Panoramas and Zooming

Yesterday, I created a panorama of Kuwait City using 44 images and a photo stitching software called Auto-Stitch. I was not very happy with the result, as the limitations of the demo-version of Auto-Stitch combined with my weak laptop configuration meant that the resulting file was only 50% of what I wanted it to be.

I decided to give Photoshop a try - and even though it took couple of hours to process the images, it finally came up with a gigantic 112 mega pixel image.

My next dilemma was how to present this image to others. The file is 22,885 pixels wide and 4,885 pixels long. Obviously, viewing such a large image on a standard 800 x 600 screen would not provide the ideal experience as the user has to scroll up and down to view the details in the image.

There are couple of solutions available for presenting large images to the end user. Zoomify provides a simple application that allows you to feed the application with the large image and it spits out hundreds of tiny images and presents them interactively using a flash-based application. I tried the free version of zoomify with my original (half-sized) image and uploaded it to one my my websites. The result is pretty interesting as you can see it here.

http://www.cakeobsessed.com/kuwaitscape/TemplateWebPage.htm

A friend recommended Seadragon - a cool application from Microsoft Live Labs. To implement Seadragon, you first upload the image to any image hosting website (I used my normal Flickr Account) and then give the URL to Seadragon, and it comes up with a interactive version of the image that the user can zoom in and see the details.

I love Seadragon since it's very easy to implement and the result can be embedded directly within your blog/website.

This is my Seadragon implementation of the final image. Click on the (+) and (-) buttons to zoom in and out of the image. You can also use the scroll bar of the mouse for zooming.

Enjoy.

Panoramas and Stitching.

I've been meaning to create a panorama of Kuwait City for quite some time. But every time I looked out of the window, the weather was either too dusty or too dull or bland - a feature that is part & parcel of this dry & dusty desert place.

Today, the weather was nice and crisp, so I decided to give it a shot. I packed my D200 and the Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 and headed to my favorite destination to capture the Kuwait City skyline.

I shot around 44 pictures and then came home to see how they would look like once stitched together.

I downloaded the demo version of Auto-Stitch. I did face some problems as it was unable to stitch all the images at full resolution due to the limitations of my laptop - so I ended up stitching them at 50% resolution.

I am quite pleased with the initial results of my mega-panorama attempt and will try this with some other projects that I have in mind.

Here's the output from the Auto-Stitch program.

A larger version of the image can be viewed here.

And this is the original output from the Auto-Stitch program. WARNING!. It's a large download so don't click the link if you are on a slow link.

A visit to Dubai

Burj Al-Arab at Night
Originally uploaded by Cajie.

I've been to Dubai on couple of occasions - but it was always for business purposes and I never really got a chance to see what Dubai has to offer in terms of photography.
This was my first visit with the family and the first thing I did at the airport was rent a car. Having our own car meant that we were free to visit whatever place we felt a fancy for. I also carried my Garmin GPS, which meant that we did not get lost while travelling.
Our trip was short. Just 4 days and 3 nights but we managed to visit quite a few of the Dubai attractions. The cool thing about Dubai is that it is a tourist friendly place - which means photography is considered normal - unlike Kuwait which has a very conservative approach to photography.
Some of the places we managed to visit are:
- The Dubai Mall (one of the largest in the world and home to one of the largest aquarium).
- The Musical water fountains at the Dubai Mall
- Wild Wadi (water theme park)
- Dhow Cruise dinner. A 2 hour trip in a boat with a buffet dinner. Highly recommended.
- Desert Safari. This is not for those who feel dizzy. The wild bumpy ride on the desert dunes made me sick. However, the dinner/entertainment at the end made it worthwhile.
- Zabeel Park. An enormous park for families to just chill out.

What we wanted to do, but missed due to limited time.
- Visit to Hatta mountains.
- The Atlantis (Dolphin bay, water theme park etc.)
- Dubai Marina
- A ride across the Dubai creek on traditional boats
- A ride on the metro.
- Mall of Emirates for skiing.

Which means, we need to visit there again. Here are some more pictures of Dubai.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cajie/sets/72157622887394930/

The Perfect Travel Lens.

Nikkor 18-200 VR
Originally uploaded by Cajie.

I purchased this lens few months back because I wanted something light while travelling.

I normally used to travel with the Nikkor 17-55 and the Nikkor 80-200. The problem with this setup is:
a) I lose the focal range from 55 to 80mm
b) The combined weight of both these pro-grade lenses is more than what I lift in the gym during my daily workout.

In this respect, the 18-200 is the perfect travel lens. You get all the range that you would need in a small and light package, and you don't have to worry about changing lenses. The VR (Vibration Reduction) technology works as expected allowing hand-held shots at low shutter speeds of upto 1/15th of a second (a bit lower if you use proper technique).

It has it's disadvantages obviously. It a pretty slow lens with max aperture ranging from f3.5 to f5.6. This means, that when the lens is extended to it's full 200mm, the max aperture is f5.6 which makes it difficult to focus - plus the fact that you need good lighting to get useful pictures.

But even with it's limitations, this is the lens I will be packing for all my future travels.

Until I upgrade to a FX format camera body.

Gulf Run 2008

Beemer
Originally uploaded by Cajie.

The Gulf Run is an event organized by young Kuwaitis who want to practice car racing in a professional and secure environment.

The event is organized at the Bahrain International F1 track and is held annually. This year, k.theKuwait, one of the key organizers of the event, and is also a well-known Kuwaiti blogger gave me an invitation to join them in Bahrain for the event.

To begin with...
a. I've never been to Bahrain.
b. I have no idea why I have never been to Bahrain as it is just 30 minutes flight from Kuwait.
c. I always wanted to visit Bahrain.

So I had no hesitation to jump at the opportunity. k arranged a press pass for me, which means I will have some great vantage points during the actual race.

But before travelling to Bahrain, all the participating cars are prepped up in Kuwait and put on a display. This year, the cars were displayed at the Marina Crescent. I visited Marina today and had a fun time shooting many of the cars on display.

You can see them here

I am looking forward to my trip to Bahrain and hope to get some good shots of the actual race.

Photographing Smoke

Smoke Chaos
Originally uploaded by Cajie.

I've been seeing a lot of interesting pictures of smoke on Flickr lately. In fact, there's a group called "artsmoke" that has an amazing collection of images dedicated to smoke.

Because smoke is so dynamic, the possibilities are literally infinite. You can never get the same image twice.

The process of capturing images of smoke is very nicely documented in this how-to guide.

There's also this hands-on kind of guide that I found on the artsmoke flickr group, which is also pretty good.

My first attempt at this form of photography looks passable enough.

Next, I need to do this in a room with absolutely no ventilation.

Nikon F100 - First results

Sharq Marina at 12mm
Originally uploaded by Cajie.

I finally got around to developing the film that I shot with the Nikon F100. The place where I got it developed also gave me a CD of all the developed pictures, which is pretty cool. It's almost like shooting digital.

The thing that I love about the F100 is that my lenses give true focal length as opposed to the D200, which has a small sensor resulting in a 1.5x crop factor. In other words, when I mount a 50mm lens on the F100, it appears as 50mm, while on the D200, the same lens appears as 75mm (50x1.5 crop factor).

This makes ultra-wide angle shooting a bit of a problem on the D200. Take for example the Sigma 12-24mm lens that I own. On the D200, it appears as 18-36mm. That's pretty wide...but when I mount the same lens on the F100, it is actually 12-24mm!!. That super wide.

The crop factor problem has now been solved by Nikon with the newer "FX" format cameras (D3 and D700 are the only 2 cameras from Nikon that currently have a FX sensor). I will eventually upgrade to these camera bodies but not just yet - as the D200 that I own is good enough for the time being.

This picture of the Sharq marina was taken with the Sigma at it's widest focal length of 12mm. It is so wide, that the entire marina can be captured on film. Of course, there is serious perspective distortion but that expected when shooting at such wide focal range.

I was not happy with the colors but I believe that has more to do with the film selection than with the camera itself. I am looking to see if I can get hold of some pro-grade film to do more experiments with film.