Clouds Time Lapse from Karthik VA on Vimeo.

I created the video using my D60 and sony vegas. In this tutorial i will discuss about how to make video from still images using sony vegas.

For knowing how to shoot for time lapse check this..

Clouds timelapse in flickr
My Bookmarks related to timelapse

Step One:

Put the images into a single folder, open sony vegas.
Choose File -> Import -> Media and browse for the folder.

Step Two:

Now click on the first image. Make a check at the bottom ‘open still image sequence’, and click open.

Step Three:

Now choose the frame rate. Normally i choose 15 fps or 24 fps. It depends on the type of video.

Step Four:

The image sequence will added to the ‘project media’, just drag and drop it to your timeline. You can also add music files in the same manner.

Step Five:

After you have finished editing, choose ‘File -> Render As’ to render it into a video. There are lot of format and custom options. There are many templates to save time. To keep the size small i render my videos as 720p mp4 format. Also more the bitrate, more the quality, and more the size

Here is short explanation on how to do it.

Here is a setup shot which i took yesterday. Don’t worry about the broken bulb, i was doing some experiments.

http://i46.tinypic.com/15nk80g.jpg

I have used a black umbrella in the setup to prevent reflections of windows on bulb. The distance between the black card [gobo] and object matters a lot. I have used 2 feet approx. Change it until you get a nice rim light.

There are actually two types of setup for this lighting discussed in that book. You can see the second setup in my flickr gallery. One important thing to make sure is that the glass is clean

Here is gallery i have created in flickr with some nice inspiring pics and setup shots.

Dark Field Lighting

One more pic…

If you have any doubts, post in comments, i will reply.

Yesterday, 16-1-2010, i went to gangaikonda cholapuram. I was planning this trip for almost 4 or 5 months, and finally the right time has come yesterday.

So, first about the place.

Gangaikonda Cholapuram was erected as the capital of the Cholas by Rajendra Chola I, the son and successor of Rajaraja Chola, the great Chola who conquered a large area in South India at the beginning of the 11th century C.E. It occupies an important place in the history of India. As the capital of the Cholas from about 1025 C.E. for about 250 years, the city controlled the affairs of entire south India, from the Tungabhadra in the north to Ceylon in the south. The great temple of Siva at this place is next only to the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur in its monumental nature and surpasses it in sculptural quality.

A formal description, as usual stolen from wikipedia

The place is roughly 120 km from Trichy. I went in my bike, Honda Unicorn. Ya, i love bike bike riding though it pains

Me , my friend Sudhan and one more friend went in two bikes.

I started by 9 AM. This is the route i followed while onward journey.

Trichy –> Kallanai –> Tirukkattupalli –> Thiruvaiyaru –> keezha pazhuvur –> Jayamkondam –> Gangaikonda cholapuram

View Larger Map

Around 110-120 km journey. The road is nice throughout except for the small section of 20 km from Thiruvaiyaru. It may take around 2 hours to reach there from Trichy. But since this was our first time, we went very slow in bike, 50-60 kmph.  We reached there by 11.45 AM. There should be no trouble in finding the temple because the gopuram is visible from 1 km.

Since we went on a holiday, there was a huge rush. We parked our bikes in front for 5 rupees and there is a separate place for leaving footwears, so no problems.

The first sight of the temple was so nice. It was like a miniature version of Periya Kovil in Thanjavur, exactly built like a miniature.

The lawn around the temple is maintained very well. Many sleep there Since there was huge rush, i didn’t go inside the main temple, just prayed from a distance and got back to work [taking pics].

After clicking lot of shots, which was taken for the purpose of stitching panos i got tired. We found a nice place to rest in the lawn. We where there till 2 PM, chatting and making fun. Sudhan tried to take pictures of me in my 50mm lens. He took out of focus shots all time since AF doesn’t work in my D60.

Again i took some photos of front elevation and came outside.We had a nice cup of tea.

While returning there was a lake just 1 or 2 km from temple. The color of water was muddy. I even dont know whether it is a lake or not. Just lot of water on both sides of road. We did some adventure in bike and took pics

We reached Jayamkondam by 3PM, and had egg puff, afternoon lunch.We were not interested to find a hotel, sit there and give orders, also we were not hungry.

While returning to trichy i came via different road. 101 kms totally to my home.

View Larger Map

The road was very neat with green paddy fields on both sides.  But i stopped at some places and took pics. Reached trichy by 5.45 PM.

It was a nice experience and nearly 4 GB of my harddisk space filled with those pictures.

Here are some more pictures of the temple i took yesterday.

Here is a very nice 360 degree view of the temple, by Tamilnadu Tourism.

http://view360.in/virtualtour/gangaikondacholapuram/

Text Version:

1. Duplicate the original layer [ctrl + j] and change the blend mode of duplicated layer to ‘overlay’.

2. Right click on the new layer and choose ‘convert to smart object’.

3. Now go to the ‘filter’ menu and choose ‘high pass’ from ‘other’ sub menu.

4. Change the Radius slider until you find a sweet spot. It varies for everyone and every image.

A small Video:

Advantage:

I find this method is very useful because, it is non-destructive. I can easily delete the layer if i mess up some how. Also there is one slider instead of three in unsharp mask filter

You need to change the amount of sharpness if you resize the image. Since we apply the filter as ’smart filter’ you can change it any time.

Step 1:  Taking Pictures

It is really simple like taking a normal panorama shot, the difference is you take pictures covering a full 360 degree. A tripod is preferable because it saves time in PS and you get a neat shot.

I use Nikon D60 with my 18-55mm kit lens and a cheap Velbon tripod. For D60 with 18-55 lens i don’t have any problems with tripod.

Put your camera in manual mode, set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Also do not change the focus points. Better the AE/AF lock function in your camera.

I don’t have sophisticated equipments for panoramic photography. I just rotate the camera in tripod approximately and click. Take 25-30 shots for a full 360 degree. I should be sufficient for the overlap.

Step 2: Photomerge

This video explains it all.

Here is the PS action mentioned in that video

http://www.rastervector.com/downloads/Panoramicsrev3.zip

Photoshop takes some time to merge the shots. If you have a good hardware you should not worry. I got the resulting PSD file size is around 500 MB after merging 24 – 10 MP shots. As the file size is very large it takes time for every action. That’s why a faster processor and more RAM space is needed.

Step 3: Displaying the output

Displaying the 360 degree panorama matters a lot. For example, see this. It is a 360 degree panorama but you cannot feel it. It is just like another panorama, but little long.

You need to convert the 360 degree panorama into a VR- Virtual Reality. You might have seen this 360 degree virtual tours in websites. It is the same thing.

I cannot find a free software to convert 360 degree panorama into a VR. If you can buy a software, go for anyone of these

Pano2VR

Easypano

There software allow you to convert 360 degree panorama into a VR, either flash VR ot Quicktime VR. I prefer flash VR. You can also add hotspots and much more.

Here i have a decent way of displaying the panorama.

http://technicalerror.net/360degree/1.html

As you can see it is not very much interactive, but certainly better than a normal photo. I used this script

jQuery Simple Panorama Viewer

If you have some decent knowledge in html you are done.

Some more links:

How to…

HOW TO DO PANORAMAS –> software

Symptoms of a virus infection:

If your system has been infected by virus you may see some of these symptoms.

• Your system might be too slow. You can realize this easily.
• Some error messages occur frequently or your system might restart automatically
• Some programs may hang when opened.

These are some of the things you will notice. If you notice these it doesn’t always mean that your system is infected.

So I will discuss how to cleanup your system. This is a general cleanup method, you can do it once in a week or month.

Tools:

• Ccleaner
• Malwarebytes antimalware [MBAM]
• Spybot search and destroy [spybot S&D]
• Superantispyware free edition [SAS]
• AVP tool from Kaspersky

All the above tools are free, and constantly updated to catch threats. You can download, install and use all at the same time. You should not have any problems.

Note: Spybot S&D has a resident protection function called teatimer. It might interfere with your antivirus or make your system slow a bit. I normally disable teatimer.

How to Cleanup ?

1. Backup all your important data. This is the first step because, if incase anything goes wrong your data will be safe.

2. Physically disconnect your computer from internet.

3. Use ccleaner to cleanup all your unwanted files in temporary folders. Ccleaner is a very small effective tool. Cleanup all files in windows temporary folders and your browser cache. [many viruses live in these folders]

some tutorials:

http://www.removingspywareforfree.com/article.php/Ccleaner_Tutorial_Page
http://www.ccleaner.com/help/tour

4. Turn off system restore. This is important because, if you cleanup malware ’system restore’ has a copy of it in its own hidden folder [system volume information]. So the malware is still in your system!

Turn off system restore for XP

Turn off system restore for Vista

5. Boot your computer in safe mode.

Restart your computer
Press F8 key repeatedly
A menu with a black background will appear
Use arrow keys and navigate to Safe Mode and press Enter

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

6. Do a full system scan with your antivirus in safemode. Also do a full system scan with MBAM, SAS and spybot S&D. Hopefully all viruses in your system will be removed!

7. Reboot windows in normal mode and create a new system restore point.

Advanced:

This method is for advanced users. If you are a newbie please do not try this. These tools are used my many users to find some hidden viruses or the ones which doesn’t show up in normal AV scan.

Tools:

• HijackThis
• SDFix
• Combofix
• GMER

How to ?

1. Do not use the above tools if you don’t know how to use it. Each tool has its own method. It is strongly advised to use these tools under guidance.

2. HijackThis [HJT] is an excellent tool. It shows a log from which you have to find out malware infections. It shows a list of startup entires, winsock entires, browser helper objects [BHO] , services etc.,

You have to google for the process name and find it whether it is legitimate or not.
These sites might be helpful for analyzing HJT logs.

http://www.hijackthis.de/#anl
http://www.systemlookup.com/lists.php

Here is a very good tutorial on understanding HJT entries:
Bleeping Computer

3. SDFix and combofix are powerful tools. use it properly under guidance. I think SDFix is not updated, but combofix is used in many forums. It is a very good tool.

4. GMER is a very powerful rootkit detection tool.

5. If you are interested in trying these tools, try them in a Virtual PC. I always do these tests in my Virtual PC because i can play as i wish.

Where to get help ?

For advanced troubleshooting of virus issues, you can get help from online forums. There are lots of forums doing it.[you can register for free and get help]

They provide a step by step removal instructions.

Here are some sites i like:
Bleeping Computer Forums
MajorGeeks Forum
MalwareBytes Forum

You can also get help from your respective AV forums. Kapsersky has a tool which collects system info and you can get help from experts in kaspersky forum.

I didn’t explain about each and every tool because there are already good and detailed tutorials on it.

First things first:

If you haven’t installed Greasemonkey, a most popular addon for firefox, it’s time to install it now. Go here and install it.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748

Now it’s time to install our scripts. I will share the scripts which i find very useful, but you are free to choose your own scripts by searching in userscripts.org website.

Flickr Auto Page

This script allows you to see all photos without clicking on the next page button.

Infinite Scrolling for Flickr: this greasemonkey script removes the need to go from pages to pages in Flickr by automatically expanding the display when you scroll.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/8594

AutoSmile: Adding Emotion to Flickr

I use smilies all the time. So if you use smilies often grab this script.

http://brian.shaler.name/flickr/autosmile/

Flickr – Multi Group Sender

Tired of sending your photos to 20 groups using flickr default ‘add to group’ menu ? Here is a solution for you.

It overrides the flickr “Send to Group” button above your photo/video and lets you send your Flickr image or video to multiple groups simultaneously

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/1543

Flickr – Background color

This script changes the background color of your photo page. You can see in the screenshot, if you just hover your mouse over it, the background color will be changed.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6934

Flickr – Photo Rank

The script queries flickr for rank of the current photo in explore. The result is displayed on the photo page in additional information.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/7048

Have fun

Wordpress:

Either create a self hosted wordpress blog or just create an account in wordpress.com and we are ready to start.

Why Wordpress ? As i said, i tired many gallery scripts. Wordpress is user friendly, simple, familiar working platform and since many of them use wordpress you can find themes and plugins easily.

Yet another Photoblog plugin: [YAPB]

The YAPB plugin converts your wordpress blog into full featured wordpress blog. The installation is very easy, just like any other wordpress plugin you install.

Download and install YAPB theme from here.

http://johannes.jarolim.com/blog/wordpress/yet-another-photoblog/

There are also other plugins which are very similar to YAPB. Just search for ‘gallery’ or ‘photoblog’ in wordpress.org

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search.php?q=gallery

[If you have installed yapb plugin, just spend time on configuring it and posting a photo is simple. Just go to posts --> add new [as you always do] and there will be a separate field called ‘YAPB image’. Just upload and enjoy.

Theme:

Finding a good theme is very important. Each one of us have different tastes, some like white background and some of us like black.

There are some good themes available, this is my favorite. [you can see this theme on the first photo]

http://www.sudeepmandal.com/projects/reflection-mod-photoblog-theme-wordpress/

Here is a link to some very nice themes.

http://allancole.com/wordpress/themes/autofocus/

http://newwpthemes.net/viewport-free-wordpress-theme/

http://www.blogohblog.com/wordpress-theme-photo-blog/

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wp-grain/

http://www.myokyawhtun.com/themes-templates/wp-foto-theme.html

http://bueltge.de/photoblog-theme-greyfoto/837/

http://xyloid.org/projects/reflection/

http://fivebyfive.com.ar/wp-themes/spotless/

So, You are ready to show your cool photos to the world. Have a Happy Photoblogging.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Want to see a demo ? click here

http://technicalerror.net/karthikclicks/

Anti-Virus:

Avira Antivir:

I simply love this free edition of Avira, also it has realtime protection. I am using this for a long time and very happy with it.

http://www.free-av.com/

Other free anti virus software which i haven’t used but worth mentioning.

Avast!

http://www.avast.com/

AVG Anti-Virus

http://free.grisoft.com/

PC tools free AV

http://www.pctools.com/free-antivirus/

Kaspersky AVP Tool

This is a fantastic tool from kaspersky. It has no realtime scanner, only on demand scanner. But still it is fantastic product.
http://avptool.virusinfo.info/en/

a-squared
My friends used to give very good comments about this. I haven’t used this, Just give it a try.

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/free/

Anti-Malware:

I am using MBAM and SAS for the past one year. They have no realtime protection which is actually good. I use only Avira for realtime protection.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware  [MBAM]
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Superantispyware free edition: [SAS]
http://www.superantispyware.com/

Ad-Aware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

Spyware Doctor

Spyware Doctor + Basic Antivirus with realtime protection comes free with google pack . Spyware doctor is a very good tool.

http://pack.google.com

Firewall:

My all time favorite is comodo. But there are also very good firewall tools which i will mention here.

Comodo
http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/

PCTools
http://www.pctools.com/firewall/download/

Security suite:

They have a antivirus + firewall + antimalware.. AIO

McAfee Internet Security Suite (AOL)

http://safety.aol.com/isc/MaximumSecurity/

Before sometime AOL used to give kaspersky AV for free. Now they switched to McAfee i think.
Comodo

http://www.comodo.com/products/free_products.html

Some other tools worth mentioning:

Dr.Web Cureit
http://www.freedrweb.com/cureit/

Once my system got a nasty virus that infected all exe files including avira. This tool helped me too find the infection.

The best thing is it doesn’t need any installation, portable. You can download from any other system, carry it on USB thumb drive and use it on your infected system.

Avira Rescue CD:
http://www.free-av.com/en/tools/12/avira_antivir_rescue_system.html

This might be useful when your system doesn’t boot. Some virus cause system to restart, you will never know know why your system restarts repeatedly. You can burn the ISO file in a CD and run on your infected system. The CD is will be bootable by itself.

A Word:

Please do not download all the software i have listed above and use all at the same time. It will surely cause trouble.

Have one AV for realtime protection and one firewall. Use Anti malware tools whenever you need.

Update all security tools frequently, at least twice a week. [very important]

I use Avira free edition + Comodo firewall[ I have disabled the anti spyware module in comodo]. MBAM and SAS as on demand scanners.

You have two options,

1. Host your site from your own computer.
2. Choose a Hosting provider.

I prefer the second, Because there are many disadvantages in hosting the site in a pc. Your system must be online 24×7, which may not possible in our country, also u need a connection with decent bandwidth which is again not possible in many places. The maximum upload rate of BSNL home 500 plan is around 40 KBps. So if 10 people are simultaneously downloading a file from your site, they could get only 4 KBps download speed.

Hosting providers do the job for you. They provide you a web space, some amount of monthly bandwidth for your site, and now a days lot of tools to make your job easier. Again there are two options,

1. Free Hosting,
2. Paid Hosting.

The choice really depends on your budget.

What else is required ?

A name for your website, technically a domain name. There are two types,

1. Top level domains [TLD] like .com, .net, .org and some hundreds like this…
2. A sub domain which looks like http://www.yourname.hostingprovider.com

You need to pay for a TLD. Typically it costs around 250 to 1000 or 2000 rupees per year depending on the name you choose. I will discuss more about this little later.

What to look for ?

If you are choosing your own site look for the following.

Webspace :

You need to look for the maximum disk space they provide you for your site. The size depends on type of your website. If it is a personal page some 200 -500 MB space will be enough. Normally 1 to 5GB space will do.

Bandwidth:

The bandwidth the hosting provider allots for your site, usually this will be calculated on monthly basis. Typically 10 to 100 GB per month.

Again you need to make your choice wisely.

If you have a 4 MB mp3 file on your site and 100 users download it, you loose 400 MB of bandwidth. So choose your bandwidth accordingly.

PHP and MySQL support:

This is very important now a days since every script like worpdress needs PHP and MySQL database support. Normally all hosting providers will have PHP support. You need to look carefully on MySQL. some times the number of MySQL databases or the size of a MySQL database might be limited by the hosting provider. So, look for it carefully.

FTP and file manager:

Check whether they give you FTP access to your site. Also check the ease of online file manager.

Support:

This is the main thing to look for. Not all users are computer geeks. If you need help they must be able to provide it. Normally in free hosting you don’t get full support. Look for their official forums. Maybe there you can get help form them and also some other users.

Server Uptime:

This means how much time their servers are up [on] and running. Typically i have seen 99% or 99.99% in all sites.

And much more:

I have mentioned just the basics. There is a big list of things like automated script installers [fantastico], dedicated ftp functions, cgi and perl support.. but those i mentioned are the basic. Look whether they allow you to host the website on your own top level domain if you have any.

Using Free Hosting:

Now, let us focus on developing our website for free.

Step 1: Decide the purpose of your site. Whether it is a blog or commerical product page or personal website or a company page etc.,

Step 2: You need to choose a Web hosting provider. There are nearly thousands of free hosting providers. Just google for ‘free web hosting’. For the past two years i registered nearly in 20-30 free hosting providers and found only a few are worthy.

In order to save your time, i will mention some of my favorite sites.

http://www.000webhost.com/
http://byethost.com/
http://www.110mb.com/

These free hosting providers offer a good service.

Step 3: The free hosting providers will only offer you a sub domain. Like techerror.110mb.com or some other similar names. But there some sites who offer neat domains for free. Some of them,

http://dot.tk/
http://www.co.cc/
http://www.freedomain.co.nr/

Basically what you do is, redirecting.

Suppose if you have a Website like karthik.byethost.com, i can go to dot.tk and register a name like karthik.tk [if available], and if you type karthik.tk it will be redirected to karthik.byethost.com. So finally what you get is a neat name for your site with some workaround.

If you have done the above things correctly, your site is ready. The amount you spent is actually zero.

But this is not yet over. If you want to see your site live, you need to code with html or php or install wordpress on your site. Explaining these will take me 10 blog posts

Some traps:

If you see ads like ‘unlimited disk space for free’, believe me there is a trap. This is my own experience. What you will get is unlimited disk space with 100 MB bandwidth and maximum file size limit of 1MB which is totally useless.

Using Paid Host:

Step 1: Decide the purpose of your site and more importantly decide your budget.

Step 2: Choosing a paid hosting provider is little easy compared to free hosting. Some sites for you to help.

http://bluehost.com/
http://www.hostgator.com/

and much more if you google.. You will get everything unlimited if you pay around 5 to 7 dollars per month.

In India, there are less hosting providers who offer cheap hosting. I have a hosting plan from this site India.to. It offers good service at affordable price. Once i mailed them for little help regarding permission setting and got reply withing 3 to 4 hours.

I spent around 1100 rupees for web hosting and domain name. [for one year]

Step 3: If you pay, some sites may offer a free domain for a year. If they don’t offer you can buy one.

Again there are tons of domain name registrars. Go for this,

http://www.godaddy.com

You can buy a domain anytime and you can build your site later.

In India i find this site is very cheap. You get a .com, .org, .net for 250 rupees per year.

http://250i.com/

Ya! that’s it.. you have successfully got a hosting provider and name for your site.

Go on and build it!!! In future i will try to post about web designing.

Good luck. I hope my article helps you little.