Camera SLR bodyMost photos on this website are from slides made with a Contax 139 Quartz 35 mm manual focus single lens reflex camera body bought in 1986 which is still functioning without any problem.Under the brand name Contax, Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics) has launched excellent cameras with Carl Zeiss lenses on the market for many years. Many Contax owners regret that Kyocera has decided not to continue these since April 2005. Camera lenses and filtersMany slides were photographed through a Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 standard lens while others were taken with a Tokina AT-X M 90mm F2.5 macro lens also used as a short tele. For corrections and special effects Cokin filters were applied of which the linear polariser filter was the one most used.FilmAll the slides were exposed on Fuji RD 100 film.Film scannerThe slides were digitised with an Acer ScanWit 2720S Film Scanner (later taken over by and rebranded as Benq) in combination with the multi-vendor scanner software VueScan from Hamrick Software for better quality scans and more scanning flexibility than with the original supplied MiraPhoto software.Flatbed scannerAlso included on this website are photos made by some of the other group members. These photos were scanned with an inexpensive DEXXA Flatbedscanner 4800. The trekking permit, Mani Stone and T-Shirt embroideries were also scanned on this scanner. DEXXA no longer exists, but in reality the scanner is an Artec AS6E with a different brand name.Scanning technique"A few scanning tips" by Wayne Fulton is recommended for those who are interested in improving their own scanning technique.Photo editorAfter scanning a photo editor was used to retouch (mainly removing dust and scratches), correct colour, gamma, brightness and contrast and resize most photos to a normal (720 x 480 pixels) and a thumbnail size (180 x 120 pixels) image. The final images are a bit sharpened.Paint Shop Pro from Jasc Software (version 9 was the latest) was used as an image and photo editor until July 2007. Jasc Software was sold in 2005 to Corel which changed the later versions of Paint Shop Pro in a (with all due respect) "one click does all" photo editor which in the opinion of the Nepal - Trek Around Annapurna - Photo gallery is not very suitable for professional image editing. Since then Adobe Photoshop is used for all image editing. For compatibility with the existing Paint Shop Pro files the Paint Shop Pro Format file plug-in from Telegraphics is used to open them in Adobe Photoshop. The favicon  is made with Adobe Photoshop and the ICO (Windows Icon) Format file plug-in also from Telegraphics. See for more information about this favicon the Display and Internet browser adjustment page.Display calibrationThe photos were edited on an EIZO FlexScan F56 17" CRT monitor. This monitor is replaced by an EIZO FlexScan SX2462W in January 2011. It is a 24" wide colour gamut 10-bit LCD display, which offers optimal performance for digital photography and graphics applications.Both displays were profiled and calibrated with an Eye One Display 2 display colour calibrator from GretagMacbeth (now X-Rite). From March 2012 the LCD display is profiled and calibrated with a Spyder4Pro display colour calibrator from Datacolor. A calibrated display is critical for any photographer and creative imaging professional who needs accurate and predictable images. It is imperative that the display is correctly reproducing shades and colours while processing digital photographs. Wallpaper CompressionThe wallpaper BMP files are compressed to self-extracting executable files and Zip files made with WinRAR.Web design toolThe website is created with Adobe Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver is excellent in creating HTML code and maintaining the links in a website. It makes publishing to the webspace on the World Wide Web an easy task.Website hostingThe website is hosted "carbon neutral" by XS4ALL Internet B.V. in The Netherlands on the Unix/Apache platform.Internet provides us the luxury of unprecedented sharing of information, but at the same time the amount of energy needed to keep millions of websites up and running is enormous. Many people do not realise that the internet has become a major contributor to carbon emissions. Cleanbits enables you to easily check web servers environmental footprint and compensate the carbon emissions generated by the hosting of a website. Whether compensation is through renewable energy or internet forests, the objective is to create a sustainable internet. Website uptime and performance monitoringThe availability and behaviour of this website on the World Wide Web are checked with Pingdom uptime and performance monitoring.Web page hit countersStatCounter is a free yet reliable invisible web tracker, highly configurable web page hit counter and measures real-time detailed web stats. It is able to analyse and monitor all the visits to this website in real-time.Google Analytics is a web analytics solution that gives rich insights into website traffic. It is used on an experimental basis on this website. Social MediaAddThis helps website publishers spread their content across the World Wide Web by making it easy for visitors to bookmark and share content to their favourite social destinations.The Facebook Like button lets a user share web content with friends on Facebook. Google +1 is used to publicly show what visitors like, agree with, or recommend on the web. The Facebook Like and Google +1 buttons are not visible in the Microsoft Internet Explorer up to and including version 7. Online paymentsDonations or license fees can be paid with any major credit or debit card by using the PayPal secure website. PayPal is one of the easiest ways for websites to accept payments online.SendThisFileLicensed photos can be transfered by SendThisFile. SendThisFile supports easily sending of large files over the internet for anyone, anywhere. |
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