F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

The inseparable six from school. Those who complained that you’ve never of these people… they are, from left to right

Moumita, Granthana, Neerajana and Pallavi, with Kingshuk and myself behind them.

Picture was taken in 2005 on film, with a Minolta P&S.

New camera

We're hoping to buy a new camera. While was advocating a dSLR, they are really expensive. A basic kit (body + 18-55mm zoom) prices begin from Rs 28,500, but more lenses cost just as much, making a fully equipped kit cost close to 1 lakh, a price I can't afford now.
So, the alternative was to buy a super-zoom. Though I mockingly call them the 'dSLR wannabe' segment, they do sport nice zoom lenses, say from 28-560mm, i.e. a 20x zoom. Their picture quality isn't bad either, and their optical image stabilization helps make up for the not-so-fast lenses and ISO settings. (They do have ISO settings commonly upto 3200, but noise makes one stick to values below 800.) They end up being complete packages, and have no further upgradation costs as opposed to SLRs.

This is the camera I'm looking at right now, the Canon Powershot SX20 IS, which comes at an MRP Rs 25,990.

22nd Dec 2009

ASCII will definitely be one of the most popular subjects on this blog, partly because I love taking pictures of him, and partly because I like taking pictures of landscapes/animals more than people.

This was again taken with the same compact, Olympus FE-210, with slight photo-shopping done.

ASCII's most precious

It used to be that lovely blue hankerchief that ASCII used to play around with, daring us to try and steal it from him. Long gone, that blue colour is. If you did find it somewhere, it's probably in a dozen pieces by now.
This is His Highness' latest. He's guarding it, but, for all you know, he might be sitting, and waiting for it to hatch!

Before and After... the ordeal

Warning! 

The following images may be disturbing or offensive

to fashion-conscious persons. 

Viewer discretion is advised.

Before the Haircut:

Haircuts are quite an ordeal, you know. Which is why I put them off for as long as I possible can, until my hair grows long enough to fall in my eyes. This photo was taken about a month ago. It didn't reach that stage then.

After the Haircut: 

The final look. I'm hoping it stays this way until the MBs are over. Or as long as possible, until it begins to fall into my eyes again.

Once again, I know I look horrible taking my own pictures. Excuse me... :-P

The Mohican attempt

Warning!

The following images may be disturbing or offensive

to fashion-conscious persons. 

Viewer discretion is advised.

My botched up attempt a mohawk... after my haircut!

I know, I know! I look horrible when I take my own photographs. But this was taken with the door of my room firmly shut, so no question of striking the pose for someone else to take the picture!

19th Dec 2009

Another 'first thing in the morning' photo, aiming to capture the beauty of a winter morning in the city with little more than a compact camera.
What makes the ambience of a winter morning in the tropics? The mist? The yellowish colour cast? The slant lighting?

Taken with the Olympus FE-210, Landscape mode ("Creative program biased toward depth of field" in EXIF data) with a - 2 exposure compensation.

18th Dec 2009

The flower was in our garden, high above the street and rickshaw stand below. My main aim in taking this shot, was to blur the background with a widely opened up aperture, causing a very narrow depth of field.
Unfortunately, a compact doesn't allow you to do that to your liking, and with an f/3.1 lens, you don't get the depth of field you want even with portrait and full macro settings.
This photo was taken to compare results with an SLR photo, though it being film, we'll have to wait for some time before the results come back.

Taken with Olympus FE-210 in Portrait mode with "Super macro" setting at 3MP res.
I'll post this pic again for comparison when I have the SLR film back.
And I must emphasize, I'm not happy with the way this photo came out. The SLR version will be better, I hope!

Photos from Film SLR

This photo of the rock face at Mahabalipuram was also taken on our South India trip.

Camera: Minolta X570 (Film) SLR with 50mm lens.

Aperture & Shutter speed not recorded.

The film was developed and then scanned (without prints)

from Zoom lab near Sen Mahasay, Salt Lake, Kolkata. (The store is gone now.)

Film scanned to digital images leave a sort of grainy appearance with poor colour reproduction and contrast. The image was only cropped to 640x480, with no other retouching done.

South India

This was taken on the road from Madurai to Trivandrum, on our trip to South India, Feb 2009

Camera: Nokia N72

Levels done on Photoshop.

17th Dec 2009

Pictures for 17^th Dec 2009.

I took these pictures sort of first thing in the morning.

So, I’m uploading them.

I took them at 640x480 resolution, so very little retouching done.

The macro of the porcelain bowl was Photoshopped to

remove a crack running right down the middle.

Just a test post via direct email

Okay, we all write blogs by logging into their site and typing.

This post is directly from my computer, by sending an SMTP email.

If this works, this blog should appear as a Draft post in my blogger account.

Picture taken at BGKV 2005 batch reunion. I forget which year.

The Camera Man himself

Why not start the entire thing with double the effort? Here's a picture of the photographer himself, with his favourite equipment, a Minolta X570-A SLR with 50mm lens and Rokinon flash.

Taken by dad with Olympus FE-210, mode unknown, at Badun-mama's birthday party.
(Most pics here will be taken with this camera. Pics from the Minolta SLR will find there way in here only rarely.)

12th Dec 2009. First post.

My first photograph post under Project 365. And what better a subject to start with, than the most photographed person at home?

ASCII, with his morning biscuit, daring us to try and take it from him!

Taken with an Olympus FE-210 in portrait mode.

Project 365

Project 365 is an idea I came across reading online photography magazines. It's basic idea, is to make photography an everyday activity for people.
What do you have to do? Simple. Bring out your camera, shake off the dust, and start clicking. One photo each day. Do that for one whole year. Reason? Well, you'll learn a surprising amount about photography, or so they claim.
But why the blog? What good is a photo if i don't show it to others. Photos are for sharing. Blogs are great for sharing.

The effort is supposed to start from 1st Jan, but I'm thinking I'm gonna start a little early. No harm there!

First post

Thoough this blog bears my name in the url, it is meant mostly for photographs, and the odd post.
I intended to use this blog for my Project 365 publication. What that actually is, will come a little later. Feel free to leave your comments, constructive or otherwise.
Kinjal