The Walnut…

Here i am with another post, and I was going to take another break for a moment, then I realized that I should talk about the walnut high-speed experiment. I'm typing this just days before my birthday (and it will be posted after my birthday), so Happy Birthday to Me!
Anyway, this might be rather a short post actually, as I gathered the shots in a video which I will be posting below. Unfortunately, i didn't manage to take a shot of the settings, but maybe a drawing would do?

Before I heed, I'd like to announce that most of the images from this experiment are available already on my Canstockphoto. They were rejected mostly from other stocks I deal with (maybe accepting 1 or 2 only) but the majority (if not all) are available on Canstockphoto.

The Walnut

Well, first let me post the schematics or chart, or plan, whatever you like to call it, and sorry for the lousy drawing here; I'm not the best artist out there you know…

The working area: (1) Silver small car shade, (2) 430EXII with globe diffuser, (3) The working area, (4) A group of speedlites; 2x 580EXII and 1x 430EXII, (5) Camera with controlling 580EXII speedlite.

Impact's oval diffuser
which was fitted
on 430EXII

Worth noting that the shooting here was done with Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens. Also, the car shade (1) was placed there in the beginning to reflect off the light coming from the speedlites at (4) but I realized it's not enough. The speedlites at (4) in the drawing are placed on the table but in reality they were beside the working table on stands. Anyway, since the reflection was weak, I've decided to place (2), a 430EXII speedlite with globe or oval diffuser on top, and I've made several test shots to gauge the power of the speedlite here; All work was done in HSS mode (or high-speed mode) of course.

Canon EF 100mm
f/2.8 USM Macro

The lens in use here was just about right for the perspective that I was aiming for. However, working with this lens in particular in LiveView mode is quite challenging for the change in the exposure in each test shot despite the fact that the powers of the speedlites were not changed. Finally, I've fitted a blocker on the eyepiece and it seemed to work fine but still some shots were off (probably this time related to the power of the flashes this time). Not sure why, but this problem doesn't happen often with other lenses when I work with them in LiveView; only this lens!

Initially, I started with f/16 for the aperture, but eventually raised it to f/22 (maximum for this lens). Strangely though, there was some apparent shallow depth (out of focus areas and sharp in-focus areas) in some shots despite this high f-number! It seems to me now that high-speed and macro are a No-No combination. All in all, there was of course a tweak in ISO and other things, and even the shutter speed was eventually raised to the maximum; 8000⁻¹s

Cokin's special
effect filter

Also, related to the lens in use, I've decided to place a special effect filter which I purchased from a friend (actually they belonged to his brother). These Cokin filters are apparently old and I don't have the needed adapter to fit them on the lens, but still I could hold them in front of the lens with the help of some paper clips. Before this time, I've never used these special effect filters in a shooting except for testing. You'll notice the flare in the image of the filter on the left here, and I made it that way intentionally to the show the texture of the surface, as they won't show in direct shot upfront. The filter added some touch to the images but not quite dramatic as I hoped actually.

 

The Sinking Walnut

Now coming to the actual experiment and work with the walnut shells. The main idea was to capture the impact of a water droplet on the water surface or just above the walnut shell. However, this proved to be challenging. First of all, I don't have the proper Gate gear to trigger the speedlites or the camera for that moment of impact, so I had to do all the work manually as usual, relying merely on my senses and coordination between eyes and fingers on the shutter release (using the cable remote here).
Another hurdle was the shells themselves, as I thought  they would sustain some water, and they did for some time, but eventually, started to sink, as it can be seen in The Sinking Walnut which was a test shot but I kept it just for that sparkle in the droplet (thanks to Cokin's filter here!). Apparently the walnut shells are porous naturally. Trying to keep some luster and reflection off water, I've exchanged the bowl of water with some can, put it upside down, and rely on the shallow edge to keep some water. I've also placed play clay (or whatever they call it) to stabilize the shells which proved a bit annoying in the editing phase later on, but it was a must.

Anyway, I will keep it short here and let the video do the talk. You can click the button to view it on a larger size. The whole process ended up with about 220 shots (mostly test shots of course and failed attempts) and sieved down to about 34 shots and finally, probably around 11 shots that were properly edited. Actually of the images is a composite of other shots that I deemed unusable; Not going to tell which!
I've realized during the work that I don't really have to shoot water (was using a head-less syringe for that), but at some point I've started to blow air from the syringe into the shell that had been filled with water just to make a turbulence and it worked just fine! So, a lesson to keep in mind when working in the future that the goal can be reached in more than one way, and some might sound a bit unconventional… I leave you with the video now.

In addition to these, I've created some extra pieces, just some artistic composition from one of the shots. Not sure why but I just felt like it really, but these pieces are not uploaded to the stocks like the rest. The two were saved as PNG to preserve the transparent background; So, even they are rendered as squares, but in reality they form a "X".

Vortex Pac-Man

Gluttonite

Finale

Now that I'm done with the walnut experiment post, I'm not sure what would my next post be about, but we'll see. For this reason I might even take a little vacation off from blogging until I do something significant with my camera, or maybe to put a little announcement here for some new photos uploaded to the stocks. Meanwhile, it seems that I'm already breaking with the resolution of making an Arabic post for my other blog once a month, as it is already August, and I literally don't have any idea what to post about there. About this same topic of this post? Maybe. Even though I wouldn't know how to render it up because that blog is dedicated mainly to beginners, so a lot of instructions and explanatory must be involved; Tedious, and might be overwhelming for a beginner. I've done such a post about high-speed photography before though, so this is another thing which makes me think what is the use of a new post about the same technique (almost).
Artistically speaking, I do a lot of editing for old photos but I'm not sure if i want to post them here since they don't have any specific category or theme, or belong to some project I'm working on. But I'll keep them on the side just in case…

Eagerness for traveling is back at me again even though I know that it is even harder than before with all the crazy world around me and me being the weight of Retinitis Pigmentosa. Those travels I used to do were the only reminder for me that I can survive and live alone, doing my own business, and above all, with some peace of mind. But that's something farfetched for the time being. I think no escape from facing these mood swings and coping with an environment that feels so strange to me as if I wasn't born and raised here.
Meanwhile, I've been thinking about placing some orders online, and among the things I wish to have is some soundproof panels or anything like that to give me some peace and quiet atmosphere in this house. But because of the bad postal services, I have to think it over, as ordering is not as easy as before when I used to order my camera gear all from stores in the US. Things had changed for me. For this reason, I'm planning to check if such panels are available locally here and again, I might need someone to pick me up to and from. Sounds pretty much like begging… and just to think that some people envied me for retiring early…

Spaziergang I…

The weather is getting better (in my terms) and looks encouraging for some outdoors activities. I'm not an outdoor man generally speaking, unless it comes to some solitude and lone walks - with or without a camera.
So far, at the time of typing these words, I've gone indeed into 2 strolls and planning for a 3^rd one when everything settles in properly. Anyway, just not to put all the eggs in one basket, I've decided to dedicate a blog post for each stroll, as much as possible.

Stroll I

Things were not planned, to begin with. Just some nice weather and a quiet morning; Things I do miss indeed. I cannot describe it with enough clarity but I can say it was somewhat like a sudden surge of energy that rushed through me and pushed me to change clothes and head out with my camera. It was one of these challenges that I used to set to myself when going to work on some days; One camera, one lens. However, there was a catch: A filter.

One Normal Day

The lens of choice here was (my trusted) 50mm, and the filter was my H-alpha (which is a filter dedicated for night sky photography). I picked this filter specifically to see how it responds to light in normal conditions like these (the sun was not so strong though, it was a cloudy day) and this filter acts like an infrared filter of a low threshold (not scientifically but I mean in the looks of the images) and that's why I've picked this filter specifically. The camera is, of course, my modified Canon EOS 7D. Even though the H-alpha is somewhat forgiving when it comes to viewing through the viewfinder (unlike regular infrared filters), yet working with a mask on and wearing glasses made this task difficult and I had to go with shooting using the LiveView instead. Shooting using the LiveView is somewhat cumbersome even though the shutter speed with high enough for stabilization while using this filter. To be on the safe side, I've decided to shoot bracketed shots; Shots like One Normal Day (which was a test shot) and more later to come, were mostly those of lower EV value because they were the most stable ones. Were I to shoot using the viewfinder, things would have been more stable.

الياسمين على الخد قال
(the jasmine on the cheek had said)

One of the things that keeps me from going out strolling and shooting images is the people around this area (almost everywhere here actually) which, if not taking privacy beyond the reasonable limits, would be bugs in the armpits (I came up with this). Anyway, I've kept on exploring around trying to find something interesting in some way and I did find some, but kept it for later because some people were standing there and I didn't want to stir trouble. I've even started to shoot some cat on some trash bin to ward off attention (I kind of like that shot though but I never posted it anywhere). Anyway, seeing that I might get more attention if I remained in one place and not moving, I've kept on going with the intention to get back to that location later to do the shot that I had in mind. This is where I've encountered some garden with a fence with some (Indian) jasmine flowers; We had a similar plant in my workplace and it attracts flies, but good thing there were none when I wanted to shoot that. There was only the keeper of the garden who greeted and was happy to watch me shoot the flower (and maybe was hoping that I would take a photo of him!).

Now, processing these images (later after the stroll) did produce such a nice turquoise tint (naturally) to the leaves while keeping everything else almost close to B&W; But things will change as it will be shown later. I could also go on and explain the procedure for processing each shot (specially the crop) but I guess no need for that here right now. I just hope you get accustomed to seeing Arabic titles for my images here as I preferred to use Arabic for these shots! Usually I use one or two words, but the jasmine shot reminded me of a line from a song, so I used it here.

The Signal

When it comes to surprises, I was kind of not disappointed in fact. I'm still wondering what is that thing that bears the Batman logo on top of it. I really wanted to turn around and take a shot from the front of this thing but I felt like someone is watching me so I decided not to linger longer here. One of the mistakes I did when shooting this, though, is not placing the Batman sign on the left to give it a proper space and direction. I've also decided to crop it first but then I've realized that the crop would take out a lot of the space and the environment around the sign so I just kept it as it is. Not a photo that I would use to participate in contests or anything but it is a good practice to notice and study.

Urbangle

Some surprises, on the other hand, did require a bit of scrutiny, as is the case with Urbangle. As I kept walking forward, after shooting the Batman sign, I was rolling my eyes around (literally, because of my retinitis pigmentosa) trying to find out anything interesting, when I noticed this leather sofa which apparently had seen better days, and been devoured by these palm trees outside one of the houses. I'm not sure what's the story here but apparently someone (probably a gardener or someone who works for one of the houses) used to rest here as I noticed an extension cord and a cable, probably acharger of some sort. Anyway, without thinking of the final outcome, I've snapped the shot as I thought it is kind of "funny" (my sense of humor isn't class most of the time). Later, at home, when this image was set to be processed, I was amazed by the colors (and here, I've processed the dark version of the bracketed set); Somehow, it looked like a fluorescent image and surely served a certain mood. Originally the image was sharp but I've worked on creating a dreamy look. And by the way, Urbangle is "urban" + "jungle". Not sure if such shot would make it through contests or anything but some people on YouPic really did like it indeed.

هَيَجانُ نَواعِم
(softies' upheaval)

At this point, I didn't see much interesting things after Urbangle was shot, so I decided to go back to that road where I wanted to take one specific shot for a bougainvillea, but didn't because of some people were standing by. I was hoping that they left the place, and I was right. However, I did notice something that somehow I didn't notice before. Some grass or weed growing on the roadside on its own; I'm not sure what this plant is called but seems I've seen it called "dogtail" somewhere. Anyway for this post, I will simply call it the "weed". I loved this plant and its soft structure. It was windy a bit that day and the way it moved with the wind or breeze was, to me, breathtaking. Just like sea waves and I literally stood there watching it and shot a video of it, before I started to shoot several shots from different angles. I did wish at that moment that I do have my Voigtländer 20mm with me but nevertheless, I did make some shots with the 50mm lens with good perspective at some point.

تَناوُشْ
(reach)

The deal was with the processing of such images (whether to be taken with 50mm or 20mm) as the perspective in any way would include unneeded elements from the surroundings or the background. So, in any way it would be, a crop and some darkening for the background (beside the special work with layer masks and all that mess) - all that was a must. Because of the movement here, we do have some blurry images and this is something I didn't mind with such a scene and even appreciate it more than a still image; It is a source of abstracts as it is, as seen in Softies' Upheaval or Reach. Yet, there was at some point or moment when I had to switch off the camera and start to shoot again, and forgot to set up the bracketing option again (as all the shots in this stroll were done that way). I've shot 7 successive shots (burst mode) before realizing that the bracketing was off because I've switched the camera off.

اِهْتِياج
(rampage)

It was a mistake, and I was thinking that I will delete these files later when I go back home. But, as usual, that didn't happen. Checking the images back and seeing that the exposures are somewhat workable (some shots were stable and some had motion blur), I've decided to do the multi-exposure magic and add a bit of dark mode to the mix. The result was Rampage. It was a mistake, but a useful one. It occurred to me at this point that sometimes, beauty lies in the mistakes; or as we say in Arabic sometimes: May a harmful/bad thing be beneficial. From the set of images taken for this weed, I think Rampage is the one I like the most and I'm grateful for such a mistake! But now, after stopping by this plant, it is time to work on the shot that I've came back to this road for.

أَثيرِيْ
(ethereal)

The scene attracted me for that long bougainvillea branch AND the lantern (that looks somewhat Victorian in style). It is a facade for one of the houses and that's why I was hesitant to shoot this scene. So, before anyone would comes in and disrupt the process, I've decided to work quickly. I had no time to check for the tilt, perspective and all that in between; I was just there shooting. Thus, in the processing phase back home, I spent quite a time fixing the perspective and managing a proper crop for the image to remove undesirable additions (and cloning out some too). I would say that Ethereal is my No.1 favorite from this stroll, followed by Rampage which was shot for that weed. The dreamy look, of course, was added in the processing phase and I tried to confine it to the plant alone. What I like here is the shadows that add some ethereal feel (hence the name); Some feeling that I can't find proper words to describe it except: a dream. Things didn't stop here though, as I've created a swapped version, where the blue/red channels are swapped.

عَبْرَ الأَثيرْ
(via ether)

Some people even preferred the swapped version. Personally, I like them both and I find it hard to decide which one is better than the other. I'm wondering in fact if I was to upload them to the stocks, would they both be accepted or one of them is rejected on the grounds of similarity (happened before with me when one image is rejected because it is similar to another in the upload). However, the closest to a "real" dream (if I can call it so) would be Ethereal despite the nice contrast and the colors combo in Via Ether. Also, Via Ether won't be completely unrealistic in terms of colors, I'm sure that the town of Chefchauon  in Morocco does have such beauties with its blue theme (it is called the blue city/town indeed). This said, I need to think about it thoroughly as I'm not sure if these images would be a good addition to the stocks, or they are better being treasured up for events, contests, or printed for any expos in the future (though I didn't participate in any since I left the group).

البَرَكَةُ كانَتْ هُنا
(the bless was here)

Finishing with the bougainvillea, I think I felt a bit exhausted and started to go back home, but on the way, again, I stopped to shoot some old door. I have a soft spot for doors, specially old ones. Such elaborate doors are quite the flag for the 1960s and 1970s eras here (give or take). Personally, these eras were the golden age (even though I was born in 1980) and probably the best times in the history of this place (if not in most of the world). I guess you can tell now why I named the photo here The Bless Was Here. Anyway, modern doors for modern houses nowadays don't happen to be with much art and craft like these old doors and that makes even more special.
I don't know who owned this house really and apparently no one lives here as you can probably tell from the ruins. Such houses are common in some areas and usually some haunting stories looms around them, and I'm pretty sure this house is no exception.
Anyway, back to the technical aspects of shooting this. This photo is actually a merge of two shots, panorama if you say. Two or three shots just about enough to include the door and whatever above. For some reason, I didn't like to take a shot of the door alone; I think it was my eye calling for me to include the environment and not just the door alone; Some form of complementing environment I suppose. With that, there was quite some work to be done with the perspective as I shot this in a haste and without a tripod to begin with, so some alignments and straightening was needed to fit the door into a perfect rectangular shape (and consequently, cropping out some parts as well). Honestly, I didn't experiment much with channel swapping here because the colors that pop out when the white balance got fixed were quite sufficient for that dusty, old, past mood. Probably swapping the channels (red and blue mostly) would not serve the mood much here.

خَريفْ
(autumn)

خَريفْ 2
(autumn 2)

At home even things didn't stop and I glimpsed right away the curves of the bougainvillea, which despite its thorns, I'm quite fond of. Despite the fact that I've shot these plants many times before (and posted some of the images here as well) but the atmosphere that day was somewhat adding a new layer or a new vision power over my eyes. It is a well-known fact that the weather does control the mood for many, and I'm no exception. However, it seems it goes more for me as my eyes are opened to see more lines, more abstracts; To see things in ordinary things that I do see every day. Things with Autumn, of course, did not go without a crop. And it seems that people are more interactive with the swapped version rather than the original, as well. I believe it's natural to feel that way about it since it has a stronger contrast (visually).

Finale

So, basically this was my first stroll. There is another one that was done which I've kept for another blog post, hopefully. I hope though there would be a third, a fourth and even more. It just depends on the situation at home and whether I'm being very active or not. We are well into December already and when I roll back with my memory, it seems that there is some work waiting to be done (some of it concerning my car). I have to admit though that staying home all this time and not going to work is a good thing but in the same time I'm kind of dragging myself to do the usual regular tasks that I used to do regularly back when I used to get up every morning just to go to work. Nevertheless, I'm not complaining. If there is one thing to complain about in the meantime that would my sluggishness and mood swings (which I'm trying hard to control).

So far, at the time of typing these words, two strolls had been already. The first one is the one I've talked about above, and the next one will hopefully be posted in the week after the next. In this stroll I've used 50mm lens, and in the next one I've used 20mm lens, and yet I'm still thinking about my next lens. The issue is technical as I'm trying to keep shooting with my H-alpha filter and this filter, being 58mm in diameter, won't fit my Sigma 12-24mm even with step down rings (the lens' diameter is 80mm). On the other hand, I could be using Sigma 70-300mm (with a diameter of 62mm) but this lens is definitely for a stroll I would say. It would be nice to use a classic zoom lens like 18-55mm as it has a good range between wide and normal focal lengths but unfortunately for me, my lens is quite old and not functioning well. Is it time to update my lenses and more? Maybe Canon's pancake (40mm) lens? Anyway, at the time of typing this, I'm still not sure what lens to use for my next walk or stroll, beside the many, many, many things, that plague my mind as it is already…

Urú!

Well, I think I will delay my supposed vacation from blogging just a bit and will be posting this blog post, hopefully.
Meanwhile, we were supposed to get back to work partially with things going gradually in the fight with COVID-19. Suddenly, though, things started getting out of hands here and the number of hits is increasing by day as I'm typing these words in what seems to be a second wave. So, Phase I, which was supposed to be ending by June 21^st, is extended further to some unknown time till this moment. Who knows, maybe till the time of posting this, Phase II would in effect (and probably I'll be heading back to work).
Anyway, I was planning to post about a series of shots, which I'm going to call The King Series, but I think I will delay that for now in favor of the shots I've shot on June 21^st for the solar eclipse; My FIRST ever solar eclipse shooting!
However, I have to notify you in advance that this would be a rather short post (or maybe I should say a boring post) because shooting the eclipse was kind of "monotonous". Or in other words, no big deal about it; Nothing special!

Urú!

Sigma DG 70-300mm.

Just before I start, Urú actually means "eclipse" in Irish; Just so you know. Now, I really wished that I would have taken these shots within the framework of a landscape, but this was not possible (of course). Thus, I had to satisfy myself with what I can do at the moment. I Just picked my Sigma 70-300mm lens fitted with B+W 403 UV filter and Kenko's IR Cut filter, and my modified EOS 7D and headed out. I had an idea of using my Rokinon 800mm f/8 Mirror Lens, but abandoned the idea when I remembered the hurdles and hardships involving its focusing (manual) and also no filter would fit that (except for the solar filter maybe), but I really wanted to shoot in ultraviolet here to experience what the outcome would be. Not a big deal though, for sure, but still, it was an experiment to be done!

Rokinon 800mm Mirror Lens,
a.k.a. Barrel lens.

The solar eclipse started around 7:20 a.m. local time, so I was there with my tripod. The other unpleasant part about this eclipse is that it was partial only and not annular. Anyway, I guess I don't have the right to complain here since it's my first time to shoot a solar eclipse.

Triple Eclipse

Kenko's infrared cut filter,
to stop the infrared leakage in
the ultraviolet pass filter.

Now, the ultraviolet and IR cut filter did a good job in blocking the sun, in addition to the high f-number (but this one I was fluctuating between f/11-f/22) and the high shutter speed (settled down later to 8000^-1s). However, the first few shots were bright (too bright) as can be seen from Triple Eclipse. Also, this brightness showed the inner reflection problems (common when you stack filters on a lens), and for this we see here a triple image for the eclipse; One real image and inner reflections in between the filters and the lens. Can serve an artistic purpose but definitely not always.

Stages

As I've stated already, the shoot was a bit boring really: Shoot a series in burst mode, adjust the camera tilt, shoot again. The thing kept on and on. I was hoping though that I would get some details from the sun or its halo when I process the ultraviolet images but I think I did need an extra zoom here (I was shooting at 300mm of course). I wanted to use a teleconverter to shoot at 600mm but then I thought, well, it's my first time; I better shoot with what I'm sure that would work. Adding a teleconverter would reduce the amount of light significantly and adding an ultraviolet filter is not quite a friendly thing, since UV wavelengths are quite sensitive to the glass and are drastically reduced. All in all, it was a good idea to reduce the amount of glass through which the UV must pass. Anyway, the good thing after all is shooting different stages of the eclipse where the moon gradually covered more and more of the sun disk. So, I decided to merge some of these images all together in some artistic way and so it was Stages. Of course, this is not the real path of the sun in the sky; Things were harder in reality as I was following the sun at 300mm. The event started to get closer and closer to the zenith point and things started to get harder for me to look (I was covering my head and the camera's back with a towel). However, at the end, I've decided a video, just so I might do something with it. And I did!

Note: The music comes from Free Music Archive website, and titled Magic Hour by Three Chain Links - Hope I got it all right!

The original video was almost 8 minutes long. Around the end, I got a signal on LiveView warning me about sensor heating, and that's when the video ended as I had to switch the camera off, of course. Anyway, shooting was getting harder at that point as I said as the camera got almost pointing to the zenith.
The problem with the video is that it was not easy to deal with and correct the color shift. I had to process the video several times to make it smaller in size to be dealt with and correct the color using "traditional" approaches (I've edited the video in Photoshop to correct the color in fact), and used OpenShot Video Editor to speed up the video. For some reason this one kept on crashing when I wanted to add the audio track so I had to close it down and head to the traditional Windows Movie Maker to add the audio. Such a mess. This said, I'm not really planning to venture into the world of video yet. Maybe never. Still, this is not the first time I do shoot a video with such filters and correct the colors, I just wish that correcting the White Balance for videos was easier than it is, just like the case with RAW files.

Finale

Well, after this little post about the past solar eclipse, I'm thinking seriously about giving myself a bit of a vacation from blogging for the time being, even though there is indeed some "good" material to post and discuss as I've mentioned before; The King Series, which sadly seems to have been abruptly stopped at the moment. Meanwhile, and for this short vacation from blogging (which I think would be around 2-3 weeks), there is much thinking to be done, and try. Just a side note, I've downloaded GIMP lately and I'm tinkering with it to see how I would adapt to this editor.

In case you don't know what GIMP is, it is a free opensource editor. And like how RawTherapee is somewhat a mimic for Adobe's Lightroom, GIMP is the mimic for Photoshop.

My initial trial with it leaves so much to be desired though it has some sparkle about it and things that got me interested to try out, but first things first and there are some essentials that I need to get around with, like how to edit a RAW file and changing the workspace color (it's dark gray which is not suitable for judging colors). I'm digging still through this and for sure I would need to be going through a lot of Help files and topics.
Beside all this technical mess, there are also some issues I'm working on but maybe it's not a good idea to talk about them right now as I'm actually unaware of the "end" of these issues and whether they are going to lead where I want it to be or not, but it is something that I better work on slow for now, and when the time comes, I'll talk about it in this blog, maybe.
And as with the ongoing crisis and home quarantine, which is more or less active despite the gradual opening and going back to normalcy, I've realized the fact that the hardest thing about isolation is not being isolate or alone at all, but hardships lie in being forced to be with others. I believe this is exactly the real problem with jails and imprisonment; Not confinement itself, but being with others and bearing with them, specially if a person does not get along with much of them.
Despite the lengthy period of time spent at home and not going to work, despite all of that, I still feel the need to get a vacation as if I'm not ready yet to get back to work. As I'm typing these words it has been confirmed that I should go back for one week at least starting from July 5^th to supervise some cleaning and disinfection work, and probably check on some devices. For such a little task under such circumstances, I still do feel not ready for the whole thing as if I didn't take a vacation for months. Which is true in some sense because the months in which I've stopped going to work were mostly spent at home coping and fighting against mood swings… severe mood swings. Maybe this whole thing is a signal that I need to find something, change jobs or resign, or anything. An idea that I had since long time but never been able to step it up further because, simply, there is not much to do out there for people like me. On the other hand, there are even more pressing matters that I deem more important than work and its situation which do require more attention from my side, and yet, they are just afloat without any real vision nor a solution in the near future. These matters are more or less related to the fact of how am I supposed to enjoy life for real, away from the network of mood swings and depression, and re-discovering what love is, in a time when I'm approaching 40 already… if love still exists, that is.

A Micro Job…

Well they had been some easy-going weeks, relatively, but with me back to work there is also the lack of time and energy (typical) to do some of the chores or projects I set to myself. But after winning a gold medal, I think I need to get some rest, yeah?
Well, my rest is not a real rest here though, with many other chores I need to do. First things first, I had to print my winning panorama as a gift for an old friend, whose uncle is actually the deceased Kuwaiti Icon, AbdulHusain AbdulRidha; for whom the whole thing was done after his death as a tribute.

The image here (without the external margins outside the black border) was about 175x79cm, and that's way greater than A0; The largest size in the A-series of ISO 216 standard (the typical standard of papers here). Thus, my typical go-to printing shop was not an option since they don't print larger than A0. I had to go to the main branch of that printing shop (and I was surprised that it's now owned by another company in fact). Anyway, it took them some time to print it (which triggered a headache for the lack of sleep). I tried my best to keep this file at its best of clarity and resolution, so no wonder the file size was a monster! An almost 1GB 16-bit TIFF at 300 DPI! Such a gigantic file caused their system to crash (according to one of the workers there) and they had to re-open it on some other system and try again. Makes me wonder, really, how come they can deal with this file as I do while their PCs or Macs or whatever were connected to those big large format printers (dedicated to posters and other types of prints)?
I've chosen canvas as my medium here. Their canvas material had a finer and smoother texture than the one I usually print on and in fact, in some sense to the touch, it does feel like if the canvas had been already glossed. I didn't bother to apply any varnish on the print with this relatively-new material to me; I was afraid that it would ruin the looks and it's really not a good time for this! Thus, I went along and just wrote my dedications on the margins (after shooting the video above).

The Other-Wise

On the other hand, I've not done even a little with my camera, but still doing experiments on and off with my microscope. My shaky, microscope. There is a great hope here. First of all, I'm not afraid to use the 40X objective anymore (unless the beauty of the details calls for a lesser magnification). Then, it seems that I've somehow managed to have even a better position when shooting the eyepiece with even greater magnification (all by coincidence), but further investigation is needed here since I'm still unsure of how to calculate the magnification in that position. I'm aiming on achieving something beyond 1000X magnification; And somewhat I think I've done it (if my calculations are correct).

Aspergillus
~ 1280X

I was blessed with a friend who works in the biological field and offered me to prepare a sample of a fungus. He also toured me through some of the microscopes where he works and I was really impressed (though my eyes was problematic to view some samples through the stereoscopic eyepieces). Now for the image above, the magnification should be around 1280X (40X objective, 10X eyepiece, 3.2X reversed 20mm lens on camera). The original sample was blue as, according to my friend, the sample has to be stained to be recognizable in a good way. However, after the merge of 4 to 6 shots, I've corrected the colors (using the 3-point correction on Curve in Photoshop). The image is also, in fact, a third trial after 2 failed attempts. In one of these attempts I was trying to shoot using my Sigma 12-24mm in reverse! With that lens at 12mm in reverse, I could have achieved around 3300X theoretically! However, the images were quite unclear and I definitely need a more stable environment with a brighter light source.
The second attempt, also a fail, was using the 20mm lens in reverse and, by coincidence, discovering that I do not need to get so close to the eye piece to take pictures of it (only if I want the image to dominate and remove the black border of the eyepiece). Somehow, the concept is like a projector and a screen: the further away you put the projector from the screen, the larger would the image be; Only thing left is to re-focus the image. The only thing, though, I wouldn't know exactly what the magnification power would be with a distance between the eyepiece and the camera! But sure thing it would be something greater than what would be calculated usually. What is left now is, to do some infrared work as well to see if there is anything special about it.
With the help of my friend, we've taken some shots using my smartphone at high resolution, and from both eyepieces of the microscopes in order to merge them later (hopefully) into an anaglyph if possible. These shots were taken at 400X and I might post them in the future. When I compared some shots from the mobile and the image I've done above, it is apparent that the shallow depth of field exists even in such good microscopes (the details of the granules were not clear) and it's not very different from my own very old microscope - and I thought such a problem would have been solved already - So, I guess, there is a call for photo stacking EVEN when using an advanced microscope!

Trying to measure the width of the hypha (if this is what they call it), at about 2475X.

Shy Green

There is one poem which I've written few weeks back but I didn't post about on here. Since then, though, my mind got blocked with many events, chores, and responsibilities which I need to attend to. Words come and go, but I don't even have the time to push further. Anyway, I called this poem Shy Green after getting inspired by a photograph I've shot in Cahir, Co. Tipperary, back in 2010 - My second visit to Ireland.

Stormy seas, by the winding fear,
calmly standing in a shy green,
My heart in hope to set a clear,
gazing about a peaceful scene.
Miracles happen so it's seen,
but none to a beauty I know,
tranquil, alone, battling off the snow.

My sighs, that which all I could give,
a tear, a caress, or a thought,
But would my gentle one just forgive,
a wretch like me, happy in distraught?
By this grand asylum, I'm caught,
and the blooming shy abounds me,
when all that I dreamt of, not to be.

Charming in loneliness set,
what a rose had an ill such luck?
Take my palm and never get wet,
and thy green, may never get a pluck.
Thus, when the nightmares are struck,
my heart shall keep you by finesse
then on that headstone, chant me a bless.

Shy Green

In this poem, I've used a rhyming theme which I've never worked with before or heard of (probably challenging myself?) with the help of Verse Perfect. The form was called Rime Royal and goes: a,b,a,b,b,c,c. An odd number of lines is required, so it is kind of challenging to connect ideas that way, somehow. 

There had been many instances of inspiration in the past weeks, either from events or photographs which I've shot and edited myself, yet there was a lack of something that kept away from typing few words down. Not sure what it is, but maybe... motivation? praise? desire? I'm not sure really. Let's hope this blockade shutters off my mind soon. I need to write…

Finale

The past 2 weeks were quick and slow at the same time somehow. It's a weird feeling. Ramadhan is drawing near and I do feel the sleepless and tiresome nights already before its coming. I've signed for a leave already, but still I will attend to work for the first 10 days of Ramadhan. Traffic jams now are unbearable because of the stupid time management we have in this country where and when people all must go out of work at the same, making Ramadhan itself as worse in jams than regular days despite the shorter working hours during this month. I'm typing this with a sigh. Hopefully though, I will be able to work more with my camera and do something useful more than what I usually do in these regular days. Let's hope.
The whole story about the microscope and the works of the microscope made me think of seriously getting a more "advanced" one (since my friend been nagging on my head actually) but the idea was actually abandoned quickly; or was it? One thing for sure, I can't get this right now as I'm mingling with budget issues and other priorities. My friend's view was quite "profit-wise" as he looks chanced to get more money in any way possible. That's not me really. I still consider it a hobby and something that ignites that long lost childish curiosity in me. I did have my dreams about having a telescope and connect it to the camera as well, and this is such an old ambition which I'm not considering right now as well. 
As for the time being, as you can see, I'm still editing my old photos from time to time with some focus on weird crops and ratios to bring the attention of the viewer. Even lately, this activity has come to a perigee because of the other chores I need to do (including typing this blog which takes some time to do). On the other hand, I'm waiting for a new shipment of books and something that I think it is too good to be true but I can't judge till I see it with my own eyes (and test) - I'll talk about these books and "things" later in the future. Now... where did I put that pillow and blanket…

Stacked…

It's a slowing down time, and summer is hovering heavily with its beginning here. Air breezes are slow and barely enough to breathe here, with waves of dust suspended in the air. I miss winter already. I didn't do much photography lately but few video shooting, again, as I'm waiting to settle down with a topic for the project of the month of May. We'll see what that would be. I had some work with macro shooting too as I was trying my old rail to do some focus stacking, which I have to say from now, it was a fail for many factors. However, I got still some nice out come as well.

VaVaVoom...

Let's head first to the video. In my last post in this blog I've posted mainly 2 infrared videos done as I was driving. It was about time, however, to do the same while using my B+W 403 Black UV-Pass filter. I didn't want to use the old and cumbersome 18-55mm kit lens which fits this filter perfectly and I didn't have any wide angle lens better than my Voigtländer 20mm semi-manual lens, which has a diameter of 52mm, and thus a step-up ring is needed.

Without going into details here with the settings I've been using (basically automated), you might have noticed vignetting around the corners. I need to do a thorough check up and comparison with my other B+W 092 infrared filter and Voigtländer 20mm lens, as it seems that vignetting happens only with this lens, for which I use a step-up ring to fit those circular filters (all of them are 58mm in diameter while Voigtländer 20mm is 52mm). If vignetting appears with both filters then, of course, it has to be the step-up ring, but if not, then it has to be the filter itself and its nature and make. However, in regular single shots, fixing the vignetting is quite easy but with a video clip, I'm still not sure about my capabilities in that venue. 

Sigma 12-24mm for Canon.

I thought I was over with videos until I've noticed that some of the infrared images online are actually, and most likely, images taken with a converted camera but without any filter, which produced a strange hue of colors because of the full spectrum involved (specially when the sun is shining), and then colors would be converted (sometimes) and the resultant image is something "fantastical," so to say. This is what I planned to do then specially after acquiring a new lens (but an old one) from a friend who converted to Nikon. The lens is Sigma 12-24mm. It is a big and a bulky lens but the range of zooming here is quite useful for me specially for recording a video inside the car, and with the absence of any 18-55mm kit lens in my collection (it's there, but it's old and hardly used).

Again, sorry, I have to remove the audio here (for your own safety trust me). I was lucky and unlucky in the beginning of this video as you can see: I was trapped between my brother's car (which is red but turned blue with channel swapping) and our neighbor's car on the right, yet it was a good chance for some interesting footage! Anyhow, I think I'm going to like this new old-lens. There are some problems though which I'm hoping to find a solution for later:

Rokinon 800mm f/8.0 Mirror Lens

• The lens with its case is too large for my camera bag, even if the case is to be removed.
• The lens front is fisheye-like, meaning no filters can fit. But there is a special hood to cover the front of the lens and provide a base to attach filters, yet it can hardly be used for now since it's 82mm in diameter.
• The rear of the lens is large as well and it might be hard to stabilize any gel filters at the back.

Nevertheless, I still think this old lens will be of great use in the future. If only I can find a proper place to store it. This brings me memories of my Rokinon 800mm mirror lens which I didn't use much as well and I have to see about using this lens as well and getting active with it too! As you can see from the video above, the colors are pretty close to, for example, many portraiture shots that are said to be taken in infrared. This makes me think that many of these infrared shots are actually, simply, taken with a converted camera without an infrared filter. I've seen some pretty colored infrared shots that are said to be taken with Hoya infrared filters, with threshold of 720nm; Yet, I don't understand the vibrant colors which I don't even get with my B+W 092 infrared filter of 650nm in threshold. This needs more research!

Minute

Min-Yoot; to be precise about the pronunciation. Along with my videos, I've taken my chances to work with my old macro-rail for a while, as some tiny plants are blooming at home and I didn't want to lose this "rare" chance without documenting some of them. Got to say that the aroma that spread around the place in the early morning hours is just refreshing (despite the bad weather of dust and humidity sometimes).

Beauty Explosion
Canon EF 50mm + 56mm ET, f/11, 10^-1sec, ISO250.
Focus Stack

I have to say though that all my trials with the rail were a chain of failures. Yet, some people liked some shots despite the errors like Beauty Explosion, which was shot indoors (after moving the pot inside). Yet, I made a mistake for not using higher f-number. Despite being inside, the branch was still shaking because of the slight breeze from the AC! This was so obvious even with 1.12X magnification, so I can't imagine what kind of shake I would be witnessing if I went over this ratio of magnification even! The 20mm and 36mm extension tubes would be used for every railing experiment still. It can be noticed in Beauty Explosion how some areas are smudges; those are specifically some merging errors probably cause of the little shake of the branch and changing the position and also there might be some missing millimeters along the way as I was rotating the knobs of the rail (making more than 20 shots along the way). The colors here are, of course, a result of swapping Red and Blue (the shoot was done using my converted Canon EOS 7D but without any filters).

SpectraOnion
Canon EF 50mm + 12mm ET, f/22, 30^-1sec, ISO100.

Away from that plant, outside under the blazing sun, I got some memories back of me doing some of my first 3D with onion blooms, and we have it again! I didn't want to skip the chance so I tried my luck with it, this time with my converted camera. In SpectraOnion, I've the 12mm extension tube just to get closer to the bloom, as the 50mm lens has a minimum focusing distance of 45cm, and I needed to get closer than this distance. My aim wasn't really going into the field of macro here, yet I got a nice close up, despite the back-breaking situation (very low) and the blazing sun. Of course,  I didn't forget to aim for a 3D rendition so I've taken several shots by nudging the whole tripod to the left gently.

SpectraOnion (3D)

I've examined doing the 3D anaglyph on both, colored and B&W versions and, despite the distractions with the colored version, it seems that it stands out more than the B&W version. Not sure why, but it is kind of weird to see such thing with my own eyes, because it is believed, typically, that B&W images are better for anaglyph rendering to reduce the color distractions in general! Anyway, it looks fine to me specially at the base of the little stems as they stand out when viewed with anaglyph glasses. Moreover, I had a go with swapping the channels as usual with such images specifically.

SpectraOnion (Red-Blue channel swap)

Being beautiful as well, but not favored over the original by some, probably because the original has a strong color contrast between yellows and blues (the two are opposites on the circle of colors). However, another trial took place and this time I've done it outside (for the same plant) in a somewhat quite evening with barely some breeze. The light outside was strong so I was relying a bit on the fast shutter to stabilize the image with the same settings for the previous experiment: 50mm lens and 20+36mm tubes.

Stacked Bloom
Canon EF 50mm + 56mm ET, f/22, 5^-1sec, ISO400.

As it can be seen, I was wrong. Though I increased the depth to f/22 but the shutter slowed down significantly. For this reason, I had to time my shooting, holding the remote in one hand and trying to block the air current with the other, and shooting only when I feel the branch was stable enough. The ISO had to be raised significantly which meant more noise. However, I can say that the range of proper merging here is better than my first trial despite the fact that I was doing it outside in the fresh air. Here in Stacked Bloom we see that it's all blue after channel swapping unlike the very first trial, Beauty Explosion. This is probably related to the change in IR levels from indoors to outdoors (outdoors being more, naturally).

Crystal Bloom
Canon EF 50mm + 56mm ET, f/16, 10sec, ISO100.

In my final trial, Crystal Bloom, I've decided to cut a portion of the branch and it take it inside then stabilize it further by holding it with a paper binder. The length was small so AC air breeze wouldn't have an effect on it, which encouraged me to go mad with the exposure! At that moment I've remembered my problems with my Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens, and thus decided to work with f/16 instead of f/22, as I thought it might be a factor playing in the mishaps with merging the focus stack. In average, the exposure for each shot in the stack was between 8 seconds to 10 seconds and the total was about 40 shots. Tried to be precise as much as possible with the rail this time and moved 1mm between each shot and the other. However, in merging the focus stack, things went OK except at some portions close to the edges away from the center of the image. This leads to me think that what is happening here is a change in the virtual size of the image beside the change in the focused area, and for this reason the stacking doesn't go well. There is, of course, some room for human error, always. Also, it might just be that using many extension tubes like that doesn't go well with the rail method? Not sure. Too bad I didn't think of doing reversing lens back then since I have the proper gear for that. According to calculations (which I hope are right!) if I'm to use Voigtländer 20mm lens in reverse, the magnification power is supposed to be about 2.5X. The question remains though about how practical the focusing distance would be (it is REALLY close already with extension tubes and 50mm at 1.12X magnification!). Seems we'll have another round with that. I didn't forget as well to render a 3D out of these images!

Crystal Bloom (3D)

Finale

This was a... brief (?) about what was going on with my life lately. Excluding the ups and downs and the mood swings. There was a bubble of eagerness to write a poem with all that mix of feelings inside me, yet I couldn't find the power nor the mental order to pin it down. I think my dreams of seeing Morocco must be kept for some other time. I've signed in for a leave for the whole month of Ramadhan and it will start by May 28^th and will end by June 22^nd. Thus, I'm not sure if there is any chance for a vacation this year either. All what is left for me here, I presume, is the company of my own thoughts, and projects…

InfraVideo…

After having a vacation from almost everything for one week, I think it is time to pin down this blog, even though it is hard for me because things had been drastic a bit lately and my mood is in great swing lately. However, I'm trying to work on some stuff and I will try to post about some of my thoughts here. I wasn't going to type it but it is due after leaving it for a week!

Meanwhile I'm working on various things, mainly videos. It's just getting interesting with me exploring various filters and recording videos from my car as I used to do in the old days (with my small car back then). I'm working on that slowly and I've learned bits of videography already, but sure not like a professional anyway; I still don't have a shotgun mic even! But before delving into these videos, I've prepared a video some time ago for a hypercube (a.k.a. tesseract, 4D Cube) toy which I've created using playing straws.

The object is made by interlacing 2 cubes of straws and then connecting the corners, which was not to be done without bending the straws making what it looked like circles when viewed from the sides. I've created another model but it was not successful like this unfortunately, where 2 cubes are fit one inside the other, but again because of the bending in connectors between corners, the view was not "organized" so to say. Meanwhile, I'm trying to build a model of a hypercube using wooden pieces and some kind of glue (tried Tack-It already but didn't work properly). I'm planning to use such models for future photographic missions if possible. I might find inspiration there.

On the other hand, I got back to my habit of doing videos while driving but this time using filters to see the general look. surprisingly, fitting the tripod inside my Pajero is harder than fitting it into my small Seat before, probably because of the differences in design. My first trial was with B+W 092 infrared filter which has a threshold of about 650nm (or it might be 700nm). Such filter is supposed to let some color in when processing the images.

I'm showing here the video without audio track (meh, useless!). Luckily, the camera didn't flip with the tripod inside the car as I was roaming around. Hope you enjoy the marvelous views of how cars and trucks act like marbles thrown randomly on the floor! One of the concepts I've learned online about videography is that you must keep things in manual (to be more professional). However, in this video above, I've let things be automatic. I've used Voigtländer 20mm lens here which is semi-manual, thus I'm not sure if the aperture did change during the recording. Anyway, shutter speed and ISO are surely to be changing depending on the lighting conditions in front of the lens. I've increased the EV to +1 to be on the safe side while recording but I ended up reducing the brightness and adjusting the contrast because of that when editing the video in Photoshop (yes, Photoshop). I was dedicated though to record a video without any automated process, and I'm not sure if this rule would really be applied or could be applied to special video recording like this one under infrared filter (or UV). Anyway, I did it!

To shoot this video though, I had to change the settings for the tripod as well just because I changed the filter, since the filter is a gel filter which is placed at the back of my Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens, and thus I had to re-fold the tripod in such a way to get the camera to the front more to concentrate the view on the windshield as much as possible.
The filter in the second video is Kodak's infrared gel filter with threshold of 1000nm. You might notice how it looks more like a night vision video clip, but it was really shot in morning time. In this video, I've used complete manual settings and I had to make a compromise. The smaller version of the video here might look "clear" somehow and smooth, but the original had a significant noise level apparent while watching, since I was using ISO 4000. I had to reduce the f-number down to f/5.6 or less while fixing the shutter speed to 1/50s. I wanted to shoot at f/8 or f/11 to ensure the depth of field but that was out of question. The shutter speed here is related to the FPS rate which I've picked at 24fps, and according to some rules of thumb from the literature around the internet, the shutter speed should be equal to: 1/(2 x fps). But this point is actually sparking my interest and I want to try slower shutter speeds if possible to see how the video would look! However, probably these rules of thumb in the literature are more confined to normal video shooting and not for such conditions with special filters applied! There are a number of points I've noticed in this video though which I didn't really see in the previous video shot with B+W 092 infrared filter of 650nm threshold:

• Some trees are bright and some are dark, so I think some plants were reflecting IR indeed and some were absorbing IR, the despite the general lack of sunshine!
• Some car lights (brakes or signaling) were brighter than they are in reality! While some signaling from some cars didn't show up in the recording at all! I think this is related to the IR issued in each bulb type, maybe?

Away from the noise level which is somewhat annoying for me, I think the results were fascinating actually; to see a real difference in the light levels and light receptions between a video in IR and reality!
In the process, I've realized that whatever color space the camera is set to, the video is in fact recorded in sRGB. When loaded into Photoshop, it will adapt to the default working color space of Photoshop (which I set to ProPhoto) but the rendering of the video would not be "fit" if I can call it so. The colors would be so saturated and working around that is a tedious task (if it can be fixed anyway), and thus working with infrared videos I have the habit now to convert everything to sRGB first. The vivacity of the colors are not pretty much required anyway as much as it is so when working with HDR slides and tone-mapping in regular images, as I usually do!

Finale

I'm passing through some weird timing here as I'm slowing down the pace of my work with the camera (excluding the videos). I had to withdraw from the project of April within the group. After getting sick and getting slow recovery (some coughing remain though) my body and mind are not functioning well together. Despite the relative easiness or commonality of the topic for April's project (shadows and reflections), yet my mind could not come up with a good idea to perform or try.
with Ramadhan getting closer, it seems more likely I'm going to sacrifice some days from my leaves balance, and take a leave during the month or most of it after experiencing it last year with summer semester rolling in and record heat struck back then. I'm not ready to experience this at all. I'm not sure that I will be able to travel anyway but I was hoping for to more days in my balance instead of spending some right now. I have to pick the starting and ending dates still which I cannot decide and settle with yet.
I'm feeling detached, and working on detaching myself further in fact. I need to get back to my activity before. I think being a member in a group is slowing me down for the time being. When I see the number of experiments with my camera in the years before and after joining the group, I clearly see that I had more experimental work done before. Not to say they are good pictures, but I used to work, and work... I was in mood to work with my camera, as well as other projects, like my Ayvarith and other conlangs. As I'm reading more books about Arabic phonology and language to get more educated about my own native tongue, I get even more eager to work with conlangs, but yet I have to find the time for them…