Editing Project Victory with Blender

After 9 months in the making, Project Victory is finally completed! It tooks us 6 months to shoot, spread over 2 countries in 6 different locations, and 3 months of post-processing the images building the three collages and getting everyone’s approval, editing and re-editing the video, implementing new ideas, and having fun all the way.

You can watch the video over at the Project Victory website.

Project Victory was a photo project that my batchmates did over the last couple of months, and we recorded most of everything that happened along the way. It was created with a mix of open-source and closed-source software in Ubuntu, using BibblePro for RAW conversion, GIMP for some graphics and editing, and Blender for the 3D scenes and the video sequence editing. Read more at the Project Victory website.

Enter the airport-friendly bags for the modern photographer. There were several brands that I was choosing from: Pelican 1514, Lowepro ProRoller Mini, ThinkTank Airport Security and a cheap Nikon rolling backpack that I found in one of the stores, among others. All of these choices offered two things I was looking for:

1. Easy to lug around; can’t get any easier than wheels
2. I can bring at as carry-on luggage
3. Price vs. quality and features

I was choosing between the cheapest of them all, the Nikon rolling case with backpack straps, or the more expensive ProRoller Mini. I ended up slightly more expensive but better bag than both of them. The Lowepro Rolling Computrekker AW has inline-skate wheels, backstraps for when you can’t roll it, a laptop pouch, CF card pockets, a rain cover, and lots of padded compartments. And it only cost me Y30K in Yodobashi.

Well, I just came back from a shoot in Kyoto, and had put the bag to the test. It rolled all the way from my house to the trains and on to the bus to Kyoto, all the way to each train platform I passed through. And when I was up in the slopes of Kurama and Fushimi Inari, I carried it backpack-mode.

On wheels, it rolled smooth as silk and saved me from future backpains. Though my shoulders ached till the next day, it was because it was a long trek through Kurama and Fushimi Inari. The contoured shoulder and back pads really helped as I am sure I’d have a much more tiring experience with my previous Lowepro Toploader 75. Then again, the Toploader wasn’t meant for travelling heavy at these kinds of distances.

Click on the image with the numbers to the left to see what got packed for my Kyoto trip.

Special thanks goes to RBM for persuading me to spring Y2,000 yen more for this rather than getting myself a ProRoller Mini. It’s a good bag in its own right, but it would have been a nightmare bringing it up the mountains!

In less than 2 months, I’ll be riding on a plane again. Feels good to know I won’t be sweating my pants off lugging overweight luggage this time around or having to wrap my lens and other gear around several layers of socks and towels.

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LucasArts is once again giving us a treat with a new game from the Star Wars franchise. This time though, you’ll be able to wield a really powerful Sith/Jedi. As opposed to the wimpy neophyte Kyle Katarn in Jedi Knight, the improved but still a bit weak Kyle Katarn in Jedi Knight II, or even any of the Jedis you’ve played it from Jedy Academy up to the present, none will be able to compare to Vader’s secret apprentice (although the jury’s still out if he’s stronger than the pre-Episode-3-mutilation-Anakin; we think he is). And what better way to wield all these force than none other than…wielding them. Forget about mashing buttons and thumb-dexterity, you’ll be swinging your Wiimote as if it were a real lightsaber, and force-pushing your opponents THROUGH WALLS quite literally with your nunchuck. Seeing is believing, so you better just watch the video yourself.  (Note: for those of you who are behind a proxy, and YouTube is blocked, here’s the link to the GameTrailers video)

Alternatively, you could go to Miro Guide and search for “gametrailers wii” and add the GameTrailers Wii channel and look for the video through Miro. If you have no idea what I just said, read up on our introduction to Miro

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Star Wars: The Force Unleashed comes out this Tuesday, September 16 so be sure to head on over to your local game retailer or order online now through Play-Asia. Play Asia offers free delivery to most Asian countries. So if you’re stuck with a US Wii in Japan, you no longer have to contend with the exorbitant import prices. If you don’t have a Wii, you should get one. But if you’re content of pushing buttons, Force Unleashed is also available for Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, and the DS.

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Here is the official list of gear I brought with me:

1. Nikon D200
2. Nikon MB-D200 battery grip
3. Nikon SB-600 Flash
4. 18-135mm lens
5. 28-85mm lens
6. 70-300 lens
7. DicaPac WP-S10 Underwater DSLR pack
8. Cokin P-series filter holder
9. Cokin 58mm adapter ring
10. Cokin 62mm adapter ring
11. Cokin Circular Polarizer
12. Cokin 81B filter
13. Cokin Gradual Grey filter
14. Slik Able-300EX Tripod
15. Kohjinsha SH6 laptop
16. Okion portable optical mouse
17. Nintendo DS (Ok, maybe this doesn’t count with photography, but it’s still tech)
18. Chargers

Note: If you’re wondering why I still brought with me my 28-85mm, it’s because I didn’t have an adapter ring for the 67mm diameter 18-135mm lens.

I had so much gear with me, that in fact I think I had more gear than clothes! Yeah! All these in tow, camera gear…check. Batteries fully-charged…check. Clothes…check. All set to go to beautiful Dos Palmas!

Now for all of you out there, here’s Piece of Advice #1: If you’re going out on a trip like this with this much gear, I advise you to make a checklist; things can get pretty hectic when you’re getting your gear ready and rushing to the airport. In my case, I didn’t have one. And I forgot probably the most important thing in my gear…

…my fully-charged D200 battery!

My first realization of this fact was in the boarding area, when my boss asked me to take a picture, and I gladly obliged. Bringing out my camera, I wondered for a second why the LCD didn’t show the available shots left (it displays even when the D200 is turned off). And I just bumped my head into the D200 (don’t worry, the D200 is tougher than my head), and muttered “ass…” All of those camera gear, and no SLR to use them with!

On the plane, I rejoiced in the fact when I remembered that I brought the MS-D200 battery holder that came with the battery grip. What this savior did was to allow me to put 6 AA batteries into the battery grip as an emergency power source. I found a sari-sari store at the dock just before leaving for Dos Palmas island (after the bus ride from the airport at Puerto Princesa) and bought a couple of batteries for P18 a piece. Piece of Advice #2: Eveready General Purpose batteries (color blue) WILL NOT power up your D200! Even with a fresh batch, they will display as battery low. At the Dos Palmas Tabu-An (their souvenir shop), I bought more alkalines, this time Kodak batteries meant to be used for cameras.

Piece of Advice #3: When operating with limited battery supply, turn off auto-focus, flash, and keep the LCD preview to a minimum. I also turned off the grid display, for good measure, but I don’t think it mattered at all. The Kodaks lasted for around 25 shots. At P270 for 6, it wasn’t going cheap…

Much later, desperate for power, I thought, flash is useless without a camera to use them with. So I salvaged the 4 NiMHs in my SB-600 and borrowed 2 more from a friend. Piece of Advice #4: NiMHs can smoke alkalines, any kind, any day. The NiMHs could shoot through 2 2GB CF cards and still keep on going (I’m still draining them right now, trying to figure out continuous flash shooting).

Much, much later, I realized that the “drained” Kodaks could still power my flash! Doh!

Anyway, head over to www.jplui.com/photos/DosPalmas for the vacation pictures that I managed to take. Enjoy!

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Ta da! Introducing the D200 from Nikon’s prosumer line. This hefty monster feels right in my hands, and the magnesium alloy body really feels solid, sturdy and can take a real beating before giving up the ghost.

I was able to pick one up from Sofmap in Akihabara second-hand for a price almost half off of a tag price on the cheap price range (Hint: brand new body-only price is around Y160K). So why did I pick up a 2nd hand D200 instead of a brand new D40x which I could get for even less, lens included (I think I could have also afforded the D80 kit as well)?

I was not looking for an entry-level camera. I’ve had prior practice on film with my trusty, if not comparitively simplistic, F55D film camera. So, while I knew that a ton of features do not a good picture make, at the very least I needed camera that can keep up with my needs.

The D40 was also much more pickier with lenses, since their lens mounts do not have the built-in focus drive motors, and since I had a few lenses already, I did not want to put them out of use and invest in new AF-S and AF-I lenses. And while I often do manual focus, you will have to love the autofocus speed and control you get with the D200′s 11-area TTL focus.

The D200′s built-in flash can also be used as a commander unit for use with Nikon’s Creative Lighting System. In other words, you can control an SB-600/SB-800 flash remotely without the need for additional equipment, save for the flash unit itself of course. The only other cameras that can do this is the D70, but it was already aging and has a smaller LCD screen.

So why buy a 2-year old product second-hand? Simply put, it gets all the technology I need in my hands at the right price. Since the D300 just got introduced, people who have lots of money or people who think they need features that the D200 lacks would be strolling off with their new buys. I on the other hand have done my homework and am confident to say I don’t need those 3 or 4 bells and whistles for more than twice the price. Besides, I’m in Japan so I’m pretty confident when the tag doesn’t indicate any damage that the previous owner took care of this D200. Plus Japanese are known to be prone to upgrade quickly, so that’s good enough for me.

Edit: I just found out that my D200′s shutter actuations was only less than 28K when I bought it! Yippee!:D

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First stop, of course, as the owner of this blog, has to be one of the key destinations in Tokyo, Akihabara Electric Town or Akiba for short. Well, actually, we were supposed to go to Tokyo Disneyland first but tickets were sold out so…

Anyway, it was just after Christmas, and right before New Year and me and my girlfriend’s 3rd Anniversary (yup, same day), so for a gift that can cover all three bases,

the Canon TX1 more than just handles that requirement, topping off even the Sony T70. Both had face recognition and image stabilization. It wasn’t an easy decision, with the ultra-sleek design and touch screen of the T70, and being cheaper by Y10,000 further compounded the difficulty of that decision. But ultimately, it came down to the nitty-gritty specs and practical capabilities of the Canon TX1 that subdued all the glitz and glamor of the T70. While it sounds cool to control your camera via a touch-screen LCD, it’s use was just not practical enough to replace solid physical controls, of which the TX1 has plenty. The TX1 not only had better optical zoom and larger optics, a separate video record button, the capability to record 16:9 videos, a solid body and a form-factor most suited for taking steady photos and videos. And while the LCD screen is smaller, it can however swivel around, useful when you’re shooting above your head, shooting yourself, or if you just need a mirror. Of course, the Y10,000 discount we got was certainly a big bonus and bumped the T70 out the window.:)

Aside from the TX1, I also bought myself my own Christmas/New Year/Anniversary present, but I’ll tell you more about it in my next post. For now, here’s a picture of Akihabara at night, taken from the TX1.

(Click on the thumbnail for the bigger picture)

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During that trip as well, I visited an old friend that now runs Photo Story Creations, a shop that puts your pictures on mugs, pillows, even tiles, as a mosaic or just a straightforward picture. Imagination’s the limit to what you can do with their products, you just need to tell them what you want to be done with your pictures. Having previously used trialware mosaic programs during my Windows days, I poked around in Synaptics Package Manager to see if I can find a mosaic application for Linux.

Sure enough, there was a fast, little program called Metapixel. It´s actually two small programs: metapixel-prepare and the main metapixel program. The metapixel-prepare program lets you choose a source directory of pictures and a target directory to use as a picture library for metapixel. Creating a mosaic takes around 3 1/2 minutes, which is already comparatively faster to other mosaic programs. But this speed advantage really comes in handy when you´re making mosaics using the library, since only half a minute is used for the actual creation of the mosaic. The other 3 minutes is used for preparing the library, which is a one time deal in this case.

One thing that might turn off some users is that Metapixel is a command-line program. But it’s not really that hard to use. To prepare the library, you use the following command: metapixel-prepare Desktop/sourcepictures Desktop/librarydir Afterwards, just type in
metapixel --metapixel input.jpg output.png --library Desktop/librarydir --cheat=30 The input file is the target image that you want your mosaic will look like and the output is, of course, the final image that will be produced. Notice that I put in a –cheat=30. What that actually does is overlay a 30%-opaque final image on to the mosaic, similar to the flower mosaic above. Unless you have a really vast library of pictures with all possible colors and you’re going to create a pretty big mosaic, this option can come in pretty handy. There are also other options, like the collage option. The difference between a collage and a classic mosaic is that the classic mosaic lays out your pictures in a perfect grid, while pictures in a collage can overlap each other.

Another cool tool that should be in the toolbox of the Linux photographer is Hugin Panorama Photo Stitcher. It features tools for correcting perspective, and of course, stitching tools for creating panoramas.

To stitch photos, all you need to do is create points in your pictures to help the program automatically stitch your photos. In the example above, Hugin automatically adjusted for the perspective distortion effect of my camera, stitching three photos seamlessly. You may also want to check out the official Hugin stitching online tutorial.

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