Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 6:07PM 
Love taking shots with the sigma lens at 18mm, with ISO set all the way to 1600 (all the way the 400D will go) and setting the white balance to cloudy. Gives a candle light feel to the shots taken indoors with diffuse lighting.
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Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 10:40PM While we were at the Queen Wilhemia Tulip garden yesterday, there was a big crowd and a photo session happening in front of us.
We did not know if the marriage was happening in front of us or it was just a post wedding photography session, but was amazing to watch the way people took their time to pose, get the group dynamic going and the photographer trying to arrange this group shot!
Having tried to assemble 40+ relatives for a family shoot at my Grandparents anniversary ceremony, the difficulty of orchestrating something like this dawned on me again and was in awe at the way this photographer was "conducting" the group.
While the families (us and the cousins) were mostly looking at the wedding dresses, trying to figure out who the groom was, etc. etc. (the kids constantly kept screaming.. who IS she marrying in there?), yours truly was all focussed on the photographer lady's gear.
She had diffusers on her camera that looked like giant cups, a lens that would make my lens look less endowed and a battery pack that was part of the camera and visible almost 80 feet away!
She would run back and forth to the crowd, simply because here instructions would not carry in the noise of the ocean. Yes, this place is a block from the beach, right next to the SFO zoo entrance. Every now and then she would go on a clicking spree and her flash would be so faithful to her.
My 50mm lens was dropped on the ground (after two bounces) and the lens popped out of the housing during our Sacramento zoo trip, the day after thanksgiving. While trying to exchange lenses to enable zooming on a snow leopard that had suddenly decided to give darshan to its waiting devotees, I dropped the lens because it looked up and growled at me.
Not used to being growled at by snow leopards and having a camera and two lenses in my hand, the 50 mm just jumped up and fell some 8 feet away and was in two pieces. It was pushed back in and held with some crazy glue and found to be still functional, but with some caveats.
a. Manual focusing only
b. The lens had to be held against the body at all times (or it would pop out)
After seeing the photographer do her magic, told myself that the 50 mm would be used as much as possible and still get decent pictures. Well, 20% came out good, but that 20% was still worth sharing...
Here are four more photos...
Sometimes old and damaged equipment can still give you good results.. if you are pissed off enough to take it up as a challenge!
I know this is counter productive to justifying my getting a new lens... but the truth is, as they say, the truth!
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Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 3:01PM Pumpkins + some time available on a gloomy Saturday afternoon + new lens = HDR photos!!
High Dynamic Range photos, created by superimposing multiple shots of same object with a constant exposure time but with different f stop settings to get fine details on over exposed and underexposed areas of picture.
If that was all information overload, the idea is to create a photo that closely captures what the human eye can see. (It also adds a depth perception)
A glass globe on our dining table (composite image from 4 images 1/8 s exposure f2.5, f3.2, f4.5, f6.3)
and the pumpkin, a composite of 5 images with 1 second exposure and f11.0, f8.0, f5.6, f4.0, f2.8
Okay, time pass is over..
Off to do more serious things!
Wishing all those who celebrate a "Happy Hallllllloooooweeeeen!"
ps. Updated globe..
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Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 11:58PM We have a new cluster flower blooming in our front yard. There was no breeze and the stalk held steady enough to be used for multiple shots in sequence.
This is the best superimposed HDR image that is blog worthy, given the sway and the sun setting behind the flower.
Now that the camera has graduated from still objects to slightly moving objects, more exploring will be done.
Tomorrow brings us new subjects..
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Saturday, August 1, 2009 at 11:48PM Playing with the software, realized that there is an alignment feature to align each picture to a reference to capture the light variation without increasing the blur.
In spite of using a tripod and taking the individual images in self timer mode, the few seconds it takes to change the exposure setting and clicking the shutter somehow moves the center of the image by a few pixels and that is enough to change the quality of the picture.
Found this trying to image a cabbage rose in our front yard.
Went back and zoomed in on a single rose in the flower vase and it came out crystal clear with fantastic detail even inside the shadows within the petals.
Original plan to go to take a picture of the golden gate didn't come through. Will have to try that another day..
For now, I am like a kid in a candy store.. so many possibilities with the same camera...
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