Bokeh

By now I'm a great admirer of Bokey and get mesmerized watching beautiful art of Bokey by such a lot of talented photographers found in Flickr. Being a beginner in photography, I watch these wonderful work like a child watching the art performed by a Magician!!!! I always wonder how they would have achieved it... is there any technique being this.... I would like to attempt for this but how? I have done it once and felt satisfied, but after watching some other work, I realised my work was nowhere near it.
I kept a decorative golden-peacock on one of the sleek speaker of my home-theater music system and placed it near to my window. Next, I fixed my Camera on my tripod and adjusted the viewing angle to the desired way. The street-lights were my main source of bokey. Then I started adjusting my camera settings to generate a desirable Bohek and here is the result.....



Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 27 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 1 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
YCbCr Positioning: Co-Sited
Exposure Program: Shutter priority
Shutter Speed: 196608/65536
Focus Mode: One-shot AF
Canon Image Size: Large
Metering Mode: Evaluative
Focus Range: Manual
AE Setting: Normal AE
Image Stabilization: Off
Display Aperture: 24.8
Zoom Source Width: 65535
Zoom Target Width: 65535
Photo Effect: Off
Color Tone: 0
Scaled Focal Length: 13620
Measured LV: 0
Target Aperture: 1
Target Exposure Time: 2.6879700256073E-264
Exposure Compensation: 779.71875


Today I've come across a Bokeh by Victor Oliveira and he has reveled his technique which was amazing. It is a wonderful picutre to view.

Sue Zipkin is another artist I have come across and observed having an exceptionally wonderful work on Bokeh, it is worth visting her PhotoStream in Flickr.

Remembering Independence day

This is the 62nd anniversary of Indian Indepence Day and here is my remembrance of Indepence Day.




Materials used : a Crystal Globe, a Calendar with plain white at back of the sheet kept reversed on the table & A tiny Indian flag drew by my daughter using crayons.
I kept the flag upside down behing the Crystal and angled my Camera to get some part of the flat right below the Indian map on the crystal.

Exposure: 0.3 sec (3/10)
Aperture: f/14
Focal Length: 55 mm
ISO Speed: 1600
Exposure Bias: 1 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
YCbCr Positioning: Centered
Exposure Program: Shutter priority
Shutter Speed: 106496/65536

Experiment on Water Drops

I have found that most of the photography enthusiast during their initial period of learning the art of Photography, attempts to take Photos of Water drops. Myself too, as part of taming my hands on new Camera, has ventured for such experiment. Objective was to understand the Shutter-speed, ISO & aperture.

I could find a useful and interesting blog from Flickr ( V1NZ Photography tricks ). There are a lot to learn about High-speed Photography and a few PhotoStreams related to this is available in Flickr. The result of my experiment is given below.



End of this experiment I have to admint that I need to sharpen my skills further more .....

August 8 2008 (08-08-08)

In Asia the number "8" stands for wealth and auspiciousness. For many people, 08.08.08 is not only a very exciting day because of the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, China. It is also a day where many couples get married to be reminded of this unique date for the rest of their lives.

Flickr has conducted a unique way of celebrating this day by inviting the participants to take snaps on 8th August 2008 and post in to Flickr888 Group. They have partnered with MOO to create unique Flickr 888 Postcards.
... and here is my post.

Basic Photographic Jargons

There are some Basic Photography jargons that are to be know.

1. SLR - Single Lens Reflex. Professional photographer use this type of Camera. It uses an automatic moving mirror system which permits the photographer to see exactly what will be captured by the film or digital imaging system. (More details are found here)

2. Aperture - the opening through which light is admitted. The aperture partly determine the amount of light that falls on a camera film or sensor. Aperture sizes are classified as f-stops or f-numbers.( More details are found here)

3. Shutter speed - the speed of shutting and re-opening of the camera shutter.( More details are found here )

4. Focal length -The distance between the centerpoint of the lens and the film when the lens is focused on infinity. On modern camera, it is measured in millimetre.(More details are found here)

5. F-number or F-stop - the size of the aperture. A smaller F-number denotes a larger aperture.( More to read here)

6. Depth of Field - the distance in front and behind a subject that remains sharp and in focus. A larger f-stop will result in a longer Depth of field. This simply means that a big f-stop numbers will result in a larger portion of the photo remaining sharp and in focus.(More to read here)

7. Panning- the action of moving the camera to follow the action.(more to read here)

8. ISO - ISO denotes how sensitive the image sensor is to the amount of light present. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive the image sensor and therefore the possibility to take pictures in low-light situations. ISO speed affects the shutter speed / aperture combinations you can use to obtain correct exposure.( To understand more about ISO, read PhotoXels OR Digital Photography School )

My new Camera - Canon EOS 450 D

After a long wait, I've decided to graduate from Point-and-Shoot to DSLR. Since I was already a Canon user, Canon EOS was my default option to go. By then I had a few Flickr'ian friends with whom I discussed about the available models and with their guidance I went ahead for EOS450D aka Digital Rebel XSi.