FCPhotographySchool

...made it to the final Destination.

2008-12-11T19:05:00.000+05:30

Photographers @ Pune have organized a photography exhibition in town. This features work of professional, amatuer, enthusiast photographers in the country. It gives me immense pleasure to invite you all to this event. I shall post the official invite once I get hold of it.

Theme: "India"
Exhibition dates: 26th to 28th December 2008
Venue: New Art Gallery, Ghole Road, Pune

I am glad that two of my pictures have been selected for this event. I am really grateful to the judges, who have given me this oppportunity and motivation to go furhter on. Thanks a million!

I Love You - India.

Grandeur personified.

Hope to see you @ the exhibition.

Cheers,
Amit

A good beginners DSLR?

2008-06-18T19:51:00.002+05:30

Am planning to buy a DSLR.... I am interested in a entry level dslr, good for beginners....
I did some research on the net and have the following options from

Nikon:
Nikon d40/d40x or maybe d60

and following in Canon:
Canon EOS 400D / Digital Rebel XTi,

Any other suggestions are most welcome...

Picasa

2008-02-21T11:01:00.001+05:30

Some Picasa Tips:

-- Picked up from Google Photo Blog.

Photos tend to be hard to search for, so we've been trying for a number of years to figure out what kinds of things users actually look for in their photos. Dates have turned out to be pretty important, so you can type 'December 2005' into Picasa's search box and it will show you photos you took that month. Of course, you can also search for folder names, filenames, descriptions, and locations, too. But we also index information about the camera that took each picture: search for 'Sony' or 'Canon' or 'Powershot' and you'll find the photos you took with each camera type. Or try this: 'Flash' will find photos taken with a flash, and 'focal:50' shows any pictures you took using a 50mm lens. Even 'iso:400' works as a search term.

-- Picked up from Google Photo Blog.

Golden Time

2008-01-28T15:45:00.000+05:30

1/250sec f/5.6 ISO 400 45mm

Light source: yellow buld, which added the gliter.

Whose head is it anyway ... !!

2007-12-04T18:52:00.000+05:30

I clicked this pic on during the bird watching escapade at Bhigwan over the weekend. This may be the only pic (that I have clicked) where all that was discussed or thought of was captured as is.

Have a look.

Cheers ... !!

Diwali

2007-11-30T19:14:00.000+05:30

Low key portrait

2007-11-27T12:05:00.000+05:30

A low key portrait...

1/15 f/5.6 ISO400 45mm

Candle

2007-11-21T14:38:00.000+05:30

Candle

2007-11-21T14:26:00.000+05:30

Trying to post a photo

Hi

2007-11-21T14:18:00.000+05:30

Hi

This is Mahesh Warnekar, Amit's friend and a photography lover...

Still amateur...trying to improve...

-Mahesh

Diwali Lights 2007

2007-11-13T17:58:00.000+05:30

Diwali decoration at Durga Asthan Mandir @ Muzaffarpur, Bihar

Yagya Agni during Laxmi Pujan

Yagya Agni during Laxmi Pujan

Diwali celebration with Crackers

Diwali celebration with Crackers

first post

2007-11-13T15:48:00.000+05:30

One of my favorite snaps .. mostly because of the unexpectedness that it will turn out good :)
A few pics which i managed to scan and a few from my lost N72 on http://picasaweb.google.com/vinayrulz

ciao

New Guy here :)

2007-11-13T15:44:00.000+05:30

Hello to all :)

Quick Intro - New joinee, amit's old team, amit's old cube :)
Amateur Photographer ... Still living in the age of film ... nikon f65 .. stored away somewhere ..
waiting to join the digital revolution ...

Do have some old snaps scanned .. not negative scanned .. so quality not up to mark

Happy Clicking
Vinay Gupta

Online image editing tool.

2007-11-02T16:25:00.000+05:30

ame: Picnik

Usage: Online image editing software. Has plug ins for Picasa, Flickr, Facebook, Webshots etc...

Link: http://www.picnik.com/

Portrait

2007-10-08T18:08:00.000+05:30

My nephew Rishi (4years).

Sorry for the tube light end at the top. Couldn't get rid of that.
Critics needed...

Macro and Super Macro modes

2007-10-08T17:50:00.000+05:30

First two pictures are taken in Super Macro mode where in lens is within the 10mm range from the subject and others are taken in Macro mode. My first experiments with flowers :)

Some nice pics ... critics required ... !!

2007-10-08T17:20:00.000+05:30

Almost kissing the spider.

This was with a fast shutter speed. Tried this after reading about a similar post by Amit earlier.

This was a peculair leaf refusing to be flown away with the water ... the colour was appealing.

Probably a faster shutter speed would have yielded better results but neverthless it was worth the effort.

Cheers ... !!

Lighting the dragon

2007-10-08T16:25:00.000+05:30

I tried capturing a dragon fly on my terrace... but because of opposite lighting and awkward positions.. I couldn't take a satisfactory picture... But I have tried different things and I would like to discuss these pictures here..

This picture was in direct lighting conditions but the subject was very distant and
quite above the eye level.

I tried zooming in as much as possible but I couldn't focus on the subject if I zoomed in more that this point.

Now it was close enough but was in shadow.. Insufficient light caused this dark image..
and as far as I remember ISO was also high. So used flash to compensate after this.

But result was not very pleasing either as the rope has very bright .. overshadowing main subject.. and the background has lost its brightness .. making the picture look dull

After the I am feeling lucky tweak on this image from Picasa

Sony W80/W90

2007-10-02T19:03:00.000+05:30

Does anyone have experience about Sony W80/W90 with double anti blur system?

Critics required...

2007-09-28T11:44:00.000+05:30

I think this could be a new section where members upload their images for comments.

EXIF: 1/500 f/7.1 ISO400 150mm

Please comment.

Does flash affect eyes ... especially babies?

2007-09-17T19:04:00.000+05:30

Hmmm ... this is my second post of the day. I am thinking of following Chetan Bhagat ;) ...

Anyways the reason I write this post is based on my last months trip to Bombay. I had a family function to attend, and these are perfect occasions to try your hand at portraits. You generally find babies with colorful attires & cool expressions. They are one of my favorite subjects. But every time I click with my flash on, one question bothers me all the way... "Am I bothering their young eyes?"

Yesterday finally I found one article, which had perfectly answered my question. Some of the facts mentioned (in consent with people in medical world) were:

- The eyes of babies are sensitive and they can be harmed with prolonged exposure to concentrated and intense light. Its similar to a dried leaf, which sits unharmed on a hot-bright sunny road. But the moment you put a magnifying glass and focus the sunlight, it shall start burning away.

- The good news here is, out flash is neither concentrated nor prolonged. But the flash can create a temporary blackout in some cases.

For more information, visit http://www.sublime-light.com/index.php/2007/09/17/will-flash-damage-babies-sensitive-young-eyes/
....

On that note, I'd say its safe but avoid :)

Cheers,
Amit

Taming the light...

2007-09-17T17:49:00.000+05:30

Taking a shot against the light is always a difficult task. 9 out of 10 shots are unsatisfactory. Having a balance of the light falling on the subject and the light coming from the back is necessary. The simplest way to encounter this situation is to turn around and take the click with the light... :) If I have the shooting conditions in my hand, I generally prefer shooting with the light. But again thats not the case always.

A cheap way to go with, is to fire the flash which adds more light on the subject. This will make the subject brighter than the oncoming light. Might do the trick... But there are times when the oncoming light is too too bright and intense for the flash to nullify...

There is cheap, and then there is a poor mans cheap: Crop away the over exposed part!! :) This works well, as long as you don't have a tightly packed frame. (Tightness of the image is the % of the total area that the subject occupies.) So in case of tight images its again difficult to crop...

But when all the above 3 ways are dumped, we endup with the LIGHT...

We then go to the last escape, which is a combination of flash and apperture ...

Have a look at this image. A quick run through the setting of the conditions: The subject here is the vase, which is kept in front of the door. It was ~1130 in the morning, bright sunlight outside. The sunlight reflected from the wind shield & body of the car is creating intense light interfence in the picture. This was taken at 1/160sec & f5.6 AND THE FLASH DID FIRE!!

With the aperture logic, it would make sense to have a smaller appreture(higher f stop) to allow lesser light. Sure enough with a trade off with the Depth of field. But then have a look at the image below:

Certainly you can now read the number plate of the car, but it has eaten up the excess light. And I would be happy to buy this image than the one taken with excess light. This was taken at f/14. Now in here, I might have gone with a faster shutter as well, but then "Flash Sync" comes in my way, and the electronic lock binds my fastest shutter with flash to 1/160sec.

With all the above stuff, you might want to experiment with shutter speed in addition to flash and aperture. Hoping that your cameras allow you with a faster shutter and flash.

Let me know of the results..

Pictures of the week

2007-09-17T11:16:00.000+05:30

{Plywood model of Harley Davidson which I completed on Saturday}

Tried to be a little creative :)

Musical birthday candle: We couldn't really hear the music in the confusion
of lighting it properly but it made a good snapshot :)

Black band in the pic

2007-09-11T17:47:00.000+05:30

A few days ago, I found a very interesting fact about the flash. I had posted a blog on the same experiment. You can read it here.

ISO confusion ... !!

2007-09-10T17:50:00.000+05:30

I have tried capturing pics with higher ISO value when there has been a dearth of light. But so far I have observed that the pics are grainy. Is there a way to find out the optimum ISO for a particular light setting?

A Few Night Shots...

2007-08-30T20:00:00.000+05:30

Finally a first post from me... :-P....
A couple of shots from my trip to Taiwan.. they are taken using the night mode of my camera.... I have a Kodak Z712IS.... Let me know what you think of the shots.... My personal fav is the 2nd one, the reflection on the water has been captured pretty decently i would say.... All these shots are without the use of a tripod... I just used sum support where ever i could find one....Let me know your views...

Minimum focus step ...

2007-08-30T12:21:00.000+05:30

I was just trying out how acurate my lens could focus manually, and here are some of the results. The first image has the focus on the toy chopper, second has the focus slipped down on the plane and the last one has the focus on the car. This experiment was just to find out minimum focus step of the lens.

Note: I have used a tripod for the snaps.

View Pic1 on Picasa...
View Pic2 on Picasa...
View Pic3 on Picasa...

Showcasing a favorite pic

2007-08-29T19:27:00.000+05:30

Hey guyz, I just saw a blog page and it had a picture on the top of it and after that follwed blog entries .. and it looked cool so I tried doing that with blogger.. You can have a look at my blog to see what I mean. This picture will remain at the top whether u view the whole blog or a single entry.. and it gives a distinctive impression of the page..

So, I thought why don't we select and showcase a favorite pic on our photography blog.. clicked by any of the members... and keep changing it .. may be monthly or something.. what say guyz??

New Joinee

2007-08-29T15:08:00.000+05:30

Hi, I am Prosenjit Sinha, Ami't colleague.The very first time I heard about the idea of this new blog I was very much interested to join.Thanks to Amit for sending the invitation.I will try my best to be an active participant.

Happy Snapping!!!

Clouds ... !!

2007-08-28T07:28:00.000+05:30

Hey guys, I clicked some pics of the overcast skies over the weekend. There was this huge black cloud hovering around my place and adjacent to it was a comparatively white peace of sky.

I am attaching only 2 of the 5 pics but u can see all the 5 at:
Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4
Pic 5

Experimenting with slow shutter speeds to capture night shots.

2007-08-27T15:15:00.000+05:30

{Taken with the night snapshot mode of my camera.}

{Mode: Shutter priority, shutter speed: 2 sec, exposure +1, taken at mid night}

{Mode: shutter priority, shutter speed: 1 second, exposure: -1,
evening time, heavy traffic contributing to the bright patches}

Not a Kingfisher ... but nevertheless a Dive!!

2007-08-24T23:35:00.000+05:30

Caught in my backyard. There wasn't enough light so had to compensate with ISO400.

Should you buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera?

2007-08-24T11:33:00.001+05:30

I found an article on a blog site; the author has wonderfully put the pros and cons of both flavors of cameras.

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/should-you-buy-a-dslr-or-point-and-shoot-digital-camera/

New Member…

2007-08-24T11:15:00.001+05:30

Hey Birenderjit,

Welcome on board. As most of us don't know much about you and vice-versa, why not have a brief intro thread here. I am Amit Gupte, working with Symantec. That's enuf about me I guess …

Cheers,

A Fast shutter ...

2007-08-23T18:42:00.000+05:30

AS we were discussing fast shutter, this one I found in my collection. This is taken at a medium fast shutter (1/1000 sec) of a small fountain. The flash fired and thus there was enough light and so the clarity has come out quite well. The drops also have come quite in detail.

Kingfisher!!

2007-08-23T15:11:00.001+05:30

Hey Guys I recieved this photo as part of a forwarded mail but I actually wondered .... how to take a photograph of a moving subject like this and still keep the image crisp and colors vibrant.

Frames make a difference

2007-08-23T12:38:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,

Found a cool tool to frame your images. The frame add a pretty cool effect to the entire picture.

Download it here: http://www.freewarearena.com/html/Downloads/details/id=1129.html

Cheers,
amit

Taking Sharper images in bad light...

2007-08-22T15:12:00.000+05:30

In context to Pratiks query, I faced a similar issue. Our standard understanding, "To capture subjects in the dark, we need longer shutters" doesn't work all the time. The snap here on the left (Image 1) is taken at 2.5secs. The clarity has gone for a toss. In contrast the image below (Image 2), is taken at 1/160sec and the clarity has improved quite a bit.
After I took these shots and noticing the difference, you can clearly see the primary reason is that the subject is too bright. Thus longer shutter overexposes the scene and eventually blurrs the moon. The faster shutter took the crisp image. Now the reason I could go with this approach is beacuse I didn;t really care for anything else than the subject. If you notice, the clouds have vanished in the second pic.
Similarly to capture clouds with sunsets you will need to fine tune the focus and try out an optimum shutter speed so that the focus and brightness are precise.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Amit

Click here to view Image 1 in Picasa.

Click here to view Image 2 in Picasa.

Unable to click sharp sunset pics

2007-08-22T11:12:00.000+05:30

Hey guys,
I have been unable to click sharp sunset pictures so far. For some reason, the sky/clouds and the sun both seem distorted on every click. Any remedy ?

As an example I am posting this pic.

Click here to view pic in Picasa

Cheers ... !!

TRIAL POST

2007-08-21T20:11:00.002+05:30

A rare cactus flower. Captured in my garden.
Click here to View on Picasa