Vouliagmeni Full-Moon

Shooting at the moon with a Point and Shoot camera is not an easy task and the limits of the camera become quickly obvious. Yesterday I have taken some shots as a test for tonight’s full-moon night.

Full-moon in Vouliagmeni

This above is about as close as I got and I have tried out different settings.

How to take a picture of the Moon

Equipment used:

• Tripod
• Point and Shoot Camera

The canm used is a Leica V-Lux-20 with 12 MP on a 1/2.33 Sensor.

1. Automatic Settings

With automatic settings, the moon just came back as a white disc on a black background. The cam did not distinguish between the different shades and reliefs on the surface of the moon.

2. Zoom

The camera has optical and digital zoom systems as well as an extended optical zoom system.

The camera comes with a 12 x optical zoom and and extended optical zoom up to x 23.4. The extended optical zoom uses only a reduced part of the sensor to produce the picture. The photo can then be enlarged accordingly. The camera also uses an  intelligent zoom system. This is a super resolution technology by which the zoom ratio can be increased by 1.3 times with about no deterioration of the picture quality.

Check out your camera menu, you may find iZoom or something similar there.

Make sure, when you shoot at the moon, that the macro zoom is switched off.

3. Manual Settings

In view of the limited zoom range and the small size of the sensor, I put the emphasis on settings where a maximum of quality (detail) is preserved, rather than on speed or zoom (size of the moon in the frame).

To achieve this and to prevent noise, I am a friend of low ISO numbers. Considering the use of a tripod, time is no problem, so if low ISO numbers trigger longer exposure, the tripod will prevent the shake effect.

The camera will consider the moon as a whole at infinite distance; blurs due to the spherical shape are not an issue with my material. However, too low F-stop numbers will increase exposure speed and from what my tests show, it’s preferable to compromise between aperture and speed.

I have started out with f/11 at 1/100 and I just got a white disc on black background.

The above shot shows a possible compromise:

- Aperture: f/4.9

- Exposure time: 1/250 s

- ISO speed: ISO-80

- Spot metering mode

- Focal length of 49 mm which is the equivalent of 399 mm in 35 mm format

- The program selector was on Aperture Priority.

The best advise is: start with some settings and then play with aperture and shutter speed moving them gradually and then select the best picture.

Blue Moon Vouliagmeni

The blue-moon has been achieved by tinting one of yesterday’s photos blue and by cleaning the whites.

Blue Moon Vouliagmeni

More tomorrow.

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Destinations Expo Live

Our new site “Destinations Expo” went live last night with some minimum content.

Destinations Expo Cape Town

Inspired by the Destinations Expo Cape Town which takes place these days we thought about creating a permanent Destinations Expo Online. The idea is simple: we open the site to Traveling and Tourism related business and publish selected Destinations throughout our publishing networks.

Advertising completes the content.

Destination Sea

Destinations Expo Online

We are not yet sure about the final form and shape to give the online Destination Expo; however we believe that a Destinations Expo online, sorted by Countries or Places could be an interesting approach.

The combination of the main site and customer sites will provide advertisers and customers an unequaled marketing advantage. For the time being we are testing category structures and Google response.

Destinations Expo South Africa

To start with we will test Destinations in South Africa. Thereafter we will look closer at Greece and other countries.

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Destinations Expo Branding

A little search on Google returns the following for Destinations Expo and related search terms:

Destinations Expo

The generic term, Destinations Expo returns roughly 1.6 million results; here are the Google Top 10:

Destinations Expo

Destinations Expo on Google

The South African Media site comes first under this generic terms. Note that even under this term, 2 sites of the YORGOO Publishing Network show up on Top 10.

Destinations Expo 2010 Cape Town

This seems to be the correct full name of the event we are looking at.

Destinations Expo 2010 Cape Town

Destinations Expo 2010 Cape Town on Google

Note the total absence of the Official site hosted by the South African Media Company, owners of the Expo. This site here takes ranks 1 and 2, while the YORGOO Blog and Garden Route Publishing  sit on number 7 and 8. Interestingly all tourism authority sites are beaten.

Destinations Expo 2010

This short phrase returns an interesting result as well:

Destinations Expo 2010

Destinations Expo 2010 on Google

Two of our sites make it while the key phrase is dominated by tourism oriented authority sites. The official site is completely absent again.

Destinations Expo Cape Town

Google Top 10 for Destinations Expo Cape Town shows the following:

Destinations Expo Cape Town

Destinations Expo Cape Town on Google Top 10

The official site makes it to the top while we get ranks 2 and 6. The tourism authority sites are all beaten again.

Conclusion

The Destinations Expo is not solidly branded online. I would expect to see the official site on top under all the above keywords. The local authority sites do a good job, however their SEO does not live up to the SEO standards of Semiomantics Frameworks used on all featured sites of our publishing network.

I am wondering now what a Semiomantics XO on a keyword related domain will do :-). Look forward to Destinations Expo our site under construction.

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Destinations Expo 2010 Cape Town

Subsequent to my previous post about the Destination Expo 2010 in Cape Town, I received some comments pointing to a video clip on YouTube about the event.

The Destination Expo 2010 Cape Town — a School Case

I have used the example of the Destination Expo as a study case for Ycademy, our online business coaching center. The idea is to analyze the way the Expo Organizers use the internet to promote their event, considering namely, that tourism related low tech events are of interest to a global audience reachable through the internet.

YorgoMan at the Tavern

YorgoMan at the Tavern

My first observation was, that searching Google, I could barely find more than an invitation text release and the opening hours. I concluded that the organizers were not really interested in promoting the event using the Internet and I also concluded that the way the Expo is promoted is to no benefit of the Expo participants in as much as the Internet is concerned.

Destinations Expo Website

After some research I found a domain destinationsexpo.co.za. How surprised was I to find that the domain is redirected to a domain called cadek.co.za/des. There we find a  website with informative content pertaining to the Destinations Expo 2010 in Cape Town. We learn on the site that:

“The Destinations Expo is owned and organised by:

CADEK Media
P.O. Box 5111
Helderberg
7135
South Africa”

There you go: the destinations expo website serves the purpose of promoting CADEK Media rather than the expo or its participants. The site does not have a very professional touch in spite the brochure gimmick. In any case the Internet as promotional medium is not exploited for the benefit of participants. From the tariffs we see that there is no online promotion available to participants …

Destinations Expo Cape Town Experiment

It’s easy to criticize sitting at the beach here in Greece. As said above, the purpose is to look at the Destinations Expo as a study case for the purpose of Ycademy. I therefore will also try to experiment with some ideas.

My research shows, that the Top Level Domains of “destinationsexpo” are all available! How surprising. Local domains (co.za may be fine, but when you have international or global ambitions, you want to grab the .com and maybe some other TLDs). In fact the local domains have lost their significance to a large extent during the past few years as developers notice that people have just a .com-reflex. Also, one always loses visitors to the .com … Brand protection starts with grabbing the main TLDs, which is a rather cheap affair as you get the domains for just a few bucks.

For the purpose of this experiment I have registered destinationsexpo.com with YorgoDom and then I set up a hosting account at Hosting South Africa at 1 Rand per Day. I will load a Semiomantics XO 3.x Publishing Framework and shoot at some related keywords, respectively I will show how participants could easily profit from an online promotion reaching far beyond the duration of the low tech Expo in Cape Town.

For the purpose of the exercise I will find my inspiration at the excellent Garden Route Directory as well as on other brilliant Projects, such as the Monkey Valley Resort Project by Bianca Gubalke from Noordhoek.

More about this experiment later. Let me install a site first :-).

Thinking about a website project:

Destination Expos take place all over the globe and one could even create a Destinations Expo Global Directory, inviting all such Expo organizers to join forces for marketing purposes and later may be for networking  (just an idea :-)).

Destinations Expo 2010 Cape Town on YouTube

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfUJhcUQrP0

The Destination Expo Cape Town YouTube Clip has some great content and footage. Too bad the stitching of the pieces, namely of the first clip from Cape Town Tourism leads to distortions. (Would need to be post-edited again).

Shooting some sequences at this years event could lead to a more lively, less sterile video, whereas the production could be financed by the participants who are featured in the clip or who provide mini clips to be inserted. Lalakoi Publishing from the Garden Route is working with Customer Clips to provide high visibility to advertisers or site owners.

I could imagine that a Semiomantics Evolution site could be a great support for promotional clips linked to a dynamic content CMS.

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Today’s launch of the first travel and tourism exhibition, called “Destinations Expo 2010″ in Cape Town may well be the beginning of a future oriented development.

Local Expo – International Audience

The 2010 Expo is first of all a showcase of destinations,accommodation,traveling and holidays in South Africa and other nearby destinations.
Besides all the visitors attending the event, there are millions of people out there who are potentially interested in the topic and who are seeking to satisfy their desires via the Internet.

It is therefore surprising, that the Expo itself did not come up with a decent and well positioned website for and about the event.
Or are the organizers just the play-ball of some large tourism businesses privileging their best paying acolytes?
I don’t have the answer to this question; however, from what I can see, individual hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and lodges cannot individually count on the Expo 2010 to fetch new contacts through the Internet.
While the local crowd may enjoy the event, the remaining 6.5 billion potential customers are left out. This is not really a customer oriented policy, considering that nowadays most bookings are
made online.

Destinations 2010 Cape Town and the Internet

What do you need an Expo for if you cannot reach out for new customers or if the main markets cannot be reached?
If Destination 2010 is a low tech marketing idea, then it is the more important for businesses to brand themselves in a meaningful way online.
Smart examples can be seen at LalakoiPublishing.com and http://gardenroutedirectory.com.
Also some resorts are working on projects distributing highly visible media content, such as the Monkey Valley Resort near Cape Town.

Tourism and the Internet cannot be dissociated.

May be for next years Destinations Expo 2010 the organizers will invite some website developers who in the past have provided excellent services to South African Tourism, Lalakoi Publishing from the Garden Route or Bianca Gubalke Website Developments from Noordhoek, to name just two.

Seagull Stock Photo

In an attempt to edit a photo for Stock Photo purposes, we are exercising on a Seagull Image. Checking Google, I just noticed that Bianca has loaded her Stock ready copy to her blog.

Seagull Stock Photo

Here below you ind two versions of the Seagull Photo ready for a Stock platform such as Photo Media Stock.

Seagull Stock Photo

The above version has been post-edited by Bianca Gubalke.

Seagull Stock Photo

I have edited this version for the purpose of the exercise.

You may notice that both pictures are quite similar and the same editing measures have been taken to make this picture Stock Platform ready.

Stock Media Seminar by Ycademy

The Ycademy Online Seminar in 10 days will help you to get your images ready for Stock platforms and show you how you can convert your photographs and add them to your long term income streams.

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Seagull on Google Top 10

Our earlier post made it!
Our Seagull made it to Google Top10 and more to come!

Amazing. Before leaving for Astir Beach, I posted a Seagull Stock Photo sample to my blog.

10 minutes later when relaxing on my beach bed, I consulted Google and here is the result:

Stock Photo Seagull

We hit Google Top 10 with the post and two more sites from our network!
See below.

Semiomantics the best SEO Framework

The recent optimization namely for media, makes Semiomantics XO Media the best publishing platform for media in as much as automated search engine optimization is concerned; at least that’s what our tests and experience show.
Exceptional is also the technique used to embed media in the RSS feeds, assuring equally high performance on third party sites as well as through our entire network.
I expect to see more Google Top 10 entries later today.
This example illustrates the excellent opportunity we offer to all Ycademy Seminar participants who get the unique chance to expose their work on PhotoMediaStock.com.

Stock Photo Seagull

Tonight’s Ycademy call will focus on preparing an image for Photo Media Stock our new Stock Photo and Media Portal.

The call will highlight proper image titling, tagging and description as well as other properties such as those pertaining to Copyrights. We will also have a look at different versions of a Seagull Photo.

Seagull Image

Seagull Photo Image

This is the Seagull picture as shot reduced to 1000 pixels wide and 80% jpg quality. When taking the photo, I didn’t frame too closely as the subject was moving. Zooming has its price: you need more aperture and often speed to compensate for the shaking hand and you may lose more detail and gradients.

Seagull Photo Edited

The first step was to re-frame the picture without cropping it.

Seagull Photo

Then a bit of editing and cleaning… and a test with a bit of vignette for my own fun:

Seagull Image 2

Stock Photo Seagull

Stock Photo Seagull

The Stock Photo Seagull comes without vignette or edge treatments. Also I have re-sized it (without cropping) to 3:2 making it 930 pixels x 620 pixels.

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Our recent post featuring Bianca Gubalke’s design project for the Monkey Valley Resort Cape Town made it straight to Google Top
As I got the Goole alert here at the beach, you have to do with iPhone 4 screen-shots:

Motor Yacht AlumerciA

The previous post showed some pictures of the Motor Yacht AlumerciA taken yesterday at Astir Beach. We also launched a challenge about Google Top 10 ranking and media publishing capabilities of Semiomantics Frameworks.

Motor Yacht AlumerciA by Yorgo Nestoridis

But before showing the immediate results (within 5 min from publication), here another smashing view of the Motor Yacht AlumerciA (right):

AlumerciA at Astir Beach Sunset

The image was shot with the hand-held Leica V-Lux-20 with a focal length of 49 mm which is equivalent with a 340 mm tele lens (35 mm). Shutter speed was at 1/1000 and F-stop at f/6.3 at ISO-80. Amazing!

AlumerciA on Google Top 10

Here we go with our test results. To make a long storry short, we beat the reference authority site 2 times out of 3:
AlumerciA Image on Google‘>

2. AlumerciA Image on Google

AlumerciA Image on Google

3. Motor Yacht AlumerciA

Motor Yacht AlumerciA on Google

Conclusion

Media tagging and semantic publishing is one of the many strong arguments in favor of Semiomantics Framework! The test returned amazing results in spite the fact that we don’t have a special category for Yachts or such like.

The test also reflects the improved media publishing capabilities of Semiomantics scripts; a new Semiomantics XO is in preparation for release towards the end of the year; media optimization will be one of the major improvements compared to the 2010 release.

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Moto Yacht AlumerciA at Astir Beach

Astir Beach in Vouliagmeni, Greece is known as one of the nicest spots on earth, privileged by the select elite of Super Yacht owners. AlumerciA arrived yesterday in late after-noon at Astir Beach.

AlumerciA Image Astir Beach

Motor Yacht AlumerciA Image

AlumerciA Specifications

Find the list of specs at Super Yacht Times

Publishing AlumerciA Yacht Images

One of our concerns is the semantic publication of media, namely of photos. Having tuned and optimized the Semiomantics Publishing Framework used on this site for high performance on media which are not readable by Search Engines, we are testing the visibility with this post.

For the purpose of the test, I have loaded an image of the AlumerciA to a highly specialized site with top authority in the field, Live Yachting. The site is a Wiki type of authority site dealing with Yachts and the life around yachts.

The question will now be, whether the Semiomantics Framework can match or beat the authority site on Google Top 10. The risk I take here is obvious: I will tell you the search terms we target: AlumerciA at Astir Beach and Motor Yacht AlumerciA as well as “AlumerciA Images”.

Of course there are sites with multiple posts about the AlumerciA with loads of great content; however, my aim is to measure the performance based on the image and its handling by the Semiomantics Framework.

Look forward to the result.

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Aquarius ex My Shanti at Astir Beach, Vouliagmeni, Greece

It’s an insider tip for Super Yacht Owners: Astir Beach is one of the nicest spots on earth. All year long Super Yachts spend a day or more right in the exceptional bay profiting from one of the nicest swims on the planet as well as from 5 Start Services provided by the Astir Beach Hotel Complex.

Yesterday we spotted the Super Yacht Aquarius, ex My Shanti. Completed in 2007 the Super Motor Yacht has been constructed my Amels Holland BV.

The first owner, Shari Arison, Israels richest woman sold My Shanti in 2009 for a reported $ 103,000,000 to its new owners in the USA. The name was changed to Aquarius.

Super Motor Yacht Aquarius

Super Yacht Aquarius ex My Shanti

Aquarius Specifications

Some of the specs:

Length overall: 64.50 meters or 211.61 ft

Engines: 2 by Caterpillar

HP: 2,230 hp each

Cruise speed: 15.6

Fuel Capacity: 160 000 liters  42,272 Gallons

Water Capacity: 50 000 liters  13,210 Gallons

Crew: 18

Guests: 20

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Ideal for a day at the beach. Don’t expect me back before tonight. You may catch me on MSN – good stuff this iPhone!

See you at the call at YorgoTalk at 8 pm London Time.

PS: We are working on the Server issues pertaining to Photo Media Stock and my main Blog.

Website development has a main purpose: increase the visibility of the site and increase subscribers and regular readers and of course conversion from readers to customers.

But that’s not all: Website development has also a defensive function and that is to protect a brand for example, or the image of a business, its reputation, ambitions and purpose. The Google Top 10 performance of a site delivers a good ground to judge whether a site reaches it’s audience or not and whether Google search returns reflect the intentions of the brand or business owners.

To illustrate the above I have given a shot at the Monkey Valley resort in Noordhoek, South Africa. Of course, I did not go into the main keywords or what I would consider should be their main keywords, I simply went after the brand.

Monkey Valley Resort Noordhoek, South Africa

The official name of the place is “Monkey Valley Beach Nature Resort” and then completed by  “Noordhoek, Cape Town, South Africa”. Now this makes it a good choice of targets to shoot at.

The domain name used by the resort is monkeyvalleyresort.com.

People who vaguely know the place and it’s name may not retain the whole string, but just Monkey Valley, Monkey Valley Resort, Monkey Valley Cape Town, Monkey Valley Hotel South Africa or such like. In any case “Monkey Valley” is likely to be part of the search.

Monkey Valley

Monkey Valley returns 407 000 results on Google. My shot went to rank 15 (yorgonestoridis.com) as well as 18 (yorgoopublishing.com). The resort is on number one.

monkey_valleyMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Monkey Valley Cape Town

Probably the most popular geographic reference is Cape Town. Under Monkey Valley Cape Town Google returns 85 000 results. My shot ended up on Rank 6:

monkey_valley_cape_townMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Monkey Valley News

Looking up Monkey Valley News, we get a smashing result as 8 of the top 10 positions are taken by the YORGOO Publishing Network or associated sites. We even beat monkeyvalleyresort.com. Google returns 280 000 results.

monkey_valley_newsMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Monkey Valley Resort News

Here we find a similar result as before: 6 of Google Top 10 ranks are occupied by YORGOO Publishing Network and associated publishers, number one being gardenroutepublishing.com.

monkeyvalleyresortnewsMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Other Monkey Valley related terms

Of course we could target more interesting key phrases such as accommodation or cape town resorts and so on. But the above shows the power of professional web publishing. YORGOO Publishing is an online Publishing Network built on Semiomantics Frameworks. The impact of publications edited and published by YORGOO Publishing is astonishing and provides high value to customers who need to gain top visibility on Google Top 10.

Monkey Valley on YouTube

On YouTube we find similar results for Monkey Valley and Monkey Valley Resort with Cape Town or South Africa added:

monkeyvalleyresort2Move your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Monkey Valley Resort South Africa on YouTubeMove your mouse over image or click to enlarge

Monkey Valley Online Presentation

The image and look being important, professional web design is a must. Today visual media elements need to be added to websites to improve the surfing experience. Pictures and videos sell, provided they are compelling, of high quality and trigger emotion while telling the story.

Web Designers such as Bianca Gubalke who is working on a top notch project for Monkey Valley have the right professional approach and technical skills and flair to build sites second to none which will constitute a long term asset for each lucky customer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPs2Hh7gck

YORGOO Publishing Services for Customers

YORGOO Publishing’s reputation is well established and many commercial websites have taken advantage of the network to achieve within a short time high density on Google and other Search Engines.

In the ideal case, a customer builds his content on a Semiomantics Framework (as is this site — Semiomantics XO 3.x), and purchases then a connection to the YORGOO Publishing network in order to benefit from the wide and powerful distribution of the YORGOO Publishing Network.

YORGOO Publishing Services will be presented shortly and introduced for public use.

Website development has a main purpose: increase the visibility of the site and increase subscribers and regular readers and of course conversion from readers to customers.

But that’s not all: Website development has also a defensive function and that is to protect a brand for example, or the image of a business, its reputation, ambitions and purpose. The Google Top 10 performance of a site delivers a good ground to judge whether a site reaches it’s audience or not and whether Google search returns reflect the intentions of the brand or business owners.

To illustrate the above I have given a shot at the Monkey Valley resort in Noordhoek, South Africa. Of course, I did not go into the main keywords or what I would consider should be their main keywords, I simply went after the brand.

Monkey Valley Resort Noordhoek, South Africa

The official name of the place is “Monkey Valley Beach Nature Resort” and then completed by  “Noordhoek, Cape Town, South Africa”. Now this makes it a good choice of targets to shoot at.

The domain name used by the resort is monkeyvalleyresort.com.

People who vaguely know the place and it’s name may not retain the whole string, but just Monkey Valley, Monkey Valley Resort, Monkey Valley Cape Town, Monkey Valley Hotel South Africa or such like. In any case “Monkey Valley” is likely to be part of the search.

Monkey Valley

Monkey Valley returns 407 000 results on Google. My shot went to rank 15 (yorgonestoridis.com) as well as 18 (yorgoopublishing.com). The resort is on number one.

Monkey Valley Cape Town

Probably the most popular geographic reference is Cape Town. Under Monkey Valley Cape Town Google returns 85 000 results. My shot ended up on Rank 6:

Monkey Valley News

Looking up Monkey Valley News, we get a smashing result as 8 of the top 10 positions are taken by the YORGOO Publishing Network or associated sites. We even beat monkeyvalleyresort.com. Google returns 280 000 results.

Monkey Valley Resort News

Here we find a similar result as before: 6 of Google Top 10 ranks are occupied by YORGOO Publishing Network and associated publishers, number one being gardenroutepublishing.com.

Other Monkey Valley related terms

Of course we could target more interesting key phrases such as accommodation or cape town resorts and so on. But the above shows the power of professional web publishing. YORGOO Publishing is an online Publishing Network built on Semiomantics Frameworks. The impact of publications edited and published by YORGOO Publishing is astonishing and provides high value to customers who need to gain top visibility on Google Top 10.

Monkey Valley on YouTube

On YouTube we find similar results for Monkey Valley and Monkey Valley Resort with Cape Town or South Africa added:

Monkey Valley Online Presentation

The image and look being important, professional web design is a must. Today visual media elements need to be added to websites to improve the surfing experience. Pictures and videos sell, provided they are compelling, of high quality and trigger emotion while telling the story.

Web Designers such as Bianca Gubalke who is working on a top notch project for Monkey Valley have the right professional approach and technical skills and flair to build sites second to none which will constitute a long term asset for each lucky customer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtPs2Hh7gck

YORGOO Publishing Services for Customers

YORGOO Publishing’s reputation is well established and many commercial websites have taken advantage of the network to achieve within a short time high density on Google and other Search Engines.

In the ideal case, a customer builds his content on a Semiomantics Framework (as is this site — Semiomantics XO 3.x), and purchases then a connection to the YORGOO Publishing network in order to benefit from the wide and powerful distribution of the YORGOO Publishing Network.

YORGOO Publishing Services will be presented shortly and introduced for public use.