All Things Technology

Schedule-ALL (PRO) - A Unique way to schedule you connections!

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sat, 06 Sep 2014 15:34:00 +0000

As you probably know, I am a software engineer at heart. After a looooooog time I took to designing and coding. This time on Android. Last weekend I sat down and started to dabble with Java programming (which I have never done in my life, because I was a core Microsoft guy) and Android app development.

What started off as an Android learning session turned into a full-fledged app!

For a long time, I have had an idea of having an app to automate all my data connections such as WiFi, 2G/3G, Bluetooth and Sync based on my usage. I needed this app to manage my connections and my Sync so that its optimized based on my usage. I searched on Google play store and elsewhere for something which matched my requirement, I found quite a few and tried them. Many of them were good, some of them were crappy, some were too complex and some were way too expensive for what I needed.

So I thought about creating a simple app which would automate WiFi, 2G/3G, Bluetooth and Sync based on my need. That idea gave birth to this app called Schedule-ALL.

You can buy this app here at Google Play Store

UPDATE: After sharing this app with family and friends - I had one consistent question from most of them. WHY ON EARTH WOULD I NEED THIS APP IN THE FIRST PLACE??
I thought I had answered that in my FAQs section, but apparently that's not enough. So let me try it one more time
About Data Connections and Sync In Your Phone
Firstly - Depending on the model of your phone, it may have upto 4 types of data connections

WiFi
2G/3G
Bluetooth
NFC (Near Field Communication)

Most have have at least the first 3 types above. Important thing to know about these data connections is that they all generate radio waves when they are on. So when something "generating" something, it needs energy. In your phone that source of energy is the battery. So if your phone has any of these connections ON then it means your phone is expending battery to just by keeping these on, whether you use them or not.

Secondly - There is something called a Sync service which runs in the background. This service is used by your phone to sync things like Emails, Contacts updates, Newsfeeds, RSS feeds, Regular photo uploads, Google+ updates, Facebook Timeline updates and so on. So Sync takes up a lot of data. Since Sync requires either WiFI or 2g/3g it also takes up your battery.

NOTE - Sync is not used to send/receive Whatsapps, hangouts, Facebook or other notifications . So putting Sync off doesn't affect these messengers.

Most manufacturers, by default, keep WiFi, 2/3G, NFC and Sync to be always on. There are 2 adverse effects of this.

Your battery drains unnecessarily
Your phone consumes a lot of data in the background without your knowledge

What this app does is the following

Lets you schedule which connections (WiFi, 2g/3g and Bluetooth) is ON at what time of the day. Let's say, if you are in office from 9 AM to 6 PM, then you dont need the WiFi to be ON at that time. But you would need your 2g/3g Data and Bluetooth (for phone call) to be ON
Lets you schedule at what intervals your sync service runs. Lets say you are OK to check your mails every 2 hours, then can schedule Sync to run every 2 hours
Apart from this it lets you choose WIFi as a priority data connection over 2G/3G (by using those check boxes). This ensures you are not unnecessarily on 2g/3g data connection when you can as well be on WiFi. This reduces your 2g/3g data consumption.

Benefits of this kind of scheduling is 2 folds

Only the RIGHT data connection (2g/3g or WiFI) is kept ON - There by reducing battery drain
Sync is not always ON - Reducing battery drain and reducing 2g/3g data usage when on 2G/3G network

App is based on the following Design Philosophy

It should be simple and intuitive to use
It should not take you through too many screens
It should let you schedule connections toggles and sync toggles in less that 10 seconds

You try it and see for yourself I met my own design philosophy

I will now let you enjoy some of the screen shots and the App FAQs

1. What does the app do?

App allows you to perform following actions

a. Manually Toggle WiFi, Bluetooth, Data and NFC connections.

b. Manually start Sycn and set the duration for the sync to run.

c. Schedule Sync to start every X minutes and run for Y minutes once it has started.

d. Schedule Wifi, Bluetooth, Data and Sync to start and stop at specific time of the day everyday.

e. Cancel All the previous schedules (so you can start a fresh).

2. Once I have set the schedules, how long will these schedules run?

All schedules will run as long as you don’t cancel your schedules (Using 'Cancel All Schedules' button) or un-install the app. The app will re-schedule all your previously set schedules on reboot. So you dont need to worry about setting them again. Schedules will also be intact even if you update the app (without un-installing) from the play store.

3. Will the app drain my battery?

No, app itself is not in the memory after you have set your schedules. App uses Android's AlarmManager APIs to delegate the schedules to Android OS. It behaves in exactly the same way your android alarm clock does, except everything is in the background, so you wont even notice it.

4. Why would I need this app?

If, like me, you have set times when you want Data/Bluetooth/WiFi/Sync to be enabled or disabled everyday and you dont want to manually go into settings to do all this, this app will do it for you. Ensuring right connections are enabled at the right time. Controlling sync will help you to not only ease your life but it will also save your device's battery life.

My Settings are:

Sync: Run every 2 hours for 5 mins (this is more than enough for downloading emails over 3G or Wifi. On 2G you may increase the duration to run to maybe 10 mins)

Wifi: Start time-17:00 AND Stop time-10:00 (this is the time I am at home, I start wifi an hour earlier than I reach home)

Data: Start time-8:00 AND Stop time-18:00 (this is the time when I am out)

Bluetooth: Start time-8:00 AND Stop time-18:00 (this is the time when I am out)

5. Why does manual toggle of NFC take me to settings? and why cant I schedule NFC?

Answer to first question: Google Android APIs doesnt provide any direct control over NFC connections to programatically stop or start it. Apps can only use the NFC connection, if it has alreayd been started. I have given the next best option to let the user go to the system settings screen and toggle it manually.

Answer to second question: Since Android APIs do not allow to manually start/stop NFC, its pointless to provide a scheduling mechnism, unfortunately! :-(

6. Will Schedule-ALL help me save my battery?

Although I dont explicitly claim that Schedule-ALL will save battery juice, it has been proven that using connections that you only need and stopping all other connections does improve battery life. Most battery saver apps use controlling connections as one of the foremost weapon to protect battery juice from draining. Also Sycn is huge drainer of battery and it uses a lot of data if its on continuously. So yes, it will definitely help your device battery perform better also saving you data usage.

7. How to use settings 'Stop Wifi only if Wifi is Disconnected', 'Start Data Only if Wifi is NOT Connected' and 'Stop Data Only if Wifi Is Connected' ?

Stop Wifi only if Wifi is Disconnected - If you have scheduled your wifi to be stopped at a certain time say at 1:00PM everyday if you check this box then the app will check if you are still connected to any WiFi network. If you are connected to any Wifi Network then it will not disable the WiFi and rechedule itself to check back to see if the Wifi can be disconnected in 30 minutes.

Start Data Only if Wifi is NOT Connected - This will prevent your scheduled data from starting if you are connected to WiFi.

Stop Data Only if Wifi is Connected - This will start the data only if you are disconnected from WiFi.

There 2 Purpose these settings server

1. They ensure that Data (2G/3G) is not enabled unnecessarily if you are already connected to WiFi.

2. They ensure that you always connected to one network or the other.

These settings only affect your scheduled connection controls. As usual, you can always override these with manual settings.

8. What is 'Sync ONLY when connected to WiFi?

If you have scheduled your sync to start at specific times, then checking this setting will start the sync only if the device is connected to WiFi network. If you are n 2G or 3G then the Sync will not start. This doesn’t affect the manual Sync.

Dussehra–With My First Love

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Cameras, that is! What did you think! Ever since I was a boy, I was fascinated with cameras.

I remember when I first held a camera, I was just into my teens, it was a black and white fixed lens camera (it only took black and white film) . It belonged to my elder brother, who had bought it from his pocket money. But since he was studying out of town, the camera fell into my hand. I got hooked on to it immediately. I realized that for the first time in my life I had a hobby. I had begun to enjoy it tremendously and was very sad when I had to let it go because my dad did not have enough money to develop the film or to buy one. But I was a completely different person as long as I had it.
I knew then that, if ever I had a hobby; photography would be the one and nothing else.
When I went to college, my pocket money was enough for me to buy a new camera for myself. I bought a Konica HotShot flat camera. This camera took a rather strange 110 film cartridge. It had dual lens, one for wide angle and another for telephoto. I used it throughout my 5 years in college (bachelor and masters) until it stopped working. It was my most precious possession in my college days.
Once out of college, I got busy with my job and family and I had very little time to pursue my photography. In 1999, I went to UK on an assignment through my company. While in the UK I found I had a lot of time at my disposal, so I decided to rekindle my first love affair. That’s when I bought my first SLR – this was year 2000. The Camera was EOS-300. I hadn’t touched a camera for 6 years and suddenly finding a huge SLR in my hand was overwhelming. I figured quickly that I had to learn a lot, things I never paid attention to earlier. I still have that camera and is still in a great condition. Later I upgraded to Canon EOS-30 in 2002 - a beautiful piece of equipment.
From then on, I was always in touch with my hobby off and on. Up until 2007 however, it hadn’t yet turned into my passion. In 2007 I bought my first DSLR, the Olympus Evolt E-330 and that’s when my hobby turned into a passion.

Now coming back to Dussehra. Let me give you a background of what Dussehra is – Its a Hindu festival celebrated on the tenth day of the Hindu autumn lunar month. The day marks the victory of Goddess Durga over such demons as Mahishasur. It is a day when devotees worship Goddess Shakti. Shakti represents strength, ability and courage. This day also celebrates the victory of Lord Rama over the demon king Ravana. More Info here.

It marks the beginning of harvest season. And every household in rural India perform prayer (pooja) to sanctify their tools and items used in harvesting. In urban India people perform pooja to sanctify the tools that they use in everyday life such as vehicles and instruments of daily use.

This year, for the first time, I performed pooja of my photography instruments. It brought out the celebratory mood I am always in whenever I am with my first love i.e. my camera!! :-)

Hope my photography improves a bit!

Here are some of the pics

	All my stuff in one place :-)
	The top view..
	My Second Love :-) My Hyosung GT 650R

Thanks and God Bless…

Love

-Puru

Celebrating Birthday! (with OM-D and RC flashes)

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 08:53:00 +0000

On 20th Oct my son, Advaya, turned 9. This time I had the most powerful micro 4/3 gear to shoot his birthday. I was contemplating various ways to shoot this event.
Initially I thought I would shoot only with my prime 45 f/1.8 on OM-D. But while doing the tests I found that I don't have enough space to move back and forth to get the whole group. So I decide that I will shoot most of it with 12-50 and then switch over to 45mm when kids settle down. This idea worked like a charm, as you will see.
My next issue was the lighting. Since the party was going to be indoors, with tungsten light, I knew I would have limited light. Although this is sufficient for OM-D + 45 1.8, its definitely not enough for 12-50.
So an idea stuck me. I have never really shot any event with RC flashes. I have both FL-36R and FL-50R. But I have always used them on-camera with E-5. And since I have already decided that I would shoot this event only with OM-D, I had to use flashes in RC mode. both FL-36R and 50R are too bulky on OM-D.
I was quite apprehensiv
e about my ability to set them up correctly.
So began my trial-and-error, make-shift method

Initially I thought 1 FL-50R should be enough. Hall in which the party was going to be was not large (10 x 15 feet). Generally on-camera flash would cover this space nicely, but in RC mode I found that lighting was uneven in certain angles.
Since the kids would be moving around, I quickly understood that one flash in RC mode at a fixed location will not be enough.
So I decided to use 2 RC flashes to cover entire area and rely on the bounce to provide over all illumination of the entire area from any angle.
I setup my flashes at either side of the room at an height of around 7ft and used the Gary Fong’s Lightsphere diffuser on each of them. And directed them towards the ceiling to get maximum illumination through bounce. Gary Fong’s Lightsphere are by far one of the best diffusers I have seen. They are absolutely brilliant in providing soft and even illumination
I set the flashes in 2 groups in RC mode. I set FL-50R in group A and FL-36R in group B.
I then used group A in Manual @ 1/10 of the power and group B in Manual @ 1/4 of the power.
I used ISO between 200 to 800 to gain sensitivity. I didn't want to increase the power on the flashes because I wanted fast recycle as kids were moving around.
Once the setup was complete, Kids began to arrive and shooting started!
I found that this setup provided pretty good overall illumination from all angles. Wherever the pics were underexposed, I corrected them in Lightroom. And OM-D’s dynamic range is so fantastic that I can get details from pics which are underexposed by upto 2.5 stops!

Even for a novice like me, I found that setting up Olympus gear in RC mode is breeze!
So my final gear OM-D, 12-50, 45 1.8, FL-36R and FL-50R (in RC mode. FL-LM2 to trigger the RC flashes)

Another thing is the ease with which you can change the flash intensity! Absolutely brilliant!

	With friends! 1/60s . f/4.1 . ISO 200 . 16 mm (12-50)
	More friends! 1/60s . f/5.1 . ISO 500 . 25 mm (12-50)
	Blast with the friend! 1/60s . f/5.0 . ISO 500 . 24 mm (12-50
	Shooting the shooter! 1/60s . f/3.5 . ISO 400 . 12 mm
	Dance time! 1/60s . f/3.5 . ISO 400 . 12 mm
	+1/60s . f/3.6 . ISO 400 . 13 mm
	Enjoying! 1/60s . f/4.4 . ISO 400 . 19 mm
	Playing with Pinata! 1/60s . f/3.9 . ISO 400 . 15 mm
	Monkey business! 1/80s . f/1.8 . ISO 200 . 45 mm
	*For pics where I didn’t use flash, I set the white balance to custom. For flash I used the Auto WB.* +1/100s . f/1.8 . ISO 4000 . 45 mm (no flash)
	Freeze dance 1/80s . f/1.8 . ISO 200 . 45 mm
	Standing in line for the the game! 1/80s . f/1.8 . ISO 200 . 45 mm
	Making them sway! 1/80s . f/1.8 . ISO 200 . 45 mm
	Tummy is full! 1/100s . f/1.8 . ISO 6400 . 45 mm (no flash)
	Yes, I am 9!! 1/100s . f/1.8 . ISO 3200 . 45 mm (no flash)
	U R 9 Baby! 1/60s . f/5.5 . ISO 400 . 31 mm
	Yes, thats the cake! :-) This was a bit underexposed, corrected in Lightroom. 1/60s . f/4.7 . ISO 400 . 21 mm
	Time to cut it baby!! :-) 1/60s . f/3.5 . ISO 400 . 12 mm
	Time for birthday bumps! :-) 1/60s . f/3.5 . ISO 400 . 12 mm
	With daddy! 1/60s . f/4.7 . ISO 400 . 21 mm
	Momma’s boy! :-) 1/60s . f/4.5 . ISO 400 . 19 mm
	Yes! I am a big boy now! 1/100s . f/1.8 . ISO 5000 . 45 mm (no flash)

Shooting with prime is joy I have never felt before!
I hope you like my blog as much as I loved shooting it!
Its tough to put kids in a small space and shoot them, but with little bit of patience, it can be done :-)
Love!
More pics here

My Observations in the East

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 03:44:00 +0000

I recently went on a vacation to Singapore and Malaysia. One of my pass times is to observe people. In this trip, I found I was observing the various devices that people use for photography and also different mannerisms of the native people (both oriental and Indian origin)and tourists . So here goes

Photography Related Observations

Oriental women use following devices for photography (in that order)
- Cell phone/iPad (Yes! iPad for photography!)
- Point and Shoot
- Interchangeable Lens System (Sony NEX Series and Olympus PEN Series)
Oriental men prefer (in that order)
- Point and Shoot
- DSLR (Mostly Nikon or Canon, saw a couple of Pentax and Sony. No Olympus DSLR)
- Interchangeable Lens System (Sony NEX, Olympus OM-D and PEN. Yes! OM-D is more popular, in m view, than PEN with them)
Western tourist prefer Only point and shoot. I saw only a couple of them using DSLRs. No Interchangeable Lens system
Indian men tourists mostly prefer DSLR (with popup flash on! ;-))
India women tourists prefer cell phone or point and shoot
Indians who have settled in Malaysia and Singapore do not take photographs :-)
I found that people don't prefer using tripod. Both in KL and in Singapore, during my night shoots, I found only couple of tripods apart from mine.

Other observations are

Oriental native women chat/text while walking. Not sure how they can see the road, but they manage not to bump into people.
Oriental native men prefer playing games on their cell phones
All of them have latest smartphones. Samsung and HTC are the preferred brands. iPhones are few and far in between.
People of Indian origin who have settled there prefer to talk over phones more than oriental natives.
Indians do not prefer oriental restaurants. Oriental people (mostly natives) seems to love Indian food.
Westerners prefer china town eateries to Indian joints.

Olympus E-M5–An Unbiased Review

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:59:00 +0000

Disclaimer: I am not sponsored by Olympus (I wish they did though, for I am helping their cause!). So I am not interested in making them rich. This is an unbiased review based on my experience alone. The cameras, lenses and any accessories that I mention here are owned by me and not given to me by Olympus.

The Question: Why I bought E-M5? I already have E-5, E-P2 & E-30, so why on earth I need another camera?

The Answer: Before buying, I did extensive research on the performance of E-M5 in various blog posts and also on the various forums and photography sites.

I was drawn in to E-M5 for following reasons -

Brand New Sensor and High ISO Performance
Weather sealing in a compact body
Much matured IBIS
EVF with sensor
Pro DSLR Like Button Layout and Controls
Touch screen operation
Fast AF and 9FPS

I was not too concerned about image quality and stuff like that, because I am a long time Olympus user and I know what to expect. IQ, if anything, can only go up the scale.

So lets get on with the review on these 7 points

Brand new Sensor and High ISO performance: Sensor in E-5 was essentially same as in E-P2. But in my opinion E-5’s High ISO performance was much better than E-P2. From personal experimentations, I find that, in E-P2, I could dare to go MAX up to ISO 1600 (with a lot of caution). But in E-5 I could go up to 3200 easily. I have shot very frequently at ISO 2000 both indoors and outdoors with pretty good result .

But one issue always nagged me. I was still afraid of getting unwanted Chroma noise at ISOs over 800 on E-5 and E-P2. So I never put my camera on Auto ISO in these 2 cameras. If light was low, then I would test out the output at various ISOs by zooming in on the frames, and many times I would end up deleting the picture because of smudgy Chroma noise, especially in E-P2. E-5 performed much better, but I was still unsure of leaving it on Auto ISO from say 200-3200 because I knew at the back of my head that the sensor is same, although E-5 is much better at handling ISOs over 1600 upto 3200 (Don’t ask me how or why though!).

E-5, ISO-2000, @283mm of 50-200 + EC14, 1/250s f/4.9

But the situation changed with E-M5. One of the first tests I performed as soon as I got the unit home was its performance at high ISO. I generally hate using strong adjectives for anything (be it humans or things), but the pictures from E-M5 upto 6400 ISO were simply amazing and absolutely beautiful. I couldn’t believe my eyes and I double checked the settings a few times to see I was indeed shooting at 6400 ISO. To put it mildly, ISO 6400 performance of E-M5 simple blew me away. Very little luminescence noise (nothing which cannot be removed using Lightroom or Noiseware) and ZERO Chroma noise. In fact, there is very little smudgy Chroma noise even at 16000 ISO. So now you can imagine why I was impressed.

I have now reached a point where, on my E-M5, Auto ISO is always set at 200-6400 and I always shoot in Auto ISO (unless I am shooting on tripod). I now know that even if I get noise, I can always remove it in Adobe Lightroom easily. So, my worries about high ISO shooting have been laid to rest. Fantastic Job Olympus!! Hats Off!!


E-M5, @56mm, 1/6s, f/4.1 ISO-6400 Noise reduced in post processing	E-M5, @50mm, 1/8s, f/6.3 ISO-6400 Noise reduced in post processing

E-M5, 1/15s, f/5.5, 32mm ISO 16000 Yes you read that right, it is ISO sixteen thousand Noise reduced in post processing	E-M5, 1/30s, f/4.9, 32mm ISO 6400 Noise reduced in post processing

E-M5, 1/10, f/5.6 ISO-25600 @33mm Noise reduced in CS4 Chroma noise visible, still pretty usable	E-M5, 1/20, f/5.6 ISO-6400 @300mm (Lumix 100-300) IBIS on and Mega OIS Off Noise reduced in Post processing

Weather sealing in a compact body: Looking at E-M5 you would be excused for thinking its just another point-and-shoot camera. Its only when you hold it that you realize how sturdy it is. For such a small thing, it is quite heavy when you actually lift it. You can immediately see how well its built and whatever Olympus claims about its weather sealing must all be true and more. However, and this is just my personal apprehension, I would still say there is nothing like E-5. That tank can take anything. So I wont be doing to E-M5 what I did to E-5 in this video anytime soon. Having said that I know I can rely on its weather sealing as much I rely on E-5’s weather sealing. I have already taken E-M5 on heavy shower a few times and didn’t even bother to wipe it. Olympus has done what it does best, impeccable build quality!

This picture was taken under heavy rain. I was then standing in the rain with raincoat on and adjusting the settings while the rain poured all over E-M5

E-M5, 1/80s, f/11, ISO-320 (Pouring Rain)

Much matured IBIS (In Body Image Stabilizer): My first camera with IBIS was E-30 and it’s a beauty, never let me down. Then came E-P2, although E-P2 had same IBIS mechanism as E-30, it was miniaturized to fit into E-P2 body. While it did a good job, I am still sceptical about claims of 4stop advantage by Olympus. I think that was a bit overrated. In fact when using Panasonic lenses (45-200 and 100-300), I prefer turning off IBIS on E-P2 and turning on MEGA OIS on the lenses. I feel IBIS on E-P2 worked, albeit with short comings.

Circa 2010 – Enter E-5- I think Olympus did put in quite a bit of work on the IBIS unit and I feel it had matured quite well. They just didn’t tout it as “All New IBIS” because, I think, it was essentially same as that in E-30 but with bug fixes. But I was impressed with those bug fixes, especially reset noise and the reliability. I truly believe it can provide upto 5 stop advantage as claimed by Olympus, although I have no scientific way to prove it.

Circa 2012 – Enter E-M5 – Just when you thought IBIS has matured and nothing can be improved further, Olympus surprises all of us with 5 axis IBIS! All the previous ones were only 2 axis i.e. vertical and horizontal movements. As we all know those are not the only movements you can have when you have camera shake. So Olympus added 3 more dimension, the pitch, yaw and roll and I must say, it works like magic, as can be seen from pics above.

All Pictures above were taken handheld. Goes to show the amazing quality of IBIS

EVF (with proximity sensor): While I loved E-P2 for the cute little camera that it is, I have never been a huge fan of shooting through an LCD screen. The VF-2 EVF which I bought is fantastic, but I hate its form factor and also the fact that it sits on top of hot-shoe thus disabling my flash use with EVF. The built-in EVF with E-M5 is just what was needed and it does its job quite well. Suffice to that, I wouldn’t have bought E-M5 if it didn’t have built in EVF, simple as that. Having said that, there are a few bugs;

Things that can be improved

Its not as bright as the VF-2. Provides a less brighter view than VF-2 or for that matter OVF of E-5
The proximity sensor is too sensitive, when you are in review mode and use the touch screen, the screen changes over to EVF because your finger is too close and its sometimes very annoying
When you bring the camera to eyelevel when you see something worthy to shoot, there is about 1 second lag before EVF takes over. This is annoying because once EVF takes over you have to wait till the target AF is acquired (which fortunately is super FAST) before you shoot. So it takes away the quickness that you desire and can have from such a beautiful camera.

Having said this, built-in EVF is definitely a right step forward. I think, it should be part of all Pen cameras. Few minor bugs need to be ironed out in next version.

Pro DSLR Like Button Layout and Controls: While E-P2 had pretty good controls over all. The tiny rotating ring on top of multi direction buttons was hard to use also the dials were not in the “standard” position. This resulted in a learning curve. The dials and buttons on E-M5 are perfectly placed and render it the pro look. It must have been a tough job for Olympus designers and engineers. What with having to work with such a small body and to give it a pro look! but the dials and buttons have been thought out well and they are adequate.

There are a few kinks in the armour though;

Things that can be improved

You cannot set all the arrows of a four way control to various functions.
There is no dedicated AF point selection button, have to use arrow key (that’s the reason for point #1 above, I think)
No dedicated AEL/AFL button. Fn-1 acts as the AEL/AFL by default. Since I use AEL quite often I need it set on Fn1 always. So I “lost” my one function button on camera. E-P2 has AEL/AFL button, why not E-M5?!!.
Although not related to buttons – there is no wireless remote support! Cant believe why you would leave that out!
No direct Access to MySets. Why do you need the video position on the mode dial? You could have easily used this space and added few more entries to have MySets available over there. Or you could have designed Mode as a button as in E-5, which is such a space saver and so easily extensible!

So those are the issues in the design which need to be sorted out to make E-M5 truly professional.

Touch screen operation: First of all, I am not a huge fan of LCD or touch screen for that matter (except to review photos). But when I got my E-M5 I started playing along with it. I soon realized its importance especially in shooting candids, shooting with tripod and macros. its much better using the touch screen than the shutter release button when on tripod or shooting macro. It is definitely an improvement in right direction. I was pleasantly surprised how I have gotten used to using touch screen so much.

Things that can be improved
The issue with touch screen is with its usefulness (or lack of it) when using for super control panel. All you can do is just select an option and that too after you press OK button. For changing the settings you still have to use the dials. I wont say that’s a very good software design. I am a software engineer, If I designed this piece, I would have ensured the user has full control over the changes through touch alone. Not very clever I must say!

Fast AF and 9FPS: Fast AF or F.A.S.T AF as Olympus likes to call it, stands for Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology. Not sure what it means, but it works!

While the AF acquisition system on E-30 and E-5 is very fast and fantastic but the one in E-P2 leaves a lot to be desired. The AF acquisition on E-M5 is really fast and really accurate. And the best part is it works wonderfully even in extreme lowlight. I had NDx400 and CPL on, which is like -10 stop! And still the camera was able to acquire AF in a dimply lit room! Now, for me that is really amazing! Truly a job done well by Olympus!

9FPS – While for most shooting the 5FPS on my E-5 is adequate enough, but when I went to shoot birds in the jungle I found it wanting since I was afraid to up the ISO. Now coupled with High ISO performance and 9FPS I am an extremely happy guy as I am able to capture those fine moments.

Things that can be improved
Only one issue though. The buffer is too small. It fills up after 13 frames and I have to wait another 30 seconds while it clears. I wish it had better buffer.

Conclusion:

Sensor and High ISO Performance	10/10
Weather Sealing and Build	10/10
IBIS	10/10
EVF	8/10
Button Layout and Controls	6/10
Touch Screen Operation	5/10
Fast AF and 9FPS	10/10*

* Although Buffer is not too great, but the 9FPS still works fantastic for me

So, that to my mind covers E-M5. I don’t think I would be buying E-7 or E-9 or whatever Olympus comes up with as next gen pro system in four third (there are quite a few rumours around). E-5 in conjunction with E-M5 should serve me for a long time to come (my guess is at least 5 years). E-M5 has given me everything I needed in a (small, pro) camera.

There are other minor enhancements like inclusion of Anti Shock in the mirrorless system! which can be used in conjunction with sequential shooting to achieve time lapse photography (http://www.Olympusmpusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_support_faqs.asp?id=1583#28 )or the Ability to use in camera flash even while using it to trigger remote flashes (not sure if this exists in E-5). But those are icing on the cake for me! :-)

Ciao!

Puru

PS: Let me know if there are an inaccuracies through my Contact Page.

NDx400–Long exposures in broad daylight “How-to” guide

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 04:58:00 +0000

Finally after a long long wait I got my ND filter, the NDx400. Question is why do you need it and here are the answers;

NDx400 is Neutral Density filter with an ability give you –9EV (minus 9 stop) advantage while shooting.
What does that mean? It means it will allow you to use very slow shutter speed even in broad daylight, which otherwise will not be possible even with smallest aperture (f/22).
This means, you can shoot a velvety waterfall in daylight if you like for instance

Here is an example.

WITOUT NDx400 and CPL:

I shot this scene at around 9 AM bright overcast conditions

F/11, 1/200, ISO200 (Saturation and contrast slightly adjusted in CS4)

Notice the sky, looks dirty with the clouds. Picture is not too appealing overall and looks boring.

WITH NDx400 + CPL: CPL=Circular Polarizer. I used it because it was already attached to my lens. I attached NDx400 on the CPL. This is called filter stacking. Beware – Filter stacking will give you vignetting i.e. one or more dark corners in your pics. It gave me one, which I removed in Photoshop. Filter stacking is NOT recommended, unless you know what you are doing and you know how to remove vignetting in PP)

Time around 9AM with bright overcast sky.
OM-D with 12-50 12MM
NDx400 + CPL
F/22, 30s, ISO200, IS Off, Anti Shock ON, Noise Reduction ON, Noise Filter HIGH
Only Contrast and saturation adjusted in CS4

Notice how the ordinary mundane scene has changed with silky and velvety background, making the structure standout as if in 3-D .

The Trick

But its not simple to use NDx400 as if it were a CPL filter. When you attach the NDx400 to your lens, you will find that your camera will, in best case, struggle to focus OR in worst case - which is more often than not - will refuse to focus. The reason? its the reduction of light which the NDx400 causes. By using NDx400 you are reducing the light intensity to less than 1/500th of the original intensity. So its very dark when you see through the lens.

So in order to use the NDx400 properly, you need to do a little trickery to make it work. And here is how to do it

Set the camera on tripod. Make sure the Anti-Shock (mirror lockup) is on and In body and In Lens stabilizers (IS/OIS etc) are OFF
Set the ISO @ 200 or any value you need. Make sure this constant throughout.
Set the camera in the aperture priority mode (A/Av mode using the dial). Set the aperture to, lets say, f/11 for the landscape shooting.
Focus the camera on the scene and press the shutter half way. Note down the shutter speed. Lets say it gives you the reading 1/60s
Now set the camera to Manual Focus WITHOUT CHANGING other settings like aperture and focal length of the lens.
Change the dial to full Manual Mode (M) from Aperture Priority mode. Attach the NDx400 filter on the lens
Ensure that your Aperture is still at f/11 as set above. Now change the shutter speed to –9EV (minus 9 stops) of what you noted above. Original shutter speed without NDx400 was 1/60s, so with NDx400 filter you need to step –9EV down which will give you 8secs.
You are all set, press the shutter and see the result. If its underexposed, then reduce the shutter speed further, if its overexposed then you can reduce the aperture to maybe f/16 if you want to keep same shutter.

I know its a bit of a hardwork, but your results will be priceless!

Hope you get inspired!

CIAO!

Love

Puru

Finally–NYIP Certified!

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 16:18:00 +0000

Its been a long, almost 3 year journey. I started my NYIP course in professional photography way back in October-2009. Just before I moved back to India in January-2010. When I started it, I was sceptical if I would be able to complete it. But Suni insisted that I should do it and almost literally forced me to join it.

In the end I am glad I joined. Although I have never been big on certifications and degrees (more a believer in practical knowledge), this certification however brought tremendous joy to me because I was doing something I really love, in fact I was doing only the thing I really love – My photography!

Lightning Strike – How I did it?

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Thu, 10 May 2012 03:46:00 +0000

Yesterday, I was standing on the balcony of my flat in Pune smoking a hookah. It was windy and there was some lightning activity. After a few minutes the lightning activities in the northeast horizon increased dramatically. I always wanted to shoot lightning and though this was my opportunity. So I grabbed my E-5 and shot some!

I have never photographed lightning strike before, but I knew that it was not a piece of cake for the obvious reason that you need to trigger the shutter at exactly same time as the lightning strikes. Generally lightning activity lasts about a 1-2 seconds. So its not easy to time your shutter release. Sometimes it helps to do things the old fashioned way and that’s exactly what I did.

My Technique

I Set the camera in Full Manual Mode – with aperture f/2.8 (Max aperture for my lens ZD 12-60). I was shooting handheld, so needed a faster shutter. I did not set it at Shutter Priority or Aperture priority because I did not want eaither my shutter or aperture to be set by camera.
I Set the focusing on Manual and set it to focus on infinity @ 12mm. Manual focusing to ensure that I am focused on infinity always.
I started with 1/25s shutter speed, but found that lightning was overexposed, so increased it to 1/50 @ ISO-400 (increased ISO to get 1/50s)
I set the drive mode on sequential shooting @ 5FPS on E-5 (which is max). In-body IS (VR) was ON
Since the drive mode was set to sequential, the Noise Reduction on E-5 is automatically set to OFF. I set the Noise Filter to STD and SHADING COMP = OFF
I then held the camera and waited for long time for lightning activity on the horizon. Whenever there was a dense lightning I would trigger shutter.
I might have shot about 50-60 frames. I got about 7 usable frames of lightning strike. Mainly helped by dense lightning activity (meaning continuous periods of lightning of 2-4 seconds). If lightning strike was not dense, then my hit ratio would have reduced.
It took me about 45 minutes to get 7 usable frames
I cropped and edited the pics in PhotoShop CS4 Camera RAW editor (contrast and exposure). I applied mild noise reduction using Noiseware professional.

My Results

Note: You can buy triggers which trigger your camera when lightning strikes. It can make your life a lot simpler!

Holi–Festival of Colours

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:28:00 +0000

I had written a blog on Holi last year (2011). If you would like to know more about the festival then you can read it here

This is going to be just a photo blog.

Last year I had used my weather-proof E-5 with 12-60 lens. So I had no qualms about going into the crowd and shooting close. E-5’s (and 12-60 as well) fantastic weather seal took every storm in its stride. This time it was different. This time I had to go to office, so I was wearing formals. As a result I couldn’t go into the crowd, I had to shoot from a distance.

Initially I had thought about taking my E-5 + 50-200mm SWD (excellent combo!). But I decided against it because I needed a lighter setup (my E-5 is always on with battery-grip, so its heavier as it is and with 50-200, its like a bazooka!). So I took along my E-P2 and Panasonic m4/3 45-200mm. The performance can be described in single word – WOW!!

Here are some of the details and observations

I used ISO-400 because the crowd was celebrating Holi in shades and I needed fast shutter speed to capture the action. The sun was bright so even the shades were well lit.
The Panasonic 45-200 is an extremely light lens, with E-P2 the combination is feather light.
I used VF-2 external EVF all through. I think it just gives you a better idea about the exposure than the LCD. Its fantastic!
I used burst mode for about 50% of the shoot. I took a total of about 125 pics.
All pics were RAW and processed in Lightroom 3.6 (minor adjustment for brightness, contrast, and vibrancy)
Panasonic 45-200 is extremely fast to focus. Not a single moment I felt I missed a shot because the lens was slow to focus. If I missed a shot then I was not ready.
The lens rotates clockwise to zoom in, opposite of all the Olympus lenses. Unfortunately this took me some time to adjust which contributed to some missed shots :-(.
I found the lens to be amazingly sharp at all focal lengths.
For image Stabilization, I turned on the 45-200’s MEGA OIS. I kept the E-P2’s in-body IS off. I feel the MEGA OIS is more reliable at long focal lengths than the in-body IS.

Here are the pics for you to enjoy

Hope you enjoyed!

Ciao!!

Random Trek (with a fellow photographer friend)

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:24:00 +0000

Well, that's what I like to call it, because if you ask her (my friend – Swati) she would say we went for bird watching! And the reason for difference of opinion? Well – We both had 35mm equivalent of 100-400 lens - me, with my reliable and fast ZD 50-200 and she with with her Canon EF 100-400. But the big difference was the bodies. I had my old E-330 and and she had EOS 7D! .

So the advantage she had was 2 fold. She could crank up her ISO and thus get a decent shot of birds without worrying about the noise, i.e. was able to shoot at fast shutter speed. Also her lens had IS (Image Stabilization), which ensured that she didn't have to worry about camera shake, especially when using longer focal length.

I, on the other hand, didn't have either of these. My E-30 had gone for repair, and my E-5 was in transit (both have in body IS). And I was not sure of the high ISO performance of my E-330 (which incidentally had max ISO rating of 1600). So i decided to play it safe by keeping the ISO around 800 and shooting at max aperture. Also, the morning was overcast which made it impossible to get fast shutter speed in shades with above settings.

Having said this, I think I made a blunder. I made a mistake of not trusting/testing the ISO limit of my E-330 . I was too afraid of getting too much noise. In the process, I ended up getting with quite a few shaky photograph pics of the birds (which i had to discard). As you may be aware E-330 doesn't have in body IS, and a 50-200 on it doesn't make the whole thing light. As a result, you have a lot of camera shake with lens fully extended, which could only have been negated by fast shutter speed. But for most shots in shade, I was not able to get fast enough shitter speed with ISO 800 (even with aperture wide open), ISO 1600 may have fared better . So in the hindsight, I did not make a very wise decision of not testing the ISO limits of E-330.

Bottom Line – A very wise advice from a very unwise man – If you have to make choice between shaky picture and a grainy one – always go for the latter, crank up the ISO as much as you can to get fast shutter speed. Remember – A grainy picture is a thousand times better than a shaky picture.

So we started our day with rendezvous at the regional engineering college (VNIT), Nagpur. This college is surrounded by marsh lands and lots of dense trees, like a mini forest. So its has lot of bird population of various kinds. I am not an avid bird watcher, I wouldn't know a crow from an owl. But the people who gathered there seemed to be very excited about spotting quite a few of them (they were refering to bird watchers guide and making notes). I tried to follow Swati’s lead and point and click wherever she was pointing and clicking, but unfortunately after a few shots, I realized that it was becoming tedious for me to get decent non-shaky pic. I was frustrated! So in order that I don't waste an opportunity which i had for some good photography, I decided to do some random clicking! and hence the name for this blog – Random Trek :-)

Here are some of the shots I took on that day! Hope you enjoy them.

At the entrance of the college a MiG-23 fighter plane. 5 frame HDR from single RAW (+2 to -2EV) in Photomatix Pro (Base RAW ISO 400, 1/80, f/5)
Another view of MiG-23. Same HDR processing as above.
My friend - the ever calm photographer – Swati
A lamp…
A Lantern! Kept finding interesting things to click once I stopped worrying about the birds! :-)
A loner! B&W processing in CS4. Added grain F/7.1, 1/2000, ISO 800
The National Cadet Corps – Girls battalion on march.
A Young bird watcher :-)
Serious bird watchers!
Labourers on their way to start another day at work
Yeah…. we are still in the wired world, still!
Only one decent bird catch. Not sure which is this. F/5, 1/2500, ISO 800.
An interesting art in front of one of the buildings…
And finally…I thought trash bin IS for the trash! no?

Nice, carefree trek… loved it!

Ciao!

Sinhagad Trek

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Well folks this is short blog. So be happy :-)

One day, we (Suni, I and my colleague at office) decided to go on a trek. There is an old historic fort not far from where we live, its called Sinhagad (or loosely translated Lion Fort). Situated on the Bhuleswar range of the Sahyadri Mountains in western India near Pune, its about 1300 meters above sea level. Finally 7 of us made it to the top!

I always prided myself to be a tireless trekker. However this mountain, although not arduous, gave run for my money. I had to take frequent 5 minute breather at regular intervals to make it through. In the end I made to the top of the mountain in about 1hr and 35 minutes. My son, Adi, fared much better – he made it in 1hr and 20 mins!!

We decide to take all precaution, so we had our sunglasses, trekking shoes, caps, 1.5 litres of water per person (I was carrying 5 bottles of water in the back pack!) and Snickers & chips (which I need not have bothered, as you will see below) .

Although this trek is pretty gruelling (it does test your stamina and resolve), its still a called – a “Gujju Trek”. Its an intersting story why its called a gujju trek. The Gujaratis in India are called gujjus. They are known for 2 things – one is for their Food and other for their stinginess. So whenever they travel, whether alone or in group (mostly in groups, so they can avoid any extra cost of travelling alone), they are known for getting everything packed from home and eating all the way through the entire journey (this way they avoid wasting any money in buying things on their way and they are always well fed throughout). This trek gets its name Gujju Trek, because you will find a small shanty hutment stalls every few hundred yards, which will serve you refreshments. So, if you choose to, you can have refreshments in all these stalls you want and by the time you reach to the stall, you wouldn't have broken a single drop of sweat and be as fresh as if you have never left home :-). So you would be well fed as a Gujju! hence the name Gujju Trek :-)

Now to interesting part - a surprise!– I decided NOT to carry a camera! Can you believe it!! But as they say, a camera always follows a photographer :-) (don’t ask me who says it – i have no clue!). My friend had got his PnS camera Canon Powershot D10. Its a lovely little camera, fantastic JPEG processing engine and weather proof to boot! I was pleasantly surprised by the image quality!. So this will be my first blog with a Non-Olympus camera :-)

Here are some pics after we reached the top.

Soon after we reached the summit
In front of the fort entrance
At the restaurant inside the fort. There are number of local eateries inside the fort. All of these are well kept and serve local maharashtrian food. The food includes Chaas (spicy buttermilk), Kanda and Alu Bhajji (Onion and Potato batter fried), thecha (hot chilly and garlic chutney), bhakri (local bread) and pitla (made from chick peas flour). Here is Suni getting Chaas. This is also a very good example of how NOT to take a photograph! Notice all the sun+shadows on subject’s face? Nothing can make a picture worse than that!
All of us waiting for Food to arrive. Hungry as hell (you can see from their faces)!!
There it is – the lovely Kanda bhajji and Alu bhajji!! Anu – this and the next few pictures are especially for you!!
More food!!
Yummy!!! finally the photographer gets his share!
Enjoying!!
Food done – now for bit of family pic!
Suni inside one of the empty hutment stalls having a kulfi (homemade ice-cream)!
Nice scenery!
All pics are taken in native JPG. Only Contrast, vibrancy and cropping adjusted in CS4
Shivaji was the king who captured this fort from the Moghuls. This is Shivaji’s bust.

A lovely way to spend your weekend!

Ciao!!

Ganapatiphule–The Konkan Coastal trip

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 07:18:00 +0000

I am back from another hiatus :-)

This is about our trip to a place called Ganapatiphule. We went on this trip on 2nd of June 2011. The place is basically a beach with few resorts built on it along the Konkan coast. It is about 380 kms from Pune takes about 9.5 hrs to reach with halts.

We had heard about this place through friends and wanted to go there. It is famous for its virgin beaches with very little humanity. Both my wife and I love such secluded beaches.
So we booked a room at the resort called The Blue Ocean Resort.

"Indian 5-star hotels which keep only paper [and not water jets] in their toilets seem to think that every Indian who walks through their luxurious doors automatically turns into a western asshole." – Remo Fernandes (Indian Musician)

The reason why I wrote the above sentence is because that statement fits Blue Ocean resort perfectly. The blue ocean resort called themselves 5-Star and did not have simple things taken care of to back their claim.

Here is 8 point failure of the blue ocean resort. Don't get me wrong though, people were courteous and place was clean, but then you cannot claim to be a 5-Star and not take care of basic stuff which I would expect from even a local hotel.

The Blue Ocean Failure

You can’t call yourself a 5-Star just by owning a sexy website
You do not have water jets (health faucet) in the toilet and there is no bath tub.
Chef cannot even cook Indian food let alone continental. He had simple formula. If its South Indian food then make it sweet. If its north Indian then make it hot. If its pasta it has to be loaded with tomato sauce and also sweet. And if you complain something is too sweet, a tobasco sauce is readily made available.
The helper boys and the guards had only 2 states – either they are completely invisible when you needed them or they are in you face when you didn't need them!
Most employees at the resort did not speak or understand simple English! Whenever you spoke to someone they will nod their heads and you think they understood, then you realized (after about an hour) that they hadn't!
The female receptionist would probably win a prize for best smile, but when it came to understanding hospitality she would struggle against a street urchin.
No Local cuisine!!! I cannot believe that a resort which is located along Konkan coast, which is famous for one of the best seafood in the country, did not have anything local to offer!
And lastly – The whole resort which has over 25 villas, seemed to have just one wine opener in their inventory!!!

Enough of the rant… lets move on :-). As I said, in spite of all this, the resort was not bad and the place is a definite beauty. We went just during the onset of monsoon, so it was even more breath-taking.

Day #1
On the way through Mahabaleshwar. Suni in front of strawberry stalls.
The Mahabaleshwar valley. Its breathtaking to say the least! This is HDR Processing. I didnt have ND filter, still got the details in HDR with single RAW.
This is the storm approaching on the valley
The Railway line cutting across fields. All these picture were taken while we were on the way to Ganapatiphule.
A lonely house in the middle of a storm. I love this. This is again HDR processing of single RAW converted into 5 JPGs with –2 to +2 EV stop
The Buddha statue at the hotel entrance . Despite all the issues have had with the hotel management, the resort itself was kept spic and span.
And it started pouring as soon as we stepped into our room :-) felt gloomy a bit, but then… I never went on a pouring vacation! :-)
The wet bridge in the resort.
The Coconut groves on the way to the resort beach. PP – Just increased contrast & saturation. Hue slightly to the blueish green
Suni at the beach with umbrella…good they provided one! :-) E-5…that crazy beautiful camera!
A lonely umbrella at the beach…
Day #2
Our breakfast chef… he made good continental scrambled eggs. We loved it. Suni and Adu loved the sunny-side-up!
Towards our villa (#21). The resort doesnt have rooms like a traditional hotel, instead it has over 25 one room villas. So there is privacy and more peace. We liked the setup.
The Buddha statue outside our villa.
Gapapatiphule is famous for the ganapati temple, on day 2 we visited this temple. Its located in a lovely place. I wish locals paid more attention to cleanliness, as they do in Goa, though.
Suni with her long lost brother :-)
View from the backside of the temple. It is a beautiful place… A storm was approaching from the sea when we were there…
The side view of the temple.
The camel rides on the beach outside the temple.
Adu and I with our new hats :-) Got cool hats at a very good price!
The hat seller. We had tough time making him smile. Do whatever you like, he had a perpetual glum look on his face. This must be his unique pic in his entire life! :-)
This guy was the hat seller’s partner. He, on the other hand was a cheerful lad :-)
On the way back from the temple we stopped at a eatery, which sold lovely “kanda bhajji” and “chai” :-) Dont try looking for the bhajji in the pic, Suni finished it off before I could take my camera out ;-)
The place had lots of local souvenir shops that sold articles made out of shells and other stuff. Suni at one such shop.
Day #3
We decided to visit Ratnagiri, which is about 35Kms from Ganapatiphule. Ratnagiri is famous for Cashew, Mangoes and seafood! At the Breakfast table, Suni and Adu…
On the way to Ratnagiri. Soaking in the natural beauty. It was slightly drizzling, which made the environment even more sexy.. My little photographer with mommy! :-)
The scenic view of villas…
A winding staircase near the sea.
Boats ready to weather the approaching storm…
In Ratnagiri. This is where we had our lunch. The served wonderful fish and prawns curry! Absolutely delicious!
Our next place of visit in Ratnagiri was the, almost forgotten, Thibaw Palace. I say “almost forgotten” because the palace is extremely well kept. However there are very few visitors. And the entry fee is Rs. 7. Which is about 7 cents!! If this was in any western country, then you can guarantee that it would be minting money like crazy. Such a beautiful piece of history, yet so few seem to know about it! Even we stumbled upon it accidently when we stopped to ask locals about places to visit! This picture tells the story about the palace. Just for your interest, $1 = Rs 50 So this palace was build at the cost of approximately $2500!! :-)…in the year 1906
The Majestic Thibaw Palace from the front
Another view of the palace.
The Canons which once adorned the palace.
The staircase leading to upper floor of the palace.
The symmetry inside the palace!
Wide angle view of the symmetry…
The view of inside the palace. The good caretaker started the fountain for my sake :-)
My little photographer in front of the fountain inside the palace.
Outside the palace. A local park.
In the Ratnagiri Market. As I said, Ratnagiri is famous for mangoes, even the Superman loves it!!
On the way back, a serene beach! Most beaches in and around Ganapatiphule are serene like this. Very little human habitation! My kind of place ;-)
A boat…
At the resort back again. Another Buddha statue at the beach side of the resort.
Patterns on the beach
Suni in contemplative mood!
A couple building castle in sand as their driver takes pics. A storm is approaching in the background.
Final Day
The cool dude all ready for the journey back home :-)
The journey back, through heavy rains…
We stopped over at a highway restaurant “Purna Bhrama” for lunch. This non descript restaurant served us the best seafood we had in 4 days. Simply Lovely!!
Hungry Adi and Suni….can wait to get their hands on the food!
The friendly proprietor of the restaurant. Please visit this restaurant on you way there. Its fantastic!
Continuing the journey… A woman carrying water. Taken from the moving car. I love the bloody E-5!
An young girl pumping water from the hand pump
On the Mahabaleshwar valley. The visibility was about 10 meters in rain and dense fog. We were literally crawling at about 15 kmph!
A view of Mahabaleshwar valley on the way back.

This was indeed a memorable trip. A must visit place!!

Ciao!!

Holi (festival of colors)–A photo blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 08:15:00 +0000

Holi is a spring religious festival celebrated by Hindus. its actually a 2 day festival. Bonfires are lit the on the eve of the festival, also known as Holika Dahan (burning of Holika, a demon in Hindu mythology) or Chhoti Holi (little Holi). The main day, Holi (Rang Panchami), also known as Dhuli Vandana in Sanskrit, is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other.

Ever since I took up digital photography (about 4 years ago), I always wanted to capture the holi festival because of its most colorful atmosphere. Also I had seen a very nice article on Pop Photography magazine, where the guy had used Canon 5D mk II to capture holi. I was impressed by a few thing

His ability to bring out the mood of the festival
The way the colors played out in the pictures
His gear – which allowed him to really go close to the the action

I always wanted to shoot Holi like that, I had very good body E-30 and great weather sealed lenses. However my body did not have weather sealing. I purchased Kata rain cover, but still it’s a little cumbersome to use for extended period, especially when you have change settings. I tried doing it last year, but was too scared to go too close to action because everything is so unpredictable and also the rain cover put me off.

This year I was prepared. I had purchased E-5 and I had the good weather sealed ZD lenses. So I knew I will be able to capture the holi as I wanted it.

I tried to capture the full gamut of the holi celebration, the holi eve, which Holika dahan and the rang panchami the other day. You be the judge if I was successful.

	Women performing pooja around the bonfire.

	Bonfire burning bright! Women go around bonfire pouring water and chanting a prayer. Its supposed to bring….well, no idea what its supposed to bring. Something good obviously!

	The decked up ladies for the pooja. They are pretty, aren't they?

	The bigger group!

	The colorful family!

	Next day morning… Children cant wait to fill their “pichkaris” (water guns) with colorful water!

	She was shivering like there is no tomorrow, and changed her clothes only about 20 times. but these small details didn’t stop her from doing anything she wanted that day

	The girls seems to be having a blast!

	My favourite in the groovy mood!!!

	The three musketeers… The fast friends… Aayush, Adu and Laasya…

	Always in the mood!! Adu at his best….

	Children getting their act together….holi the way it should be

	Can you recognize any them? No? neither can I… But I can assure you, at least 3 of them are in the pics above

	Men being men! oblivious of the surroundings

	Is there still some left?!

	You bet! Girls haven't finished yet

	Synchro!!!

	As they say….there is nobody to shoot the shooter….

	But Spare a thought for my E-5. I had to give her a shower…

My Gear

Camera Body	Olympus E-5
Lens	Zuiko Digital 14-54 f/2.8-3.5
Grip	HLD-4 vertical power grip
Verdict	Absolutely fantastic weather sealing. Amazingly fast and accurate AF acquisition. Most daylight photos above are shot in ISO 400 because I wanted faster shutter than normal to freeze certain action. Color rendition is very true. RAW development in Adobe Photoshop CS4 Camera RAW after converting to DNG.

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed shooting it

Ciao!!

Karmazari Wildlife Resort

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:04:00 +0000

Karmazari – Its lies smack in the middle of India, a part of Pench National Park (http://www.pench.net/). A protected wildlife area in central India. It is one of the few places in the world where you can still see tigers.

During the week of 30th Oct to 05th Nov 2010 we were in Nagpur for the Diwali. We (My Wife Suni, son Adu and I) and our friend (Swati, who is also an avid bird watcher and wildlife photographer) decided to go to on a wildlife safari in the Karmazari wildlife resort. We chose Karmazari because it is one of the closest wildlife resort around Nagpur. We were warned well before by the many people that spotting a tiger in Karmazari area is not guaranteed and you will be really lucky if you could spot one.

But since spotting tiger was not the only attraction we had in mind (which was only emphasized at the end of our trip), we decided to book a day at the Baaz resort (http://www.baazjungleresort.com/) and go on a safari tour (organized by the resort).

Although the resort is just 90Kms from Nagpur, and we had decided to do a day trip, we still booked a day at the resort guest house because we were advised that the safari will be a tiring experience. And it sure was very good advise. For we were tired after the morning safari and a couple of hours of rest and lunch rejuvenated us before next safari . We had booked 2 safaris, one in the morning and another in the afternoon.

On 2nd of Nov 2010, we packed our sandwiches and tea and left out friends home quite early in the morning @ 4AM.

A little bit about my gear here. I would have loved to have my E-30 but it was out of commission since my trip to Mauritius. It had been repaired but had not reached me from US. And I hadn’t yet bought my E-5. So I was left with my 2 cameras neither of which was suited for wildlife photography.

Cameras

E-P2 – This is not a good choice for wildlife because for photographing moving animals and and birds hidden in trees you need a precise AF and and a very fast AF. This camera offers none. But still a trusty companion because of the in body IS and good metering.
E-330. I took this because I knew attaching a big lens like 50-200 on E-P2 can be a challenge. However it is not suited for wildlife because even when the vehicle stops there are slight jerks which you get because someone is moving (and we had 3 kids, need I say more!). E-330 doesn't have in body IS. E-330 has bad metering system which tends to over-expose quickly which you need to be careful of.

Lenses

12-60 SWD for general purpose and wide angle shots
50-200 SWD for telephoto
EC-14 with 50-200 for greater reach.

My Friend had Canon 7D and 100-400 to go with it. Boy!! was I envious of her!! :-) It was fast to focus and good burst rate which neither of my cameras could match.

Coming back to where I was….

The road towards the Karmazari is not good though out the entire stretch. You will find patches of good road and patches of very bad road. So it took us about 2.5 hours to cover a distance of 90 kms and we reached the Baaz resort @ 6:40AM. Our morning safari was supposed to start @ 7AM.

Just at we reached the resort I took this photo of the morning mist in the pond inside the jungle, just outside the Baaz resort. Its a beautiful feeling to be just one with nature.


Morning mist surrounding the tree	Guard of Forest Rangers on duty at the entrance of the Jungle.

We did not even take our things out of the car, we just quickly used the restroom of our guesthouse and dumped all our bags directly in our safari vehicle which was waiting for us and we are on our way.

One thing I must tell you, when you go on a safari like this, you are simply in awe of the nature around you. You feel blessed that you can be part of it and you want to take in everything it has to offer.

At the entrance of the jungle safari, you had to make an entry and pay the fees for jungle entrance. At any point in time only 50 vehicles can will be allowed and not all on same routes. So if there are over 50 then you will have to wait.

Swati – Our friend, philosopher and guide. Getting the necessary paperwork done.
We wouldn’t have gone had she been not there.

An avid photographer herself, she is also deeply interested in bird watching. She is probably a member of almost all the local bird watching clubs :-) she loves photographing birds.

You can see some of her work here

Once Swati got the paperwork done we were on our way.

Shot just inside the jungle. The beautiful morning mist.
Jungle is surrounded by the villages, so its inevitable that there will be encroachments from both man and animals. The toughest task that the forest officials face is to educate the villagers on how important it is for them to maintain the balance and also controlling them when necessary.

As we moved along, we had a guide in our vehicle who was very friendly. He gave us a lot of insight on the jungle life.


Our Guide. They have a tough job. Most of them are poor and are locals. Most of them do it mainly because they love being where they are.	Our driver.

Kids in the safari vehicle. They thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience!
These safari vehicles are mostly used vehicles donated by the army and then modified.

The morning sun brings everybody out for breakfast, and if you are unlucky, you could be someone’s breakfast. :-)

A bare tree inside the jungle.


Couple of deer roaming around.	And this guy is busy sucking the morning nectar...

Morning Reflections in the pond. This is where tigers come to quench their thirst. We waited, waited and waited some more….not so lucky this time :-)

Long winding road in the jungle.
Nearby villagers are given access to designated areas in the jungle to collect dead wood for their homes which they use as fuel.
The fence that you see is used to hold weed grass from spreading to other parts of the jungle.

Villagers are allowed to gather wood from dead trees and fallen branches. But they are not allowed to touch anything else.

After roaming around for over 2 hours we came to a rest area where we had our breakfast of yummy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We also had nice paratha with pickle!

Kids enjoying the welcome break with a sandwich and a drink.

Suni and Swati being the perfect moms they are…

As soon as we finished the breakfast we were on our way back to the guest house..

We saw monkeys on the way back. Can you spot – A pilot, a co-pilot, passengers and a member of a crew? :-)

A wild fox lurking in the shadows…

When we reached the guest house (another 2.5 hr ride), we were hungry again. So we ordered our lunch (of chicken curry, roti (Indian bread), daal tadka and rice -- yummy!!) and again I and my friend went on shooting spree, this time the birds and butterflies.

That’s the entrance to the Baaz resort.

The way to our guest house was nice with a bridge and an old style lamp…Loved the surroundings!


A lovely butterfly!	Well, I wont lie, that's actually a moth! :-)

This is my beauty….


A pretty bird perched on the stump…	And a beautiful wild grass…

After we had our lunches, we were ready for one more safari. This time a different route than what we took last time because we wanted to increase our chances of spotting a tiger. But by this time we weren’t thinking too much of the tiger, if we spot it, it would only be a bonus. We were completely enjoying the safari for all its worth!

Until this time I had my 50-200 (which I was mostly using to shoot) was on my E-330 and 12-60 was on my E-P2. But for the afternoon/evening ride I switched them because I knew I would still be shooting telephoto and I will also need the in body IS as the light inside the jungle was fading fast.

On our second ride we saw quite a few characters…


The flycatcher..	This one is a hider, kept climbing up and up when I was trying to shoot it…


This guy wouldn't pose for the photographer…	This guy looks like he is heading back home after a long day…


The colorful one…Swati would know what it is :-)	Sambar deer…looking done for the day…

…And this is closest we came to seeing a tiger. These are fresh paw marks made by the tiger. Guide told us that these no more than 12 hrs old. So he was here somewhere.
You can judge the size of the tiger which did it by the height of these marks. They are well over 7ft….

This is Eurasian something-or-the-other ;-) Swati will surely know…
It was so well camouflaged that I couldn't spot it even after the guide pointed to me 3 times. Guide was trained to spot these things and he immediately spotted it.

This is the “ghost tree” – It changes colour 3 times a year and hence the name…

Long winding road back to the guest house…

Sunset in the jungle – Sayonara….

The jungle safari was one of a kind experience for me. It is one of the few things I will surely cherish in my life. We did not spot a single tiger, but that fact just became an insignificant statistic in the face of the vast and immeasurable beauty that we witnessed. The experience was as exhilarating as it was an eye-opener. Being in a city and doing 9 to 6 job, we don’t realize what’s out there and the how minor and unimportant we and our lives really are. It experiences like these that bring you closer to nature and make you think about your own existence.

“We live because of the jungle out there”

CIAO

In Love with E-P2 again…

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:39:00 +0000

(…thanks to Panasonic Lumix 45-200 f/4-5.6!)

I bought E-P2 in Dec-2009 thinking that I will have the same advantages of E-30 (my main DSLR at that time) with lot less weight. However I was not completely right in my expectations and here are the reasons why;

The Kit lens (14-42) was extremely slow in focusing, and in low light it pretty much gave up. I assumed that all Oly m4/3 lenses will be like that so never bought another one.
Recently I was at a safari and since I didn't have a DSLR (E-30 was out of commission), I relied on E-P2 to provide me the same service. But attaching 50-200 SWD on E-P2 is not same as attaching it on E-30. So it was not a very good experience to say the least. It was oddly bulky and hard to handle. Again I had the issue with slow focusing (on E-30, the 50-200 is pretty fast).
The in Body IS is not as effective in E-P2 as it is in E-30 or E-5. Because of the small size the the camera shake is lot more pronounced than in E-30 or E-5, when bigger lenses (especially 4/3 lenses)are attached.
Unreliable focusing, especially in low light, with kit lens and other 4/3 lenses

As a result my E-P2 was relegated to some dark corner in my cupboard….until…

Until I bought the Panasonic Lumix 45-200 f/4.0-5.6. Here is what I found it to be.

Extremely light weight, its like a feather in hand - you can hardly feel it.
Amazingly fast internal focusing AF, even in low-light.
Extremely reliable AF. With my 14-42, I can never be sure if it has really focused where I want it to, even when the camera has beeped. With Lumix 45-200, its fantastic experience to see it focus reliably without any effort.
Fantastic image quality. Beats my 14-42 in image quality definitely, which shows the optics used are far superior to Oly 14-42.
Fantastic MEGA OIS performance. In all the (un-scientific) tests I have done in low light using the MEGA OIS and E-P2 in body IS, I found that up until 1/15s both the IS perform well. However the MEGA OIS starts gaining advantage anything below 1/15s. Infact I could get reasonably sharp images even @ 1/1.6 with MEGA OIS where the in body IS image was completely unusable.
Lastly the cost – @ $250 i think its a steal when you see how it performs.

Here are some sample images which I took from the lens

ISO-2000, 1/1600, f/4.9 115mm. About 30% Cropped
Was trying to capture pigeons in flight so was using high ISO for fast shutter.

ISO-200, 1/40, f/5.6 200mm about 20% cropped.
Only Contrast adjusted in CS4. I love the clarity

ISO-200, 1/25, f/5.6 200mm No CROP.
Adjusted contrast in CS4. Lovely clarity at full ZOOM

ISO-1600, 1/25, f/4, 45mm No CROP.
Shot in available kitchen light
Adjusted contrast and vibrancy in CS4. Clarity is brilliant @ lowest end of the barrel as well!!

ISO-1600, 1/6, f/4.5, 84mm No CROP. SOOC. Soft Focus Art filter.
Shot under tungsten light in a room. Very very reliable focusing and amazing MEGA OIS

The Lens….

E-P2 with the lens…Looks big, but is light as a feather….

All I can say is that, this lens has made me fall in love with E-P2 all over again. In fact so much so, that I have now ordered LUMIX 100-300 f/4-5.6 :-)

Hope you enjoyed the pics!

CIAO!!

Visit to the winery – Chateau Indage, Narayangaon India

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:53:00 +0000

Note: I meant to write this blog a long time ago, but for some reason I kept postponing it. I had it saved in my draft so thought about posting it now!

Not many people know that India has a great wine making tradition. And many wineries are located in, near and around Nasik, which is a fertile belt ideal for growing grapes. One such winery in Chateau Indage (formerly Champagne Indage).

Chateau Indage was established in the year 1982 after collaboration with Champagne Technologies of France. Since then this winery has been producing exquisite wines for both local and international consumption.

We went there on 2nd October 2010 - a dry day! :-(
A dry day in India is a day when no liquor is sold or served and all liquor shops are closed. So our plan to have a nice afternoon lunch while sipping Chardonnay was crushed :-(

However the proprietor was very kind to us and he offered to sell us the wine with a condition that we don’t open the bottle at his premises :-) - to say the least. I was over the moon!! :-)

So we purchased 6 bottles of the finest wines the winery could offer.

The vineyard/winery had a nice restaurant where they served us a very nice lunch

	The IVY Restaurant @ the winery
	Adu all set for the lunch :-) Lovely cuisine!
	Something of interest to me :-)
	The restaurant from outside…
	The vineyard. Its a beautiful place!
	The Winery.
	The main gate, leading to the vineyard and winery. The Winery also has a guesthouse where you can book rooms and stay. You will be given a tour of wine making process and during the harvest period, they say, you can actually crush the grapes as well. Hmmmm… Sounds interesting. I will see if I can go then! :-)
	On the way to the winery, a colorful building! :-)
	On the way from back from Narayangaon, we took a halt at the place called Avasari Ghat. It had a nice trekking trail which went right inside the forest. Quite Amazing!! We halted here for few minutes. i will go there for a trek next time!

I will be back there soon!

All pics taken using Olympus E-330 and 25mm pancake. E-330 has this irritating quirk of overexposing and washing out longer wavelength colors (i.e. yellow, orange and reds). I did a mild HDR processing on the single RAW exposure to get the colors and exposure back.

I never had much faith in 25mm pancake before, but on E-300 its a perfect fit as it makes the system small and easy to carry.

CIAO

Olympus E-5 – First Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:47:00 +0000

Finally – I got my E-5 and how!

As many of you know, my E-30 is out of commission since my trip to Mauritius. The reason for that being I dropped during one of the boat rides (well, not in the water but inside the boat). I sent it to Olympus America (thank God I had taken 2 year extended warranty!) and they have repaired it. But the trouble is, its still with one of my friends who is going to get it for me. It should be with me sometime next week.

In the meantime, I leaned that another friend of mine is coming down to India. So I ordered E-5 and asked him to get it for me. Last Thursday, on my official trip to Hyderabad, I collected the camera from him :-)

Boy! was I glad to hold it! It was like holding my girl friend for the first time, that first touch, the first caress, the first…ok ok I know I am getting carried away.. ;-)

My first thought when I un-wrapped E-5– Man! this is a TANK! – I got the same absolutely SOLID and Rugged feeling that you get when you hold a ROCK. Just amazing build quality.

I had taken my charged spare BLM-1 battery and the trusty 12-60 with me. I slowly took it out of the wraps and inserted the battery and put the lens on. In the first few shots I could see that the performance was better than E-30 especially in low light. Blazingly fast and accurate AF.

I was doing all this in my office cubicle so didn’t have time to take any serious pics. But that 10 minute test was enough to make me realize that its a totally different beast I am dealing with, not E-30, not E-P2 something totally different and I was loving it!

I couldn’t wait to go back to my room and do a few test shots. In the evening I when I went back to the room, I did just that…

	A self shot. Very fast and accurate AF. Good Auto WB and a fantastic metering! Absolutely Lovely. I think the IS has also improved by a huge measure.
	The Dramatic filter
	Dramatic tone – I think I am in love with it! :-)
	Hyderabad Campus in the morning
	…and @ night!
	Amazing metering ! Just about blown me away…

Here are a few things I absolutely Love about E-5

Metering - A huge improvement over E-30. Metering was one of things I thought E-30 did not do best. As a result I had to a lot of adjustment to exposure and contrast in Photoshop. E-5 has solved this issue. Its amazingly accurate and also very true. Some people say there is highlight clipping., well I don't care if there is one. I would rather have my highlight clipped than a badly exposed pic, thank you!
Auto WB - A definite improvement over E-30 and E-P2. A very accurate colour temperature with auto WB. I used to adjust WB a lot in PP, now I don't think I need to.
IS - Just seems a little better than the E-30, but need to do a more thorough comparison as i could take sharp pics with upto 1/5s using 14-54 and 12-60.
The Screen - big improvement over E-30 and E-P2
ISO 1600 performance - Much better than E-P2 and huge improvement over E-30
ISO 3200 - Much more usable than E-P2
Low light AF acquisition - Much Much better than E-30 and very accurate even with slow lenses like 70-300.
Straight Out of Camera (SOOC) JPGs - Amazing SOOC image quality, I could never get one from E-30. E-P2 did do a better job, but E-5 absolutely takes the cake.
Color Fidelity - In low light, both E-30 and E-P2 messed up with colors, especially reds. E-5 has amazing color fidelity. In good light its even better,
Art Filters - Ability to apply filter in A/S/M modes. I never use art filters in E-30 or E-P2 as I don't like camera controlling the whole picture taking process. This for me a big improvement.
Live View - Much better LV and faster CDAF (Contrast Detection Auto Focus). LV in E-30 is barely usable. This is cool. You can also do PDAF (Phase Detection Auto Focus) in LV.

Lastly, the dramatic tone filter - I think I am in love with it :-)

Few tests below– I hope you will enjoy!

The Durga Pooja and the AMAZING 35-100

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 05:58:00 +0000

This is festival season in India, and what better place to test my 35-100 than the stage performances of beautiful dancers. This festival is called “Durga Pooja” in which the Hindus worship Goddess Durga (who symbolizes destroyer of evil).
Unfortunately my beautiful and fast E-30 is out of commission right now, but had my trusty, but slooooooooooooowwwwww E-P2.

This experience taught me 2 things
1. Why E-3/E-30 is an absolute essential for this kind of photography
2. Why 35-100 is best in business

E-P2 - The so called "High Speed Imager AF" or CD AF is not really high speed nor is it accurate. I had over 50% AF missed result in the entire shoot. It was frustrating to see the moment and miss it again and again. It has never happened to me with E-30.
However, the frustration with E-P2 was more than compensated by F/2 35-100. This lens is just AMAZING!! I don’t have words to praise it enough.

Having berated E-P2 so much, I must say that under normal lighting condition (eg. Landscape photography) the AF performs quite well. And the IQ is definitely one of the strong points. All pics have been shot between ISO 800 and ISO 1600. The IQ was very very good, although I applied minimum NR using Noiseware, I feel the IQ would have looked cool even without it.

I wanted to share this experience because I was extremely happy with my investment in 35-100. I LOVE IT!!

Here are some of the pics

One more thing I learnt from this experience was that how respectful people become when they see you walking with 35-100 on any camera :-D :-D

I hope you will enjoy the slide show

The Mauritius Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 07:50:00 +0000

Recently Suni, Adu and I went to Mauritius. I was very excited because of the sheer photography opportunity it presented. And I was not disappointed. Mauritius is Landscape photographers heaven.

But to say that Mauritius trip was eventful was an understatement! But let me tell you what I carried and why, it may interest some of you guys.

1	E-30	My Main Camera.
2	E-330	Camera for Suni
3	E-P2	My Backup Camera (and boy was this of help!!!)
4	12-60	Primary Lens walkabout lens to go on my E-P2
5	7-14	Wide angle for landscape lens for E-30
6	14-54	Primary walkabout lens for E-330
7	35-100	Lens for special occasions,

So this was my gear as far as lens and cameras go. Apart from this I had other usual stuff like extra batteries, extra SD and CF cards, flash, diffusers, tripod (which I never used).

The walkabout lenses need to have 2 characteristics, first they should provide decent range in wide and telephot and second they should be fast enough in terms of focusing as well as aperture and there is not better lens the ZD 12-60 and in close second comes 14-54 both excellent and both very good.

Walkabout lenses are handy for quick shots like these

For wide-angle I specially ordered 7-14 from US. I knew I would be going to some exotic place this July, so I knew I needed a wide angle and 7-14 did not disappoint. Lovely lens.

The wide-angle is used for photos like these.

The Booking

We booked out trip through Kuoni Travels which is now SOTC. The experience was pretty cool. No hassles no surprises and no worries. We received the air tickets, insurance, hotel vouchers vi email. We were explained about the itinerary by the rep and was told that we will get more info on arrival. We had taken USD 1000 in cash for the trip. The Trip (4 nights Lodging, breakfast and 3 nights dinner, taxi to-from airport and sightseeing cab for 3 days) cost us Rs 108,000.00 for 3 of us.

Days #1 – The Landing

We landed in Mauritius @ around 7AM in the morning. @ Plaisance airport The immigration was a jiffy and smooth. Indians have no problems there. Its visa on arrival for us (a few countries who have this for Indians) so it cant have been better. We came out @ around 8ish after exchanging the USDs (always exchange in @ Airport, you will get best rates). The taxi with our name was waiting for us. The driver was helpful and very informative.

We arrived at the hotel @ around 9:30AM and were quickly checked in. The Casuarina Resort & Spa was a fantastic sight. It is situated in Trou aux Biches - North West Coast At 5 kms from Grand Bay and abt 1:15 hr from Plaisance Airport, with white sandy beach along the blue lagoon across a secondary road.

First day was entirely upto us. So after getting refreshed in the hotel we went to the beach. I shot a few pic obviously.

Casuarina Entrance

After roaming on the beach for couple of hours. We took boat out to sea to watch some marine life. It was a nice experience…

Some good looking creature above the water too! :-)

Adu went snorkeling! :-)

Day #2 – Parasailing and Ile aux Cerfs island tour

The Cab came for us @ around 9AM on Day-2. The night before the tour company person had left us a note on the time of pickup. The first stop was the parasailing @ a beach near-by (forgot the name of the beach). The parasailing experience was extremely exhilarating! They also have scuba scooter. We didn't take it tough.

On the way we met some things interesting….

The Ile aux Cerfs was a beautiful island.

Some pretty creatures on the beach

Here is where my E-30 broke down :-(

Last pic from my E-30

UPDATE: My E-30 has since been repaired by Oly. THANK GOD I had an 2year extended warranty for pro DSLR. So didn't have to pay a penny!

Day #3 – Submarine ride, Botanical Garden, Fort Adelaide and Port Louis market

The previous evening we had asked our guide to book our tickets for the submarine ride. It cost us around 7000 Mauritian rupees for 3 of us.

The Submarine ride was unique… Loved the creatures under the sea, but couldn’t get pics because of thick glass and also the very very low light. Here are some samples.

On the way to Submarine

Inside the submarine

Artificial reef under water…

Another submarine…

The Bubbles…

Next stop was Botanical Garden. its a lovely place! Pictures speak for themselves I believe!

The beautiful lady was our guide Gul :-) very helpful

The Fort Adelaide (aka La Citadelle) was cool, calm place. With a lot of opportunities for panoramic landscapes. \

Named after the Queen Adelaide, the fort has been built between 1834 and 1840, under the direction of William IV.

At 240 ft. above sea level, Fort Adelaide, also known as 'La Citadelle' has fulfilled the strategic purpose of guarding the harbor against enemy attacks and fires that broke in the city.

On the way back we saw the Church of St Marie which was

Next Stop was Port Louis Market

A Wonderful colorful Place :-)

A Road side vendor

Colorful Beads!

Some Wood art work

and the ubiquitous DODO :-)

Day #04 – Visit to Model Ship building factory (Curepipe), Trou aux Cerf dormant volcano crater, Ganga Talao (Grand Bassin), Chameral waterfall

Day 4 began with a visit to the Ship building factory, where they explained us how the models are made. It was very interesting. Apart from model ships, they had other arts as well as you will see below.

On the way to ship building factory

Model Ship

The Titanic

Other crafts

Trou aux Cerfs Volcano and the view of Curepipe town from above

View from the Crater Edge

Volcano

Ganga talao (Lake Ganga) aka Grand Bassin, it is place of Hindu religious deities. Very Nicely maintained and very picturesque.

I will again let the pictures do the talking

Mangal Mahadev - Shiva Statue 108 ft.

Another Lord Shiva

Hanuman

Ganapati and Laxmi

The Chamarel Waterfall and 7 coloured Earth. It was raining like crazy, luckily I had the rain cover to pull it off.

Chamerel Waterfall

Chamerel 7 colored Earth

Day #05 – Back to India, but not before one more visit to the beaches

Some beautiful faces tooo…

The lonely beaches

And some fun!

At the airport for departure to India.

I feel if you guys get a chance, you must visit the place. Its lovely, wonderful, ever scene breathtaking.

CIAO

A DOZEN pictures with a story to tell…

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:07:00 +0000

I have been quite busy lately with my office work, and have really not done too much of photography. I hope to change it this month though. Although I don't see my office pressure easing until next month :-(

In the meantime, as I am idling on a Sunday morning, I collected these photographs to showcase on this blog. The all have a short story to tell, some interesting…some not so….

I hope my readers will appreciate…

Pic#1: The Comic Book scene - This was taken from the kitchen window of my apartment in Pune. It was about 7:30 PM in the evening, and we were preparing dinner for our guests when I noticed that the night sky had become strange mixture of blue, purple, orange, grey and black! It looked something straight out of comic book night scene drawing! I was amazed by the tricks nature can play. It only strengthens my belief that nothing we imagine is not there in nature!

Tech Info: E-P2 F/4.5 1/2 secs handheld against the window grill for support. Kit lens 14-42. ISO-200

Pic#2 : Inside Infosys: This was taken inside the Infosys campus. Nothing extraordinary about the picture itself. However the story is interesting. In the Pune Infy campus in phase II, we have nice landscaping which they maintain diligently. You will see the 10 to 15 workers toiling over it all day long 7 days a week! When I joined Infy i used to think that they were just here for sometime and will go away once their job is done, but I was soooo wrong! They have been at it all of the 7 years I have spent in Infy and results are there to be seen – a pretty and well maintained landscape. Only minus point is, its hard to see a landscape in Infy without a laborer or 2 working on it. They have become inseparable part of the landscape itself! :-)

Tech Info: E-P2 F/2,8 1/250s pancake 25mm ISO-200

Pics #3 & #4 ; The other side of a flower: This is interesting, at least to me…I have always seen people photographing flowers from front/top. While looking al the flowers, you will see that back/bottom part is lot more interesting than most people would imagine. I also read in a book by a photographer who used unusual yet simple techniques to get pictures that get noticed. I tried to emulate his preaching in my own modest way. I was happy with the result :-)

Tech Info: #3 – ISO-800 indoors with side lighting from an open window F/3.4 1/50 ZD 50-200mm hand held. #4 – ISO-200 against the window f/5 50-200mm @ 1/320 hand held

Pic #5 : My Valentine: This was Valentines day :-). My wife gave me flowers and just the previous day I had bought a nice looking Berretta!!! Well, not the real one, its actually a cigarette lighter :-) but looks real enough! I couldn’t resist the temptation to shoot the clichéd “gun with flowers” scene! I loved the outcome. The streak of water was not intentional as the flowers were straight out of the vase. But they render a sinister yet sexy look to the scene, I feel :-)

Tech Info: E-P2 Indoor with light from the window. ISO-1600 f/3.5 @1/80 handheld

Pic #6 : The Movie Scene: The classic movie scene…or that's what I call it. :-) I saw this from my balcony one day and literally scampered for my camera. As you would probably know, once the sun is ready to set, it really goes down pretty quickly and it was, I remember, a race against time for me to get the camera and set it up quickly to get a few shots. There are couple of things I like about this pic (A) the sun looks like a BIG RED ball!! It was a fantastic site and (B) The electric tower in the fore ground. Together they provide a story of sun setting in the urban landscape, which, I felt, made a perfect picture.

Tech Info:E-30 f/3.5 on 50-200mm @ 1/800. This was one of the few instances I used the full Manual mode so that I can get the silhouette right.

Pic #7 : For your EYES only: This is my best candid so far. I had my pictures on display in an exhibition @ St. Joseph’s Art Fair. The stall next to mine was selling hand made soaps. And the owner of the stall was a girl who had one of the prettiest eyes I have ever seen !! I had my camera, as always, and I desperately wanted to shoot her (I mean take pictures of her eyes especially). So I sat down in my stall facing her and my camera on my lap with the Live View on. So nobody, including the girl, could tell that I was actually looking at her through my camera, because I was in upright position looking down at my camera screen. She was eating her lunch facing in my direction. I waited and waited for her to look in my direction so that I can get her eyes. Finally the moment came! I clicked at the absolutely the right moment and Voila! If you look at the picture, it looks as if she is deliberately staring at the camera with those beautiful eyes. But the fact is, I was at lease 20 feet away with my lens fully zoomed to 54mm (108mm of 35 mm equivalent) and the picture is cropped at least 30%, I was extremely happy with the live view. However, I had the focus locked on her all the while as I watched her, so there was no hunting by the cam when I released the shutter! The whole process took about 7 to 10 minutes, mostly the waiting time :-)

Tech Info: E-30 14-54mm, f/3.5 @ 1/40 with camera resting on my lap. ISO-800 indoors under hall lights, WB auto.

Pic #8 – The Perfect Storm: This was 19th Dec 2009. The day NJ was battered by one of the fiercest storm the state had ever seen. The storm left behind over 2 ft of snow in less than 18 hrs. The next day was completely white everything covered in the whitest snow I have ever seen. But the thing that fascinated me was the storm itself. It so intense that you could here the sound almost like in the movies. I was trying to take the mood of the storm, but couldn’t get it right with normal method of picture taking. I tried fast shutter, slow shutter different WB setting. But could not get one right. Finally I decided to do one trick I had never tried before – Zooming the lens as soon as the shutter is released. So I held the camera tightly in my had with my elbows tucked in and released the shutter and at the same time Zoomed the lens in. The result was the mood of the perfect storm as I saw it. I loved the outcome.

Tech Spec: E-P2 f/4.5 @ 1/2 sec. ISO 800

Pic #9 – Adi’s Eyes: I believe, my 6 year old son Adu has beautiful eyes. Well, I may be biased since he is my son, but I wanted to capture his naughty, smiling eyes which will tell us what's going on in his mind :-). I made him sit in front of our bedroom window and tried to catch his eyes in the camera. However I realized that his mouth and nose were too distracting (not that they are bad!!) and the message I wanted to convey was getting lost in them. In order to accentuate his eyes, I had to figure out how to shoot his eyes and eyes alone without having him cover his mouth and nose! I tried to use a towel as a veil but it didn’t work. I then noticed that he was fiddling with a straw which is shaped like a Japanese fan (courtesy, neighbor hood restaurant!). I asked him to hold it in front of his eyes and tried a few shots. The first few were blurred eyes because the fan was too far from his mouth and he was not smiling too (I had to use large aperture). This one was perfect for my liking! Smiling eyes seem to tell you about some naughty thoughts going on in his mind!

Tech Info: E-P2 25mm f/4 ISO-400 1/200

Pic #10 – I Love India: Another Candid! On the Indian republic day of 2010, I wanted to capture some of the essence of how Indians celebrate the republic day. After shooting the streets we went to a mall to eat at the McDonalds in Nerul, New Bombay. I was intrigued by the tattoo on the cheeks of this pretty lady. I wanted to shoot her, but as she was sitting in the next table, it was too close for me without making it obvious. So I hid placed my camera on the table and and waited for the right moment. When she at her most natural, I clicked. I loved the expression on her face…those beautiful eyes and luscious lips…I loved the outcome :-)

Tech Info: E-P2, ISO-2000, f/5.6 @ 1/8sec 42mm

Pic #11 – The Red Indian: This is in Plymouth plantation site. The native Indians live in their natural habitat in the Plymouth Plantation. I loved this guy, who was the chief its rude to call him that though!), with his cool head gear! I wanted to capture his expression as he was explaining us more about their lifestyle to our group. I waited and waited but and finally he turned toward me and I clicked :-) thanks to E-30 and 12-60mm the focusing speed was no problem at all! I love the way he carries himself! :-)

Tech Info: E-30, 12:60mm @ 55mm, f/4 @ 1/320s

Pic #12 – The Glowing Moon: Suni and were standing outside on our balcony one night and we noticed that the moon had this strange lovely glow around it. I was quite intrigued by it and I had to shoot it! I was afraid that the surreal glow would not be captured in the image. but was happy to see that it came out exactly as I saw it!

Tech Info: E-30 50-200mm @ 200mm, f/3.5 @ 1/50s

The Pot Sellers – A story in pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:20:00 +0000

On my way to office every day, I see everyday these pot sellers selling pots on the roadside. I am as fascinated by the the colorful pots as wither arrangements. Every evening I would vow that I will comeback during the weekend to shoot them and promptly forget or was so lazy that I didn't move out of my house.

Last weekend I decided, that come what may, I will go and shoot them. The sight is too beautiful to miss even for a lazy person like me.

I loath getting out of the house early in the mornings (although I know its the best time for photography). So by the time I was at the Pot Sellers, it was 1PM in the afternoon. And the afternoon sun in India means directly above head casting darkest shadows. Yes, I knew, if I didn't go that day then I would not go ever, I am that lazy!

I packed my gear – a simple one – E-30 with 14-54. Why 14-54? and not 12-60 for instance? No reason what-so-ever. I just felt like taking 14-54 although 12-60 is my favored! :-)

I had the circular polarizer on as well, in order to mellow the harsh sun. I thought of taking Cokin ND GRAD filters. But I didn't want myself to be bogged with trying to change filters at Pot Seller’s place when there may be customers around. Also I knew that I wont be shooting too many bright sky shots.

So I was all set with the gear.

We first went to this place. I loved the beautiful patterns and the colors depicted.

This was owned by one Dilip Kumar (below). A native from a small village in Bihar, he and his brother are work fulltime as wandering pot sellers. They go from city to city to sell pots. Sometimes they settle down in one place, like he has done.

He came across as all-savvy personality but with a sense of humility. He did not have the arrogance or the boneheaded-ness about him! He told me he worked in a MNC software company where he worked on computer. His was counting vehicles and creating a report in and out of the company. He was very proud of his new job!

And when he is away on his real-world job, his brother looks after the pot-selling business.

He was also quite knowledgeable in photography terms. When I was shooting in the sun, he asked me to shoot in the shade. He said the photos will come out good! He also told me to come back again in the evening when the light is better! I was amazed by his knowledge. So I asked him how come he know so many things about photography. He said another person from a local news paper had come a month earlier and he visited him in the evenings couple of times and this photographer told him about light conditions.

I told him I am too lazy :-) so I if I don't do it now then I will never do it!

He was also very proud to face the camera and wanted his pictures takes with different backgrounds

Just beside Dilip’s store, there was one more pot seller. His name was Deepak (below) and he was from Rajasthan. He gets all his pots from Rajasthan and he also makes statues such as parrots or cows.

He had a lovely 6 year old who was intrigued by my E-30! And very photogenic too!

These guys sell pots in the range of 100 to 1500 Indian rupees. That is about USD $2 to $35. But the bargaining is heavy. Generally they markup their prices by about 10% to 30% because they know people bargain anyway! and you can reduce the same if you are willing to spend time and negotiate.

Here are some of the most beautiful pots I have seen

Although I keep referring to them as pot sellers, they have wide range of home decor goods made of clay.

Here are the lovely Chimes

Here are the statues of Gods, god man, parrots cows…you name it!

They also sold some of the most beautiful lotus flowers….in a clay pot of course!

Some technical Info: As I mentioned, it was harsh over head sun. So I had to take care about the shadows and extreme over and under exposures. How I did it? Its simple

Had Polarizer on – This ensured that the harsh sun is mellowed a bit.
I took care not to have to dark and too bright areas in the same frame. I either shot in shade or in the sun, never mixed the two. This ensured I got perfect exposure across the whole frame.
I used spot metering and did not use EV compensation, because I feel sometime I over do the EV comp. I checked and re-checked my LCD for the exposure. If I felt that exposure is not good enough, I re-shot same picture. I must have shot every picture at least 2 times, some of them 4 or 5 times, before I was happy with the exposure.
I used large aperture, this ensure that even if the shots had over or underexposed areas, it was well out-of-focus.

Simple isn’t it? No Rocket science! :-)

Hope you enjoyed the shoot as much as I did

PS: Kudos to E-30. It was sweltering 43 deg out side and it performed like a breeze!

Cheers!

The Bombay Shootout!

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:38:00 +0000

I know a title like that will attract attention! I hope it attracts the right kind of attention though :-)

So, Suni, Adu and I toddled along to South Bombay last weekend – and the reason? Well, the goods we shipped from US is finally coming home! So we had to pay a visit to the shipping agents.

And that was an excuse enough to carry my camera, my favored E-P2. Not that I have stopped loving E-30, but as a carry along camera with quality images – E-P2 gives best of pro cameras a good run for their money!

And the lens? Well just the 14-42 (28-84 – 35mm equivalent) kit lens. Nothing flashy, just the bare basic gear – it was a first time for me. I generally carry E-30 with 12-60 and another wide angle and a zoom lens. This time I wanted to travel light. The reason being the heat – its crazy the breeze is cool enough in Bombay, but the humidity and sun kills you and I did not want to be bogged by too many things in my hand.

And I can say I am really glad I made that decision – because I am sure I would not have enjoyed shooting as much as I did with E-P2.

So we left home @ around 9:30 in the morning and the humidity was already oppressive. We took the first class ticket for the local train from Nerul (New Bombay) to VT (Victoria Terminus, now called CST Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus. I, though, prefer to call it by its old name) Station (South Bombay). The journey is about an hour. It being a Saturday, we didn't encounter crowd at all.

Some shots of Nerul Railway station

TECHNICAL INFO: Before I go further, I want to tell you something. In the morning, just before we left home. I accidentally brushed my finger on the image sensor (actually the filter in front of the image sensor) of E-P2! I was so livid at myself for doing that!. I did it while changing the lens, that goes to show how fragile the micro 4/3rd really is. The short flange distance coupled with absence of mirror really leaves very little room for such accidents. I was glad my finger didnt not press on the sensor too hard or I would have been carrying a very expensive junk. I could see my finger print on the sensor though.

IMPORTANT ADVICE– Be doubly, triply careful when changing lenses on micro 4/3rd bodies, you have very little room for errors!!

Although I could not see any problems in the test images I took soon after, I still wanted the sensor cleaned. And I didn't have the guts to do it myself (although I have sensor cleaning kit). So I googled to see where the Oly service center was located in South Bombay, and luckily it was very near to the place we were going and had my sensor cleaned at the service center cost me INR 1800 roughly US $40 :-( . But I am glad I got it cleaned, it gave me peace of mind!

I tested my camera inside the Oly service center to see the results and as usual…E-P2 was perfect

Now for some real shooting!

Our first visit was to Flora Fountain, as it was near the Oly service center. One of the landmarks of South Bombay. Its cool!

Here is an old building – very typical of South Bombay. I love the old Victorian architecture! (It says Insurance company of Canada!)

The Flora Fountain (unfortunately the fountain was turned off!)

Another shot of the Flora Fountain

A Statue near Flora Fountain. Not sure what it signifies though! Comments welcome!

TECHNICAL INFO: All these photos were taken between 1 and 4 PM when the Sun was over head and intense. So many of the structures were backlit, like in pic above. I used spot metering and it was spot ON!! The ESP and Center weighted were way too underexposed for my liking.

Here is another old Victorian building

Another typical Bombay view! in front of Flora Fountain

Form Flora Fountain we went to VT. On the was we stopped at the old Khadi house. A typical Indian store sells handmade clothing (Khadi). Very Old and very cool! Here is an inside view.

The interesting tile floor inside the Khadi House.

And we saw street vendors selling vada pav (a regional delicacy)….yummy!!

Stamp and old currency vendor

The Transport in Bombay - I still don’t understand how the city manages the kind of growth it has. Simply Amazing!

This is more than 100 year old building almost in ruins now

Now the VT – The Majestic VT

TECHNICAL INFO: As I mentioned, the lens I had was 14-42mm which in 35mm equivalent is 28-84mm. This by no means is wide-wide, its more a standard-wide zoom lens. So I had difficulty in getting the entire view of the VT Station and I knew this would be the case before hand so I was not disappointed. I would normally have taken a 9-18 (18-36 for 35mm), but I didn't on this occasion because I didn't want too many camera equipments on me. So if you want to capture wide structures then don't forget to take a wide angle lens at least 18mm (35mm format) or better still a Fish eye

I will tell you an amusing story - As I was shooting the gigantic VT Station in various angle, suddenly a car came and parked near me. A guy got out of the car with Nikon D300 and the biggest bazooka lens attached to it, it must be at least 70-300 (APS-C). And he started trying to shoot with the same angle as I was shooting and was clearly exasperated by his efforts! :-) Finally I finished and moved on as I couldn’t stand his predicament!.

The reason why I told you this story is this – You need to understand photography before you start buying the gear. “The bigger the better” mindset completely fails in photography if you don't know what you are doing. And you will only be burning your money on something you don’t know how to use. Hardware cannot replace or supplement your skills.

VT – Views

The Dome was undergoing maintenance, which was a shame really!

More angles

The Majestic BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation), right in front of VT Station

The monument for the Martyrs of 1857 freedom movement.

And finally the Bombay Local train! The Ever Reliable!!!

You can also catch the Slide show here of the complete set

Evening and Night shots – My Experiments

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 06:51:00 +0000

I thought of writing this after I recently did a very brief photo-shoot from my 4th floor balcony one evening.

I was just fooling around with my camera when Suni pointed that there is a beautiful sunset outside. I had 12-60mm on camera and grabbed my 50-200mm (100-400mm 35 mm equivalent) as well, just in case. In the hindsight, it was a good decision!

This photo-shoot was also unique in the sense that this was the first time I experimented using full manual exposure mode.

This is one of the shots I took with 50-200. Before I took this one, I had taken a few more shots with in Aperture Priority Mode and matrix and center-weighted metering. I felt that that the camera was underexposing by at least 2 stops when I used Aperture priority with either of the metering modes. So I then put my camera in Spot metering mode and took the reading (shot couple of test shots) with direct focus on the sun. I found that the exposure was better, but I still felt that there was at least half a stop or 1 stop of under exposure. So I put the camera in manual mode and adjusted the aperture and shutter so that I compensated for half stop under exposure.

Here are the result. I think E-30 did the rest. I felt these are amazing result. I kept the white-balance in AUTO. The red of the sun is as perfect as I was looking at it with naked eye.

I also took few shots in various angles so that I can crop them as I want them to be. Here are the results. The wide ones are taken with 12-60mm. But the method used to arrive at the manual exposure values is same.

I then waited for sun to go down and shot the hill which looked hazy and surreal. I converted these into monochrome in Photoshop and added more grain [the noise on E-30 @ ISO200 is zero unfortunately! ;-)] to get the effect. I love the layered effect I got. These were shot in both aperture priority and manual mode and as you can see, there is some difference in the exposure values, however that is more due to the darkness falling rapidly than anything else. I could as well have shot these in A-priority. But for Sun in the picture, I needed to full manual control.

In the same vein, I tried this shot of the crescent moon with the buildings. I struggled a lot to get the exposure right. The moon was going behind the clouds rapidly, and I got this shot just in the nick of time.

Moreover this was 50-200mm handheld. I rested the barrel of the lens on the barrier of my balcony and hand held with IS-1 on and Live View On. I set the exposure manually based on the experiments in A-Priority mode.

These are just some of my experiments….Hope you enjoyed them.

CIAO!

Next Generation Olympus E-System DSLR – My “E-5” Wish list

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:50:00 +0000

There have been quite a few rumours of Oly releasing a new professional level DSLR for almost a year now, since it released the last semi-pro E-30 back in Mar-2009.

There have also been rumours about what Oly would call it. Some say its going to be E-5 or E-4 or E-40! Who knows!!?

I don't care what Oly calls it, as long as it meets my wish list.

So, here is the list of things I would Like to see in E-5 (lets call it that, since it sounds a logical nomenclature for E-System)

EVF or OVF – If its EVF then I would like it to be integrated in the body and should be either of same or better quality than that of E-P2 EVF. If its OVF then its got to be as good as E-3 at least. 100% view OVF will only make sense when you are talking of a pro-DSLR
High ISO noise – Although E-P2 is a definite improvement over E-30 in terms of noise management, its still leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to ISO beyond 3200. I would like to see 2 things as far as high ISO is concerned;
- I would like to have the ISO limit extended to 12800
- I would like the IQ (image quality) to be same as current ISO 1600 in E-P2 up until at least ISO 6400. This will be totally phenomenal if E-5 can deliver this.
Integrated Vertical Grip - Although HLD-4 for E-3 and E-30 is great, I still feel an integrated vertical grip would make it better in terms of handling and looks. Though is a low priority, I really won’t be disappointed if its not provided.
Dynamic Range – E-P2 senor + image processor provides a vast improvement on DR over E30. I feel E-30 is a great camera and has a good DR between ISO 200-400, but it decreases rapidly beyond that and also ISO 100 DR is not same a compared to E-P2. I found E-P2 has better DR even till ISO 1600. I would like to see an improved on this. It will be really cool to have a sensor and image processor with a DR better than E-P2
Auto Focus – While E-30 and E-3 have one of the fastest AF in business, but its tied to Oly’s HG & SHG lenses. I would still like to see an improvement in following areas;
- Increase in number of AF points and more zones.
- Faster AF performance with consumer grade lenses like 18-180 or 70-300.
- Better lowlight AF performance across all lens grades. E-30 sometimes struggles in low light.
- Better Continuous AF with tracking. Its a good idea introduced in E-P2, but C-AF + Track needs a lot of improvement if it has to be effective in real world, like race course for example.
Live View – This is simple. The E-30 LV is hardly usable. While E-P2 is a major milestone. However, if I can go back a little in the past, I think E-330 LV was fantastic, sexy and revolutionary! I am not saying I want one like that in E-5, but I would definitely like to see improvements in LV and LV + AF. The LV+AF in E-P2 is not what you would expect from even mid-range camera. Low light LV performance should be better than E-P2.
Image Stabilization (IS) – The IS in E-P2 and E-30 are fantastic. Not sure what more can be done to this. But miniaturization done for E-P2 would definitely help because IS in E-30 is a little noisy and the one in E-P2 is quiet as a feather. So E-5 should have the same (or better, if at all possible) IS performance as E-30 with reduced noise.
The Body – The body should have the following quality
- The body should have same or better ergonomic design as E-3 or E-30. Button placements should be logical as in E-30. Oly should change the button placements only if they can see at least 200% improvement over E-30 or E=3 otherwise they would be better off leaving it unchanged.
- Body should be same size as E-3 or E-30. It SHOULD NOT be smaller. That would be a real shame.
- Body should be weather sealed and dust proof. I should be able wash my E-5 after taking it to the beach!!:-)
- Should have 3-inch or bigger swivel LCD. LCD should have a higher resolution. I know Oly guys must have gone deaf hearing this request, but yes, it needs to have higher resolution. A touch screen would be nice ;-) but I wont mind if its not! :-)
HD Video – I am not a great fan of HD videos in DSLRs. However, since I have 6 year old, I find using E-P2 convenient because I can shoot photos and videos when needed with a twist of a wheel. I liked the idea of having a great quality still and video camera in the box. Also following the expectation from the users would be a good idea. So HD video with 1080p resolution. Also the AF in movie mode should be faster than E-P2.
FPS – Frames Per Second – While 5FPS of E-3 and E-30 is ok for me. I sometimes do miss the 8 to 10 FPS when shooting birds. I would like to see at least 8FPS on E-5. If E-5 happens to be mirror less with electronic shutter, then recent technological advances predict that 20FPS is also possible. But I would be happy even with 8 or 10 FPS.
RAW + TIFF – My E-330 has this option. Not sure why Oly removed this from there future E-bodies. This is great feature to have. I need this back.
Better in Camera RAW edit – I would like to see better RAW edit in camera. Like ability to crop after changing aspect ratio, or ability to change the Exposure in RAW, ability to apply all art filters etc. But this is lowest on the list. Ability to change the exposure and making copy into RAW would be very helpful though.
In Camera Time Lapse Photography – This would something I would love instead of having to shoot tethered. I know I can buy 3rd party remotes which do that. But I still would like this feature in camera, though low on list.
Better Customization – I would like to see the customization;
- Function button has improve drastically. It should be more intuitive and more customizable. I liked what old Canon EOS-30 had. I want to see something like that
- I would also would like my commonly used settings to be storable and retrievable easily.

Ok Oly guys! Now get to work! :-)

High ISO Shooting

noreply@blogger.com (Tiger) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:14:00 +0000

First of all – Apologies for not writing for almost 2 months. As most of you know, I am now in India and the move was extremely hectic and overwhelming! I am now settled though, and hope to continue my blog as before!

So, coming to this blog. Lets first understand why HIGH ISO is even a topic and what ISO and high ISOs are.

As many of you would have noticed something labeled as ISO on your cameras. But most people I know have hardly used this feature because they either don’t know how to use it or don’t know what it means or both.

In simple terms – ISO is defined a film or the image sensor speed. It defines how fast or slow the film or image sensor is. In other words it is simply a measure of sensitivity of the film or the image sensor to light. So higher the ISO, greater is the sensitivity of the film or image sensor - which is what is called fast film or sensor. If the ISO is low then its the slow film or image sensor which is to say its less sensitive to light.

If you own a digital camera, then ISO speed are marked as 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 and so on…

I will not touch upon the how the ISO affects the exposure stops as its much more involved subject. For the time being its enough for you to understand that the following

A low ISO say 100 or 200 will make your image sensor less sensitive to light. So you will need more exposure time to shoot a scene. Slower shutter speed.
A high ISO of say 800 or 1600 will make the image sensor more sensitive light. So you will need less exposure time to shoot the same scene. Faster shutter speed.
To be exact – every doubling of ISO speed, you double the sensitivity of the film or sensor. So you will need a faster shutter speeds as you increase the ISO (assuming your aperture or f-number is constant) to get the correct exposure.

So, when do you need high ISO? – In most daylight situations, an ISO of 100, 200 or 400 should be enough. But things change when you have following scenarios and that is when you need higher ISO

You cannot use or do not have a flash and you are shooting indoors under natural or artificial light
You want to use fast shutter speed to freeze an action.
You are in an aquarium or a museum. Now you may say you can use flash. But you will get horrible pics if you choose to use external flash in aquarium unless you do a professional setup. So I would rather go with high ISO to get faster shutter so that I reduce shake
Remember – as a general rule you should have the shutter speed which is at least reciprocal of the highest focal length of the lens. So if you lens is 50mm then you should have the minimum shutter of 1/50 so that you don’t get into camera shake effect. So increasing ISO in such a situation to get optimum shutter speed is desirable.

Now having said this, if you are shooting in a lowlight without tripod then you better have a very good reason for doing so. But like we all know, its not practical to have tripod every where you go, even if you have it, its not practical to set it up everywhere. High ISO will come to the rescue for you.

Those were the advantages and ways to use high ISO, of course as with everything else in life, all good things come with a price. So does high ISO.

A high ISO makes the image sensor very sensitive to light, which in turn introduces digital noise in the picture. As seen from the picture below, use of ISO-2000 has allowed me to use a shutter of 1/500 inside a mall. However it has lots of tiny specs. This is noise.

However there is way to get rid of digital noise during post processing. I use a software called Noiseware.

The corrected image in Photoshop and using Noiseware to reduce noise.

But such software have their limitations. They work best when your exposure is spot-on. If your picture is under exposed, then you are in trouble. The noise reduction software will do more harm then good.

This is because any image sensor/processor has a higher latitude for over exposure in low light than under exposure. So if you over expose your pic then you may be able salvage it even if it has lot of noise. But if you under expose, then you are definitely in trouble.

I will show you an example. Here are 2 pictures.

Both are shot @ ISO 3200. The first picture is terribly under exposed. So it had a lot of noise and even with a lot of post processing in Photoshop, I couldn't get the exposure right nor was the Noiseware able to remove the noise properly. The result – bad picture, terribly underexposed, no clarity what-so-ever, bad noise. You can see the noise even after processing with Noiseware.

Second picture was over exposed by 2 stops. I could salvage this picture in Photoshop and get almost correct exposure. I could also remove almost all noise and picture is perfectly clear. Although you do see some camera shake in it, that's because of slow shutter as a result of over exposure. Also there is some loss of details in the bright areas, but who cares….I got the subjects nice!

So, if you want to shoot in low light with high ISO, always remember to ensure your exposure is right. One way of ensuring this is to use SPOT metering on the subject and adjusting the EV (Exposure value) to get the appropriate exposure.

Remember over exposure is better than under exposure any day when shooting in lowlight.

Some High ISO examples

ISO-3200

ISO-2000

ISO-1600 for 1/8000 sec to freeze the bird. Broad daylight.

ISO-2000

Hope this was helpful!