Le Blog ... Christian Nasulea

Piatra Mare High Dynamic Range (HDR)

I've written about HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography before but Friday's hike gave me the opportunity to take pictures of some proper HDR subjects.

I ran a few tests and these are the results. The one on the left is a normal picture and the one on the right is a HDR generated picture using Tone Mapping.

5 pictures exposesd at 1/1600, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/60 and 1/30 were used to produce the HDR photo. Click for a bigger version of the result.

Christian Nasulea - 18.04.2009

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Big Rock and the 7 Ladders

Without initially intending to make any Snow White references, the truth is the numbers fit together quite nicely.

Since my November trip with Chris and Charlie to the Lake District I have been looking for an opportunity to return the favour and show Chris around my native hiking grounds. Although I was hoping for a higher turnout, in the end, the valiant team was made up of Chris (not me, the English Chris), Elena and Myself. So, we were 2 Chris-es and 1 Elena for a grand total of 3.

We set off at 10 am sharp from the beginning of the forest road at Cioplea in Predeal down into the Timisul Sec valley and up towards the Piatra Mare peak (English: Big Rock). It took us nearly 4 hours to get to the top, with plenty of stops for food and photos. It was a pretty normal hiking trip until this point, with plenty of workout getting through the 900 m altitude difference, amazing scenery all around us and perfect hiking weather. While we were still in the forest we encountered two groups of deer. Unfortunately they sensed us way before we spotted them so the 5-6 seconds they were in our sights before they vanished weren't enough to draw our cameras.

I'd say the trip started to get interesting right after we started our descent from the peak (1844m). Although we were on a west-facing slope, just as I was laughing at the others for struggling to get through the knee deep snow I fell straight through over a meter of snow right into a ditch. This event would be representative for the following 3 hours of our hike.

As we stopped for another round of sandwiches I had a look at the map and realized we were slightly off-trail. After asking the others if they wanted to double-back a few hundred meters to get back on track we all agreed it was an opportunity to make it more interesting and keep going (actually, we were probably just lazy).

Because our next objective was the 7 Ladders Canyon it meant we had to head east maintaining our altitude until we reached one of the valleys leading down into the canyon. That mountain isn't called "big rock" for nothing. There was no trail and we had to keep avoiding various rock formations by either going over or below them. We eventually stumbled upon the footprints of a bear (it was probably mid-sized, weighing under 300 kg) and we figured wherever the bear could pass we'd have a good chance of passing as well. They lead us into a valley we used to lose a couple hundred meters in altitude. Despite the fact we had no gators, we all had summer walking boots, Chris only had shorts on and the valley was facing north and thus still full of snow it proved to be a pretty good choice. That is, until it lead us right to the top of a dry waterfall with a perfectly vertical 10 meter drop.

We found our way around the drop and got onto what looked like a path that lead us into the next valley. Soon after that we were crossing the stream back onto the proper hiking trail we should have headed to a couple of hours earlier. The map, compass and GPS altimeter proved very useful, although the GPS in itself was useless without a GPS map of the mountain. It was actually pretty surprising I had so much gear on me, as we normally go hiking with nothing but our skills and common sense for orientation.

I forgot to mention that seen how it was Vinerea Mare (English: Big Friday - the Friday before Easter) Elena was fasting. This meant she'd eaten something at 5:00 am before getting on the train in Bucharest and had only eaten non-animal products since. You'd think "oh, that's ok then" and you'd be right if only the concept of non-animal products didn't refer to a single 300g bag of jellow. After 6 hours of intense phisical effort and after getting visibly dizzy she was convinced to eat the two protein-rich, meat-filled sandwiches I had provisioned for her. Fasting might have been a bit silly but I have to congratulate her on the feat of phisical endurance.

We were very happy to realize we hit the trail right before the top entrance to the 7 Ladders Canyon (Romanian: 7 Scari). We crossed the canyon pretty quickly, taking lots of pictures. I remember going through the 7 Ladders some 10 years ago after the canyon ladders and ramps had been seriously damaged by winter torrents and rock falls. Everything was in such disrepair it took us a long time to cross as we had to check each piece of metal or wood to make sure it would hold the weight and even look for alternative routes in some places. The canyon was still as impressive as I remembered it, just without the safety risks.

45 minutes after coming out of the canyon and almost 8 hours after starting the hike we met up with Frank and Dad who were waiting to pick us up in Dambu Morii. It was great for the 1st hike of the year and I can only hope for more hiking opportunities, more good weather and more hiking companions as daring as Chris and Elena.

Click for the Piatra Mare - 7 Scari photo gallery album.

Christian Nasulea - 17.04.2009

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My Summer Residence

The following is quoted from a very recent Yahoo! Messenger conversation with a good friend of mine who probably sees through me quite well despite the prefix of her age being somewhat smaller than mine.

MYSELF: send me the song
Simona: I'm sure you know it
Simona: and you've probably already read its entire history on a site
MYSELF: com'on
MYSELF: I don't live on Google
Simona: but it is your summer residence!

I'm going to update my Facebook, my LinkedIn and my WAYN profiles to let eeeeverybody know where I'm from. :)

Christian Nasulea - 16.04.2009

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Bad Luck Band

Last night we saw Andrei perform with his Bad Luck Band in Big Mamou.

I've debated last night's concert in detail with a few people. Now I just want to let it be known to all that I had a really good time, and as this declaration enters the public domain, it should prove I did not just say it out of sympathy, although I probably am slightly subjective.

Anyway, the concert atmosphere was great. I'm looking forward to the next performance and I will be sure to have a couple of drumsticks with me next time :)

Christian Nasulea - 15.04.2009

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Heavy Duty Concert Going

I remember filling in more than my fair share of those silly Internet audience surveys where they ask you how much money you spend shopping online. Well, I've just beaten all the records in personal online shopping and I definitely wore my credit card thin after purchasing concert tickets to Best Fest and Bucharest Rock Arena for myself and a couple of my concert-going mates.

I'd like to take this opportunity to make it publicly known that I will be there for AC/DC, Guns and Roses and the rest of the show on the 2 days of Bucharest Rock Arena and for Santana, The Killers, Motorhead, Manowar and the rest of that bunch on the 5 days of B'EstFest.

Worry not, my friends, I'm not planning on missing any weddings happening around that time either.

I know they weren't part of my New Year's resolution but that's already bordering on 30 or so concerts in the first half of 2009.

Christian Nasulea - 13.04.2009

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Ski Sun Bathing

Seizing the opportunity of another great Copdrop project, this year I took Frank, Chris, Michelle and Lewis for a mid-April skiing day up on the Bucegi plateau in Valea Dorului.

While I don't think Frank and Michelle had too much fun (we know this because Michelle said: "I didn't have fun!") I was really glad to see Chris and Lewis enjoy it A LOT! In fact I must reiterate my amazement at Chris' skiing in writing. For a guy putting on a pair of skis for the first time he was simply unbelievably natural and he just demonstrated how steep the learning curve can be for some.

As for myself, I had a blast. It felt like I knew half the people on the slope. I made myself a new 7-year old skiing buddy named Luca, who showed me once more that age brings nothing to the game and that smaller means faster and better. The weather was exceptional. Many people were skiing in their tees and loads more were sunbathing on the terrace of the Valea Dorului challet.

My face is red from the sun, my eyes are red from speeding down the slopes with no glasses on. I absolutely loved it!

Christian Nasulea - 12.04.2009

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Night of the Living Skaters

After many changes of plans, Friday night at 8:30 pm I found myself in the Herastrau park, on my roller skates, ready to put in a couple of P.E. (physical exercise) hours.

Last autumn I found out about this thing called "Night of the Living Skaters" that happens every Friday night. I've been looking for an opportunity to give it a go ever since. The principle of the thing is very simple. A bunch of people get together at the Modura fountain in Herastrau and start a tour of Bucharest on their roller skates. It's a great way to stay in shape, get to know Bucharest and meet new people. The event is organized by an association called "Bucuresteni pe role" (EN: Bucharestians on Roller Skates) and the organizers do a pretty good job at planning everything and especially at keeping the group together.

Friday's tour took us from Herastrau to the monument of the unknown soldier in Parcul Carol and back again. A total of about 18 km. I counted about 65-70 roller skaters but as I understand there have been bigger turnouts on other occasions.

It was a lot of fun and it only took about 3 hours to complete. I really enjoyed seeing peoples faces as they were surrounded by scores of skaters coming in from all directions. I remember meeting the NLS group on a side street last year and thinking "What the... ".

Thanks to Mavone for the frequent updates and to Teo for taking all the pictures.

Click to see a Google Map of the tour.
Click into PeRole.ro for more info.

Christian Nasulea - 12.04.2009

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Revolution in Chisinau I just sat down in front of my computer, intent on minding my own business, when I found news of revolution bursting in the streets of Chisinau. The revolution is being twitterised and broadcast online in various formats, online video, online radio etc. Follow the revolution live via online radio here on the Voice of Basarabia.
Christian Nasulea - 07.04.2009	2 comments

Vrnjacka Banja

Over the past 4 days I attended a conference in Serbia in the mountain resort of Vrnjacka Banja. I was pretty surprised to find that the conference was both in English and Serbian, which meant ours was the only paper presented entirely in English. I guess the important thing is our article was well received.

Looking further at the plus side of things I guess I should also appreciate the opportunity to improve on my Serbian. I did learn about eTrgovina (English: eCommerce) and a few other words that have a certain resonance making them similar to Romanian.

The attached picture features Marija presenting her paper on Online Learning which was probably the one I understood the most of without translation as the topic was right in my back yard.

Christian Nasulea - 06.04.2009

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Lesson 547 - Jumping

Yesterday we had a full skiing day in Predeal. I know I keep saying it's the last snow of the season but the world just seems determined to prove me wrong every time. So, there we were skiing on a thick layer of snow in Predeal, at the end of March, on a beautiful sunny day, with clear skies and clear slopes. I guess not many people believed you could still ski, and surely even fewer imagined it could be this good.

As the cable installation wasn't crowded at all we were able to do about 20 descents, which means somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30-40 kms. We were a pretty well prepared, skiing-obsessed group so we wasted no time. We practiced skiing off-piste, through the woods, between the trees, following a narrow hiking trail and we learned a few new things about jumping, featured in the following video: