Photo Journal

A weekend at Valvoline Raceway- Sydney

2015-03-23T12:23:00.001+05:30

This was my first opportunity to photograph a car race. For safety reasons, the entire race track was fenced and the challenge was to get photos without the fence appearing in the image.

All photographs were shot with a telephoto at or near 400mm with f/5.6 aperture. The minimum focusing was kept at 6.5 meters and I ensured that I was less than 6.5 meters from the fence.

Above are two photographs of Legends car racing; designed primarily to promote racing and to keep costs down. The bodyshells are 5/8-scale replicas of American automobiles from the 1930s and 1940s, powered by a Yamaha motorcycle engine. Photographed around twilight time, by staying less than 6 meters from the fence I ensured that the camera's auto-focus ignored the fence.

Two cars from the Monster truck contest. From my position, there were light poles obstructing the obstacles on the course. There was one area though, which was not obstructed; unfortunately this area was inadequately lit. Hence I had to shoot these Monster trucks at 10000 ISO to get some reasonable sharpness.

The sprint car racing. - These cars with their 6.5 liter engine can easily touch 200kms/hr. To get a image like this with blurred background- it took a lot of trial and error. I chose a car that was best placed. The camera focus was selected on center, single point. I kept trying to track the advertisement on the cars- which provide good contrast. The camera was kept for multiple exposures and AI servo focusing mode. Not all attempts were successful; but the more I tried the more usable Images I got.

Western Ghats

2013-08-29T09:00:00.000+05:30

Although the NH17 is undulating and curvaceous, the lush green Western Ghats make up for all the discomfort. A small part of the highway can be seen in the upper photograph.

I had a 100-400 mm lens attached to photograph any wildlife, if it came across. But when scenes like this dot a long stretch of drive, it is quite cumbersome to keep changing glasses. Hence got these landscapes on a 100 mm F/L, which also helped me eliminate some distracting foreground branches and leaves.

Urea being used on Paddy

2013-08-20T09:00:00.000+05:30

Urea is known to make fields barren. Urea destroys the humus in the soil and makes the soil compact. It also interferes with the beneficial microbes in the soil, and destroys their colonies, thus destroying not only the composition of the soil but also the texture of the soil.
In the short run, urea does increase crop yield, however in the long run, as the years roll on, the crop demands an increasing quantity of urea to sustain this yield. Finally, urea destroys the soil ecosystem and makes the land unviable.
On a paddy field in front of our house, I sat and watched this farmer spread urea on his crop, wondering how long will this greenery last.

Sea gull

2012-01-11T16:47:00.005+05:30

Its been a long time since I last posted and I will start regular postings again. During this long hiatus, I have undergone a small metamorphosis myself. As far as photography is concerned, I got myself a new camera, a few lenses and a tripod. My Sony A350, which was my work horse all these years, was clearly not long enough for wildlife. Like a said a few months ago, since Sony have not been kind enough for wildlife photographers, when it comes to gears, I finally knocked the doors of Canon. Hence forth will be using both my Sony and Canon gear, and slowly will let the Sony slip into oblivion.
When it comes to my other blogs, I have finally decided to merge all the other blogs with Photo Journal .

Today's Photos features some pics I clicked off Greece when onboard.
Have a nice day

Supsa Landscape

2009-12-31T10:15:00.002+05:30

Hills at different distances create various shades of blues. Photographed off Supsa in Georgia. The scene was so beautiful that I hardly had to do any thinking. Just aim the camera, keep the horizon straight and click. Nature can brig in such peace and composure within.

Waterspout

2009-12-31T01:33:00.000+05:30

A small tornado at sea, that's what is a waterspout. The massive column of the waterspout is actually composed of water droplets that are spinning at very high speed; as fast as 200 km/sec.
The ones in the Florida Keys are pretty well documented, photographed and are a regular in occurrence. This was on the Mediterranean sea, on 24th October 2009, about 1 Mile from my ship, around 7 AM in the morning. It was hard to spot the nearly transparent water column, but we managed to track it with the disturbance it created on the water surface.
The water in a waterspout is mostly confined to its lower portion, and may be either salt spray drawn up by the sea surface, or freshwater resulting from condensation due to the lowered pressure in the center of the vortex creating the spout. The air in waterspouts may rotate clockwise or counterclockwise,depending on the manner of formation. They are found
most frequently in tropical regions and sometimes in higher latitudes too.
Photo details: Lens: 75mm , f/4.5 , 1/320 sec, ISO- 400, Manual Focus (Since the contrast is poor, the camera was unable to autofocus on the waterspout and was seeking the clouds in the background)

One Evening at Aspropyrgos

2009-12-28T09:41:00.002+05:30

f/4 for 2 sec
f/4 for 8 sec
On my Post on Friendly Animals I said that its not possible to use a tripod on board a ship because of the engine vibrations, but there are exceptions to it, like in here when my ship was at port in the beautiful suburb of Aspropyrgos in Greece. We were alongside in calm waters of the port with engines stopped. It was one of those rare instances when I could use a tripod, and I did use it to get a few twilight photographs. The sun has barely set off the horizon and lights were just coming on.Timing was crucial here as the bluish sky lasted for about 2 to 3 minutes only. A little later the sky would have become darker or a little earlier the lights could not be exposed well. The tiny stars in the second photo are probably Venus and Jupiter if my memory serves me right.
The photograph was exposed by one stop more than what the camera recommended. Inspite of placing the camera on a tripod and using a remore release the 8 second exposure on the second photograph has caused a slith blur. This is due to the miniscule vibrations of the ships generators. But this gives the image a soft look and I liked it a lot.

Queens Necklace

2009-01-26T01:01:00.000+05:30

Marine drive , Mumbai's most enigmatic spot, where the sea meets the bustling traffic of the city. This photograph was selected from a series of photographs I clicked, I experimented with various combinations of shutterspeed and Aperture. The Idea was to capture the light trails and at the same time not to overexpose the blue sky and the street lights.
Sony H-7 f/8 , 2.5sec ISO 80

Boats

2008-07-19T17:15:00.002+05:30

Photographed it after Sunset on banks of Nethravathi River. Placed my camera on a tripod, framed the scene, set the auto focus to wide and aperture to the smallest f/8 .
Clicked with self timer of 2 sec to negate any camera shake, when pressing the shutter button.
A image or sky reflected on water makes an interesting monochromatic image with tonal variations. Such reflections also add symmetry to an image.

Reflectons in a Well

2008-07-10T17:06:00.000+05:30

At Kudupu in the outskirts of Mangalore is this well, nothing special about it, except that I found the water so clear that I could see more that 20 ft under. The trees reflecting on the water and on the left the palm of a coconut tree fallen and lying gracefully underneath the water all adds some kind of serenity to the well.
Photographed with the smallest aperture f/8 that i could to get in all the details ;1.2sec shutter speed.

Salad

2008-07-08T17:55:00.003+05:30

When I visited my sister-in-law at Bangalore, she made sure I had a banquet. One of the items was this appetizing salad. It was so attractive that I only had to click a snap and got a near perfect photograph. She had no clue of my intentions of blogging this one, but still the near perfect slices and the well placed coriander leaf with a tiny little water droplet on it, still makes my stomach growl with hunger.

Spires

2008-07-03T16:24:00.003+05:30

St. Patrick Church in Bangalore ; the twilight was just setting in and the sky was in rich royal blue. Dawn and dusk are the best time to shoot blue skies. The sky during winter also has pure blue shades to it. For photographing extremely dark blue, the evening sky after sunset has the best shade. Setting the WB in your camera to tungsten can also help bring out new blue hues.

2008-06-27T17:10:00.001+05:30

New photographs published in Friendly animals section of this blog.

Champagne Glasses

2008-05-18T20:02:00.002+05:30

Clicked this at a party, where I didn't carry my tripod, had to place the camera on the table top and hence my framing was severely restricted.
Probably just photographing the clear reflection would have sufficed here.
f/8 ; 1sec ; iso 100

Venus and the Moon

2008-04-03T10:23:00.002+05:30

Twilight was just about to commence , with Venus and moon rising before the Sun. Set my camera for a long 20 second exposure to get this calm looking photograph of the horizon. Since the exposure was long and the ship moving, the planet and the crescent moon have come a bit blurred.

Glimpses of Singapore

2008-03-31T15:03:00.009+05:30

A water fountain at Marina Center. I tried to frame it in such a way, that the lines would lead the viewer to the center of the photograph, wasn't quite successful though.

Singapore's Skyline with the Merlion at the bottom center.
There are innumerable water fountains in Singapore and the place provides ample opportunities to photograph reflections. Just remember to use the smallest available aperture (biggest f value).
The Cavenagh Bridge, named after Singapore's last Governor and Constructed in 1868; the bridge still boasts of its original splendour. Right next to the bridge is the bronze statue shown below.

This was my favorite of all the innumerable statues that line Singapore. Originally called the "First Generation" it shows 5 Bronze boys jumping into the Singapore waterway.

The Merlion is Singapore's most famous icon. It was designed by Fraser Brunner for the Singapore Tourism Board in 1964 and was used as its logo till 1997. The lion head and fish body of the creature recalls the story of the legendary Sang Nila Utama, who saw a lion while hunting on an island, en route to Malacca. The island eventually became the sea port of Temasek, which later led to the development of the beautiful Singapore.

Esplanade theater on the Bay, is designed to represent the Durian fruit (Fruit similar to Jack fruit). The place is a center of arts, dramas and Operas.
The city of Singapore is a wonderland for all those interested in urban or architectural photography.

Formation Flying

2008-03-30T20:09:00.004+05:30

F-16 fighting Falcons of Singapore's Black Knight perform at the Singapore Air Show 2008. I was on board the ship and my H7 camera with 15x zoom was inadequate to cover a airshow. But fortunately for me, these aircraft preferred to carry out their low level acrobatic over sea and with a UV filter fitted to my camera managed to photograph these heart pounding maneuvers.
Since these aircraft are at hight speed, there is hardly any time for framing or focusing. Hence I used aperture Priority mode, set the aperture on f/8 and set the focus on infinity and went on a shutter clicking spree and the aircrafts approached me.

Ship on Fire

2008-03-30T08:32:00.004+05:30

This is how a ship looks when it's on fire. We were at Balongan, in Indonesia when a ship 4 miles ahead of us went ablaze. The tugs surrounding the ship were involved in fire fighting and had just moved away, expecting a explosion. After being for four days on fire, the ship finally sank. All crew were saved and there were no casualties.

New Photographs uploaded

2007-11-09T15:26:00.000+05:30

New Photographs Uploaded in Sunsets and Friendly Animals Section Today.

Summer Day Reflection

2007-11-06T09:03:00.001+05:30

As a thumb rule, when photographing reflections, use the smallest aperture possible (the largest f value); unless you want to capture a blurred reflection. In this photograph, I did want to frame in the entire tree crown, but the water body imposed constrains in doing that. Here I have used a f/8 aperture the smallest possible with my Sony-H7. Since the image is a reflection and the smallest aperture was used;a slower shutter speed had to be used, and to prevent camera shake, I did use a tripod. Now Since the water was still, the image turned out to be sharp, in case of a moving water body, then the above settings may not give the best results. In that case either use a higher ISO or a little bigger aperture.

Rolling Out The Red Carpet

2007-10-31T20:23:00.000+05:30

The clouds were moving in to cover the blue sky and the red rays of the setting sun were creating a riot of red in the sky. Perfect time for a long exposure photograph. Just long enough to create a silhouette of the landscape.
Shutter: 0.62 sec , F/2.7, ISO 80

Trails of Light

2007-10-25T15:04:00.001+05:30

Trails of moth circling around a sodium vapor lamp. I never expected to photograph these moths, I was interested in photographing the beam of light and set my camera on a 2.5 sec exposure. Interestingly the movements of the moth was captured by the camera, and gave rise to the trails.

New Photographs uploaded in Animals Section and Black & white section

2007-10-15T21:42:00.000+05:30

Check out for the New Photographs under the "More photographs" section and Pls do comment.
Click on the photographs for full size images.

Crude Dhow

2007-10-15T21:03:00.001+05:30

The sun had just set and the sky was blood red, then from nowhere a dhow popped out. I had to quickly set my tripod and in the fading light photographed this rusty red panorama.
When framing a photograph like there it is a tendency in many to centre the boat and make the horizon divide the photograph into half. If you have been doing this then next time, photograph the scene, with sky occupying 2/3rd of the frame and land or water 1/3rd of it or vice versa.
I am sure the photograph looks much better if framed this way.
This is actually a thumb rule is photography and called the rule of thirds.According to the rule an image can be divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines. The four points formed by the intersections of these lines can be used to align features in the photograph. In the above photograph the horizon sits at the horizontal line dividing the lower third of the photo from the upper two-thirds. The dhow sits at the intersection of two lines i.e. The Lower horizontal and the right side vertical. Photographs clicked this way have a aesthetic appeal to them.

Moonlight and Coconut trees

2007-09-28T19:08:00.000+05:30

Gibbous Moon

Two photographs of the moon clicked at the same time and place, The lower one with a wide angle lens and the upper one with a telephoto lens. The coconut trees were lit only by moonlight and I used a 30 second exposure and f/3.2 aperture to photograph this scene. The long exposure has however overexposed the moon and it looks more like sun on a cloudy day.
The moon above during its gibbous phase.