And The Game Continuous…

Again, this should be a quick wrap about the last week, and in fact some of the stuff done before the expo. There had been some work with older panoramas in order to achieve new perspective and projection styles with these old stuff, and some of them apparently paid of somehow! But first, let's see how the game began and going on with the panoramas taken from our booth in the latest expo.

Center View

Left Wing

Right Wing

Probably you have seen these three in case you checked the slideshow in the previous post. Anyway, those were "regular" flat spherical panoramas (with exception to the left wing which is in Mercator format). The right wing specifically was taken at a higher level (almost eye level) in a trial to eliminate the flare reflected on the prints. It did work well I presume, but the situation is not as lucky as this on the other areas like the center and the left wing. This is why I shot these two on low level specifically. I did learn my lesson here though: a low level panorama will compress the upper part severely. As we say here, "every slap comes with a lesson." In order to fix things just a little bit, I made the left wing panorama in Mercator format just because this projection stretches the height, and compresses the width. It did stretch the height of the prints in the upper row just a bit. However, it didn't fix it all. A lesson learned.

Twisted Booth

Then the game begins. Even though there is technically no roof for the booth, but yet it has a slender opening which does act somehow like a roof (let's call it: negative roof!). The perfect environment for a twist! I didn't try this approach with the left and right wings yet, as I believe this projection must be applied in a point that is supposed to be a "centroid" for the place under inspection. Thus, it was applied only to the first panorama taken at the center of the booth. Another twist to the story with a Wide View panorama (or so I do call it)…

Willkommen auf BPF!

Probably the chair at the bottom is a troublesome feature, but at least I tried to keep it symmetric as much as possible as cropping and/or cloning it out is next to impossible! However, as it can be seen from all these panoramas, the first three were actually, in essence, documenting panoramas. Only the last two were "artistic" panoramas, where the appearance of the prints is not a priority - but architecture is.  Despite the simplistic design, the abundance of lines, specifically straight lines, was a general factor to build up a complexity in looks. Seems quite philosophical to me: complexity, grows off multiples of simplicity.

Durch

Before the expo (and after it) there had been lot of work as well with older panoramas in a trial to squeeze out more looks and ventures. Even those panoramas with apparent stitching errors, like Durch which was taken from a pedestrian bridge, was target. Probably the stitching errors are forgiven here a bit? In fact, this bridge panorama was one of the first panoramas to try out "twisting" with by a mistake (as I was changing the coordinates of the projection). However, I still had to try something with Mercator format (Mercator had been my favorite for a twisting effect right now). The result can be seen in Durch. In the beginning it was almost symmetric (along a vertical axis) but still the look was a bit "less dynamic"; it was good, but less dynamic. For this, I moved the central point a bit and made it look like a slider or a swift moving object from top to bottom. Adding to that, the colors had to be changed to give out a dramatic look and impact. Gothic look? Maybe. With some arabesque design that would be such a weird combination I presume!

Leathchruinne
(Hemisphere)

I even rolled back to some older panoramas from my visit to Ireland, Co. Tipperary in 2010. Specifically, one of these panoramas was of interest for me: The yard of Thronbrook House, in Cashel. This is where I stayed back in 2010. It can be categorized as a regular landscape panorama with the addition of the house. I did many projections before (planet, wide view, you name it) for this one. However, because of the open space, I doubted this would be good in a twisted Mercator panorama (like our group's booth above); you'd need a straight features and not an open space for this type of projections. Anyway, the idea was totally different here, but done before. The hemisphere style, or the elevated surface style. In fact, this style stems out from the planet projection with a little change in the "pitch" value (pitch: the vertical angle at which the camera is pointed, as if you nudge your head for "yes"!). The interesting point comes then after with the edit I've done to this panorama specifically…

Leathchruinne (B&W)
(Hemisphere)

I've asked if the B&W version or the colored version is nicer, and I got a response from an Irish (more than one actually) and said they prefer the colored one, because the B&W version is "terrifying"! Somehow, I can say I did succeed! Here, of course, it is a B&W version but with tone split between orange and blue.
However, I do find the combination of orange and blue is quite plausible in such situations with "dynamism" when tone splitting is done (both compliment each other on the color wheel). In the other hand, there must be an element that added to the emotions, other than the colors alone. In any photo, we generally face two main aspects: colors, and composition. For this reason there is a common saying that goes like: B&W photos neglect color and make the viewer concentrate on the composition. Probably I can say that the position of the clouds and the curve of the horizon added much to the dynamic appearance of this shot, and with the removal of colors and adapting only a duotone, it had some direct impact on emotions. I think if I want to put things in some formula that would be: clouds + curve = dynamism + emotions. Yeah, sorry. I like to put math in everything I see wherever I go.

And away from Ireland, and back to Failaka, which I should plan some trip to there in the near future, I hope. Along with the trend to make out something new from something old, I've re-visited a really old panorama: the Ghost Bank.

The Ghost Bank

I believe I've extracted enough already from this panorama. The destruction makes it a vivid target! Anyway, it is the time to do a vertical Mercator for this one, but yet I don't feel quite satisfied yet and I do feel there is more to be done with this panorama. If I remember correctly, there was no Wide View panorama for this one. We'll see about that…

Dunkel unter dem Licht
(Dark under the light)

Again, even with Dunkel unter dem Licht I did have a problem with centralizing the roof. It seems that this would be my eternal problem! Anyway, the patterns of columns and windows in this shape aren't quite "interesting" but yet some people liked it anyway. The blue hue and shades in some areas are caused by originally taking the shots with Fluorescent WB if I remember correctly. I had to put the saturation for the blues down a bit though, for it was like a color splash rather than a lighting effect.
There are other panoramas that I'm experimenting with right now but I might keep it all for the next post.

Finale

During the past expo, a weird conversation occurred with one participant. I remember this conversation particularly because of a "paradox" or so it seemed to me. I was explaining how some photographers' brains used to work and I went like:

Some photographers got an eye for details wherever they go because this is how their minds work or programmed, while some others, as of me, like to see the general shape or picture, and for this reason I adore panoramas.

The paradox here lies in some idea that I had plans to achieve and do (though never fulfilled so far), which was about implementing the idea of Retinitis Pigmentosa (which I suffer from) into my photography. If I think about it, I do usually see the usual work here is to be done in macro level where details are abundant in a small area relatively. However, I did state already that I do like the general view and I'm fond of panoramas because of that. This passion about panoramas, seems to be a reflection from my disease; in other words, I do like to do panoramas because my eyes are limited in vision.
The difference between the two ideas here is, the former is a result of conscious thinking about implementing the idea of RP. The latter is a natural given (or so it sounds with me). Which way to go? Well, for sure I'm not giving up my passion for panoramas. Yet, I do indeed have some passion for the macro world but to extreme levels, and it was just an experimental phase. In between the two, probably I should find a balance.

In the meantime, away from this "psychological" venture, I'm planning to get a bit of an "exercise" with some activities with the group in various activities not related to panorama making. The first target would be a "monodrama" event. Supposedly the target is not complex since it is a single performer acting on the stage. Yet, I do not have much faith in my Sigma lens, but we'll see. I'm not sure what's the lighting conditions will be there. I'm not sure though if I can completely do the whole course of events but I shall try. I need to break the routine, and the tiresome body…

Die Flucht…

Well, here I am, on a vacation. Finally!!! I was not going to do anything or post anything for this week, but decided on doing so after getting the chance to do some shots.
On the other hand, being on vacation is not so idle yet, but certainly more active and cheerful; even though I still have to pick Mom to and from the dialysis center. My flight is in around 10 days from now, and I'm preparing slowly for it. I'm still not quite sure if I should carry my camera bag on plane, or put it with the main luggage as I used to do in my previous travels. As for the former, it would be better for the total weight, but a havoc for the security procedures specially in times like these we are having now. As for the second choice, the weight will be more for the main luggage (and might pay extra), but I'll my head the usual security headache.

Die Flucht

I really don't know how this idea escaped, but I've suddenly noticed this small space, which according to some architects, supposedly working as a vent for the kitchen. Anyway, the space was tempting, but the steps later on were hectic and it was so hard to do a panorama in this small space, mainly for the amount of reflections involved - Something cannot be avoided!

Die Flucht

The panorama was done twice, and Die Flucht you see above was the result of the second. Many differences were there, and because of the mistakes that happened in the first, I had to reduce them in the second attempt. I will try to list some of these problems:
1. In the first trial there was a chair. It seems this chair caused lot of havoc (adding to my reflection on the glass). The chair was not completely stable and seems to have been shaking while working. Thus, I've decided to remove it in my second trial.

2. My reflection in the window is surely a cause for many distortions and misalignment. This is because of my body movement which, of course, acts like a moving body in continuous shots. However, this obstacle could not be eliminated naturally! Thus, broken lines and some misalignment remained in the second trial and I had to conduct dear ol' Photoshop!

3. White Balance wasn't much of a big deal, but I've decided to use my White Balance disc to calibrate the white balance of the place accordingly; which initially yielded better results (colors been changing as I changed color spaces and other things later).

4. Probably, but not for sure, I do need to calibrate my camera and lens combination with the VR-head again - or maybe it is the small space that tends to induce so many errors. I'm not sure, but I've done panoramas in narrower spaces than this and I don't remember so much errors like in this one!

Hello Word!
A panorama in an even a smaller
space than Die Flucht.

The only projection to hide some of the errors is the one you see above (deduced from Little Planet). Flat and others definitely won't work. The only problem here is the remains of the tripod head in the nadir point which I had to "craft" piece by piece in Photoshop and still didn't make it better, but, at least, it's not that obvious in this smaller version. For these reasons, this panorama, Die Flucht, is not to be uploaded to stock websites. The adventure inside this tiny place is not over yet though; I still had to come up with something...
Meanwhile, I do tickle the idea of using a wide angle lenses inside narrow spaces - the results are kind of unpredictable at times. Probably it is a result of the packing structures in narrow spaces, like this one. Thus, I've placed the camera on the floor (putting some plastic to protect the LCD first) and I tried to center the camera as much as possible. Using my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, I've snapped some images in that space. However, it was not until the third trial that I got it somewhat right.

Der Flüchtling
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/11, HDR, ISO200.

The first trial, included that chair and it didn't sound right, specially that it was done in an opposite orientation to Der Flüchtling; which is an orientation that didn't give much space for the door on the right here. I believe that the door should have more space, and the chair in that first trial was simply wrong. The second trial was like the one above but plain. Then I got the idea to include myself. All trials were done in HDR format of course.
No flashes were used in this shot - the light was completely controlled using the HDR capabilities in the HDR slide before "baking," or tone-mapping the HDR (HDR was merged in Photoshop instead of Photomatix). Probably some halo is obvious around my body and in fact I intended to do that way for some reasons:
1. I wanted to guide the eye to two bodies here: the sky, and the body.
2. Darkening the rest of the shot was to hide some reflections on glasses (and had to do some cloning).

Using Exposure adjustment layer in HDR mode, I was able to control the light level in various areas with the help of layer masks, and with some blurring to the layer mask, I got the soft halo around my body. Ironically, I had some other ideas after I started working with this shot, which would require another trials - but probably this is enough for now. The rest of the work before and after tone-mapping the HDR was to clone some unwanted features (like a pipe and some reflections) and to adjust contrast as well as darkness and brightness of some zones here and there (while keeping the sky vibrantly blue). I have dropped the saturation for the whole image and increased that of the sky. Cropping though was a hard aspect specially that not shooting my hands full in the original made me a bit awry (yes I can be a perfectionist in such situations). However, I've decided to base my cropping on the center of the blue space of the sky (i.e. make the center of the sky is the center of the image). With this done (and after adjusting the tilt of the image), a large portion of the hands disappeared as well as my thighs, but I don't feel comfortable yet about it! Lesson learned now, hopefully.

Finale

It seems that the vacation is refreshing my appetite for shooting. An appetite that I will burst, hopefully, in Ireland in few weeks. My next move now is to stop worrying about Mom when I'm away. In the meantime, I can't stop asking myself would be there anything changed in my workplace after this long vacation? Typically, the answer is: No. But who knows.
I'm living some days with weird feelings, of joy and ecstasy merged with sadness and melancholy. Sorrow about lost days of youth, and fear of elderly conduct. I've started recording some cassette tapes that I've recorded while a teenager, in an attempt to digitize the whole set. Every song passes my ears ticks some memories and how beautiful my days were without knowing that back then. Along with that, comes memories of some hopes that, not surprisingly, been lost at most.
One particular song that I had some hard time looking for, and which really spark in me some weird feelings - probably it is the desire to live a love story - and big thanks to some users online who helped me find it on Youtube. Weird that there is barely some record for this song, and here I leave you with it…



Well, it would be appropriate to say R.I.P. Charles Pettigrew. Wonderful song, from a wonderful 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...