Assignment 7: Summer heat

Submit by: 9/13/09

Sunset

Water shimmering in the last rays of the Sun.

Venue: Shoreline Park, Moutain view
ISO Speed: ISO-140
Focal lengh 42mm
Exposure time 1/250 sec

Riding the waves

Was at the beach in Half Moon Bay. Saw this guy having a blast riding the waves.

Metadata:
f-stop: 4.5
Shutter speed: 8000
ISO 800
Aperture priority

How I wish I could do what he is doing!

Sea Life

We went whale watching recently from San Francisco (through the Oceanic Society). I had recently bought the Nikon 70-300mm VR lens, so this was the perfect opportunity to put it to the test. They take you out near the Fallaron islands for an 8 hour boat ride, and you get to see a bunch of marine life. If you are lucky, you get to see whales. The waters were calm, the weather was gorgeous, and we got to see lots of whales. And we got to see dolphins.

I am going to violate the usual posting rules, and post two pictures this time. The first is the tail fluke of a diving humpback whale. We were close enough that I did not need to go to the full tele end of the lens.

shutter: 1/1000
aperture: f8.0
focal length 230 mm
exposure: shutter
ISO: 200

On our way back, we spotted dolphins at one point, and the captain slowed the boat down. This allowed the dolphins to approach the boat, and then for the next few minutes, they swam with the boat, repeatedly jumping out of the water, and generally appeared to have fun. Here is a shot of one such jump - you can see even see a distorted reflection of our boat on the dolphin. The picture also shows you how calm the waters were.


shutter: 1/640
aperture: f6.3
focal length 70 mm
exposure: shutter
ISO: 200

The Devil's Throat

I took this latest assignment very seriously. To get a picture of water I took a field trip to Iguazu Falls on the Argentina/Brazil border. Iguazu is home to the second largest network of waterfalls in the world and at the heart of it is La Garganta del Diablo ("The Devil's Throat"). It was hard to determine which picture of the waterfalls to use, but I settled on this because I think it shows just how massive the falls are.

This was my first time shooting in RAW and I wasn't sure if I needed to do anything differently. Also I would have liked to minimize the amount of steam in the picture, but that was next to impossible with the force of the falls what they were.

shutter: 1/400
aperture: f10.0
focal length 18 mm
exposure: shutter
ISO: 100

ASSIGNMENT >> WATER WORLD

Aim to capture WATER in all its varied forms

Ideas to get you going
Peering into water from land or under water peering onto land
Ice, snow, colored, drainage - Let your imagination run wild after all it is the most abundant resource on the planet.

Deadline: 3 weeks

Aankhen

Was wondering if just eyes could express all you feel !!
Shutter Speed 1/25
ISO 100

Expressions

A vanishing breed

A royal procession in the background. A resplendent tamil mami in all her traditional elegance in the foreground.
An invisible photographer steeped in modernity trying to capture the last glimpse of a vanishing breed that profoundly shaped our modern lives.....

A generation that gaves us wings to fly to distant lands,but deep roots that bind us the rich storied past of our motherlands.

Ah..... that Captivating Smile ...in a Vintage frame !.... PRICELESS!

Wanna Bear hug?

So cute and cuddly :)

Happy..Happy!

"Yappy..Yappy"..that's what Milind says when he is really happy. I captured this when he was playing with Mamma in the frontyard. Will post the Exif data soon.

Chief of Mischief

This isn't a rare occurence, but getting a good look can be hard. Little Guy was on a run here and turned back just to let us know that he was up to something. This was shot during the daytime inside our place and I got a relatively dark background to bring him out a bit.

shutter: 1/100
aperture: f4.5
focal length 42 mm
exposure: shutter
ISO: 400

The Weeping Dosa

no.. we didn't make this up.. it just happened..

Spicy Shrimp Pasta

Thanks to the Chef of the house for making the subject.
f/5.6, 1/60s, 400iso

Food Art

WaterMelon in full bloom basking in the mid day Sun

Location: Santa Cruz beach.

Camera: Nikon D60
Focal length: 32mm
F-Number: F/4.8
ISO speed: ISO-200
Exposure time: 1/125 sec

Sweet(ness) for all the Mothers!!

Brunch at Mother's Day at the Capital Club in San Jose. See the partially damaged chocolate cake on the right? That was me!!

Metering: Spot
Shutter: 1/25
Aperture: f4.8
focal length: 52 mm

Expressions

People and expressions - theme for the next 2 weeks

Look around and try to capture expressions which we do not see very often…

Personally I find this very interesting for 2 reasons :

• We have a very large variety to shoot
• Difficult to shoot too as we will have to do it at high speed or good light . ( unless you are shooting under artificial light in a studio )

Enjoy yourself...

Is this appetizing enough?

I had read somewhere that in food photography props play an important role. This picture was taken in natural light by the window. I used a blue gift paper for back ground.

1/800, f/1.4, ISO 200, Aperture priority, 50 mm prime lens

Yum yum banana bread

Woke up kinda early this morning. Its truly amazing the soft sunlight is in the early hours. Add to that, the pangs of hunger. In the fridge was the yummy banana bread that my wife had baked a couple days ago. Yum yum!

I used an aluminum foil to reflect light, my first time with reflectors. Had a prop to hold the foil in place while I tried to find the right angle to shoot from.

Hand held picture. Aperture 1.4. ISO 800.

Tea

What does tea look like as it is being prepared? I have always loved watching the infusion from the tea leaves as it colors the water a deep brownish-red. Adding milk to the mixture makes it go cloudy as it swirls around. This then is my attempt at capturing this swirling :)



I have done a bit of post-processing to adjust color levels and to crop the image. This really highlights my need for a polarizing filter - I would have liked to remove the reflections from the glass, but could not find any easy way to do it through photoshop.
Focal length - 55mm
Exposure - 1/6 sec
Aperture - F/4.8

Taken with the built-in D80 flash.

Southie Curd Rice

In summer nothing can be more soothing than this food in the bowl.

Took this shot a little away from Channapatna on the way to Arkesh uncles farm.

This is a shutter priority photo, with a speed of 1/20 Sec ISO 100.

Waiting to see more food on the blog ...

There is always somehting to learn.. always..

like someone i respect as a good photographer loves to say.. photography and golf are exactly the same for a weekend warrior.. you get one good shot by luck the first and that gets you hooked,.. you just chase for another "that shot" again and it just keeps going on :)

I have been chasing patience for a while now.. you go somewhere.. look at the place for some shots and you start seeing patterns and you start expecting things to happen.. just that you have to wait.. and as simple as it sounds, it is frigging hard.. sometimes, we need to wait forever and many a times i have given up (knowing fully well that if i waited i would get that shot)...

so, here are some results of that "waiting game".. when you know things will happen and you have the fun of framing it :) pardon me for posting more than one image..


if anyone wants to see full size shots.. please click here

Color and Depth

Tried to calibrate depth of field with a different color to demarcate each of the stages. Scene is from Pt Reyes National preserve.

Exposure Time: 1/160sec
ISO Speed: 200
Lens: 55-200mm
F-Stop: f/9

New feature tried Aperture Mode
Aperture setting 4

Assignment 5: Food & Drinks

Food photography has always interested me. There are some incredible pictures on the web. So, for the next fortnight I am going to try to shoot something I cooked/ate/drank.

So could you ..!

Cherry Blossoms

...never used the flower setting on my d40x, so on our recent trip to Japan, thought to take advantage of the Cherry Blossoms in full bloom. Here is a closeup that I took!!


Shutter: 1/100
Metering: Matrix
Aperture: f5.6
Exposure: Close up
Focal: 200 mm
ISO: 400
White balance: AUTO

Manual Focus


I spent a couple of hours today to try out new stuff with my camera. After spending a good part of it on playing with AEB to blend a picture I wasn't satisfied with the results. So, I switched to trying out manual focus which I have never really used in my camera.

So, this picture was shot with the sun in the background while focusing on the leaf blades. I tried a few shots & decided on this picture because of the circular halo in the middle, although unintentional it still doesn't hurt :)

Multiple Exposures

I was going to fiddle around with ISO settings since that is one area that I haven't played with much. But then, I discovered the multiple exposure feature of the D80. It allows you to take two pictures and then combines them to create a JPG/RAW image. So here is my attempt - a window within a door taken using 2 exposures. The window, car, trees, etc are taken from a window facing North, and the door is on the opposite side of the room. You can see a faint version of a second window to the right side of the image.

Reading by the river

Here's a picture I took during our last trip to the Sequoia. Sorry, I haven't had time to post it, but here it is. Anjali and I were staying at a B&B which had this river flowing behind. We were relaxing and enjoying the quietness just before sunset when I took this.

What new feature did I use on the camera?
I'd never used Aperture mode on my camera (I'm still a rookie) I know it's not a fancy feature, but I learned something about photography & my camera while fooling around with this mode while taking the picture. I really like the light and how the background is all blurred.

Cascade

At Yosemite last weekend, I was without my tripod. And I wanted to shoot this waterfall. It was bright overhead (Sun was beating down), and I still wanted a blur. So, handheld I had to shoot. What were Naveen's choices?

1. Wide aperture? No. I wouldn't be able to capture the blur.

2. Narrow aperture? Yes. But that would also make the picture too bright. So, I set exposure compensation few stops down, and I shot this. f/22. What would the shutter speed be? 1/60 was the slowest for handhelds. I took a deep breath, supported my elbow on my knee, and shot at 1/10sec. Well, there is camera shake, but I think my sharp-shooting skills helped.

I hadn't used the exposure compensation feature in the camera in this manner. It worked. I hope.

Rose is a rose is a rose

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
Loveliness extreme.
-- Gertrude Stein

It was 'Hello AEB' for me. Yes, Yes, I had never used the auto-bracketing feature..
This shot was quite underexposed and I played around in iPhoto to make it look like this.

1/500, f/5.6, ISO=100, shutter priority

Assignment 4: Say Hello to your camera

Assignment 4: Say Hello to your camera

I believe that one of the first things to do in photography is to get to know your camera really well.. Know what it can do and more importantly, know what it can NOT do..

So, the lan for the next 2 weeks is to use a feature of your camera gear that you have never (or not really) used before.. what you shoot or the subject is not really important... and when i say camera, i mean camera, lenses and the accessories..

The idea is to getting to know your camera better.. time to dust off the manual may be or go online and find a bit about your camera.. just try using a main feature of your camera that you haven't used at all or may be, used it once and never really worked on it later..


Rules
No restrictions on what you can shoot.. If anyone feels that they have tried everything their camera/lenses/filters/tripods/flashes can do, then let me know and we will figure something for you..

and No, Iphone camera won't count for this assignment, since you cant really do more than pressing the shutter there :-)

If u are not sure about the assignment, please ask questions..

Greenery

Windows at Mac World!

I had almost given up on trying to get a shot for this assignment and here it was right in front of me today.

We were enjoying beers during the team outing today afternoon at Los Gatos Brewing Company and I noticed these incredible stained glass windows behind us! So there was my pattern.

Shot with my iPhone.

Coined Pattern

Very tough topic indeed.. after trying out many subjects , decided to make up a pattern myself..

Pardon the dust

ISO: 100
Exposure: 1/4 sec
Aperture: 5.0
Focal Length: 28mm

The Perfect Lie

Anyone know how many dimples are on the average ball? Well...too many to count....but, the legal ones have between 250 - 450. I think I got about 100 of them here. As you can see, this is clearly an unused ball. Mine usually have scuffs or tree bark smeared all over. I think natural light would have been optimal here....as you can see some glare.

ISO 400
Aperture: F13
Focal Length: 200 mm
Shutter: 1/2
Metering: Spot

No cat on a hot red roof

I searched far & wide for a pattern but gave up because I was over analyzing it. Finally when I was out throwing the trash the neighbours roof was staring at me..& voila there was my pattern. I did feel like a voyuer standing on a stool in my backyard trying to get closer look(at the roof..you sick people). So, I asked for their permission. Definitely better than getting the cops at our door.

Leena says the moral of this story is to help her take the trash out more often.

Road Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference


Robert Frost

Rock patterns at Grand Canyon National Park

Here is my first post on this blog. As it turned out, we visited the grand canyon right after this assignment was posted. So, I picked the rock patterns from grand canyon. This picture was taken a little after noon on March 16th, from Lipan Point on desert view drive (south rim). The Hance rapids part of the Colorado river is visible in the center of the image.


Here is some other information about the picture -
Camera - Nikon D80
Lens - Nikkor 18-200mm
Focal length for shot - 18mm
Aperture - f/3.5
Shutter speed - 1/1600
ISO - 100
I did some minor bits of editing in photoshop to improve contrast (don't typically use photoshop).
I don't have any filters, so I was a bit handicapped due to the glare and the haze. The visibility was pretty good (could definitely see things ~60 miles away)

i think its an arrow pointing somewhere interesting.. do you ??

i walked into my other bedroom of the apartment (something i dont do all that often).. and i saw this.. it also helped i got home early from work that day... and i think this looks pretty much like an arrow.. i didn't change nothing, no tricks etc..





No flash used and its all natural ligght (and the lack of it in parts of the image).. i did jack up the ISO a bit.. Its a pretty sharp shot, u can see the 100% crop of the image..

Shadowed Pattern

Here's an interesting pattern that Anjali noticed from our lamp. I edited it slightly in picasa to add a bit of light and enhance the shadow. Was hoping to make more shadows come out but couldn't make it happen. Not quite sure how to do that.

Stands like a statue, stings like a bee

Ok, I know that this is a bit late for this assignment, but 2 days after it closed, and after chasing blur for 2 weeks, the blur came to me. Hey, you just can't tell when inspiration will hit! The pictures are posted on my picasa account at: http://picasaweb.google.com/amit.rele/200903015ChhabSSFTrip#

Anyone objecting to my tardiness will get summarily punished on Wii Boxing! :)

Here's a sample. :)

Assignment 3: Patterns

Topic: Patterns

Patterns around you. Natural or man-made.

Assignment posted by Ranjeet.

Rules

• You cannot create your own patterns
  
• Example: Facade of a building. Petals of a flower.
• If u are not sure about the assignment, ask questions
  

Tried capturing two cars overtaking each other within the still frame of two trees. Got the two cars very close to each other. Still trying to get a hang of the right shutter speed to choose. In a series of 10 shots in the same location this was the only salvagable one. How do you choose the right shutter speed?

Amar

It's a circus....

I was fortunate enough to get some time with the Founder of the UCLA juggling club. Appu wowed L'il Akhil with his hand-eye coordination. This pic shows three balls in flight...all while the juggling master looks straight ahead. Sorry...no data on the image. But, it was with my 18-200 mm.

Light play

Naveen wrote this with the iPhone :)

We actually wanted to try funny faces at different spots. But the light exposure did not turn out to be uniform. Then we tried this .. it was challenging to get all the letters right. Basically you are writing in the air !

And I say 'we' everywhere here as this was a collaborative effort. I learn a few new tricks and it was a fun 1/2 hr, well spent indeed.


Exposure: bulb
Aperture: 4.0
ISO: 400

Urban Rush

I've always been fascinated by lights on the freeway, esp coming down from I880s down Sunol or be in watching the traffic report early in the morning on TV. I thought I'll give this a try.

Few challenges.
1. I crisscrossed at least half a dozen east-west roads between 85 and 280 freeways for a decent overpass to do it, but all of them had grills over 7ft. The metal mesh was a pain to navigate your lens through(now central expwy is coming to mind, doh!)
2. picked a late evening. didn't have enough cars to fill up the expressway to get consistent color in the composition.

I took this shot atleast a dozen times, but couldnt tell where the green horizontal lines at the bottom came from. Too naive with photoshop to figure out layering and stuff.

having been a digital-vari program user all of my SLR life, this was my first time using the "M" mode and mucking with aperture/focal length and such.

Specs:

ISO 200
shutter speed: 25s
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Matrix Metering(don't know what this means!)

Question: Would it have helped, if I chosen the twilight time to shoot this - with a tad more natural sunlight? Would it have softened the dark contrasts of the headlights/tail lamps?


Please fire way your comments.

moon fruit

this is what happens when you have time, you get back from work before 9pm, you see almost full moon and you think of a fruit :)



there are a million things wrong with this picture.. i tried quite a few times to fix a lot of them problems.. and i couldn't.. if you have ideas on how to make it (it being an object some crazy number of miles away) sharper.. do let me know..

I didn't pan or blur the traditional way.. i just played with the zoom..and absolutely no photo shop or post processing tricks.. if you need more details, ask me.. I probably would have gotten better results if i tried harder and with few more iterations.. but i guess this will just have to do for now..

Color Blur

Everything's so blurry
and everyone's so fake
and everybody's empty
and everything is so messed up
pre-occupied without you
I cannot live at all
My whole world surrounds you
I stumble then I crawl

When I first saw the assignment this week I thought of the song "Blurry" by Puddle of Mudd, and that's the chorus.

Anyway..for my assignment I decided to play with one of Akhil's toys. It's something I still play with in doctor's and dentist's office, so I tried to capture the motion of the beads during one pass through.

In retrospect I would've liked to pick a more plain backdrop - I think the apartments in the back are distracting

JPG: exposure 1/60 sec, f/13, ISO 400, focal length 24.0mm, Shutter-priority mode

Big Basin cascade

For my entry this week, I went to Big Basin State Park. Here's a motion-blurred photo from Golden Cascade.

EXIF is included in the JPG: exposure 1/4 sec, f/8, ISO 200, focal length 22mm.

Whizzing by

I tried a few shots & infact will still continue till the Friday deadline. For now, this is the best I have. Got this one on Stevens Canyon road. Went there in the afternoon, so really didn't see as many bikers as I had expected.

I would have wanted the lower half of the biker to be a little more clear, but then again..its all about blur. The more blur the better..I say :) Also, the biker could have been on the left of the picture showing the road ahead.

Shutter: 1/40
Aperture: 18
ISO : 100
Evaluative Metering
AF Servo Setting

I have tried some where the moving object is blur & everything around is in focus. Here are some shots

http://picasaweb.google.com/ranjeetrm/Blur?f#

A blur of fishes

Mom & daughter enjoy the beauty of life under water.

Given that the Monterey Bay Aquarium doesn't allow tripods inside, this was shot hand-held, hence the not so crisp picture. Since it was pretty dark inside, the ISO was set at 1600 (the maximum setting my Canon allows). I under-exposed the shot at f/4, and shutter speed of 1/10sec.

Personally, I would've preferred if Baby/Mom were positioned to the right third of the picture, following the rule of thirds.

"Spectacular" Blur

The subject " Blur "suggested I could shoot something that helps us get rid of it ...

Camera: Fuji FinePix S 9600
Lens: 28-300mm

ISO: 200

Focal Length: 9mm

Aperture: f/4

Exposure time: 0.1sec

Assignment 2: blur

Naveen asked me to send out Assignment 2.  For this week, please post an image that makes effective use of blur.  It could be motion blur, focus blur, or even artificial blur added in postprocessing. Rules for this time:

• Post a photo which makes effective use of blur of any kind.
• Photo must be taken during the assignment period: March 1 through March 7.
• Artificial lighting is allowed.
• Postprocessing is OK.

Bringing home the bacon

Thought would start of with some basic colors - Black & White - A few rays of evening Sun.

While I was at it, ummm...why not add a little flesh, a gold skirt and high heels for sex appeal.

Hold it!!!! ... before you dirty minds start sliding down the slippery slope, Watch out for those lovely Angel feathers and the Divine Halo.

My Guardian Angel Piggy to keep me on my toes and avoid the last rays of the evening Sun to complete my assignments !

Stepping back into reality
Camera: Nikon D60
Lens: 18-55mm
ISO: 200
Focal Length: 44mm
Aperture: f/5.3
Exposure time: 0.013sec