Drumrolls please..

A sample video with the Canon EOS 5D Mark ii shot with the overhead W light..

The high speed memory card is in the mail, so right now the video resolution is 640x480

You can see the quality is a range apart in low light conditions compared to typical camcorders.

Here is another video of Jr. saying a prayer. Note the bokeh effect of the lights that you only get with high end movie cameras.. Jr. tried to say it fast because she figured out the movie stopped recording after 3-4 seconds . the data buffer gets full on a 2 GB 40x card within 3 seconds. The one in the mail is a 32GB 400x card. The GB is not the issue, the 40x vs 400x is! For those of you with HD capable T2i's it is a good idea to go for fast write speed cards!

Imagine what this could do to improve wedding coverage in India? No hot lamps to light up the groom and bride.. only high ISO!

Will post a HD quality video shot in the night or indoor light next week.

Until then...

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Bokeh - the learning continues..

The hand did take a turn for the worse and limited activity for most of the day. After a lot of rest, got up this evening and tried taking photos. Options were restricted to indoor and that meant, the Christmas lights came out!

Like they say in Tamil "Yaam Petra Inbam" ... (the happiness I received, should be passed on, no?)

The camera modification

The setup on the dining table

A few shots which are better efforts than the previous one's posted earlier

Jr. is an amazing model. After getting hit by the flash a few times, she suggested that the picture be of the side of her face. It was a great idea.

Also, a tip. If you happen to try this at home, remember that 1000+ Christmas lights generate a lot of heat, when you pile them up in a heap. You are guaranteed to get your hands burnt if you unplug the lights and try to grab them off the table. It is NOT recommended under any circumstances, especially when you are recovering an already broken hand.

My kids asked me "how can you be so smart and stupid at the same time?"

How? How?

or should I be asking myself "Why?"

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An interesting week

The temperatures dropped this week significantly. The hand which is still trying to close the gap in the bone, is feeling a lot of pain because somehow the metal pieces inside are stressing out the bone.

That has meant no sleep from 4AM to 6AM the first few days this week. Wrapping the entire arm in warm fleece blankets helped a lot.

Then the wife fell ill and between work, the kids calling me a "bad parent" and more pain in the wrist trying to exert myself, it has been a challenging week to say the least..

Going to do some camera accessory shopping tomorrow to cheer myself up.

This weeks photo homework assignment is "Bokeh" and it appears that I am way out of my league here.. Spent two hours to understand the concept (which is to highlight out of focus objects to create light patterns in the background)..

But here are some interesting results (going to work on this some more.. how they manage to get the object in the foreground in focus while still creating the shaped Bokeh is beyond me.. at least for now)

Cut out a star shaped hole on a cardboard and taped it to the focus ring..

Every point of light takes the star shape..

Notice Jr.'s eyes.. even her eyes show the star pattern (reflected from the flash).
Every light point on her necklace takes the shape of the star..

Cannot understand the physics behind it either. A flashback...

When we were going to IIT Physics coaching class, Balu Sir (god rest his soul) told us to go practice with MIR publishers book by Russian Authors "Tarasov and Tarasova" to master Geometrical Optics. There were no copies that we could get our hands on, but the platform book seller who used to have a shop at the bend near Nalli in Pondy Bazaar told me "Tarasov-aa thambi. Oru copy irukku pa.. aana Tamil copy, paravaa illiyaa?" (I have a copy kid, but it is in Tamil, you still want it?)

Two of my friends who saw me buy that book thought I was nuts. Understanding geometrical optics by reading a Russian book translated in Tamil?

Spent the next week understanding the terms for convex, concave, focus, object, image, radius of curvature etc. etc. in Tamil and figured it all out. It was actually very entertaining and rewarding.

But this Bokeh thing, beats Tarasov and Tarasova..

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