Manhandled

Nix and I enjoy our shopping at the Jung Gu Homeplus, which is our local supermarket. You can find most things that you would need there. And if you are lucky they'll even have clothes that are your size!
When shopping, Koreans have this weird tendency to always stare, be it at you or even what you have in your shopping trolley. We've even had an Ajuma manhandle our carrots when we were paying for them. Yip, she looked back, saw what we were paying for and physically picked up the carrot packet and and scrutinized them as if we were going through customs. Feeling satisfied she placed them down and continued with her payment. Now at this point Nix and I were so flabbergasted we did not know what to think of what had just happened. Was she being rude, just inquisitive or should we have felt honored to have our carrots manhandled and approved?

We haven't done much traveling recently. We almost went to the Philippines again, but the thought of the late costs did not make sense when we are planning our big European trip at the end of our adventure in Korea. We did manage to visit some family over Christmas in Australia and were blessed to see Nix's newborn nephew. It was too short a trip though and in no time we were back into the winter camps. The MOE decided to change the way the camps were managed this year, so Nix and I were at separate camps at our own schools. It was a good change to share different experiences. Nix had it tougher teaching 8 hours a day. Something I would have preferred, rather than sitting behind the computer doing a waygooks worst...Desk-Warming...which I'm doing right now. But during this plentiful time, I gathered resources to book internal flights and accommodation for Europe. Found some great deals on EasyJet. The websites that assisted in finding accommodation was at first hostelworld, then booking.com and airbnb, in that order. Very grateful for airbnb. Its a great website to find good accommodation at even better prices. People rent out their apartments cheaper than at hotels. And you get an entire apartment! There are cheaper options too, if you want to rent a room out in someones apartment or family house. Be sure to search for tweets for airbnb discount codes and coupons. Enough free advertisement.

We also put in leave for last week. It was a blessing in disguise as we needed to get our studies rolling. Yes, we have decided to study teaching through the formidable ...UNISA... there I said it, not that they would've heard me. It only took 9 months to get successfully registered. This included the period where they "improved" their call center by implementing an email center to never respond to queries. There were however some decent support staff that went out of their way to ensure we got successfully registered. We also had some much appreciated help from friends and family. So back to studying again, really thought my last Afrikaans exam was in 1998. But its all good, as Koreans love to study too. So much so they have various facilities used as study areas. Sure one could go to a library, not many where we are though. Sure, we could study at home. But why when we could go to a room cafe that has a barista (from the Italian for "bartender" as Wikipedia says) on tap, sections for different rooms, classical music, much bigger space for books and an overall great study environment.

Nix ISO: 100 | f:3.5 | t:1/200 (EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM)

But, we also made time to relax too. We headed off to Busan for 2 days. I also wanted to check out the lens rentals place at CamediaSquare
(www.camediasquare.com).
Manged to rent out the EF50mm 1.8 II prime as well as a macro lens, the EF100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM for Nix. Although we were in winter and not much macro opportunities in sight, we had a "great time" testing them. Especially at the Thai massage place in Haeundae. That's where the real manhandling took place.

As we speedily got into a taxi, due to the long wait for my ARC approval at Camedia, we arrived at the Thai massage place. The elevator doors opened to fresh smelling incense. The walls were decorated in gold and objects from the adventures of Indiana Jones. The low lighting provided a feeling of warmth and safety from the busy and cold outside world (How short lived that was). We were greeted and escorted to our private room with massage mattresses on the floor. Once kitted, our "torture" therapists arrived. Now, Nix and I still have not been to Thailand, and we hear its a great place to visit and that the massages there are a fraction of the price we were charged. But dammit, someone forgot to tell us how much strength those nimble women have. We were placed in positions that yoga experts and contortionists would have no problem with and our chiropractor would cringe at. We were mermaids, praying mantises and frogs for most of the massage. We got walked all over, twisted and pressed until the sweat was beading from our foreheads. It was an unforgettable 2 hour experience. 
The next day, Nix almost pulled out her back and my neck went into spasm at the Busan Aquarium attempting to pose for an underwater shot.

Daewangam Bridge, And ... Is Panoramic HDR better than non-HDR panoramic?

Being the first entry of 2012, I'd like to wish you a happy new year and may it be an even more adventurous year!

This is a shot I took of Daewangam Park Bridge. Nix and I usually make our way here on the weekends to enjoy the views. On this day the sun was setting and resulted in a nice contrast of colours which have been captured below.

Is HDR Panoramic better than non-HDR panoramic?

This is my 2 cents worth on taking HDR panorama. More info about HDR can be found on wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging

Basically HDR is produced by software (I use Photomatix), taking the best pixels from your shots and resulting a picture with more dynamic, almost unreal details.

There is so much information on the net on various panoramic techniques. Try and find the one that you understand and are comfortable with.

I've experienced some minor problems with my 550d when taking bracketed photo's and I'll show you how I overcame these issue too.

First, let me tell you how I've learnt to take an HDR panorama. Whether you start from the left and move right or from the right and pan left does not matter. Or even in the middle. Its the stitching software that gets all the shots in the right order. However, if you have moving subjects in the scene, I would suggest taking calculated shots so as to reduce the ghosts. The other tip here is to change the focus mode to manual after taking your first shot in auto focus (I've mentioned this in a previous post too). Remember to relax and breath when you take your series of shots. Sometimes shooting when breathing out helps too.

The shots below is a panorama was taken in Gwangali in Busan. There were 7 HDR shots taken.

This is the final result of 7 HDR shots stitched together by CS5. Each HDR was a composition of 3 single shots with bias's 0,-2,+2. I'm no expert but to me this shot does not look so great. I'm also not a CS5 expert. So I have no idea why there is a stitch line right in the middle of the shot. There is also bird ghost flying across. I could've easily cloned this out. But I wanted to show the results of having moving objects in your shot. If I was a CS5 expert, I could've also corrected the heavy contrast around the sun. General photography rule of thirds is being "broken" with the horizon in the middle too. So the question I asked myself was how to overcome the problems with this result with the little Photoshop knowledge that I have?
But before we get to that, let me contrast this HDR result with the same panoramic, but without the HDR. You decide which is better.

In this shot I've captured as much of the original shot as possible without any tone mapping (term used with HDR). The result is plain and simple.You can't see the circle of the sun as you can in the HDR shot, besides its nice reflection on the ocean along with the other objects in the scene. Taking a shot into the sun like this can whitewash a picture too much leaving out some cool details as you saw in the above HDR. All the features of the scene are still visible, such as the bridge, rocks, city building and the reflections. But they lack in details.

So lets now go back to the original question of overcoming problems in HDR shots. What I've experienced in taking bracket photo's for HDR is that the 550d sometimes takes two normal exposures and one overexposed shot, instead of one normal, one under and one overexposed shot. I'll do some more research to find out why. But for the time being it seems that way for now.
One thing that some photographer argue is that you need at least three shots to compose and HDR image. Well what happens if I just use one? The normal exposure? And theoretically it may help with the heavy contrast around the sun? This would also overcome the slight problem of having two shots of the same exposure. Yes, you could have decreased the exposure of the one shot from 0 to -2 using a RAW file editor. But I guess that's cheating :) Well lets have a look what happens when we use the single normal exposure, process an HDR from that and stitch the 7 shots.

The picture above uses a single normal exposed shot converted to HDR using Photomatix and stitched together using CS5. The "artificial sun" look in its center has also been removed. I've also balanced the rule of thirds with some crops and the result is a lot better. More details about the features are brought out compared its original shot above. No harsh contrast around the sun anymore, but some artificial pixels exist, little ghosting and an overall more pleasing picture.

I've discussed some important aspects of HDR and how to overcome some problems faced with bracketing and manual focus.

If you have anything to add, please do and of course let me know if you think HDR Panoramic is better than non-HDR panoramic :)

Ride to Hyundai

The ride to Hyundai motor company was first conjured up after taking a bus home from one of the English experiences at Nix's school. On the way back we used the Asan road. This road was used as a test track which was then opened to public by Hyundai.

The beautiful reeds in the flood plains give the area a mountainous feel...such are the likes on the top of Sinbul mountain in the Yeongnam Alps.

 Ju ISO:100 | f:4.6 | (HDR with 2 Exposure bias's)

The second shot below is a typical view of the apartments in Korea. South Korea is just below the SA population by a few million, but like some other Asian countries, its difficult to build in certain regions because of the mountains. Added to that fact that South Korea is much smaller than SA. So what do they do, build up!

Ju ISO:100 | f:4.6 and f:6.4 | (HDR's both with 3 Exposure bias's)

It was an unexpected adventure riding through the water puddles seen below. The rains from the night before had not subsided and you can see Nix in the second shot below sussing out the situation ahead. At one stage we were riding through water about a foot deep.

Ju ISO:100 | both f:4.6 | (HDR's both with 3 Exposure bias's)

Going past the Hyundai motor factory gives one a glimpse on the scale of the production line. Unfortunately all the loading docks are surrounded by mesh fencing as you see in the pics below. I managed to get a few shots in without causing a stir for security. If fact there is very little security in place. If this were SA, I cant imagine the what would happen!

The Hyundai company owns a lot of land in Korea. And this is only some of it, of course excluding the heavy industries and the ship yards and the other Hyundai plants in the rest of the South Korea...Ulsan is just Hyundai "crazy".

In the 4th and 5th shot of the 5 picture set above, you can catch a glimpse of the Hyndai Veloster. Hyundai have recently come out with some good looking cars like the Genesis Coupe. Unfortunately the Veloster come with a measly 1600 cc engine. Good looking car though!

Bulguksa Temple, GyeongJu

...so you can go home early because the leaves are changing colour...hah?

Ju ISO: 100 | f:4.6 |(4 HDR's with 3 exposure bias's)

We headed off for another day in Gyeongju to capture some of the sites. Two weekends ago was raining and possibly to soon to see the autumn colours coming in. So we thought last weekend would be the one. Well, this is what everyone else in Korea thought too :) The temples were crowded and the place swarmed with high-heeled moms shouting at their kids. This is something the Korean woman do, wear high-heels when hiking on mountains!
We also waiting an hour for our Bibimpap. So not the quietest weekend but we did enjoy the sights although we did not go to all of them this time.

Taking the right shot really does comes with experience, which we are still learning. What you see on the live view is not necessarily what its going to look like. Some of the shots looked great, but more than a few were overexposed. Also getting into the right spot and taking your time is imperative, if you have it. Unfortunately this weekend we were rushed into clicking away and not focusing on the framing of the shot. Click and hope! For instance, in the shot above, it would've been wiser to move away from the green bush to get a better picture with the full pond exposed. Still it is a good picture that shows off the nice colours over this time.

On a side note, I was amazed at how some companies do help their fellow communities. And I say some because a company like Samsung is frowned upon here in Korea. One of the reasons is for not distributing their wealth to uplift some communities. I've even seen the Samsung name brandished off their products.
Hyundai had recently donated air purifiers in all our classrooms. You ask why? Well because the school is next to the motor factory, a lot of pollution blows over the school. In the long run this will affect the health of the people in the surrounding areas. It would be better to just stop producing pollution, but I guess this is a small step to look after this country's future generations.

Autumnis coming to an end, but to brighten up things the principal gave us a whole 3 hours off last week... that we also had to sign for.

Thanks gyeo-jang-song-seng-nem!

Busan International Fireworks Festival 2011

Rain, rain and more rain...

In South Africa we celebrate Guy Fawkes every year. Its amazing to see your money being blown up in the sky. Diwali is also celebrated in SA. We are accustomed to fireworks. But nothing like the annual fireworks festival in Busan. We went last year and it was a fireworks world domination show of epic proportions. Set on Gwangalli beach with the Gwangalli bridge in the background, we were hoping for much the same show and an all out photo fest, but unfortunately the weather did not let up. There was much planning and research into taking the right type of shots. Our friends got there early to pick a spot. We did all we could.

Here is a video we took with the 550d

There is so much info on the web about shooting fireworks. These are the basic tips to prepare for fireworks:

1. Tripod, it ain't going to work without one (or something similar to support the camera)
2. Remote release (we used the 2 second timer)
3. ISO 100, f11-f16, around a 3.2 second exposure time
4. Take a lens hood (if you have one), in case it rains
5. Occasionally check your shots, but keep clicking away
6. Don't forget to enjoy the show
7. Keep the Johnnie Walker for later:)

Last year there were about a million people that watched the show. According to my mate, and a fellow photographer, Ben ('v15ben' on Flickr), it had gone up to 1.5 million this year...Massive!

Some pics of the crowd

Some stills of the fireworks (well at least the best that we could get)

Nix ISO: 100 | f:11 | t 3.2s

Ju ISO: 100 | f:14 | t 3.2s

 

Nix ISO: 100 | f:14 | t 3.2s

Ju ISO: 100 | f:11 | t 2.5s

Racism in Korea?

We also experienced, what could be classified, as racism for the first time ever in one of the night clubs in Busan. 247 Lounge is a club that Nix and I have previously been to, however this night was a bit different in the way that we, including our friends, were told to leave because we were American (Last time I checked my passport was not of the USA). The manager would not say how he came to that conclusion. I realise that most foreigners here are from America, even Barack Obama has stated that many American teachers are in South Korea. That's the first mistake the manager made. Later he then changed his story and said the club is too full, which it wasn't. Our friends' co-teacher then spoke to them in Korean and found out that previous foreigners had caused trouble and had a fight in the club. Granted, this is a probable reason why they won't allow foreigners in. We eventually left a club that we really wanted to stay in.
Later, thinking we were still there, Ben went to meet us and was told it was a private function. To say the least, we were upset at that stage.

The night ended well though. We all had fun at the local Wolfhound Irish pub with many other foreign teachers in Halloween costumes...trust there to always be an Irish pub nearby!

Stiff Necking It in Seoknamsa!

One of the common themes that we find occurring in our photography is that of Nature. Trees, landscapes, beaches...etc. There's just not enough time to capture it all!

I called this Stiff Necking It post because Nix has been to physio and still trying to get rid of her neck stiffness which is pretty painful. Sometimes it gets so bad she looks like Robocop when she turns to talk to me. It's getting better though.

The past weekend was haunted by rains, so our original plans to join some friends hiking was postponed. Autumn is on its way so we decided, later that weekend, to revisit Seoknamsa. Seoknamsa is a beautiful place in Autumn. The leaves start changing colour on the trees and it becomes an all out colour fest in the mountains (Something which we're not used to in Jo'Burg). According to research, the temple was built in 824 A.D. (during the 16th year of King Heondeok’s reign) and is home to Buddhist nuns.
Seoknamsa always has a feel good vibe, and we tried to capture this feeling.

Memorial at Seoknamsa

Ju ISO: 100 | f:4.6 | (5 HDR with 3 Exposure bias's)

Above is our first attempt at an HDR photo stitch. The key techniques here was to change the focus to manual as well as have the pictures overlap about a third when taking the shot. Nix felt this perspective gave more meaning to the shot and I agree with her. Not because "happy wife, happy life", but because she has a point. Using the cylindrical option does reduce the distortions. But it does flatten the image and does not have the "awe inspiring just" that an HDR should have.

(You can find more about the techniques and other techniques at the HDR cookbook: http://farbspiel.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/hdr-cookbook-creating-32-bit-hdrs-the-right-way)

Some more Autumn trees 

 Nix ISO: 100 | f:4.6 | (5 HDR with 3 Exposure bias's)              Nix ISO: 100 | f:5.7 | (5 HDR with 3 Exposure bias's)


The colours here are awesome and they will change even more as we get closer to winter.
But before then we have the fireworks festival, in Busan, this weekend. I'll be sure to post something soon!

 

Stones on Stones

Ju ISO: 100 | f:4.5 | t 1/80

Gyeongju - Loving the nature!

Gyeongju was our chosen destination for the long weekend during Korea's "founding" holiday. It had been a long week, so we were the typical morning grumpy's. Nix would say it was more me, but the thought of doing a bit of traveling again cleared it all away. This was our second time to the Silla kingdom. We took the bus the first time we went. But we soon realised that if you can take a train, do it. Much more comfortable. Also, the first time we went, we saw the Bulkugsa temple and the surrounding areas, so this time the plans were to visit the Bomun lake, Anapji pond and the burial mounds by bicycle.

So we got on the morning train to Gyeongju with the weather looking great. The journey took about 40mins and before we knew it, we were choosing bicycles from the local rent-a-bike. 10 000Won got us two bikes with a nifty front basket for the tripod, bags and Nix's snack food for the trip. After some adjustments to the bikes and plotting our route, we were off. The first stop was the vertical, 115m, balloon ride which lasted about 15mins and cost 15 000Won. We had a fantastic view of the Bomun lake which is apparently shaped like North and South Korea.

Trees in Silla Kingdom
Nix was also very intrigued by the trees in the surrounding area. Perhaps the fresh air and being out of the apartment brought it on. The bark on the tree portrays a wise feel. Like the wrinkles we see on old peoples faces.

Ju ISO: 100 | f:4 | t:1/64 (HDR with 3 Exposure bias's)

The next stop over was the Anapji royal pond. A picturesque spot. Even more so at night with the lighting. Nix was really loving this site as she is so into her history...ja right! I found myself taking a picture then running to catch up with her. After Nix endured my intrigue at the royal pond, we were on our bikes and off to the royal mounds. These royal mounds are dated back to 300AD and contained various artifacts pertaining to the Silla Kingdom, including the various kings bodies...now removed.




Anapji Pond
Ju ISO: 100 | f:8 | t:1/200

Also learnt that we cannot climb these ancestral mounds. When I did, the shouts were heard hundreds of meters away! ... "But they were climbing it too...sorry."










Royal Silla Mounds
Nix ISO: 200 | f:4 | t:1/600