Achu & Ammu

Achu & Ammu - my nephew & niece.

Photographing kids is such a huge challenge, but also so rewarding! Given time & patience, one can get photographs that will be treasured forever. And they grow up so fast, so don't wait...

Brother and sister ...

Ammu, isn't she a naughty one!

Study time!

Is this a nice pose?

Sooo happy in my new dress!

In a rare, quiet moment...

Such nice round eyes she has!

Pretty in Pink

Nice light from the big glass windows at Kumarakom Lakesong Resort, shadow side filled in by flash.

Achu with his favorite Power Ranger's toy

Photo of the Day

The Last Leaf

Canon EOS 400D with Canon EF 70-200 F/4 IS USM Lens. Shot at my house in Trivandrum, Kerala.

More to come from this series ...

Trivandrum Zoo

The Trivandrum Zoo in Trivandrum, Kerala, India was established in 1857 as an annexe to the museum by Maharaja Swati Thirunal, the erstwhile Maharaja of Travancore, to attract more tourists. The zoo is spread over 55 acres of land in the heart of Trivandrum city at Palayam.

Had seen this flower in Hampi too, the guide had opened the flower to show what appeared like a Shiva lingam inside.

Close up detail of the flower.

An ostrich photographed through the netting, the long tele zoom isolating the subject from the foreground and background.

Believe this is a spectacled caiman. One of my favorites from this series for the detail in the texture of the skin. Click on the photo to enlarge it and have a look at its amazing eye.

All photographs with Canon EOS 400D and Canon EF 70-200mm F/4 IS USM Lens fitted with Tamron SP AF 1.4X Tele-Converter.

Photo of the Day

There were many Sunflower fields en route to Hampi. Got down near one on the way back and took this photograph with Canon EOS 400D and Tamron 70-300mm lens.

Photo of the Day

Flower photographed in gardens near Tungabadra Dam during Hampi Trip with Canon EOS 400D and Canon EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM lens.

Photo of the Day

Shot during Hampi trip near Royal Elephant Stables with EOS 400D and Tamron 70-300mm lens I had borrowed from Kiran. Framed tightly using the long zoom to show the smooth texture of the dog's coat.

Photo of the Day

Shot during Hampi Trip. Canon EOS 400D with EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM lens. Had to play around with the composition to create an interesting picture of a common subject.

New Canon Lens: EF-S 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 IS

As mentioned in my previous post on Canon walk around lens choices, the EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM is my current lens of choice for such a purpose. However, that might change depending on how good the new EF-S 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 IS lens announced by Canon is.

Photo courtesy dpreview.

Announced in August 2008 prior to Photokina 2008, this lens provides an equivalent focal range of 29-320mm with an exciting 11X zoom range. With up to 4 stop Image Stabilization, 1.5 ft closest focusing distance and 600g weight, this lens promises to be an ideal companion for a 1.6X FOVC camera as the lens to have on all the time. Lack of USM is a disappointment, autofocus performance needs to be seen once the lens is out. The major factor would be the Image Quality (IQ) of this lens and how much Canon had to compromise to bring out a budget (?) lens with 11X zoom range.

Priced at $699, this is not exactly a cheap lens. Alternatives are Sigma 18-200mm F/3.6-6.3 DC OS or the newly announced Tamron AF 18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF) Macro (whew!).

Vacation Notification ...

Flower near Tungabadra Dam

Flower shot near Tungabadra Dam during Hampi Trip. Canon EOS 400D with EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM lens. The gardens near TB dam is quite nice with lots of flowers.

Am taking a week's vacation in Kerala, have a couple of marriages to attend, plus a two day visit to Kumarakom. Have scheduled a few posts (created earlier) to "publish" over the coming few days, mostly "Photo of the Day" entries with flowers as subjects. First time I am trying out this new feature of Blogger, hopefully things go as planned.

Flowers are a relatively easy subject to photograph, and with their diverse shapes and colors, they always result in good photographs. I still have a good selection of flowers from my Lal Baugh flower show to publish, however, will put them up on a single post in a few weeks.

Canon EOS 50D

Before Photokina 2008, Canon has announced the EOS 50D DSLR along with Canon EF-S 18-200mm F3.5-5.6 IS Lens.

Photo courtesy dpreview.com.

Comparing against the EOS 400D I have owned since the beginning of this year, why would I consider an upgrade to EOS 50D (or EOS 40D as that will continue to be available)? I can think of the following reasons, assuming EOS 50D will be at least as good as EOS 40D for the following parameters:

1. Better image quality due to sensor enhancements and 14-bit processing
2. Expanded usable ISO range and better noise reduction
   
3. Faster auto focus that works better under low light conditions
4. Better build quality and weather resistance
5. Better LCD screen (3.0" size, VGA resolution & usability under bright light) for image review
   

I am ambivalent about the following features:

Live View
Even on Point & Shoot digital cameras (I have owned and used quite a few including Canon S2 IS), I tend to use view finder rather than LCD screen. The poor performance of LCD screen under sunlight and power drain are two major factors why I choose not to use LCD.

Higher Resolution The 15 MP on EOS 50D comes at a cost - file size. I started shooting RAW recently and find disk space an issue even with the 9 MB RAW files generated by my 10 MP EOS 400D. As of now, my photographs are pretty much used only for display on my blog, but I would still like to have archival copies of all images for whatever the future holds.

High Speed Continuous Shooting
I am primarly a landscape photographer and have not used the high speed continuous shooting mode extensively. However, this is something I would like to experiment with for wildlife & sports photography and maybe even for portrait photography, especially with kids. EOS 40D & 50D are capable of 6+ fps and have higher buffer sizes for storing more images in burst mode.

In summary, I personally would evaluate & justify the price premium primarily with respect to image quality, low light performance and build quality. There are of course, other factors like weight, battery capacity, responsiveness and custom functions. But they would not weigh in as primary factors if and when I consider upgrading to a better camera body.

Photo of the Day

Getting Antsy

Shot near TB dam during Hampi Trip. The tree was hollow towards bottom and a huge army of ants were marching up & down the tree. Canon EOS400D with EF-S 17-85mm F/4-5.6 IS USM lens. The 17-85 lens with a maximum magnification of .2X is not great for macro photography, this was as close as I could get. Retained photo because of the diagonals made by the striations on the bark and the profile of the two black ants against the greyer shade of the bark.

Photo of the Day - Prachi

Prachi at Krip & Pari's engagement party. She is extremely shy (at least with me), and with so many people around, she ensured that she stayed close to Raghu or Vaishali all the time.

Canon EOS 400D with EF 50mm F/1.8 lens and built in flash

Love the nice, rounded highlights formed by the out of focus bulbs in the background and the bright catch light from the flash in Prachi's eyes - overall a very dreamly looking photograph of Prachi. Converted to monochrome to give emphasis to the child's face and eyes and avoid color as a distracting element in the picture.

Portraits at Hampi

Although I was concentrating more on capturing the monuments and landscape at Hampi, I did manage to sneak in a few candid portrait shots.

Rathi amongst the ruins

The below two pictures were shot with the Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro Zoom lens that I borrowed from Kiran. I borrowed the lens with the intent to shoot Parakeets, but they proved quite fast and elusive - so I decided to aim at more sedentary targets, albeit a lot less colorful.

Kiran at Hampi

The 300mm (480mm with 1.6X FOVC) has a sufficiently long reach for a candid head and shoulders portrait shot from afar with nice out of focus background wide open at F/5.6.

Rathi at Hampi

The lack of image stabilization at this focal range makes photography tricky without a tripod. The day was overcast with diffused light avoiding harsh shadows, but with adequate light for me to shoot hand-held in shutter priority at 1/500s with ISO upped to 800 to avoid blur.

Unfortunately, I could not try the 1:2 Macro capability of this lens.

Hampi - Poetry in Stone

Photographs from Hampi trip - August 15 to 17, 2008.

Hampi, located approximately 350 KM from Bangalore in Karnataka, India, was the capital of the erstwhile Vijayanagara empire and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rainy season is the best time to visit Hampi, otherwise the site is literally too hot to handle. The weather gods were very obliging we had only light drizzles to trouble us.

Map courtsey hampi.in. We stayed at Priyadarshini hotel in Hospet, the biggest town near to Hampi and in 3 days, covered Hampi, Tungabadra Dam & Chitradurga Fort.

Virupaksha Temple

Temple Elephant

A tricolor flag to celebrate Independence Day

Sasive Kalu Ganesha

Watching a resplendent Tungabhadra River

Chariot at Vitthala Temple

Detail from the Chariot Wheel

Lotus Mahal

Elephant Stable

Chitradurga Fort

Web Links:

• http://www.hampi.in/
• Wikipedia on Hampi
  
• Wikipedia on Chitradurga