Photo of the Day

Potted plant against wallpaper
20 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 48mm
1/4s @ F4.5, ISO 400

Potted plant with wallpaper in the background under indoor light at the Hotel Splendid, Cagnes sur Mer. The plant was at the top of a staircase, was well lit from light from lower right also.

Photo of the Day

Flower and buds
20 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 136 mm
1/400s @ F5.6, ISO 400

Flower in Tende shot near the Musee Des Merveilles. The Musee Des Merveilles hosts several artifacts from the Vallee Des Merveilles amongst others. The Vallee Des Merveilles (Valley of Marvels) is situated at the heart of National Mercantour Park and has over 40,000 symbolic rock engravings.

Photo of the Day

Diving into the Mediterranean
21 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 136 mm
1/200s @ F8, ISO 100

Found these kids diving off a rocky ledge into the Mediterranean sea near the Nice port. This is one of the many interesting photos that I got of them, will post the remaining ones later. Maybe I should have used a higher ISO to result in a faster shutter and stop motion, however, I do like the slight motion blur especially around the fingers.

Photo of the Day

Artist performing at Fete de la Musique
21 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 136 mm
1/60 s @ F5.6, ISO 1600

Every year, on the 21st of June, France celebrates the Fete de la Musique. On this day, which also happens to be the summer solstice and the longest day in the northern hemisphere, any artist is allowed to play on the street for free. It is also free for the audience. First organized in France in the year 1982, now it is a worldwide phenomenon and celebrated in over hundred cities around the world.

I caught this band performing French and English songs next to the beach at Cagnes-sur-Mer. There were lots of other bands and DJs performing in Nice and its surroundings.

Photo of the Day

Ruins of the Castle of the Lascaris
20 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 29 mm
1/400s @ F/14.0, ISO 400

Part of the wall of the former main turret of the Castle of the Lascaris in Tende, France. The castle was built in the 14th century as protection against the attacks from the Count of Provence, Charles d'Anjou. All that remains of the castle now is a circular tower converted into a clock tower in the 19th century and this ruined wall. The Castle of Tende was destroyed in 1692 by the troops of Louis XIV who sent Marshall Catinat to destroy all the fortified sites that might cast a shadow on his authority.

Photo of the Day

Villefranche-sur-Mer
15 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-4.5, 27 mm
1/400s @ F/14, ISO 400

Villefranche-sur-Mer is a French commune overlooking the Mediterranean Sea around 20 minutes by train from Nice accessible on the Nice-Monaco-Menton-Ventimiglia train line. The beach is at very short distance from the station whose tracks can be seen in the lower right corner of the picture. It is also easily accessible by car or bus from Nice.

Photo of the Day

Blue Bulbs
14 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85 mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 136 mm
1/400s @ F/6.3, ISO 400

Cropping the image to give a more pleasing composition can dramatically alter the feel of a photograph. This is one area where a sensor with high resolution helps, even after cropping you are left with enough pixels to make a quality image.

Photo of the Day

Motorcycle stunt man
14 Jun 2008

Canon EOS 400D, Canon EF-S 17-85mm F4-5.6 IS USM, 136 mm
1/2000s @ F/5.6, ISO 400

Found this young man practicing stunts on his motorbike near Saint Laurent du Var in Nice on the French Riviera. He would accelerate and then brake sharply to do both front and back wheeling. The little kid was riding by on her bike and stopped to watch the show.

Would have preferred a longer lens to work with, and regret not attempting a panning shot to induce motion blur in the background. Was standing on a rock and shooting over a chain fence to get this shot, there were lots of obstructions including a basketball fixture in the way.

Photo of the Day

On the banks of the river Kaveri near Bheemeshwari

18 Dec 2004

Canon A80, 40 mm
1/500s @ F/5.0, ISO Unrecorded

Bheemeshwari is around 100 KM from Bangalore and is a popular destination for a day trip from Bangalore. It is the location for Cauvery Fishing Camp by Jungle Lodges where one can fish for the great Mahseer, reputed to be the largest tropical sporting fish known to man.

The sky to the right is blown out, it was afternoon and I did not have many options to get a better exposure. An option if using an SLR is to use a graduated Neutral Density filter to reduce the light from the sky. Here is a list of tutorials on usage of ND filter garnered off the net:

• Great Landscape Photography
• Nathan Griffin Photography
• Alex Wise Photography
• PixelPix
  

Bookmark - A Small World

An interesting collection of macro photographs is displayed at A Small World (Flickr) including some really funny ones. See here for the 50 most popular shots from the same photographer.

Photo of the Day

Shanghai Skyline at Night
24 Sep 2004

Canon PowerShot A80, 40 mm
1/2s @ F/2.8, ISO 100

A night shot of Shanghai's famous waterfront, The Bund, along the Hangpu river. The Hangpu river divides Shanghai into two regions - Pudong (east) and Puxi (west). The Bund houses 52 buildings of various architectural styles including Romanesque, Baroque, Gothic, Renaissance, Neo-Classical and Art Deco.

Kept the camera on a ledge to stabilize it (was not carrying a tripod), set a slow shutter to capture motion, ISO 100 to reduce noise, enhance detail and assist the slow shutter.

Polaroid PoGo

Polaroid is set to introduce an ink-less instant photo printer, the PoGo. This relies on technology from Zink that uses heated heads to produce colors in special paper.

One day, photo studios will become redundant, at least for "ordinary" prints of small sizes. The combination of simple digital cameras with DirectPrint (or its equivalent), cheap, good quality photo printers (inkjet or inkless), and extremely simple to use, but very feature rich photo editing software will make them so.

Guess the day is not far when printers will come built into cameras (like the Polaroid) so that one can get post card prints directly off the camera. Of course, there is a long way to go before we get prints that are as good and durable as the ones you get from the professional studios.

Photo of the Day

Factory spewing smoke in Oulu, Finland.
16 May 2004

Canon PowerShot A80, 119mm
1/1000s @ F/6.3, ISO Auto

I believe this is the Stora Enso paper manufacturing plant in Oulu. Oulu is the largest city in Northern Finland and the sixth largest city in the country and is situated by the Gulf of Bothnia at the mouth of the river Oulujoki.

For more information about Oulu, visit Wikipedia, City of Oulu or Oulu.com.

Photo of the Day

Kids walking on pipe in Pondicherry.

I saw these kids walking along the pipe with the lighthouse in the background and the flowers carpeting the ground. Quickly got down to a low viewpoint and fired off a shot to exaggerate the perspective and use the pipe to lead the eye to the kids and the light house.

Canon S2 IS, 16 mm (96 mm in 35 mm)
F/5.0 @ 1/1000s, ISO 200

Photo of the Day

Orchid in a Vase

Canon EOS 400D, 1/8s @ F5.6, ISO 400, 136 mm

Photo of the Day

Inside the food court at Sigma Mall, Bangalore.


Canon EOS 400D
Canon EF-S 17-85 mm F4-5.6 IS USM Lens @ 85 mm
1/8s @ F5.6, ISO 400

This is from amongst the first set of photos since I began shooting RAW instead of JPEG. Post processed using Canon DPP, white balance set using color picker to set white point on the left part of ceiling. Sharpness & Saturation increased, Picture Style is Standard.

Photo of the Day

I have always liked this sunset photo that I took in Gokarna in 2006. So when I saw that Imaging Resource has a Photo of the Day contest, this picture the obvious first choice to try my luck.

Canon S2 IS, 106 mm, ISO 200, 1/500s @ f/4.0

Under the entry guidelines, they had mentioned that "The image may be edited, enhanced and modified as you see fit", so I decided to try and post process it to make it better. Since the image was short under low light at higher ISO on a small sensor, the noise levels were quite high. So I used the excellent Neat Image to create an auto noise profile and applied it to remove the digital noise in the picture. The end result is a bit softer picture, but the noise was visibly reduced to acceptable levels.

Next, I used Picasa to crop the disconnected rock on the left side of the picture and tighter around the lady's shadow. I left the right side as such because of the whitish clump of clouds that added detail to the sky. Although the warm red color of the setting sun established a certain mood, the image lacked punch, so I used the "Color Temperature" to see if I can warm it up a bit more. However, instead of the reddish hue, I found that the cool blue suited the picture better and resulted in a much more pleasing image to the eye. I also adjusted the brightness/contrast a bit to bring out the light highlight around the lady more and darken the shadow areas, especially in the waves.

Here is the final picture that I submitted to Imaging Resource site on 4th June, 2008 ...

Canon S2 IS, 106 mm, ISO 200, 1/500s @ f/4.0

This serves as another reminder that in digital photography, like in film photography before it, the photographic process does not end at the press of the shutter - in fact that is just the beginning. However, I have also learned that the key to getting a good photograph lies with the clicking of the shutter - if you do not have a good photograph then, no amount of post processing will make it great.

I am only now learning to appreciate and conceptualize making of a photograph as a work flow that begins with the capture of the photograph. In the future, I will be concentrating more on making a complete picture by paying attention to the entire process from concept to capture and post processing.

Mensa May MHK: Kudremukh

Mensa May MHK trip to Kudremukh. Trip report by Rathi, photographs by Roshin.

Route

Bangalore - Tumkur Road - Nelamangala - Kunigal - Channaraipatna - Hassan - Belur - Chikmaglur - Balehunnur - Kalasa - Kudremukh

Kudremukh - Kalasa - Kottigehara - Mudigere - Belur - Hassan - Channaraipatna - Kunigal - Nelamangala - Bangalore

Except for the stretch from Kalasa to Kottigehara, roads quality varied from moderately good to excellent. The road from Belur to Hassan requires special mention, one can easily drive at 100+ kmph on this road.

Trip Report

Kudremukh is a quintessential picturesque valley lying in the bough of the Western Ghats. Surrounded by peaks and dense jungle is this quaint little town with a population, numbering a few thousands. Previously an iron ore mining reserve, it is now purely a naturist's delight! The mining operations came to a halt after the Supreme court passed a judgment to shut down the factory in 2005. The town was inhabited only by the employees of Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited, now with the closure it is close to becoming a ghost town.


It was midnight on the 23rd of May, 2008 when we 7 Mensans and 3 guests started off from Cunningham Road, in two cars, with Kudremukh as the destination in mind but no route chalked out. We thought we will take it as the road curves. After brief stops at Nelamangala, Kunigal and Chanraipatna, we were thrilled to get on to the Hassan - Belur road. At Belur, we mulled over the map to take a decision on our next move. Well, it was Chikmaglur that finally won and we headed off in that direction. Fortunately for us the roads till that point were excellent. At Chikmaglur, around 5 AM, we were happy to find quite a few people strolling around. With some assistance we got on to the road that headed to Balehunnur.

Dawn breaking over the mountains

From Balehunnur to Kalasa, we drove through the ghats, with the sun rising just behind the mountains. The sky with a hue of indigo was simply breathtaking. Irresistible as the scenery got, we stopped randomly to capture nature in its naked form either through the eye or through the camera. Almost close to Kalasa, we crossed this bridge with huge bamboo trees on either side of the river, Tunga, caressing the water. It was a mini Amazon of sorts! At this point a few of them had rumbling tummies and munched on idlis while the rest headed off to "Sahyadri Bhavan", our hotel in Kudremukh.

Misty river

It was 8:30 when we finally reached the hotel. A quick breakfast and a long freshening up later we were all set to explore some of the unknown terrain. Our local guide, Srikanth, took us to Samse, the closest village to Kudremukh (his hometown). After offering us some delicious home grown bananas and a refreshing drink, the 11 of us, yes the whole lot of us got into one jeep with the driver! Totally unprepared were we, to experience the rickety ride that took us through tea estates, up a hill through the jungle to finally stop a few hundred meters from the summit of a hillock. We got off and started to trek to reach a height from where we could see the valley extend till the eye could see.

View of the valley

Exhilarated and famished, we gobbled our packed lunches in the shade of a tree, surrounded by a herd of cows that had come to graze. The cowherd suggested we try and climb another peak, apparently from where the view was even more stunning. Getting adventurous, we started the climb and about 25 minutes later reached the point from where it felt, we will never get enough of this! Srikanth constantly reminded us that we have been really fortunate to view this as the skies were unimaginably clear that day after a thunderous downpour the previous day.


Content and rejuvenated, we headed down, and traced our path back to Samse, just in time to be saved from the rains which could have severely curtailed the movement of the jeep in the slushy muddy trail. It was at Samse that quite a few discovered they had brought along leeches on their legs! With a dash of salt the leeches were gotten rid off and a hot cup of coffee was welcomed by all. Heading back to the hotel, we thought of spending the rest of the day, generally doing nothing much.

The tree lined avenue of Kudremukh campus

Sunday was a late morning for most of us. Few of us went about discovering the town on our own and then finally packed to leave by around 12. A second round of breakfast was devoured at a nondescript restaurant with the TV playing out the Karnataka election results in the background. Thereafter, it took us almost 30 minutes pouring over a detailed map of Karnataka to decide that we should go back the way we came! So that meant the two cars would sync up at Chikamglur.

The three "guests" on the trip

But as luck would have it, both the cars lost the track and ended up heading in two different directions. We reached Kottigehara from Kalasa (bad roads) while the other car somehow managed to land in Balehunnur. It was then decided to meet in Hassan at the Kamath. Then again, we were one and a half hours apart, and so after having a bite at Kamath, we moved on to Bangalore. Reached Bangalore at 9:30 PM, ate dinner at Casa del Sol and reached home by 11:30 PM. The second group reached Bangalore at 1 AM after spending some quality "pool-side" time at the Taj, Chikmaglur.

We couldn't have asked for a more favorable weather, what with a few showers and the whole place being green and teeming with life.


Photography

All photographs shot with Canon EOS 400D with one of the following lenses:

Canon EF 50mm F1.8
Canon EF-S 17-85 mm F4 - 5.6 IS USM
Tamron 28 - 200 mm F3.8 - 5.6 XR

Raksha. Canon 50mm, ISO 1600, no flash

Moon was visible even close to sunrise

Sunrise

Early morning mist adding a surreal feel to the trees

Clouds proved favorable enough to get this shot

Had to wait quite a while to get a person at the right point in the picture

The tea bushes clothed the mountain side like a lush green carpet

Rathi. Fill in flash alleviating the harsh shadows of the midday sun to an extent.

Sugandhi

Rana

View from the small peak that we climbed first

Captured Tharunya against the blown-out sky while she was admiring some distant mountains

We found this nice rock where you could dangle your feet hundreds of meters above the valley below

Manz

The tree under which we had lunch

Su decided to take a quick post lunch siesta

The summit outcrop which we reached after a short trek

Inside Kudremukh campus

This bee was having a feast with all the flowers around