Art of Lighting

This was a once in a blue moon opportunity. I had two parties to go on the New Year’s eve but the full moon was very nice to miss. I took the longest lens I have (70-200mm 2.8L canon) and took this picture. It wasn’t coming out correctly at first, later I took the tripod on the driveway and took this without the slightest vibrations but somehow missed the crystal sharp focus. Here it is ..the first one with 2600K temperature and second with 4000K both zoomed in to the max 200mm.

Blue Moon

Full Moon

Over the years, I had tried my hand in different long timed exposures from velvety white water falls or stream to a recent experiment in tunnel.

Here are some of the better photos from each photo shoot along with EXIF details.

This was taken recently on the way to Duluth in a about 1/2 mile long tunnel. With a EF17-40mm lens set at 40mm with an aperture of f4.0 and shutter speed of 0.4 seconds, this was exposed to +0.25ev.

Tunnerl Timed

This cotton candy like firework was captured in Dells, Wisconsin a few years back with my 10D. Taken for 1/20 seconds at f/4 with an ISO of 800 at 70mm focal length.

Fire Candy

Skiing & Snow Boarding are the popular sport in MN, for at least 6 months, which lately has gone up to 8 months. There are many ski areas and Afton Alps is a one near by which has beginner to pro level course. There are also contests held where the skiier has to cross a water pond cut in the middle on the way down from the hill. This was taken with a shutter speed of 1/90sec at f/13 with a 73mm on the lens.

Snow Boarding

This lightning picture is a HDR taken in 2006. It is a combination of 4 different exposures taken in 30 seconds shutter speeds with a 50mm prime lens at f/11.

Thunder Bolt

What’s a Timed exposure article without a seamless flowing vevetty falls, right? Here it is. Its taken in Gooseberry Falls, Duluth, MN.  This is a HDR of 3 different exposures. The 0 eV was taken with 17mm lens at f/22 for 0.3 seconds.

Gooseberry Falls

In the film camera days, there used to be multiple exposure on single frame. Today we can expose in different frames, combine them ‘after the fact’ and finally get one picture. This technique is been popularly called “HDR” or “High Dynamic Range”.

Here is my attempt at HDR (though I should say Photoshop – even CS4 sucks at properly merging the photos. Manually merging them makes it a lot better!)

Non HDR

HDR

Non HDR

HDR

During my recent visit to India, went to Thrissur, Kerala, a beautiful city often called the cultural center of Kerala, with perfect balance between greenery & concrete and rural & urban population. During the stay at the Hotel, found this amazingly huge Cathedral. Here are 2 photographs of the same at different times of the day.

From there, the adventure began and we were travelling to Kuruva Island. It’s a beautiful set of small islands held by Tourism department. A guide walked us through a small group of 4 islands covering a 2km route.

After wading through knee deep water and trekking through tough rocks for 2km, we ended up in this big island where we found a bamboo house built to watch wildlife.

This flower is not just the symbol of a national party in India, but also the symbolizes the “progress of the soul” per Buddhism. Never mind that, but the photo opportunity was awesome.

The Banasura dam, largest earth dam in India, was amazingly wide. At the end of the dam, there was speed boating where I shot this picture.

Then the incredible Soochipara Falls. It was a trip downhill containing steps and a little bit of hike, the cascading falls was amazing.

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Muthanga wildlife sanctuary was another story. After a long ride in an open jeep through the dusty red soil, we finally were able to see some wild elephants. But the rememberable event from the ride which made us skip the next wild life santuary in the plan, was the dust which had settled all over us and my camera. I had to spend hours the day after cleaning all the equipment.

No, its not the Mitsubishi Eclipse . Its the total Lunar eclipse observed from most parts of North American continent in February 2008. I was in Orlando, Florida and had just checked into the motel. It was a beautiful view from the lawn of the motel the most expected Eclipse event since the next Total Lunar eclipse is not until Dec 21, 2010.

So I grabbed my gear (Canon 10D with 70-200 2L lens). I was experimenting Sunny 16 rules and basic exposure guide to capture moon. Finally, got one.

A: F/16
T: 1/350s
ISO: 400

It was 4:00 PM on 20th Feb. We (me and Brindha) were rushing to the Minneapolis airport to board the non stop flight to a place where we can escape from the winter of Minnesota… Yes, we were going to Florida where it was 85-90F.

This is the land that claims “Scream with the kids for a change”
Very True. We became kids going in all the rides at Universal Studios and the next day at Sea World. Here are some photos from there:

On the day 3 and 4, it was set aside for touring the Keys of Florida. We went to Key west first where we went for few adventure rides like Para sailing, Jet skiing, Kayaking and also snorkeling.

After that we went for scenic spots and one such place is near Key Largo.