" in some context).

Mulik [مُلِك]: (he) was owned.

All of these versions of simply 3 letters (and the Arabic language is full of such examples) makes it hard for me to think of a way to go around it when forming words in Geltani based on Arabic. The original idea is mimicking the Arabic letters in form of lines in the first place, but I didn't plan for mimicking the vowels and their signs as well. I'm not sure how to go around such a problem yet, but maybe it lies somewhere between inventing new shapes and symbols and/or creating more sounds for them, or maybe exchanging short vowels for long ones to make the original Arabic word more like alphabetic in nature rather than abjadic. I have yet to think about it.

Another problem on the line is the packing of strokes and whether or not to allow one word to be written into 2 diagrams (or characters). Most probably I would try to fit all in one character as much as possible, because for the time being, and adding some grammatical twist to the whole language, I've decided to let preposition articles to be placed after the word in one line (while the sentences are written vertically top to bottom from left to right).

I'm running to simplify the grammar as much as possible (and that might be awkward when expressing some moods and modes). One of such cases is the conditional (if statements) and the habitual (would statements). So far, I've created a special character for regular and passive tenses, plus the conditional "should". Who knows, I might as well add to the already established characters for verbal words.

The initial design for verbal characters and their divisions. The tense is designated by the number of dots (not the placement of the dot).
Studying possible combinations of both divisions, regular and passive, in order to express more moods and modes.

Other variations of the same characters

II. In Slow Motion:

The beach area was a target, again, to my camera. This time though, although close to McDonald's area where I usually shoot, but it is the first time I land on the sand. I have to admit though that I went there in a hurry and didn't completely equip myself properly (specially with flashlights). The wind was strong and chill but I was determined to work with my lenses AND my ND filters as well. The ND filters caused me another problem but this time I had to investigate after this problem and I discovered that it is something reported widely for Cokin's ND filters. More details will come later on.
The clouds were nice. Not scattered much like cotton balls as I wished but they had nice shapes after all. The first thing was to try my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens with some long exposure before the sunrise above the horizon. The timing here is critical since I don't have any filters to fit fisheye lenses, so I have to time my work with darkness. The best I could get was within the range of 2 minutes exposure after all, and more than that proved to be problematic somehow. To add to my problems, as the time was a morning time and the sun would rise abvoe the horizon, then once you calculate the time required for the shutter, you have to expect that you might get blown highlights because of the gradual increase in the light level in the atmosphere.
However, it did work out well with me in the beginning with my 8mm, and made two shots; vertical and horizontal one.

Racing Heaven
~100 seconds

Race of Heavens
~120 seconds

The clouds' race is more obvious in the landscape orientation (naturally since it shows more and wider view of the sky), while the first one probably is good in the contrast between the sky and the sand.
Both images were fixed from distortion by DxO Optics Pro. This software got the option to fix the distortion without cropping (to keep the aspect ratio of width and height) and hence it gives more stretching effect on the sides and I think it is a good thing for long exposures of this kind. Notice in both shots here, the sun didn't rise yet and it was relatively dark on location.
After being done with my fisheye lens, comes here my EF-S 18-55mm lens, which is the widest thing I have right now which I could use filters with. The sun here started to show a bit, or let's say the sun rays, but the darkness was diminishing slowly. For now, although I do use metering by camera to judge how many ND filters I would need, but I got somehow a grab of sense on it. Not firmly, but a bit. I directly used 3xND8 filters (that is 9 stops: 3+3+3). One minute exposure was enough but as time was progressing, it came down to 30 seconds exposure which made the scene that I want. However, I got the same weird problem again, which eventually I've discovered that it has nothing to do with the white balance, but rather it is the make of the ND filter itself.

The scene directly from RAW file.
30 seconds exposure.

As seen, the scene is reddish and I used to get this many times in my trials with long exposures. They say a good ND filter would NOT give such a result and the colors should remain with no change, at least virtually. However, some mending process did the job to some extend the scene was recovered; but the question is, is that useful every time I take a long exposure with those filters?

Coming

I have to say though, despite the apparent "malfunctioning" of such filters, I do like the reddish look indeed. But maybe not this time.

III. Re-Visited:

The panorama taken 2 weeks ago from a deep point on the beach was something hardly can be done again (although I'm thinking about it seriously). For this reason it was hard for me to satisfy myself with what I've done before about this panorama. I felt there is more to be done.

Nox Salmiyah

Planeta Ignis

In the previous formations done with this panorama particularly, the white balance was not changed when the HDR was made out of the shots. The white balance was Daylight back then. However, with me having RAW files, I have the flexibility to change the white balance significantly.
From previous experiments with the night sky on the roof of my own home, I've realized that Tungsten white balance works better with such atmosphere. It simply adds some magic. But first, I had to recombine the whole set of images into HDR slides and setting the WB to Tungsten. It was then time to work with PTGui again, which was not an easy process (spent around 2 or 3 days trying to fix some images in their places).

Topmost

Personally, I did like it better than the previous two. In this shot however, which looks like a single shot with a fisheye lens, I've used the Mercator projection in PTGui; a projection style that I don't use much and to me, it doesn't differ much from the cylindrical projection except in some stretch in some areas (the height specifically). However, I think the Mercator projection here helped on curving the horizon upward and forming a shape of Earth's surface from outer space.
Hence we conclude, a change in WB can change the mood and feel of the image completely.

IV. Waiting...

Finally, I've placed some orders for some books and simple stuff for my camera. Things I've delayed for long until now and I think it's time to have them. This year will be starting with some heavy debt on my credit card but I need to. My plans for a vacation seem to be delayed for now and I'm not sure I will be traveling this year even. Traveling to me is more than a vacation in fact; it is a time for photography.
One of the most important items I'm waiting for right now, is something that would supposedly can solve the matter of long exposures with my Canon 15mm fisheye lens: Gel Filters.

Source B&H

Supposedly it is a pack that contains four  1-, 2-, and 3-stops filters of each. Frankly, I'm not sure it will fit in the place of the filters at the back of the fisheye lens, or would I have to cut it (as I've been told before) but I'm going to try something new after all. The thing now is to try to use such thing, if possible, with my other Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens.
Another set of gels was ordered but not for lenses this time. They are supposedly to fit my flash head in case I need to change the color cast of the flash head. No plans for using them now, but they would expand my options and might create new ideas in the near future.

Source: B&H

Finally, on the "tools" section, we have a bracket that will help me to place the flash a bit away from the camera or on the side, while still carrying it along with the camera.

Vello CB-500 Dual Shoe Bracket
Source: B&H

Now to the books section. I'm waiting for 3 books, but one of them is not about photography, but about some old passion inside me that is still burning; Archaeology.
I've stopped reading about archaeology for some time, but I felt that I have to get back now and kindle this passion again. Too bad I couldn't study this field in my early days. Anyway, the book is entitled: Forensic Recovery of Human Remains: Archaeological Approaches.


On the other hand, there two photography-related books:
1. The Photographer's Guide to Making Money: 150 Ideas for Cutting Costs and Boosting Profits.
2. Mastering Canon EOS Flash Photography.

As you can see I'm sort of dedicated to understand the flash unit more and how to control the light. Let's hope this field is digested with this little mind of mine, because I did find it difficult before to "paint" an image with light in my mind. Quite an essential capability if you want to deal with portrait photography in the first place.

Well, I've put so much in this post for now. Hope you didn't get a headache going through all of this. It's time for me to put it down, and hit the sack. So much headache involved in doing this blog... gosh!

Geltani...

Not bad for such a week, even though I got myself screwed up a bit, but seems it is the sense of adventure! Details about that will come later on anyway, when it comes to my talk about my work with the camera. As for the time being, I'm busy thinking more and trying more for creating my new con-script and conlang; Geltani. All I can say about this week for now is: it was nice. Started with some work and hopefully ending with some inspirational work, all what's missing is some good news!

I. Geltani:

As for the new conlang, I'm still working on the basics, like general shapes and logograms (pictographs) and also putting the first blocks of the grammar itself. The grammar is not supposed to be as complicated as Ayvarith is (and still Ayvarith's grammar is simpler than ordinary languages). So far, I made a decision to neglect the masculine and feminine cases and neglect the definite article (the) but use an indefinite article (a, an) only - like the case is with real Chinese and Turkish. I've developed, as well,  some special logos for other grammatical cases, like the verbs, and the plurals, as well as putting a rough sketch for the numerical system which will be decimal of course (base 10). The test is still going on however to see how flexible such symbols can be when writing them down in combination with others. But the hard part didn't begin yet.
In my previous post I've explained the main idea of dividing the word into syllables of two, where the first phoneme is the leading sound and the next would make an effect. For simplification, I've decided to call them Leading and Driving respectively. To explain it more I would refer to my previous post's example (the word "Honey"):

Honey: RLW

RL - W

[RL]: "R" Leading and "L" Driving

However, I'm constructing still the major sheet that explains the values and sounds of the Driving portion of the syllables. Almost not much concerns about the Leading part, since the sounds are specified already. It is a relation, somehow, of a cause and effect. It is close to the way aspiration and eclipse work in Irish Gaelic, to some extent. I'm shifting values here and there and there is a big uncertainty in this matter still.

Example of initial values for Leading and Driving sounds (click to enlarge)

I have to think as well and decide, whether to allow duplicates in sounds in this large collection. I also think of adding some Semitic elements to the Chinese-like conlang by adding sounds like fricative "H" (Hebrew: chet) and Glottal "A" (Hebrew: ayin).  There is still long work to do on that, and then later I have to think of some way to present my work to Omniglot. Think, think, think...

II. Soak or Not:

One of the most beautiful aspects of this week is the fact that we had rains. Yes, rains. I should start a feast and a special holiday for announcing the first drop of rain to come on this land. However, despite the amazing weather (which might not be so for some people, specially those who live in rain-soaked areas) it is of course hard to work in such conditions, but all I can do is open the window and listen to the drops of rain until I snooze.

Anyway, after some wave of heavy rains, I've discovered that the "playground" or the parking place where I usually park in my work place has turned into a swamp of mud. I almost slipped there, many times, trying to find my way into or out of the building. However, the structures there gave an idea of some shots to do, and luckily I was having my camera and tools with me!

Mud Rider
Rokinon 8mm @f/22

I've erased the car logo from the tire's cover for commercial purposes. In the shot above, I had to expand my tripod's leg and make it lower to the ground level (and getting dirty). One of the hard things to control is to take a proper shot with 8mm in such low and extended legs' level. However, after merging to HDR and before tone-mapping, I had to get to cloning out some portions to remove tiny parts of the tripod's legs showing in the shot. It is always better to clone in HDR before tone-mapping. Also, there were some cropping to remove part of the building on the left and also to pull back the tire into the lower right corner and make it closer to the sides.
The weather was nice (to me) but the problem with such weather is the hardships with the WB and how to satisfy a specific mood. things were hard with other shots around the place and in fact, after close inspection when I got back home, the images hardly impressed me. Maybe HDR tone-mapping is not always a good idea in such situation and maybe I should inspect the images in single RAWs. 

Liquor Lucis

Anyway, this tiny session around my work place was not the big bang of the week. The greater event started the day after I posted my last post in this blog; last weekend, and to be specific on the early hours of Friday and before the sun started to rise above the horizon.
Everything started right after doing a check on the tidal level when I packed my stuff (and wore enough clothes) and headed out. Actually, the tide level was not what I really wanted but it allowed me to go a bit deeper on the beach (more precisely, the beach shelf, or the hard ground under water at high tide time). The tide was minimum at around 3 a.m., but I went out around 5 a.m.. For this reason, the water level was rising slowly as I was working on my panorama.
The thing that I was really afraid of is some fellows to block my way or annoy me (you know whom I'm talking about, right?) but gracefully, everything went smooth, somehow. I soaked myself a bit but that was OK. I think the whole thing paid of (despite the annoying fact that for long exposures and for high ISO levels, there were some annoyances). However, the first result out of the whole thing was a flat spherical panorama.

Nox Salmiyah

Now, despite the bluish shades and hues in this image, the original WB during the whole process was set to Daylight (i.e. a yellowish shade). Adjustments were made later when tone-mapping and also in Photoshop in the final steps. Anyway, further trials with other WB when merging into HDR are possible ventures to tickle this panorama.
Stitching, naturally, had some problems because of the big portions from the sky (night sky, no clouds visible), but there were some nice stars visible in the long exposure slides but wouldn't be visible to the naked eyes. I've set ISO to 800, which is high, but it was necessary to ensure that the exposure at +2EV won't exceed 30 seconds long. Cleaning the noise anyway took several steps and in the original file, it might not be as perfect as I wish. There was cleaning with NeatImage and Noise Ninja and then smoothing out some areas with Median trick.
Another trial, however, with this panorama and this time without changing much of the WB which was yellowish or golden in shades, but this time the simple work of enhancing the image, turned to be a graphical design of its own.

Planeta Ignis

The glowing luminance around the little planet of Salmiyah here inspired me to work on such a design and mimic a burning comet or planet. The awkward moment here is that most of these effects had to be done in 8-bit format, since they are not available in 16-bit format in Photoshop, and this might caused, at some point, some banding. around the planet. Maybe of the hardest things to fix in both images is the weird color spots (hot pixels) which is not something new to me by now.
After this little adventure on the beach in the pitch dark dawn time, this location in fact was not a prime target for me. My real target is on the other side to the left of this location (facing the sea). That location specifically has nice rocks lying on the bed at the time of a low tide, but this place better be targeted at low tide rather than a time when the water level is coming up, like I did in this trial. This said, I have to watch out now for my chances in the coming weekend, as well as checking for other potential locations along the sea shore line (and surely be careful of cops and security people).

Well, I hope to drop this now, and get back to my Geltani project. Just thinking about the future time pressure because of these many projects makes me nervous!