#5d tether type

[lets-talk-spirituality]

Let’s Talk About: Protector Souls

After my energetic tethering post, where I explained service tethers, I felt called to post what I know about a certain type of mission or role some souls sign up for—protectors.

What are protector souls?

When a powerful soul decides to come to earth, many times other souls will sign up to serve in a body guard or protector role.

Why do we need a protector?

Some souls come to earth with big missions, such as anchoring certain frequencies, and because we forget much of our soul knowledge when we come here, we can be vulnerable. Especially as children when our powers are heightened but also more volatile because we haven’t learned to control them properly. Some protectors serve in spirit only, while some are incarnate.

Do I have a protector?

You may! I think if you did you would know and would have known for awhile. I’ve always felt protected in life. People would ask me why I’d go to bad parts of town, and I even bought my house in an area people would normally consider dangerous, and I would say no one is gonna mess with me. No one really has messed with me, and those who have, it was nowhere near as bad as it could’ve been. I realized when I was a kid I felt like I was being followed a lot, but now I know that those are my body guards. I use to feel like eyes on my back all the time. I had a dream last year where I was told I had body guards in spirit but it was also revealed that my parents agreed to be protector souls in this life and that manifested in two very different ways.

Isolation and separation

My father served out his protector role by keeping me as far away from other people and magic as possible. My dad always wanted to live out in a rural area of town and we did, and growing up, I loved it but it did make it hard to have friends because they all lived far away. My dad has also always been wary of tarot, astrology and would suggest I was cautious with these things. Even to this day, he is obsessed with my sister’s and my physical safety. I used to find it restrictive and sometimes I still wish my dad would give up his fear and trust the way I choose to live my life, but I realize he is programmed to be this way. Keeping me so far away protected my energy, and not being allowed to get into certain forms of magic made me learn to do everything with what I intuited and it kept me from opening up portals I wasn’t ready for. This understanding makes me feel a lot of gratitude in times I could feel annoyed. He loved me enough to come here and protect me no matter what. It really touches me.

The Stand-In

My mom served by being my stand in. Any negative energies ever sent to me, she took on. My mom has always told this story that when she was pregnant with me God told her she was meant to have me. She has said she feels like being my mom is one of the hardest things she’s ever done and that it was a main purpose in her life. As a child I was very smart and mature and honestly my parents didn’t know how to parent me. It’s left me with some wounding in adulthood but I don’t fault them.

Channelings

In December 2021, this was revealed to me.

“We knew we’d have to be fierce. That’s why all the childhood trauma. We had to be fierce to protect ourselves not just in 3D but 5D. That’s why we chose the family and circumstances. Your grandmother and mother were protectors. Having their strong spiritual energy around you served as a buffer when you were younger and less prepared because you had to learn it still. Your mom knew this on a level. She knew your power, that warning, and she protected you energetically while providing you with painful growth to prepare you.”

“They shielded you. That’s part of some of the negativity of your childhood that you didn’t understand. That was them taking on energy to protect you. I know it sounds insane but your parents are strong and they volunteered to protect you. But you are stronger and it attracted energy. That’s why your dad tried to squash all witchcraft and all spirituality not religious. That’s why he’s still wary of you doing it and engaging in it. He was trying to protect you. He doesn’t know the real reason but that’s why. That’s why your mom said to keep your powers hidden. Do you see? You needed time to grow up. To become powerful and you did. You are learning now how to protect your energy, you are remembering. You had to go through things for understanding and also face the dark energy head on in a smaller amount to learn it. To prepare. For all that is coming energetically. Don’t be worried. The universe has always held you and will always. But this is why you needed protection.”

Shielding?

Yes sometimes souls do this thing called shielding, which is when negative energy is sent to someone the other person absorbs it or deflects it from the intended target.

What else?

All sorts of souls can serve as protector souls! My parents are incarnate and protectors, but my counterpart is also my protector. So yes a romantic soul connection could be serving as a protector! I also have at least two protectors in spirit. One has been seen by a medium as a Cherokee warrior, and this is one of my ancestors. I haven’t physically seen them, just felt them and with the warrior in particular, can see the influence in my life. This ancestor brought me to a Cherokee man who gave me a dream catcher as a child to help me combat horribly graphic nightmares—which I still struggle with as an adult— and the dream catcher helped protect me in sleep. This ancestor also became more prominent during the pandemic and has been urging me to connect more with my Native roots.

[wearesorcerer]

Watch MeowJo's Top 10 Weirdest 9th-Level Spells (3.x)

Welcome to Watch MeowJo.com! Today, we'll be counting down our picks for the ten weirdest 9th-Level Spells in Dungeons & Dragons third edition. For this list, we'll be going over spells that seem out of place with the likes of wish and time stop. We won't be going over spells that have undergone obvious nerfs over the editions, just ones that make you scratch your head. We also won't be looking at Pathfinder-only spells, as we would fill up the list entirely with some of their niche 9ths. For more content, remember to like, subscribe, and ring the bell.

#10: Soul Bind

There are many spells in D&D that manipulate souls -- and many more creatures that steal them. This one is noteworthy because it's not especially powerful: at the cost of an expensive gem (a black sapphire worth 1,000 gp per hit die of the target creature), you can prevent the soul of the target from being resurrected by any means short of divine intervention (not even a miracle spell); the catch is that the target has to be dead already, but cannot have been dead for more than one round per caster level.

It is indeed true that souls form a sort of currency on the lower planes, but it seems odd that the means of minting such coinage requires the same level of power as spells which can rearrange the fabric of the cosmos.

#9: Astral Projection

You (and one willing creature touched [holding hands] per two caster levels) project your spirit(s) onto the Astral Plane, leaving your bod(y/ies) behind in suspended animation. Your spirit is tethered to your body via a silver cord, allowing for return. You can remain on the Astral Plane indefinitely or you can move from it to other planes connecting to it, forming a new body (with duplicates of your gear) on the new plane.

The key benefit of this spell over plane shift is that if you die while on another plane (besides the Astral), you return to your original body unharmed. That is pretty much the only benefit, as you die period if you die on the Astral.

This spell has a number of drawbacks.

First, there's the silver cord, which is specifically a means by which monsters and obstacles can attempt to kill you. The spell description makes this sound easier said than done, but the most commonly encountered denizens of the Astral Plane are the violently xenophobic githyanki, who carry their famed silver swords specifically for this purpose. Severing your silver cord counts as killing you and it remains attached to you (albeit invisibly) while on other planes besides the Astral, so you are trading a contingent rez for a second, perhaps easier way to kill you.

Second, it's far costlier: two spell levels higher, a 30 minute casting time (instead of a standard action), and expensive material components. For that, you can get (pre-epic) three extra creatures in on the spell (you're capped at eight [counting yourself] with plane shift and yourself plus 1/2 caster level creatures with astral projection).

Third, the spell says nothing about where on a plane you arrive. Planes are usually infinities or nearly so -- individual universes, if Material, or Heavens and Hells otherwise. With plane shift, you arrive 5d% miles from your intended destination; with astral projection, you simply enter new planes, but the details about where you arrive on those planes aren't given.

Perhaps the oddest thing about this spell is that it's called astral projection, but it barely mimics the nearly global practice. It doesn't let you wander the Material Plane incorporeally, as the standard practice does, and it's far too high level for any of its many supposed practitioners to be able to cast.

#8: Call Marut (Planar Handbook/Spell Compendium)

Gif by blargh-type deviantArtist; I don't think I should have to credit this, given that it's not their copyright

This spell is odd because D&D's alignment system is odd. D&D demands that Law and Chaos have the same sorts of cosmological value as Good and Evil, yet treats all four in like opposing elements. Law ends up being the weirdest of the four, as a being of pure law would theoretically lack free will and be nothing but a robot. That's indeed the direction D&D has gone, so 3.5's Lawful Outsiders (supplementing the Formians) are the Inevitables: Constructs with the Extraplanar subtype.

This means that they cannot be called using the planar ally or binding series of spells, which require creatures of the Elemental or Outsider types. Instead of correcting that oversight in errata (an easy fix), WotC made this spell.

The spell is weird in multiple ways. First, it can only call one kind of creature, whereas planar ally (or binding) can call any creature of two types so long as the spell's grade covers its hit dice. Second, it can only call a single such creature at a time, whereas greater planar ally can call up to three creatures totaling 18 HD. Third, and most crucially, this spell takes a spell level higher to do less than what greater planar ally can do.

#7: Mass Drown (Spell Compendium, Underdark)

You would think that a spell that does something an environmental effect can do (and does fairly frequently) wouldn't be this high of level, but you're getting into some of the wonkier aspects of D&D here.

Drown (introduced in Magic of Faerûn and reprinted in the Book of Vile Darkness, Underdark, and Spell Compendium [in that order]) is a 6th-level spell that floods a target creature's lungs with water, causing them to succumb to the drowning rules. Y'know, like the old "cast create water inside a creature" trick. That much is a retcon/nerf to show the discrepancy of power in such; I wouldn't be printing this here if it weren't for how it interacts with other death effects.

Effectively, drown is a death effect (save or die) with two drawbacks: it only targets creatures that only breathe air and it takes a few rounds to get through, during which time another agent can intervene (DC 15 Heal check).

It's low-powered for the level it comes at -- there are other spells that target breathing and don't have as many drawbacks or which simply kill creatures outright. The reason drown exists that way is because early third edition (3.0) had a much different and fluid idea of balance than 3.5 (at any point) did, but a lot of material never got adjusted.

And thus we get to mass drown. The main appeal of this over wail of the banshee is that it can affect all targets within 30 ft. of its point of origin, rather than one creature per caster level within a 40 ft. spread (they have the same range from the caster to their points of origin). That means mass drown could affect 96 squares (and thus 96 Medium creatures) instead of 17+. And that's fine if you somehow find yourself facing a squadron of 100 Medium-sized creatures packed side-by-side. However, the chances of you facing that when not fighting armies is slight; the benefits disappear in most ordinary circumstances.

#6: Imprison Soul (Book of Vile Darkness, Heroes of Horror)

This is similar to soul bind. It allows you to draw the soul out of a creature you touch and into a small object (such as a ring), so it's far handier than soul bind in that respect. The weirdness comes in three parts. First, the spell leaves the body behind to die gradually (1d4 Con damage per day until the soul is freed or the body dies). That much is fine for this sort of spell, though you'd expect something like suspended animation or some such for a spell of this level -- there's only so much you can do with a corpse, after all, but a living but catatonic body has all sorts of (vile) uses. Second, it takes three days to prepare the receptacle, rather than just a specific (oddly rare and expensive) type of gem. Third, and most importantly, it doesn't explain what happens to the soul once imprisoned -- if the spell prevents resurrection and (if so) by what means. In short, it's like someone tried to revise soul bind, but forgot half of what they meant to put into the spell.

#5: Internal Fire (Oriental Adventures, Complete Arcane)

This is a supremely cool effect -- you trigger several targets to burst into flames, either killing them instantly or dealing substantial fire damage. In range, it's just like fireball, but it goes off of target hit dice (1 HD per caster level), and it's a save or die effect (on a success, it's like the targets take fireball damage [though it's 6d6 + caster level instead of 10d6; it averages the same, but is slightly less max damage). It's a little odd because there are other spells and powers that cause opponents to undergo spontaneous combustion, but very few do so to multiple opponents at once.

All of that said, when compared to other 9th-level spells, it's a bit lacking. It gets away with having a long range and as many targets as can fit in a fireball radius by dividing damage up between targets by hit dice, but only as many as you have levels. That's not good: you wouldn't want to waste a high-level spell against low-level mooks when a fireball would do nearly as well and you're better off using implosion against opponents of equal level to you. Even if you wanted to use a fireball-like effect, you've already got meteor swarm.

#4: Blinding Glory (Book of Exalted Deeds)

This is simply daylight that cannot be countered or dispelled by magical darkness effects (but otherwise acts like magical light and darkness effects when brought into another area of magical light/darkness). It also blinds evil creatures while they're in the area.

And that's it.

Oh wait, no: it lasts 1 hour per level, radiates out to 100 ft. per level, and takes an hour to cast. It also doesn't count as a [Light] spell, but a [Good] spell.

Yeah, seriously, what the fuck?

#3: Imprisonment

There are many, many spells that trap creatures permanently or semi-permanently, so it would make some sense that there would be a 9th-level one. The trouble is, it's mostly the same as casting temporal stasis (an 8th-level spell) and then another spell to hide the body, though it's much cheaper (no costly material component) and requires much stronger magic to undo (only discern location, miracle, or wish can find where a creature is imprisoned and only freedom can free it). This much is explainable as a hold-over from 2nd edition, where many spells had reversible effects: freedom and imprisonment were the same spell, so there was reason for someone to learn it (rather than learn it twice).

The biggest oddity with this spell is that while casters capable of casting 9th-level spells are rare, they're not rare enough for this. There's very little drawback to the caster for using this spell, so there should be vast numbers of randos subject to it. The question of elvish fertility rates pales in comparison to the number of creatures potentially subject to this spell just occupying Eberron's, Krynn's, Oerth's, and Toril's crusts.

#2: Bigby's Crushing Hand

I think this is an artifact of D&D's scaling system more than anything. The various Bigby's hand spells don't make a whole lot of sense on their own -- why is a hand made out of force only able to do so many actions, when it's effectively a telekinesis spell with a visual aid (and a not-meat shield for the caster)? But think about it: the big thing about this is that it can deal damage to a creature it grapples. So what? Many things can do that.

#1: Mass Hold Monster

Target creatures are paralyzed if they fail a Will save. Bear in mind that just about any Enchantment spell that forces an action is a specific (and thus usually weaker) form of the suggestion spell. Mass suggestion is a 6th-level Sorcerer/Wizard spell with the drawback that it can't force subjects to do something obviously harmful to themselves. It also lasts longer than this. Furthermore, there are lots and lots of monsters who are resistant or immune to Enchantment spells.

At most, mass hold monster should be the same level as mass suggestion.

I mean, c'mon, the effect you're going for is entangle (a first level spell) without having to have plant matter or surfaces nearby.

[george-tumbrtumbr-blr]

RESEARCH REPORT

Name: George Towne

Working title: Synthetic Pictorialism, Synthetic Still Life or aynalitic still life

When looking at Picassos synthetic Cubism the thought struck me of what synthetic pictorialism would be. Would it be what I have been looking at when viewing Erin O'keefe’s work? It could be. But I would see it as more pictorial cubism. So, what would it be? Would it look similar to Picasso’s work? But it cannot without the cubism. I need to look deeper in to what these notions and movements were before I can decide on such things. It is also possible that I am rambling meaningless words. But that is no reason not to peruse this. This is a working title and will definitely change if what I am saying is in fact meaningless.

It also seems rather grandiose for my work.

Research Methods: In creating and developing my project I have used a few research methods. The first of which is Visual Research. On conducting this research, I went to a few galleries to view both paintings and cultural items from the time period I am interested in. As a starting point this time period is around the 1700. This was around the time that the Dutch still lives were created. But I was not beholden to this period as it was the still lives, I was interested in. Since this point I have both looked at older and newer paintings to enhance my work from both the Renascence and the twentieth century. Using visual research has gone hand in hand with my other research method throughout my project. Critical analysis. I have attempted to be as brutal, with my work, as I can be. In attempt to push myself.

Experimentation has also been an important part of my project. Trying new things and teaching myself new techniques, in attempt to improve my work. I have learned a great deal through doing this. Including editing and studio techniques to compositional and perspectival techniques. This aspect of my project has been bolstered by my visual research of more modern artists. For example, Femke dekker. These visual artists have made me re-think entirely, what a still life is. This in turn inspired me to try new more modern editorial and practical techniques in my project which has only improved it.

In congruence with this I have been conducting practical and technical research methods I needed to know to produce my project. I did this through both the internet and asking the technicians who were more than happy to help me. For example, printing, understanding different papers, printing techniques and how the proses works especially with large prints, such as mine. I have looked in to different studio techniques such as, lighting, composition, tethering, focus stacking, using capture one, using the phase one and photoshop. But most importantly to this project using the space of my image and attempting to distort perspective. My tutor has been of great help in this regard, pointing me to various visual artists and explaining technical information like the inverse square law.

Pilot Project: In my Pilot Project I have learned to be experimental with my work. To try different techniques and critically analyze the results before implementing them in my project. As discussed, I learned this through my visual research of contemporary visual artists. That research has taught me to be experimental in my compositions, perspective, in my editing and even to an extent with my lighting set ups.

My practical research has also taught me a lot. I have been pushing my self to re-learn the basics of photography and build up again to have a fuller understanding of what I am doing, especially within the studio. I have learned to use the capture one software, tethering, lighting setups, the inverse square law, studio safety, using the phase one camera, using fuji x series cameras, using the canon 5d series, photoshop software, light room software, software of both PC and Mac OS systems and general problems that arise in the studio environment. Such as working out why a camera isn’t picking up the radio signals from the flash kit, using tethered flash and spending considerable time deciphering fujis wireless tethering. I have learned various techniques to aid my project such as removing unwanted objects from my images, basic compositing and focus stacking.

In printing I have learned about different printing techniques and which paper is most viable for my project, sizing of large image files, about those types of paper (that I am still deliberating over), how to handle prints after printing and how to prepare a print file.

With regards to the content of my project I have learned many lessons. Some harder than others. In my initial visual research, I was overwhelmed with the mastery the paintings I viewed represented, this was continuous throughout my project. But it gave me a goal to aim for no matter how out of reach. Constantly looking and critically comparing my project to these great works taught me to use this humbling experience as a driving force rather than one to stifle me. Which it very well could have. By being extremely critical of every aspect of my own work in this manner pushed me to seek advice and constantly look for ways to improve what I was doing. Over all my pilot project has helped me improve my work ethic under the majesty of these grate paintings, and visual artists. I have learned a great deal from them. But I have much more to learn.

Audience and Context: In the context of a still life, originally, they were not supposed to have an audience as such. The early Renascence paintings were created predominantly as practice pieces for later great works such as Fruit basket to David and Goliath. They were not overtly for public appreciation. Though were in fact sold. Later on, still lives evolved in a sense to be works in themselves but were still predominantly studies. This changed over the years, especially in the twentieth century. In my own project I have been thinking about context of still life I am producing and what its audience might be. I have been attempting to emulate the process of early still lives by using it as a study. This is why, up until this point, I have not been overly concerned with the content of the still life. Using the still life as a study has taught me a great deal, but, was not intended for an audience. Other than when seeking criticism to improve them. However, I am moving to a point where I am thinking about the meaning and make up of my still lives which infers an audience. My proposed audience for my work would be a gallery.

Production and Presentation: In the production of my project, as discussed, I have utilized a great many techniques to attempt to improve my work. These various methods have allowed me to look deeper in to what a still life is. In doing so, I have been able to explore different concepts that would fit with my work. Though I am still exploring this aspect of my project. My plan going forward is to utilize all I have learned in the studio, in editing and practical to produce the best I possibly can. I have thought a great deal about how I will present my work. And have concluded that the best manner of presentation would be a large print in a gallery. In my case I am rathe fortunate as we are required to show our work in such a setting upon completing the project. I have been intrigued by using frames during my project. I am not quite sure yet how I will implement this, but my final image could very well be framed in some fashion. With printing in mind, the size of the print is important. Up until this point I have had in mind and in fact printed to A1 size at 300ppi. However, I wish to push myself and am interested in the concept of stitching images together. The camera I am using (the phase one) can comfortably print to A1 in full resolution. By using photoshop to stich multiple images together I could create a much bigger piece which would be rathe imposing in the gallery setting. This would be interesting to explore this. The down side is that it would be rather expensive. Over all my image will be a single large print in a gallery.

Visual References / Bibliography:

Frans Syders – Still Life with a Dead Stag 1640-50

Jacob van Walscapelle – Flowers in a Glass Vase 1667

Jan Jansz. Treck – Still Life with a Pewter Flagon and Two Ming Bowls 1651

Jan Jansz. Treck – Vanitas Still Life 1648

Willem Kalf – Still life with Drinking-Horn 1653

Willem Claesz. Heda – Still Life: Pewter and Silver Vessels and a Crab 1633-37

Adriaen Coorte – Still Life with Strawberries, Gooseberries and Asparagus 1703

Rachel Ruysch – Flowers in a Glass Vase with a Tulip 1716

Ambrosius Bosschaert - A Still Life of flowers in a Wan-Li Vase 1609-10

Gustave Courbet – Still life with Apples and Pomegranate 1871-72

Vincent van Gogh – Sunflowers 1888

Vincent Van Gogh – Two Crabs 1889

Paul Cezanne – Still Life with Water Jug 1892-93

Femke dekker

Erin O’Keefe

Laura Letinsky

Richard Kuiper - Dutch Still Life in Plastic

Picasso - synthetic cubism

Henri Matisse

Paul Cezanne

[simoncartwrightphotography]

Little bit of #bts action from this morning's shoot in Napier. Shooting with a @canon.nz 5D Mkiii and Canon 70-200mm f2.8 L mkii. The camera is tethered to the MacBook Pro using a Tether Tools USB cable. Lighting was provided by two @godox_photo_equipment AD600 strobes supported on Avenger C-Stands. The key light (main light on the right) is modified using a 120cm gridded softbox to control light spill and provide a more direct 'beam' of light, and the rim light (on the left) is modified using a 50cm gridded softbox (beauty dish type) to sculpt the subject's face and separate them from the background. The final image will be clear-cut and composited into a different background and used in marketing collateral. #hawkesbayphotographer #commercialphotography #business #marketing (at Hawke's Bay, New Zealand) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrTi_hhh3hO/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=18xj6d5j90quh

[joannemaly]

How I Created a 16-Gigapixel Photo of Quito, Ecuador

A few years ago, I flew out to Ecuador to create a high-resolution image of the capital city of Quito. The final image turned out to be 16 gigapixels in size and at a printed size of over 25 meters (~82 feet), it allows people see jaw-dropping detail even when viewed from a few inches away.

I’ve always thought that gigapixel technology was amazing since I first saw it around 8 or 9 years ago. It combines everything that I like about photography: the adventure of trying to capture a complex image in challenging conditions as well as using high tech equipment, powerful computers, and advanced image processing software to create the final image.

I’ve been doing this for a while now, so I thought that I would share some of my experiences with you all so that you can make your own incredible gigapixel image as well.

The Gist

The picture was made with the 50-megapixel Canon 5DSR and a 100-400mm lens. It consists of 912 photos with each one having a .RAW file size of over 60MB. To create the image a robotic camera mount was used to capture over 900 images with a Canon 5DSR and 400mm lens. Digital stitching software was then used to combine them into a uniform high-resolution picture.

With a resolution of 300,000×55,313 pixels, the picture is the highest resolution photo of Quito ever taken. This allows you instantly view and explore high-resolution images that are over several gigabytes in size.

Site Selection

The first step in taking the photo is site selection. I went around Quito and viewed several different sites. Some the sites I felt were too low to the ground and didn’t give the wide enough panorama that I was looking for. Other sites were difficult to access or were high up but still not able to give the wide panoramic view that I was looking for.

I finally settled on taking the image from near the top of the Pichincha Volcano. Pichincha is classified as a stratovolcano and its peak is over 15,000ft high. I was to access the spot via a cable car and it gave a huge panoramic vista of the entire city as well as all the volcanoes that surround Quito.

The only drawback that I saw to the site is that I felt that it was a little too far away from the city and I didn’t think that people would be able to see any detail in the city when they zoomed in. To fix this situation I decided to choose a site a bit further down from the visitor center. That meant that we would have to carry all there equipment there (which isn’t easy at high altitudes) but I felt that it would give the best combination of a great panoramic view and be close enough to the city for detail to be captured.

The Setup

The site was surrounded by very tall grass as well as a little bit of a hill that could block the complete view so I decided to set up three levels of scaffolding and shoot from the top of that. There wasn’t any power at the site since it was on the side of a volcano so we had to bring a small generator with us.

I ran extension cords from the generator up to the top of the scaffolding where it powered the panorama head, as well as my computer. I didn’t plug in the camera in because I would be able to easily change the batteries if they ran out.

Atmospheric Conditions

Anything that affects the light rays on their path to the camera’s sensor will affect the ultimate sharpness of the image. Something that is rarely mentioned is the effects of the atmosphere on high-resolution photos. Two factors are used to define atmospheric conditions: seeing and visibility.

Seeing is the term astronomers use to describe the sky’s atmospheric conditions. The atmosphere is in continual motion due to changing temperatures, air currents, weather fronts and dust particles. These factors are what cause the star images to twinkle. If the stars are twinkling considerably we have “poor” seeing conditions and when the star images are steady we have “good” seeing conditions.

Have you ever seen a quarter lying on the bottom of a swimming pool? The movement of the water makes it look like the quarter is moving around and maybe a little bit blurry. Just as the movement of water moves an image, atmospheric currents can blur a terrestrial image. These effects can be seen in terrestrial photography as the mirage effect, which is caused by heat currents and also as a wavy image due to windy conditions. It’s interesting to note that seeing can be categorized according to the Antoniadi scale.

The scale is a five-point system, with 1 being the best seeing conditions and 5 being the worst. The actual definitions are as follows:

Perfect seeing, without a quiver.

Slight quivering of the image with moments of calm lasting several seconds.

Moderate seeing with larger air tremors that blur the image.

Poor seeing, constant troublesome undulations of the image.

Very bad seeing, hardly stable enough to allow a rough sketch to be made.

(Note that the scale is usually indicated by use of a Roman numeral or an ordinary number.)

Visibility: The second factor that goes into atmospheric conditions is visibility, also called visible range is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned. Mist, fog, haze, smoke, dust and even volcanic ash can all effect visibility.

The clear high altitude air of Quito made for some amazing visibility the day of the shoot. The only things that affected it that day were a few small grass fires in the city. The Cotopaxi volcano was also giving off smoke and ash but it didn’t seem to be a problem since it was blowing away from the city. There also weren’t any clouds in the sky which made it so that the exposure wouldn’t be affected by any clouds blocking out the sun.

Equipment

Camera: I decided to use a 50 megapixel Canon 5DS R. The 5DS R is an amazing camera that is designed without a low-pass filter which enables it to get amazing pixel-level detail and image sharpness.

Lens: A Canon 100-400mm f/5.6 II lens was used to capture the image. Several factors went into the decision to use this lens such as size, wight and focal length. The 100-400mm was small and light and would allow the robotic pano head to function with no problems. It also has a good focal length of 400mm with would allow for some nice detail to be captured.

I thought about using a 400mm DO and 400mm f/2.8 but each had its own drawbacks. The 400mm DO didn’t have a zoom and I wanted to be able to change the focal length for different types of captures if I had any problems and the 400mm f/2.8 was too big and heavy to be used properly in the pano head. I have a Canon 800mm f/5.6 which I would have loved to have used but it was also too heavy to be used with the robotic pano head (humble brag).

Another interesting factor that went into my decision to use the 100-500mm f/5.6 is that the diameter of the front lens element was small enough so that atmospheric distortion wouldn’t be too much of a problem. I have spent a lot of time experimenting with astrophotography and the larger the front lens element is the more atmospheric distortion or “mirage effect” will be picked up resulting in a blurring of the photo.

Pano Head: I used a GigaPan Epic Pro for the image capture. The GigaPan is an amazing piece of equipment which automates the image capture process. The GigaPan equipment is based on the same technology employed by the Mars Rovers, Spirit, and Opportunity, and is actually a spin-off of a research collaboration between a team of researchers at NASA and Carnegie Mellon University.

To use a GigaPan you first need to set it up for the focal length of the lens that you are using. You then tell it where the upper-left-hand corner of the image is located and where the bottom-right-hand corner of the image is. It then divides the image into a series of frames and automatically begins scanning across the scene triggering the camera at regular intervals until the scene is completely captured.

There are several other brands of panorama heads out there including Nodal Ninja and Clauss-Rodeon but I like the GigaPan the best since it is automated, simple and reliable. The GigaPan is also able to be connected to an external power source so the battery won’t run out during large image capture sequences.

Computer: I didn’t think that the memory card would be large enough for all the images to be stored on it especially since I was going to be making multiple attempts at capturing the image. I decided to shoot with the camera tethered to a MacBook Pro via Canons EOS Utility. This software not only allowed me to write the images directly to my hard drive, it also allowed me to zoom into the image in live view to get critical focus. Just in case something went wrong I simultaneously wrote the images to an external hard drive as a backup.

Camera Settings

Aperture: I set the aperture to f/8. This was done for a couple of reasons. The first was to increase the resolution of the image. Although the Canon 100-400mm f/5.6 II is a very sharp lens shooting wide open, stopping down the lens a little bit increases its sharpness. Stopping down the lens also reduces vignetting, which is a darkening of the edges and corners of the image.

Although the vignetting is minimal on the lens, I have found out that even the slightest amount of vignetting on the frame will result in dark vertical bands being shown in the final stitched image.I didn’t want to stop down the aperture too much because I was worried about diffraction reducing the resolution of the image.

Focal Length – I shot at 400mm so I could capture as much detail in the city. I could have used a 2x teleconverter but there was so much wind at the site that I was afraid that the camera would move around too much and the image would come out blurry.

ISO: I shot at an ISO of 640 due to all the wind at the site. I knew that using a high ISO would increase my shutter speed and reduce the chance of vibrations from the wind blurring the photo.

Shutter speed: All of these factors combined gave me a final shutter speed of 1/2700.

RAW: I shot in .RAW (actually .CR2) to get the maximum resolution in the photos.

Live View: I used the cameras live view function via Canons EOS Utility to raise and lock the mirror during the capture sequence. This reduced the chance of mirror slap vibrating the camera.

GigaPan Settings

The GigaPan has a lot of different settings for the capture sequence of the images. One can shoot in columns from left to right or in rows from the top down and left to right or any combination thereof. I choose to shoot the image going across in rows from top down going from left to right. Even though the image capture sequence would only take an hour or so I have found that shooting in this sequence makes for a more natural looking image in case of any change in lighting conditions. I also included a 1-second pause between the GigaPan head moving and the trigger of the camera to reduce any shake that may have been present from the pano head moving.

Image Capture

I had to go at it a few times but the final image was taken with 960 photos with each one having a .RAW file size of over 60MB.

Image Processing

Two Image Sets: Each day of the shoot presented itself with different problems. One day the city was clear but the horizon and volcanoes were obscured with clouds. On another day the horizon was totally clear. I decided to create two different image sets and combine them together to make the final image. One large image set was used for the clear sky and volcanoes another image set was used for the city.

Pre-Processing: For the horizon and volcanos I selected an image that I felt represented an average exposure of the sky into photoshop and corrected it to remove any vignetting.

For the image set of the city found an exposure of the city and color corrected and sharpened it to the way I wanted it before bringing the images into the stitching software. I recorded the image adjustments that I made and made a photoshop droplet with them. I then dragged and dropped all the files onto the droplet and let it run, automatically correcting each image of the photo sequences. It took a long time but it worked.

Autopano Giga: After the images were captured I put all of them into Autopano Giga. Autopano is a program that uses something called a scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm to detect and describe local features in images. These features are then matched with features in other frames and the images are combined or stitched together. The software is pretty straightforward but I did a few things to make the final image.

Anti-ghosting: Autopano has something called an “anti-ghosting” which designed to avoid blending pixels that don’t match. This is useful for removing half cars or half people that could show up in the image due to the movement of objects between frames. Exposure blending – Just in case of any vignetting or differences in the lighting I used the exposure blend function in the software to even out the exposures and make a nice blend.

.PSB: .PSB stands for Photoshop Big. The format is almost identical to Photoshop’s more common PSD format except that PSB supports significantly larger files, both in image dimension and overall size.

More specifically, PSB files can be used with images that have a height and width of up to 300,000 pixels. PSDs, on the other hand, are limited to 2 GB and image dimensions of 30,000 pixels. This 300,000-pixel limit is the reason why the final image has a 300,000-pixel width. I could have made the image a little bigger but I would have had to use a .kro format and I’m not sure that I would have been able to successfully blend the two images (one for the horizon and one for the city) together.

Computer: To stitch the .PSB together I used a laptop. I was worried that my laptop wouldn’t have enough horsepower to get the job done but it worked. The computer I used had the following specs: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7, 16GB 1600 Mhz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M370X 2048MB.

Hard Drive: The important thing to know when processing gigapixel images is that due to the large sizes of the images the processor speeds and RAM don’t really matter that much.

Since the processor cache and RAM fills up pretty quick when processing an image of that size the software directs everything to the hard drive where it creates something called a “page file” or “swap file” A page/swap file is a reserved portion of a hard disk that is used as an extension of random access memory (RAM) for data in RAM that hasn’t been used recently. By using a page/swap file, a computer can use more memory than what is physically installed in the computer. However, if the computer is low on drive space the computer can run slower because of the inability of the swap file to grow.

Since everything is happening on the hard disk it is really important to not only have a hard drive that is fast, but also one with a lot of space since it fills up really fast and won’t process the image if there isn’t enough space available since the swap file size can get gigantic. To process the Quito image I tried to use a fast PCI SSD that had around 500GB of space to process the image but the drive filled up. I took the computer back and got one with a 1TB PCI SSD and it was able to process the image.

Photoshop: I had to stitch one image for the horizon and another image for the background. Once these were done I opened them up in photoshop and used the eraser tool set to a large diameter to manually tool to manually blend them together. I then flattened the image and saved it as a .PSB file.

Image Tiling: I used a program called KRPano to make a tile of the images. If I uploaded the resulting .PSB file to the internet it would take forever for it to load up so people could see it. KRPano divides up the image into layers of small tiles. Each image you see is made up of a low-resolution tile. As you zoom into the image different small image tiles are quickly loaded and displayed with allows people to quickly view and explore the image without having to load the entire image. About 174,470 tiles were created for this image.

Image Upload

Once all the image tiles were created I compressed them into a .zip file. I felt that it would be easier to upload one large file instead of over 174,000 separate small files. The image upload went fine and I manually unzipped the image inside of the Hostgator server using FileZilla. It is good to check with the hosting company to make sure that they allow files to be unzipped inside their servers.

Website

Once the image was created, tiled and uploaded I made a simple website and embedded the .html file into an iframe so It could be displayed.

You can view the photo through an interactive viewer on Quito Gigapixel.

Closing

I hope that this little guide proves helpful for all of you. Gigapixel technology is really interesting and fun to try out. I have done quite a few gigapixel images but am by no means an expert and am always interested in learning more.

About the author: Jeff Cremer is a Lima, Peru-based photographer who works in the Amazon. You can find more of his work on Rainforest Expeditions and on Twitter and Instagram.

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The following blog post was first published to republished from: https://www.proton-pack.com/ 

How I Created a 16-Gigapixel Photo of Quito, Ecuador was originally posted by https://www.proton-pack.com

[lets-talk-spirituality]

Welcome to a judgement-free zone!

I created this blog as a space to share my spiritual insights and to help explain spiritual concepts that have become very mainstream that I believe are being misunderstood. Please understand this is my understanding and I’m not god, just a mere interpreter trying to help the collective. If you are new to spirituality, read this.

2023 Master Post

Let’s talk about:

Spiritual Awakening: Karma | confirmations, synchronicities and signs | past lives | communicating with spirit | kundalini | divine timing & intervention | numerology

Souls | Protector Souls | Soul Co-Opting | Soul Connections | soul ages | soul missions | divine counterparts

Free Will vs Pre-Determination | What is time?

Magic: Black Magic | Sex Magic | Full Moon | New Years | Language | Magic of Names | ❄️ | Summer Solstice | Fall Solstice | Spring Solstice

Astrology | Aries | Taurus | Gemini | Cancer | Leo | Virgo | Libra | Scorpio | Sagittarius | Capricorn | Aquarius | Pisces | Relationship Astrology | Houses/Chart Styles | Vedic, Esoteric and other modalities | Astrocartography

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Manifestation | Financial spirituality

Energy: Energetic Tethering | Energy Absorption | Energy Vampires | Ley Lines and Energy Vortices | Collective Energy | Energetic Attacks | Essence Charging

Spiritual Gifts: Animal Communication |Healing your intuition | Spiritual Healing | Discovering your inner magic | channeling & clairs | telepathy | mediumship |

Chakras: Heart Chakra | Throat Chakra |Third Eye Chakra | Crown Chakra | Root Chakra | Sacral Chakra | Solar Plexus Chakra | Alternative Chakras

Humanity: Current state of humanity | Human body limitations | Gender | Collective Lessons | Hustle Culture | Tattoos | spirituality & drugs | medication & spirituality | body ascension

Sleep: Sleep Disturbances | dream work | interpreting dreams | precognitive dreams | different types of dreams, lucid |

Elements: Fire Bending | Water Bending | Air Bending | Earth Bending

Angels: Earth Angels | archangels

Love energy: preparing for your partner | love spells

Whatever else you want? You can ask me if spirit has messages for you, channeled messages, dream or astrology interpretations. I just ask in exchange that you please give me feedback as it helps me understand my gifts more! 💕

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You can also ask me about my own spiritual journey, music, pop culture, the evils of capitalism, etc.

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Other discussed topics:

tarot | law of attraction | twin flames | soul mates | spiritual awakening | auras | past lives | therapy | mental health | starseeds | inner child | numerology | faeries & mermaids | spirit animals | MBTI | enneagram | human design

Topics on my to-do list:

mythology, specifically Greek and Roman | deities /finding yours | 5D integration | 3D proof of the 5D | death energy | the language of spirit | why our spirituality weakens with age | blood disorders and other “disorders” and spirituality | energy sensing | energetic proximity | levels of living | energetic loss | hierarchies | cassadaga | energetic clearing | meaning of life | translating higher dimensions into 3D | energy of creation | energetic shifting | how you hold your power back | anti love | energetic manipulation | power of intention | frequency and music | letting go | portals | discovering spiritual gifts | storytelling and spiritual tools | how to remember what you know | circulating energies | aha moments | energy of non-judgement | energetic recharging | energy channeling | energy of spaces, ie bedroom and how to shift energy of spaces | remote viewing/deja vu