Astir Beach is the Best Beach in Greece

From my previous posts you guessed it: Astir Beach is my number one beach. And every day the dedicated staff and management confirm this statement… since 1960.

Basketball World Championship Live at Astir Beach

No reason to stay at home to watch the basketball World Championship at a vulgar boob tube; Astir’s mega screen with exceptional luminosity and resolution is simply the best.
SIpping your Mojito, connecting with the world through the Wi-Fi net, watching the Greek team winning and all this while doing maintenance on your sun tan … Is that what crises means in Greece?
All photos live by iPhone.

Some clouds over Astir Beach in Vouliagmeni and great light create ideal photo conditions for the iPhone 4.

Astir Beach iPhone 4 Photos is a post from: iPhone 4 Photos
All content Copyright © 2010 Yorgo Nestoridis. All rights reserved.
Contact mail: iPhone (at) yorgo.net

Spider

The last day in August turns out to be a glorious summers day which is a rare occurence this summer here in Essex where I live. If you saw my earlier posts about the local  Airshow you will notice that the weather nearly let us down. However, today was wonderful with long spells of warm sunshine so much needed after so many dreary days. The garden was the best place to be today. What caught my eye glistening in the sunshine was a big spiders web just by the door. Down came the spider from his hiding hole to catch an unwary little fly.  Having watched this for a short while  I decided it was an opportunity not to be missed and got the camera out. What was really intriguing was that I was watching the spider from underneath, and not looking down on his back.

Garden Spider 

Well I think its a garden spider, if anyone would like to correct me on this one please do. By the time the camera was in place this little spider had consumed his prey and looked like it was wrapping it up and then sort of pushed it out in a little ball. I am no nature freak but this episode was absolutely fascinating. Here is the photo I shot of this spider with my Nikon Coolpix. With the sun shining directly on the web the little ball here looks like a blue gemstone.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• First Day at the Airshow
• Full Moon over Frinton
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development
• Digital Photography Practice
• Digital Photography Workshop exercise
• Digital Photography – Preparing Photos
• Digital Photography
• My Essex

Contents

[ hide ]

1. 1 Monkey Valley Resort in September
2. 1.1 Monkey Valley Resort in September
3. 1.2 Camtasia Studio Pro

Monkey Valley Resort in September

Cape Town, South Africa, is getting ready for spring… and naturally we asked Dumi Sakuinje what’s planned at Monkey Valley Resort for the new season, starting 1 September 2010?

Check out the brief projection below, recorded on a sunny but pretty windy afternoon – with nothing but the last few feet left on a NIKON Coolpix P90 digital camera – high up at Monkey Valley Resort’s gem, the “Crowned Eagle”, on what’s to be expected in terms of September Entertainment at the beautiful beach resort.

This little movie was edited in Camtasia Studio Pro with no really efficient tool to eliminate the background noise the amazingly sensitive microphone of the digital camera had captured. It is only 1 minute 35 seconds long and was produced in High Definition for YouTube. . . where it’s currently loading. It will take a couple of hours with our slow Internet connections… but here come some interesting details for those interested in movie productions for online presentations and YouTube.

Monkey Valley Resort in September

As we are still testing the best conversion and production formats, my experience with “Monkey Valley Resort in September” was the following:

My NIKON Coolpix P90 is normally set to produce digital photos in 3000 x 4000 size. I did not change these settings to 16:9 for instance. I kept all 3×4.

Camtasia Studio Pro

When starting a new project in Camtasia Studio Pro we are asked to select our format preferences.

As I plan to load the movie in HD to YouTube, I selected 1280 x 720 – which immediately reduced the original images on my Camtasia editing screen, leaving me with a large black frame around the picture.

Once the clip was edited, I published it with my personal settings – which again are YouTube/HD, meaning 1280 x 720.

The result was the display you see in the top picture here. Length: 1:35 min, 30frames per second, 214 MB.

Hmmm… I found this pretty heavy for a tiny clip like this… but I remembered that in a previous discussion it was mentioned that the whole black frame counts in terms of ‘weight’ – at least, that’s what I had understood.

Accordingly, I decided to experiment and try another version:

I did not touch the edited movie, but changed the initial settings in Camtasia to the original size I filmed it, 640 x 360 (4×3). . . but then chose the same format for YouTube/HD, meaning 1280 x 720. Being aware that I changed the 4×3 to a 16:9 … I just wanted to see the result. One never knows unless one tries… and this is not the end of the story yet :)

However, now I got double the weight: 452 MB, same time 1:35 min and 30 frames per second.

What I like here is that the picture will be seen at maximal height as demonstrated on the second screenshot above, the way Camtasia plays the movie straight after publishing.

Of course, I’d prefer to have it lighter … without losing any quality. Maybe I will get there in the next shot. . .

27% loaded… 242 minutes remaining on YouTube – duhh… what would I do with 10 minutes???

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Monkey Valley Resort in September is a post from: Destinations Expo

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Red Arrows at Clacton Air Show

The flying program at the Clacton Airshow 2010 included the famous RAF aerobatic team, the Red Arrows. There is nothing quite so breathtaking as watching this display team whiz through the skies and perform their aerobatics. 

Red Arrows at Clacton Airshow on Youtube

Here is a short video on Youtube of the Red Arrows aerobatics display at the 2010 Airshow in Clacton.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• First Day at the Airshow
• Clacton Airshow
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Clacton Air Show 2010
• Full Moon over Frinton
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Gunfleet Sands Development

Ever thought of Destination Arctic Ice?

Visiting the North Pole or the South Pole?

My sister just returned from an extraordinary journey she’s always been dreaming of… a trip into a white world of silence and of serenity…

Destination Arctic Ice – extraordinary Life under the Melting Arctic Ice

Still filled with her stories and waiting for the pictures, I wish to draw your attention to what I call “Destination Arctic Ice” – a world that seems to me is still relatively ‘untouched’, unspoilt, unaffected by human intervention, by human greed and destruction. It’s not far away on the moon or any other distant planet – it’s right here, right under our feet almost… and it’s still unexplored, virgin, complete. In my eyes – sacred.

And it should remain sacred.

Have a look at what no human eye has ever seen before – as I’m being told by photographer Gavin Newman who has built the ‘toys’ that enable him to go further than anyone else ever went underneath the Melting Artic Ice, filming “stunning life”… a habitat noone even expected, a habitat of grandiose beauty…

However, it already shows the scars of human greed by those desastrous trawlers… motivated by the overeating part of the world population. They have to be stopped – NOW!

It’s your and my Awareness that can do so, our determination to protect what we were given to care for – not to own, not to ‘possess’ nor to dominate. ‘Taking care of our house’ is part of our sacred contract with the Divine… whatever way you perceive it.

After all, we are all part of ‘it’… if we destroy what in a world of duality is perceived as ‘outside’ we destroy… ourselves.

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Destination Arctic Ice is a post from: Destinations Expo

Contents

[ hide ]

1. 1 Yoga Workshop Destination Cape Town
2. 1.1 Yoga Workshop Destination Cape Town
3. 1.2 Shimon Ben Avi
4. 1.3 Unconditional Love

Yoga Workshop Destination Cape Town

While the Destinations Expo 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa, had opened its doors to the Holiday and Travel Industry, passionate yoga practitioners and yoga teachers from all over the country united for a Yoga Workshop at the Chapman’s Peak Hotel, Hout Bay, lead by Shimon Ben Avi, highly respected and wonderfully inspiring yoga master from Israel and teacher of my cherished yoga teacher and dear friend Leora Leibovitz.

Yoga Workshop Destination Cape Town

This Yoga Workshop Destination Cape Town was not ‘only’ about the physical positions necessary to reach into our stillness inside and release the social imprints, mind conditioning, emotions and pain we all accumulate over time – but a magic journey into the understanding and experiencing of the true essence of Yoga.

Shimon Ben Avi

Shimon Ben Avi is a powerful yet very graceful teacher with 26 years of experience and extensive skills especially in teacher training. Just back from the Himalayas, he abounds with wisdom and stories of Eastern Philosophy – in which he holds a PhD… as well as in Mathematics. Going far back to the roots of Upanishad, Mahabarata and Hindu Philosophy – reading and teaching from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali… a Hindu scripture and foundational text of Yoga – he first stimulates and challenges the mental and spiritual process before taking things to the physical level on “the mat”. While Yoga is in no way a form of competition, very much to the contrary – Shimon Ben Avi has a unique gift of knowing what’s needed in a student to reach certain initially daunting goals – starting with the mental attitude, self belief, the focus directed to the right spot and … action!

An Advanced 14-days Yoga Teacher Workshop will be running until Friday, 3rd September 2010.

Unconditional Love

The essence of our learning? To cleanse, heal, energize and flow on our continued path towards… unconditional Love.

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Yoga Workshop Destination Cape Town is a post from: Destinations Expo

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Clacton Air Show 2010

The Claton Airshow still manged to attract loads of visitor this year despite the weather, although the numbers were slightly down on previous years. Each year the show attracts not only the aircraft hobbyists but also families with children. As the airshow is a free event it makes a great day out for all family, there’s always something for everyone. Airshow, sand, sea and funfair!

A chance for the young to see a model of a  Spitfire close up.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Read more..

• First Day at the Airshow
• Clacton Airshow
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Shooting at Rainbows in Essex
• Tropical Wings and Evolution
• Tropical Wings Zoo Animals
• Tropical Wings Butterfly House
• Tropical Wings
• Apricot Season
• My Essex

Contents

[ hide ]

1. 1 Destination South Africa
2. 1.1 Meeting at Cape Point South Africa
3. 1.2 Semiomantics Website Publishing
4. 1.3 From Mindanao to Cape Town

Destination South Africa

When Florence Gotil (Cheng Cheng) from Mindanao in the Philippines and I met on the Internet highway a couple of years ago, we wouldn’t have thought to be meeting at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, one day.

Yet, exactly this happened on Sunday 8th August 2010 as her mom’s dream had been: Destination South Africa! And the dream came true. . .

After a week of blissful sunshine, this was the day it rained… the only day she and her family from the Philippines and other parts of the world – a group of 17 touring the whole of South Africa – would be here. And we had prayed for this rain as Nature really needed it; never have we seen our dam that empty at this time of the year.

Meeting at Cape Point South Africa

And then, while dark, errie clouds pulled over the rest of the Cape – the sun broke through the sky to bless our spontaneous meeting at Cape Point – not the most Southern tip of South Africa, but also known as the “Cape of Storms” or the “Cape of Good Hope”. And stormy and cold it was… and after that… it’s just Antarctica. . .

Semiomantics Website Publishing

While we knew each other quite well in the virtual world, it was just wonderful to meet ‘live’, to hear about her flourishing truck and heavy equipment business, her future plans, her intention to market on a global scale using the Internet – for which of course Semiomantics Website Publishing is the answer to achieve the essential high Google rankings to start with.

Two women from different continents discussing real business at the end of the world over a plate of calamari fritti and hake… while baboons that were as cheeky as they were acrobatic snatched bits from the plates the moment one didn’t keep an eye on them! Too funny. . . and certainly a lasting memory for Cheng Cheng and her family!

From Mindanao to Cape Town

While her tour continued, we communicated via the iPhone.

Meanwhile, she’s happily back home with many memories of her trip from Mindanao to Cape Town… when the Philippines and South Africa met.

Copyright © 2010 Destinations Expo Destination South Africa is a post from: Destinations Expo

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.

Lightroom 3 at Ycademy Seminar

Smashing the new Lightroom 3 from Adobe. While many features useful for the professional photographer have been improved, Adobe has also thought of hobby photographers and laymen. The new edition of Lightroom makes online publishing a Sunday walk.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

Smashing namely the new slide-show function which provides a quick solution for people who have little time and great ambitions.

Here is my test run, loaded to YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=epj_xS-aiSI

Quick Lightroom 3 Slideshow Quality

Lightroom 3 lets you export slide-shows in different formats; unfortunately there is not much flexibility there and the presets are 3:2 formated. However you can get 720p and 1080p as well, producing thus a YouTube HD movie as per above.

You can also export your slides in PDF format.

The images used are 4000 x 3000 pixels. Lightroom crops and compresses and in as much as I am concerned, much of the actual quality and detail is lost. here is an excerpt of one of the pictures as it came out of the camera:

Original Excerpt

Original Excerpt

When looking through the pdf or the YouTube clip, you will easily notice the difference. The images are not crisp, nor sharp and color gradients are washed away. The pdf is better than the YouTube version which is due to the YouTube compression.

Note also the Copyright mark in the slide-show frame on YouTube: I should have used a bolder face type.

In spite of the above, I am convinced that with Lightroom 3 will be a great help in publishing for many people and save a lot of time in the work-flow related to basic web publishing.

We will experiment with Lightroom 3 at the Ycademy Online Seminar which will start in just about 3 hours.

This page is wiki editable click here to edit this page.