Mercator II…

Well, here we are with another week. Another "idle" week if I can call it so. Many of the plans that I've stepped up didn't progress as... well, as planned! It's a continuous trend since last week (hence no post for last week) and when I tried to break the humdrum of this routine I was simply knocked back to block one. Two main projects here failed to take progress: the long exposure portraiture and one night-time panorama. But I have to say I had my trials at least which didn't work out, and specifically for that night-time panorama, during which the lights were turned off as I was working! Talk about being pissed off about your luck, as ever.

The Waterfront panorama print taken with my brother's iPhone.

On the other hand, I've at least accomplished something, with the printing and varnishing, and then sending off my gift to the owners of the Waterfront (B&B). I'm just hoping the address is correct since it was hard to get a concrete address for the place; It was mostly instructional text for the directions to reach the place (from Galway city or some other places). With this, I'm sort of still trying to find and explore the "world" of varnishes here (as we lack proper inkjet varnishes).

Routinely

Since the majority of projects with the camera are put to an end for the past 2 weeks, I've spent the time available for me with my arsenal of photos and panoramas from my last visit to Ireland, trying to extract as much as possible and specifically doing more projections of panoramas that were done and stitched already. At this point, saving the project file (which usually I didn't care of much) proved to be a superb advancement; as it serves as a quick starting point for other projections, and later saving the project anew can be helpful for future work when needed. Projection files in PTGui don't take much space (few KBs only); they consist mainly of general data strings about the panorama and its elements.

Go dTí an Caisleán (to the castle)
EF-S18-55mm @30mm, f/8, 200^-1sec, ISO200.

An Fhianaise (The Witness)
Sigma 70-300mm @300mm,
f/8, 30^-1sec, ISO200.

Another reason for working up more with these photos (panoramas and regulars) is the fact that I'm working on my Arabic blog to describe my travels in Ireland this year, for which I do require some photos of the places; both artistic (as in An Fhianaise) and documentary (as in Go dTí an Caisleán). This pushed me further to spend more time with digging the folders and not think much about the artistic values of the photos (for the time being), but merely use them in descriptive terms. However, I'm trying to do my best with those images even if they are just for documentation purposes (e.g. Go dTí an Caisleán been through a series of edits to enhance the clouds and the grass, and make it sharp).
On the other hand, there is also the on-going work with panoramas, as I'm trying to prepare my arsenal of those for the coming event of an expo with the group (in which I was enrolled alone in 2012 and with the group in 2013). Meanwhile, I'm increasing my experiments with Mercator projection for vertical panoramas, for all the flexibilities it gives! Despite some commentary on some aspect of such approach by some observers but I'm somewhat giving a deaf ear to that...

Déthaobh (double surface)

I think I've posted Déthaobh in my previous post under a different name; anyway, I'm trying to enhance my knowledge with Irish here. However, someone commented on this as follows:

• This is an edit. The image shouldn't (supposedly) be touched.
• The "road" in the middle is taking the bulk of the image.

Well, I'm not going to explain the first point. I think it is related to the old debate of how much a photographer is supposed to use Photoshop in his work, beside the fact that this image is not a work of Photoshop, but it was used merely to enhance it and not to make it. Let's move to the second point here: the road (or asphalt) is taking the bulk from the image.
At some point, even though the one who announced such comments is unaware of the processes behind the make of such panoramas, yet such comment did bring my attention to a significant point: Location type plays a significant role. Here, probably, I didn't have much say in the formation of this panorama in this way, as the asphalt is already there, and I was not planning to let the house appear in the middle and split the asphalt into two halves; because this was not the main idea I was working after. However, it is a point worthy of some consideration when it comes to the nature of the place to be placed under such projection.

An Gotach Sníomhach
(the spinning Gothic)

Céimseata Meánaoiseach
(medieval geometry)

On the other hand, I personally do see the benefits of a vertical Mercator projection in other panoramas, like An Gotach Sníomhach for example. Here, we see the line of trees curving smoothly along the sides and not so stretched. I did not even think of cropping from the sides (only from the top and bottom after skewing the image to level the church). Probably, at this point, I would have faced the same situation as in Déthaobh with the asphalt that leads to the the church itself. The same goes with Céimseata Meánaoiseach, but in this case I've cropped the ground completely, making the panorama ground-less almost. I have to re-check some of these panoramas again and again to see what possibilities do the ground (or nadir) point provide of details before doing such projection. If things would end up like Déthaobh, then it would probably be better to simply do a normal spherical vertical panorama! That would let things be slender and thin with stretched sides that would need a crop mostly. This is not only for the current set of panoramas from Ireland; but I'm trying the trend for some other older panoramas as well.

Marijuana Galore!

What I really like about this projection is, not only it gives a new meaning to a vertical panorama, but it also tends to (almost) fit the panorama into the usual square dimension usually seen in planet and some other polar-type panoramas.

Finale

An Teach ag Deatach
(the smoking house)

Well, this is it for now, but I'm going to pray to finish what I'm planning for in this weekend! I won't rant about work just now since I'm getting sicker of it and it is a known fact by now I believe - but I'm seriously thinking of leaving it at some point and try to do something else. In the meantime I'm trying to roll back to poetry as I feel something is missing out in my life; like I do some way to drain what's inside. Needless to say, getting back to my other projects that were put on hold for a long time even before I get into the vacation mood.
Say, how was that feeling again, when someone is supposedly passionate?...

Quick…

Well, I think I'm going to wrap this quick for the time being. The time to turn back to work is close by and I think my soul is not yet ready for this! My time table and schedules are in a real mess, testified by the traveling luggage case that still laying around on my room's floor! But the real annoyance is yet to come; my first day at work is in fact my appointment day for some regular eyes examination - and I HATE those examinations.

Disaster

Meanwhile, I'd like to note what happened here as a "miracle." I was almost going to delete all the folders of images from my laptop since I've copied all the folders into my PC. In a glance, then, I've noticed that one folder which contains several single shots and one full panorama was not copied (specifically dating October 3^rd). I'm not sure why and how this folder was copied with the rest, but I've noticed the folder of this date specifically had no shots, except for 2 selfies! (yes selfies, self portrait done back in Ireland). Anyway, this is a lesson for me right now as to go through the files and folders after any session or travel, and never to delete any file right away after copying. I think what mainly happened here was caused by the fact that I didn't change the time on my camera when I traveled to Ireland (I did later though) - this affects the way files are organized and to what folders specially if the shots were taken before and after midnight time according to the homeland time (Kuwait's time), while it's not midnight in the destination (Ireland's time), and thus making one apparent session be split in between 2 folders without knowing! The panorama in that folder, on the other hand, is kind of problematic because it was not centered correctly, but that would be another topic to be discussed later maybe.

Processing-wise now. The work with my new arsenal of images from Ireland had been somewhat slow this week; mainly because of the bad sleeping pattern and the busy mind with other things, which made me dull with inspiration and imagination when I work with photos. However, I've got into the second phase of processing my panoramas: surreal projections. Which means, mainly, planet projection beside other stuff.

Táim Suas ag Dul
(I'm going up)

However, my very beginning with the second phase of panoramas was actually a vertical panorama and not a planet projection. Saying this, there is already a panorama that I've neglected on purpose because I can't work my mind with it or decide how it should be, and that is the panorama from the lounge.
Anyway, it is typical of me to do a vertical panorama out of confined elongated places like corridors. The surreal view of up and down in one image just fascinates me (call me a psycho, I really don't care). Here, in Táim Suas ag Dul we can find the typical mistake that I do, always. A non-central position which shows drastically later on when the panorama is stitched (and there other panoramas which got it worse than this!). Despite all the trials to remind myself of the importance of centralizing the tripod on location in relation to a specific feature in the space, I just fail to adhere to my own advice. You can see the effect here clearly in the bad alignment of the lamp in the ceiling and the stair case: you make one straight the other would tilt, and getting them together in one alignment is impossible. However, the dramatic scenery that was done in planet projection brought me some condolences for this mistake…

Beidh Solas Tríd An Dorchadas
(there will be light through the darkness)

The panorama taken in front of the Waterfront, Beidh Solas Tríd an Dorchadas, was my first target for such planet projections where the clouds can be extracted for details. The hard part in processing this image is the color tint as a whole. The blue sky you see here was actually bluer than this but I had to put down the tint a bit just to make it reasonable (fearing "bleed" of saturation). Originally, the sky was white with some dark areas. At the end, I had to achieve somewhat a manual contrast control by dodging and burning specific areas. Of course all of that was done AFTER tone-mapping the HDR panorama. Luckily, I've saved a stitching file for all (or most) of the panoramas that I've done in flat format. Thus, all I have to do is change the perspective and few options and then stitch (no need to go on and create control points and align images all over again). However, the really dramatic view which I really liked is not here, but somewhere in Co, Mayo!

Réalta an Ashford
(star of Ashford)

I really love this panorama specifically, the one taken in front of Ashford castle (and hotel). Despite the fact that it wasn't quite centralized and it has some unbalancing elements, yet the atmosphere and the colors of this location specifically give me delight. Here, I've tone-mapped using Photoshop (like I did with Aughnanure's panorama) just to control the aspect of the sun. No worries about matching the left and right edges of course (i.e. the seam) since we are not going to make a QTVR out of this one. I've already tried to contact the staff by contacting them on Instagram (no response so far as I'm typing this) about using these panoramas - at least for contests. The situation would have been different if Ashford was a landmark managed by the state instead of being a property owned by some private companies. Anyway, I can do nothing but to wait and see!

Finale

Well, I've skipped here a lot. Some QTVRs were made but I think not much to be said or done about them, except of thinking of doing a specific page for large format QTVR maybe? Saying this, I look back at all the things that I'm supposed to be doing beside photography but they are on halt so far. Gives me a shiver down the spine.
In the meantime, I've been active with the group in preparations of an expo related to the Book's international fair here, some time around 23^rd of November, beside running after Al-Thani contest. Let's hope no fuss this time with the catalogs (we didn't get the previous ones for Austria's contest yet!). But all of these activities don't keep my mind busy enough into other realms still, nor they are able to keep my nightmares away. My life is a real mess for sure and one thing is needed for sure at the moment: to travel again. Alas, this won't be any time soon…

An Caisearbhán Mór
(the grand dandelion)

Ikaros 2014 II

QTVRs ahead, please give some time to load. This post won't be viewed properly on iPhone or Android systems. A proper QuickTime plug-in must be installed to Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR) scenes. QuickTime plug-in for your browser shall be installed automatically when you install the free QuickTime player. 

Now, this post is supposedly the second part for last week's post with the rest or some of what's left so far from my photo shoot on Failaka island, and specifically on the second day of my stay there, and just before leaving the island.

First things first they say, but I will discuss what I've done secondly on that day, since the first thing done back then is the complicated and the lengthy part of this post! But as a hint, it includes a panorama.

Στην Κορυφή
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/?, HDR, ISO100.

In the past two weeks and during my vacation the clouds were persisting only in the morning time, thus I didn't want to miss the chance of shooting some dramatic views that morning from the island, as I once did almost 5 or 6 years ago! The problem was, I didn't have a clear vision of what I really wanted to shoot that morning (after finishing the panorama first in the court of Ikaros hotel). I just started the engine and drove a little; everything was quiet, such a beautiful breeze and weather that literally made me hate the idea of going back to the mainland (except for the fact that there is no wireless service at all in that place unless you have your own!). Anyway, I've just noticed the first place I wanted to shoot here, which is the same spot that I've been doing long exposure the night before, but this time, getting even closer since I'm using my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens to include as much scenery from the sky as possible. I've changed my position several times and got many shots, and not until sorting out the images back home I've decided that the angle of Στην Κορυφή is the best for my intentions.

Processing-wise, there had been many hassles with Στην Κορυφή. Generally speaking, the issues were related to noise, color cast, sharpness and softness of some details, saturation and vibrancy; but the most persistent problem I had to cope up with, surprisingly, was the crop. Cropping had to be done elegantly and carefully – because as I was trying to keep the perspective of the image (3:2), I had to remove some undesired details or parts that may get attached to the corners or the edge of the frame. The problem rose when I couldn't match the two requirements, thus I had to do one on the expense of the other, hence you can see a small green bush or grass on the lower edge. As for the noise cleaning, there was no way I would do it without losing a great amount of details thus I had to get to the layer masks, not only for cleaning the noise, but also to sharpen some details in the image. Generally speaking, the noise filtration was done to the skies (and sea), while sharpening was done to the landscape features, including the wall of course.

Φοβία (Phobia)

I have to say that my later strolling on the island was somehow in vain trying to look for inspiration, but as I've stated before, my strolling was more like exploring. One of the spots that I really wanted to catch (again) was a spot where I did shoot some images before, of some calcified rocks in low tide time; like Φοβία (Phobia). Unfortunately, I didn't find that specific spot, besides the fact that the tide was high apparently. Anyway, I kept on shooting but this time, I had an idea of trying some scenes for 3D anaglyphs (and lot of that will come when we talk about panoramas in a while).

3D Ruins

3D Trash

Usually, it would be one of the hardest tasks to do a 3D anaglyph with images taken with fisheye lenses, mainly because of the great distortion. There were, however, some successful attempts in the past. This time, I got the idea that we as humans do see the difference in displacements in closer distances to our eyes, and as the distance gets further away from our eyes, the lines would converge to some point in the horizon; technically this is what they call the vanishing point, and it is one of the basics for artists. Thus, in some of these shots taken with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens, like 3D Ruins, I've decided to align the further away features (the desk). To my eyes, the effect is handsome and truly 3D - though I regret now that I didn't do a panorama in that small space (don't trust a fisheye in judging the space!). On the other hand, 3D Trash which is taken just few meters away from the first location, has most of the features almost in the same image plane, for this, I kind of had the freedom to align any feature in this anaglyph, which in here, was the heap at the center almost. 

10
Canon EF 50mm, f/1.4,
640^-1, ISO100

After going back to the hotel and sorting the images out (and packing some stuff) I just noticed the simplicity of my room's door - and I just couldn't neglect it. Despite the shot being bracketed, I've chose only one shot and worked it out in RAW editor (ACR). There were some branches of some plant beside the door, but they were relatively easy to close out. The main obstacle in 10 was to show that the board with the number "10" is not part of the white wall! This is a mistake from my side with the exposure (and I didn't want to open another image of this door and do the whole adjustments again). A good exposure is a must, and a photographer should not rely on Photoshop to fix his images. Bad exposure, is equal to a wasted shot.

For the time being, I would stop at this - there are other shots that are still under investigation (from this day and the night before even), but I'll stop here to move to the major even that day - a panorama in Ikaros Hotel.

Panorama Ikaros

I have to admit that when I asked the receptionist about taking photos inside the lobby, he said that I do need a permission. Anyway, the panorama here was done in the court (which probably required a permission too!) but since I'm not doing any commercial benefits from this, I think it would be OK. It might be even a free advertisement through my blog! 
Anyway, to organize this matter now, I think I will start with the regular stuff: regular panorama(s).

Regular

That morning, and since the place was relatively quiet, I decided to work out a double panorama (so later I would try, again, doing a panaglyph). Here in the regular part, most of the panoramas that you will see ahead are the right portion, because this was the first panorama to be taken anyway. 

Ikaros Hotel (flat)

The right panorama, or the first one to be taken is special because of the light quality. Both panoramas, anyway, were taken with fluorescent WB; but I guess the magical atmosphere is more apparent in the right panorama rather than the left (second) panorama simply because of the light level and the position of the sun (which was still rising then). To tell the truth, the flat version of the panorama was NOT the first panorama I did stitch, but quite the opposite - it was one of the last ones done. Yet, it is just the "protocol" I guess. The first one to be stitched was in fact a tunnel projection panorama...

Ikaros Loop (tunnel)

The reason that made me jump directly to this projection is, the checkered ground; besides the fact that the nadir (as usual) was something hard to eliminate here. Where there are crossed lines (squares and the like), a flat perspective is not artistic enough!
I was reluctant to work on other projection of this panorama because of the nadir point and the hardships that I already knew will happen to eliminate the parts of the tripod showing in the panorama (something normal in panoramas really). However, I had nothing to lose in fact (except of time on expense of other images), thus I decided to work out a wide view panorama this time (planet projection looked boring!).

Doors and Windows (wide view)

The beauty in Doors and Windows here lies in the vanishing point tendency and the repetitive patterns on left and right; well, the helix stairway disturbed the symmetry a bit but the extension of lines going to the horizon straight are a stronghold. Probably the colors, specially the blue tones, are the magic in this image after all. If the sky was to be obvious in this scene with details in the clouds, I would have probably thought of doing a black and white version of this scene - yet it is something to be tried still!
The hassle in removing in the tripod parts by patching parts of the flooring was, to some extent, successful, despite the apparent disturbance in the ground if you have noticed that already. To patch this part, I had to lasso-select (selecting using Lasso tool in Photoshop) the tripod parts (which formed a semi-trapezoid) and then stretch this selection to make it larger with the same ratio of dimensions. After that, the selection was moved to the area under that space and the tiles were copied from that space and then dropped and minimized according to what's needed. The lines didn't match up exactly (and probably more work was needed with distortion tools at this point) but after all, I have to say this result is far better than previously done. It is always easier to take panoramas on a seamless ground which has patterns that can be cloned out easily prior to the stitch even, but such grounds rarely do make an interesting artistic look! Well, unless, of course, the roof is the one we're talking about.

Panaglyphs

Typically, the issue with panaglyphs, or panorama anaglyphs were not an easy task with this type of panorama, specially that it's not only a 360^o panorama, but a full spherical panorama. This means the arousal of one specific issue: vertical misalignment.

Ikaros Hotel Panaglyph (I)

Notice here in Ikaros Hotel Panglyph (I) how the blue shades (which are supposedly viewed by the right eye with red-cyan glasses) go below the main object; and of course this displacement increase as the distance from the main center of interest (the focal point of the panaglyph) increases. In the beginning I lost hope and thought it can't be done. However, it simply ticked in my mind that the alignment is actually centered around the focal point (at the center of the image) - the plant pot here. This means, I can divide the image into two halves: left and right, and work on solving this problem. After all, it's only a problem of displacement or shifting of perspective; and the Skew transformation was the right tool for this task.

Skewing method around the center of the image.

Ikaros Hotel (Corrected)

The corrected version of the panorama proved somewhat promising with reduced ghosting effect and more reasonable depth just by pulling the "wings" of the panorama up a bit to match their corresponding features. This, however, won't be perfect for all the features in the scene and I do believe that this is natural, even in regular anaglyphs. The important point after all is, to reduce the vertical misalignment as much as possible; and it happened!

Ikaros Loop Panaglyph

The situation was repeated then for the tunnel view panorama, and the same correction was applied even though the situation is a bit tricky here since it is a polar panorama and not a flat, spherical one. Thus, technically, I can't really state that the misalignment was on the vertical axis, but nevertheless, the method worked just fine, to some extent. However, the wide-view projection (Doors and Windows) was the most persistent and despite applying the same method, yet the ghosting effect was not enhanced further as in the ones mentioned here. Probably another type of distortion was due; more investigations are due.

QTVR

At this occasion I had several trials of QTVRs done, since we are talking about panorama, and panaglyph. As you may know probably, QTVRs are done only with flat panoramas, thus there is no more talk about other projections - but there is a further talk about anaglyph QTVR. 



This QTVR was done smoothly with not much hassle, and the nadir of course (if you can see it) is an added simple logo to the panorama.
At this point, and after doing the first panaglyph (without correction), I got encouraged somehow to do another QTVR and see what will come out. I was sure though that it won't be aesthetic!



As you can see if you rotate for 180^o from the starting point (towards the door behind the pillars, opposite the plant pot), you will see that the cut is obvious, as this is the two ends of the original panorama, and the shift between the Red and Cyan made it worse. No surprise here. But then I've worked out around the shifting problem as I've mentioned above (by skewing the panorama) and tried to do the QTVR. I'll put it here for comparison as well...



I'd say the seam line is almost hard to notice with normal view, but it gets obvious when viewed with 3D glasses (red-cyan) - and yet, this is the best it could get I believe. Much better than the previous version at least. 
You might have noticed how the original QTVR is dark a bit with vibrant colors while the other two are light in color. This is normal since the second panorama (for the left eye that is) was taken with a change in light level from the first one, and the court yard was getting much brighter during the second take.
I don't know what to consider an anaglyph QTVR; is it really a 3D environment? or would I call it a 4D environment (supposedly that a QTVR is originally a semi-3D representation of space)? Anyhow, the name is not that important right now nor the philosophy behind it - the experiment just adds a new dimension to my experience...

Finale

Click to Enlarge

This week we got the news that our group, BPF, won one of the gold medals in Austria's international photo contest, or the so called Trierenberg Circuit. We have to wait now for July to come to receive our copies of the catalogs, and a ceremony is supposedly to come in October. I'm not sure how the awards are distributed but it's like there are many subcategories and fine details for which gold medals are rewarded. I'm proud to say as well that a number of Kuwaitis (other groups and individuals) did win various gold medals as well in other categories. The full list can be checked out in here. 
In the meantime, as I'm typing this, my shipment is ready for pick-up; I've ordered some books and items that I might post about here but it's just not the time for this. I do have a plenty of photos that I do need to work out and talk about in the future. I've been pretty busy writing this blog (which I'm trying to finish as early as possible) and my other Arabic Blog which is dedicated to beginners. Despite the fact it's in Arabic, the word flow is not a match for my flow in English when typing this blog post! Anyway, the fact is I'm trying to "arabize" as much as possible to enable those who see foreign languages hard to read (because of many reasons) would be able, as much as possible, to learn. I do have higher level topics like HDR in my mind, but the time for this isn't up yet. Been days now I'm taking 2 laptops (old and new) with me to work just to work on the text for both blogs. Don't know how long this will take, but it is surely better than sitting bored and sick of the maltreatment in this work place...