The Foggy Dew...

And yet another board game played with the weather! It was a real surprise to wake up this morning with mist filling the atmosphere, and I was barely able to see my own hand. It was apparent that my trip to Inchagoil island is to be canceled. However, it was a plan that whenever the fog is dispersed there is still a chance to reach the island. Anyway, instead of waiting, I've decided to head out and shoot in the fog.

In the middle of the marshes.

This time I've headed to the right side of the lake in front of the Waterfront, and technically, this means getting wet. What I like about shooting in foggy environment is the mysterious atmosphere surrounding it. However, in the marshes there are a lot of twisting to the feet, as well as dipping in the mud which would leave you exhausted for a simple 5 meters walk (well, that's a bit more than 15 ft); Needless to say how hard it is to extract things out of your own backpack without really putting the backpack on the ground (to avoid making it wet and muddy). All that increases the strain on the muscles! Follows then, some infrared shots as well.

Infrared shot with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens. Notice the line of the sun, with an exposure of around 13 minutes.

It seems, however, that the infrared gel filter suffered enough scratches and probably the images produced won't be sharp enough. I just might have to make another one with special additives to make it easy to use with this lens. It is interesting that such long exposures done with this filter, like the image above, can produce interesting results with the sun!
In general, I've used my 50mm and my fisheye 8mm lenses the most, but there were some simple shots with Sigma 70-300mm. and, just for a change and experimenting, I've tried my pinhole. Surprisingly, despite being equaled with f/222 (i.e. very narrow aperture), the exposure done in this shot in the fog was just merely 2 seconds long under ISO 100.

The pinhole shot.

What I don't understand here, is the fact that the image is supposed to be sharp, because of the narrow aperture. However, the images done with my pinhole are not sharp or close to being sharp at all! Probably it has to do with the distance between the subject plane and the image plane (i.e. the sensor). In using the pinhole, and in order to frame correctly, I've used first my 50mm lens and framed the image, and then replaced it with the pinhole. However, using the LiveView, I was able to see the scene (even at ISO 100) with the pinhole on. Turned out that the pinhole field of view is a bit wider than that of 50mm (normal) lens.

After this little muddling in the mud, I've ran inside the house and my host told me that the boatman would still be able to pick me if the fog disperses before 3 p.m. local time. However, being exhausted and wet, I've decided to postpone this trip till tomorrow, Monday - which is my last day in here. Ironically, in less than hour after this conversation, the fog did disperse indeed and it is a shiny weather again like it is summer. Yep, Irish weather did it again...

Fortunati...

Had been a weird week sort of. Flew away so fast and, weird weather too. Just on Wednesday you would see the world in a yellowish cover from the dust and the visibility, I presume, was lesser than 500 meters (~1500 ft) if not lesser than 100 meters  (~300 ft) even! I had to go to work anyway but later on I've been told that the employees and admins left the place already! But I stayed until 1:00 p.m. (I finish at 2) and wow, wish if the streets are like that everyday, minus the dust of course.

Taken from my mobile that day, this short video just to show the dusty weather we had on Wednesday. 

Notice that the meteorology department says "we have fresh air"  (???)

Just when you don't take your camera with you and take videos or pictures wherever you go, all the opportunities seem to be showing up in your face wherever you go and you feel paralyzed. However, after this weather we had a "nice" weather back. Literally nice weather with 17°C (62.6F), like some sweet morning in November here. Our weather does not need a meteorologist, but a fortuneteller.

At home, I haven't been doing much, but only taking pictures of the seashells I've collected in the past few weeks, and working on my own project of "peeling" objects (those are shells from the time being). However, I've worked with some pictures from my visit to the Scientific Center a bit and worked on singular shots for my seashells as well.

Leopard Whipray

Unfortunately, those images from the Scientific Center that were taken at maximum ISO (12800) were so hard to clean and somehow were not so appealing. Even the dedicated profiles for Canon EOS 7D that were made ready for NeatImage at this ISO, were not enough to clean the noise. Mostly, they would clean the luminance grain noise, yet there is a hard-to-remove chrominance noise (color spots) that were desaturated a bit, but not removed completely. Beside, the image looks so soft with lot of details lost.

To over come the chrominance noise in this shark shot, which strangely were mostly concentrated on the outside of the shark's body, I've decided to turn everything into Black and White and keep and shark in color. ProPhoto space seem to push such noise type further and cause a problem for any filtration effort!

Nevertheless, there are some points even with ISO12800 where I worked out some HDR images just for fun. They are bad enough with all the noise, thus I didn't care much about how I tone-map them, so I worked less on giving a realistic look for such an image...

The Aquarium of the Scientific Center
People didn't like this image because of the effect or the high noise level, yet what I believe, noise level should not stop you from using your image in any way possible.

 On the shells side now, I've began using my new self-made turntable mounted on the base of the Manfrotto SPH303. Giving some trials still on how to achieve the peeling look for my shells; trying various shells for now. Unfortunately, the process is tiresome. My first trial was with a shell of highly irregular conical shape (unfortunately I don't have a picture at hand at the moment) that comes with spikes. The first trial was set on 20 degrees for each shot (and the lighting provided was on onside). Because of the spiral conical shape, seems that the peeling process (adding layers with layer masks; eliminating the unneeded parts) was going in a wrong way. Probably for such shapes the peeling must go in circles around the center and not sideways! However, I stopped working with this project and moved to taking pictures of single shells:

My current settings after moving from one side of the room (to my right here) to this position where I stuck Velcro on the wall and on the white board to ease putting on and removing. The desk lamp is used to eliminate the object from the top giving some hard shadow on the turntable but at this point it's not so important. With a macro lens and flash unit, and setting WB: tungsten or fluorescent to balance the hot yellow color of the flood light from the desk lamp, the background looks blue rather than white. Probably, I should stick the turntable to the white board next time.

Ringed shell. I wonder if these rings tell the age of the shell itself?

As you can see, I've been using the turntable itself as a stand post for such shots without using the softbox that I've made at home. The softbox makes soft shadows for your objects and you can surround it majorly with 4 light sources (sides, top and front) and it would give a nice white background. I don't mind the hard shadow here though since it's at the bottom of the object. I fix my objects standing like that with a little piece of children playing clay (maybe you can see a bit of it in the image above at the bottom right side under the shell).

One problem here as well, is the center of the circle which I have to appoint precisely. Common problem I've been facing now while rotating my object is having the object at offset from the center relative to the camera's lens. In macro shots, everything becomes so so sensitive! Too many things to take care for, and shots are better be taken with Live-View on (to avoid the mirror flipping and shaking the camera) and of course, a remote (wireless) is a must. 

Later, I've picked another small conical shell but not spiral this time, and more regular in shape (horizontal-wise at least), and this time I've set the base to rotate at 10 degrees instead of 20, which means 36 shots for a complete circle. Done this already (in RAW format) with flash unit and flood light on top, and it was a tiresome process as it is. The flash unit (580EX II) got tired of me and needed a change of battery (but I didn't change the battery as I preferred to wait longer for the recharge than change anything in the configuration). The process now is on the go and started it already, but as I said, it is a long process and a tiresome one, and the picture is not ready as I'm typing this. My panorama programs didn't help much in identifying the type of movement here so I have to do everything manually. With 36 shots for the whole body, minus the top and bottom), the transition of rotating shell was smoother (you can see that by moving through the images quickly and you will see the shell as if it is rotating), and also I've dedicated 18 shots to be "welded" on the right of the basic starting image, and 17 on its left, making the starting point in the center. Although the shots are in RAW (18MP) but I preferred to reduce the resolution and work with TIFF-16bit instead. It is slow already like that, so imagine working with 36 RAW files stacked as layers, as they are 18MP!!!

Ayvarith-wise now. I have to admit I was lazy and awkward toward this project but it was for the sake of working with my camera! Anyway, I've removed the "private" status from the Ayvarith transliteration of Alexander's story in WDC. I was planning to remove this status when I add the vocal sample for a narration in Ayvarith for the whole set, but I think this can be done later, as the transliteration is almost ready and the preface is ready with vocal samples to show how some letters are pronounced. You can check it for yourself here. The Ayvarith transliteration is dedicated as a folder by itself. I'm trying to find some time to record the narration, but with this weather and these jams, my body has a swing of moods...

I'm going to post this now and get back to my Italian music session. It's nice to get away from the English a bit now and then...

Could Not Resist...

Well, been many days now since I've posted stuff here. Mainly because my work is boring and slow going, I spend it all watching stuff on youtube waiting for the working hours to finish and sometimes I sign up for a short leave to leave work earlier than the regular time. My life at home though is not that idle, however. I have a list of games to play for now, and just recently I've finished the Dark Fall II - Lights Out. It is a ghost story of he Sci-Fi type. Despite my fascination with the story itself and the great design of the 1912 lighthouse and the sea village, despite of all of this, I had to go on and depend heavily on the walkthrough all around the game, mainly because of some minute details and my fast-paced way of playing such games wouldn't help with that! However, I've been always fond of Jonathan's games. Made me think seriously of being a ghost-hunter myself! The only thing here is that in the oriental world, we speak of demons and rarely ghosts as it is in the western part of the world. For such a task, Failaka island would be the first target for such investigations I believe, after the turmoil and the war and the deserted houses witness that.

I've been weak. So weak. I couldn't control myself and my expenditure. I fell in love with a new tool that costs more than one thousand dollars. In the beginning I was so ambitious to own a full-frame Canon camera, namely the 5D or the like, but the prices got me into shivers and I almost wanted to cry! Looked again for something "cheaper" and yet I couldn't find something that satisfies me completely, except of the Canon 7D and the cheaper variety of Canon T2i. I was in favor of the T2i mainly because of the price.

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon EOS 7D

Canon EOS Rebel T2i

The 5D Mark II is 21MP in resolution, while the 7D and the T2i are both 18MP. The T2i is cheaper mainly because the type of memory cards used as it seems. Generally speaking, the 7D and the T2i are both the same except in some criteria like the memory used and maybe the timer option. Also, the Canon 7D has a wireless control over Speedlite flashes which benefit me a lot, but I'm not sure that the Canon T2i does have that or not. I even went down with my ambition and thought of getting 15MP camera, like the Canon EOS 50D,

 

Canon EOS 50D

I was frustrated. I have limited time because the B&H stores are closing for the Rosh haShanah, the Jewish new year's holiday, and in the meantime, I have limited time as well because it would be nice to take this camera with me when I travel to Ireland by the end of September, and hence I have to make a decision so fast. It was really a turmoil. Add to that frustration, I'm thinking of saving a bit as well to get me a used car by the end of the year or by the beginning of the next year. I've found one store based on UK that sold the 7D for a bit of cheaper price (in dollars as well) but then I was struck by the fact that I have to pay extra charge for using my credit card! I never saw such regulations in my orders from USA before, at all. Hence, I've canceled this idea from my mind and mainly thought of ordering from the B&H only. Finally, I decided to sacrifice with some money for the sake of some long term investment, and I placed an order for the Canon 7D with an extra battery for it, for an estimation of something around 518KD, which was something a bit more than 1,800 US$. The main problem here is that those cameras now have a video recording capability, which is something I do not need and do not use at all, and that, as I think, contributes greatly to this price!

Because of the previous commitment to such equipments, I'm thinking of seriously pushing my limits with photography and arts in general somehow in some way, but yet, I can't find a way. An exhibition seems a good idea, but yet, I can't really figure out how to do it or how does it work and how much would it cost! All I can do now, is wait to be noticed maybe.

Back to my simple life now and my regular work. I've dug some more websites that mainly sell photographs from Ireland, and I've emailed some to see if I can be a contributor or asking about some regulations but so far, no reply at all! I'm planning to dig for more and find some opportunities out there.

In the meantime, I got some ideas going through my head, specially when I started doodling again in my office trying to pass the time to escape that prison. I've decided after some sketches to make a series of vectors suitable for weather broadcast and seasons of the year, and submit all to Canstockphoto (and who knows, probably Bigstockphoto too).

Some vectors so far. (Top left) Circular ornamentation made by a repetitive pattern of a single shape, 

(Top right) A tide, (Bottom) Wind vector.

I'm still working on these sketches so far, as I'm planning to make doodles for the four seasons. I have to resolve some problem with the vector uploads in Canstock and waiting for their reply so far. The JPG display does not show and makes it hard for me to organize my files.

I made an experiment again with a software that I've forgot about some time now. That would be the PhotoAcute and its options for producing Super-Resolution (SR) images. I really can't remember how I thought of it or what sparked the idea, but it was about making a serious trial for a SR image, because I don't remember I did something similar. The target was the texture of a toast surface in a close-up. I've bracketed the exposures like I do with HDR, but here I've used a short distance, mainly a 1/3 stop only, with a small aperture (f32), at 55mm.

Toast Texture (minimized)

After converting the RAW files into TIFF (and this is one awkward thing about PhotoAcute, that it does not deal with RAW files directly), I've put them in PhotoAcute and set the option to increase the resolution. The resulting image was saved as TIFF as well, and the size was 6904x4604, making the resolution up to 31.7MP, or rounded to 32MP (the resolution is simply a multiplication of pixels dimensions). The TIFF version was already 225MB! While the JPG version was already exceeding 25MB. I've submitted the image in hope of acceptance now. I might be using this method a lot lately, specially in a close-up images for patterns and textures. Now imagine this peaking in resolution, accompanied by a proper gear, like a 18MP camera!

By a simple comparison, if it is accurate to state this, my 8MP camera produced at the end a 32MP image almost, which means 4 times the original resolution almost. Hence, a 18MP image, would produce I suppose a 72MP image at the end. My hand is itching.

Beside all of this work, I'm trying to make a final collection of photos from Ireland, but this time I'm trying to fit it into a movie file by using Windows Movie Maker. So far, I suck at this. I can't manage to put it as I like. This way though would be fanciful and better than clicking images to see a larger version in the email message. Plus, I can add music to it, and so far I picked some "noisy" music that I like; The March of The King of Laoise. A tough bagpipe tune. Let's hope I figure this thing out before my vacation (which I'm burning to start ASAP).

Alexander 6, V37.

Well Well. One busy day I presume. I shall call this day, the day of Panoramas. I've taken lot of short panoramas either vertically or horizontally and most of them were with my fisheye lens. Too bad it doesn't have a zooming capability, as I am working with the images now, seems some of them are going to be small with big portion of the sky showing on. All of that, in Failaka island.
The sea is great. Can be full of wrath, but generous after all. Some of the panoramas I did today were not really exactly to be called a panorama, but rather I loved to include more portions of the sky in the image and hence, I prefered to take them on parts vertically to add a bit more of the sky. The weather was weird though, shiny and cloudy in the same time! And while we were approaching Failaka port, the Salmiyah city port on the main land was still obvious. Such view I've never seen before. The two do not appear in the same time usually.

As luck has it, I was able to view the shores of Miskan island from Failaka's northern shores. Also, there was this abandoned center for seafaring activities which, supposedly as stated on sign posts, would provide a pick-up to Miskan island. Yet, the place was abandoned and no one was there, despite the relatively apparently-new yachts or boats over there. I could see 2 long towers from where I stood... too bad I didn't snap it with my camera! Bad me! I wonder if they were lighthouses as I always thought, or some "chimneys" of some factory over there? Could be? I don't know. Everything is possible after the statement of this man in Silsan, in which he said going there is restricted by now! It was foggy, I could see that. Like some blackish or greyish smoke hovering around the two towers for some reason, and that's why I thought they were chimneys of some sort or an exhaust of some factory and not lighthouses. This view kind of revived the hope in me of visiting this island one day, and I was already looking for someone to ask about going there in Failaka island itself, but no luck.
Not only Miskan was visible, but also the lands of Auhah (عوهة) island was visible before arriving at Failaka's port. I don't know really why they translate it as "Auhah" since we say it as "Oohah" usually, but anyway this is how it is spelled and you check it yourself on Wikipedia.

In the beginning, I played a little prank on myself, again. I got shocked to see the schedule time in the time table for the ferry travels to be delayed more than I thought it was. It said the ferry would leave at 9:00 and come back at 3:00 afternoon, and frankly I wouldn't like to stay there till 3:00 by myself. Yet the date of today, 14th, was on Thursday. I really doubted myself "did I miss counting my days because of this little vacation of mine?". After all I discovered it is all because I was looking at the time table of January 2010 and not this month! Not the first time I do this really.

I was planning to take an inner panorama of that old mesh-holed building, which I think was some governmental place, but I changed my mind later and thought of taking a panorama of the outer area. Moving people there with their four-wheeled banshi all around really frustrated me. I could hard even park there and take the panorama from the outside.

The ruined building from the outside.

What seems to be an ex-electricity housing, in the periphery of the ruined

building and includes in the to-be panorama project.

This said, I'm looking forward now to have some sort of a software to fix my fisheye distortion for real now. The PTGui software, for stitching panoramas, usually takes care of such distortions, but I can't tell it does them as well for single images however. Thus, I'm looking for some software or plug-in to do so. Photoshop does it as well, but it sounds a bit tiresome in Photoshop, and maybe I would get more precise tools out of the framework of Photoshop. I wish if there is any program that would fix a straight line by specifying 2 dots marking the beginning and the ending of a proposed straight line in the image. Maybe there is one, I can't tell really.
Talking about a plug-in, I received a response from HDRsoft people about my suggestion for a web plug-in to view HDR images, and here I quote it for you:

Dear TJ,

Thank you for your interest in Photomatix and for suggesting an HDR plug-in for web browsers.

The closest thing to a plug-in for  displaying HDR images in browser that we know of is webHDR:
http://luminance.londonmet.ac.uk/webhdr/

It might also be worthwhile having a look at Christan Bloch's 'HDRI Labs' website for such software:
http://www.hdrlabs.com/

Regarding Photomatix, we don't have any plans to develop a web browser plug-in to display HDR images at the moment.


Kind regards,

Andreas
Photomatix Support Team
www.hdrsoft.com

This is nice so far. I'm still checking the website as I am writing this (and I'm doing all of that after getting back from that tiresome ferry trip). I don't feel like concentrating on anything so I might leave it for later. In a quick glance over the webpage, there are some freeware included, but I can't tell which one is to be used as a plug-in to view HDR in the web browser, if any. I guess I'm going to ask Blochi for this! Blochi in case you didn't know is Christian Bloch, the author of this magnificent book:

As for now... I should take a rest and work on batch-processing my bracketed images and put them into OpenEXR format for heavy use later. I leave you now with Alexander's story, verse 37.

__________
865. when the stranger calmed down he gazed upon Alexander
866. and Alexander smiled back at him and put down Charnagút
867. then Alexander began the speech again with the stranger
868. "tell me O friend, what is your name?"
869. and the thing said: my name is Birbuár, son of Árúc
870. then Alexander asked: you know this sword? why were you scared?
871. the strange thing then stuttered and said: of course I do,
872. it is the Charnagút, the sword of the great Ayvar king,
873. it is the torture of the sinners and the sign of kings,
874. thus now I believe you are indeed a king,
875. please forgive my impoliteness master
876. then Alexander said: I am not your master,
877. but I am happy to be your friend in this world,
878. I was a king in my world before, but not anymore,
879. tell me O Birbuár, where am I and what is this world?
880. thus Birbuár said: yes I shall answer your questions,
881. but if you do not know already, how come you are an Ayvar?
882. and Alexander replied: I am not an Ayvar, but a stranger here
883. and Birbuár had a weird look upon his face and eyes
884. and this he said to Alexander: but how you got the Charnagút?
885. and Alexander replied back: it is a gift from my father Pilippánút,
886. but I do not know how he got it or made it,
887. but this sword helped me a lot to come here,
888. and discover the truth one by one

Happy New Year...

A fierce windy day, that is today! I like such weather despite all the rush and diffusion that accompany such weather. The hard part comes from the people (specially drivers) who dramatize the events. Some slow drivers and some are just crazy drivers causing dangers in the streets... it is one crazy world.
The wet streets gave some nice impressions in the darkness of the early morning hours with lights of houses and the streets and the traffic lights all got reflected from the ground making snap-worthy scenes. Unfortunately, no camera, yet no time to do that in such weather and wind even if I have my camera with me.


I spent last night doing some enhancements and translation work for the brochure that I'm designing for my work place. But actually before this work, I was doing some design for an old photo of mom when she was 18 (I think she got married at 18). I can't say it is really a good design, since I wanted to make it even more a professional-like thingy but with my recent capabilities. I had to fight even with my printer which was like a dog chewing my papers! I framed the printout with a ready-made frame and gave it to mom as a tiny gift to her. She's beautiful, young and old...


After this, I went on doing my own business with me back to doodling again. This time, I had no meeting, but my mental status and my eyes that were closing, and the boring time in the last few minutes at work were unbearable. So I had to resort to that thing;



I don't know why I called it the "Devil's Wife" but so it sounded to me! Does that mean I'm going insane? Hopefully... yes.
But before doing all of that I had to take a shower with plain water when I tried to fix some pipe out of the kitchen. It was changed and fixed, but the price was, wet pants!


Today, the translation yield was 4 verses altogether. Although the "nice" weather makes me sooth out and want to sleep for the sound of the rains, yet I felt some energy to go on and complete some more verses above the count of 2. I think I'm going to take the work back home with me, even though I know I won't be able to work with it much. The ability to memorize as much words as possible while translating is a crucial factor for speed writing and a non-stopped process. Sometimes, looking up a word in the dictionary and checking backward and forward slows me down for some seconds and sometimes minutes! If it is a new word to be made then the delay might become greater than this. I'm sure though there are many mistakes in the Ayvarith translation but well, I'm going to finish this one story and head to do other stuff with it. I guess this is my resolution for the new year!


Of course we don't celebrate the new year, just like we don't celebrate the Christmas as well, but anyway I think I'm allowed to say it to everyone who celebrate those events, so, Happy New Year all of you...

Disappointment!

Disappointment... it is very disappointing. I just discovered that my abilities to sketch is not up to the task... at all.

I might have done some ornamentations or so, but sketching figured, specially in a away similar to those used in medieval manuscripts, is out of my skills. I asked my brother though to see if he can do something similar but he did not answer me at all on MSN!

As for the time being I'm continuing my work with the translation as I finished 2 verses and finished the transliteration for the 1st and the 2nd verses. OpenOffice might have created some problems for me with the foreign letters (foreign: not used in the English basic letters), I might have to switch back to Word, which is something I don't like at all. I might consider doing a manuscript-like effect without doing any sketches for persons. I will concentrate on translating and transliterating for the time being.

It's Thursday, and few minutes from now I will be out of this place and back home to have a nap and get out at night. I'm planning to start fasting starting from Friday, and with this hot weather it is really a challenge. Also, I might be able to go to Failaka island again this Friday (and hopefully I'll be fasting as well!!). So much pressure as it might seem... fasting and hot weather and also cruising out in this hot weather... well... fasting is about challenge in the first place.

If you ask why I'm gona start fasting, well, it is the month of Rajab now in the lunar calendar, and it is said fasting in this month has lot of rewards... not physical rewards that is! I did the same already for 2 months + Ramadhan (that is 3 months in total) in hot summer days last year, so hopefully I shall continue on the same path this year. Wish me luck!