| Flash on the Pan.... |
[May. 6th, 2008|09:38 am] |
No, I don't have that subject title wrong...
Every day, as I go about my morning chores, I take out one pan to heat my morning thimbleful (all I allow myself! caffeine! caffeine!) coffee, and I love the effect of the morning sunlight on it.
So yesterday I wasted some time capturing the effect...here it is on a towel:
Here, with the coffee in it:
and here, on the polished granite of the kitchen counter (there's the green of the plants in my kitchen window, reflected in the granite too:
There's so much beauty in the kitchen in the morning....I don't feel it's drudgery at all! If only Cinderella had an S3, I think she would not be moping amongst the cinders, but trying to catch the glow of the embers and seeing if a high ISO would help....of course then, like me, she would be behindhand with her work and her stepmother would have something to say about that... |
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| Someone has returned home... |
[Oct. 3rd, 2007|05:26 pm] |
I am going to meet an LJ-er face-to-face...
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shivakumar_l has always been very, very helpful with his photography tips, and today I realized that he is back in Bangalore for good; so looking forward to meeting him. He is, of course, going to be appalled afresh at my camera-ignorance, but I have no pride in such matters! He is also a Canon guy...and is one of those people who don't mind drilling stuff into concrete heads...
We will probably go birding in a day or two... |
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| On the way to Nandi Hills... |
[Jun. 21st, 2007|02:17 pm] |
Do not miss that lovely curly tail! No, we didn't eat here...
This kind of thing is exactly what I got this S3IS for...! A few more "sighting shots" on the camera will follow... |
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| Dumb and Dumber,I don't have the right number... |
[Jun. 18th, 2007|06:18 pm] |
Very rarely, in my constant endeavour to learn new things, do I get dejected, but the past two days HAVE been days of dejection. I have been taking a series of foozly (see anushsh's post) pictures which make me want to cry....
The camera manual is NOT dummy user-friendly. What I *want* is some kindly soul standing near me, telling me, the way sainath did in Bandipur, "for this situation, do this, this and this." "Don't do this." and so on. Believe me, sometimes I have to WRITE down these instructions (absurdly simple as they probably are) and follow them verbatim several times until I get somewhat comfortable with the how-to. I hate the fact that I am SO dumb around these tech gadgets. Others, who are older than I am (KM for eg) take to them like a duck to the water, so why can't I be like them? I want to take the pictures, but I don't know the technicalities properly and without knowing it, it's like having a building on a weak foundation. It's like driving without knowing the basics of what's under the bonnet.
The thing is that this camera is NOT superior to the Canon EOS20D..and therein lies the trouble, too. That wonderful piece of equipment does much of the work for me...here, starting from the fact that the image through the viewfinder is not as sharp as through the DSLR, the camera is not as forgiving of my mistakes as the Canon 20D is. I have been driving a Lexus, and must now drive...well, perhaps,...an Octavia...and the camera is still complicated enough to deject me and make me feel that someone has wasted a lot of good money getting something for a dummy...why,WHY did I want such an expensive piece of equipment???
First of all, I want to know my way around the various modes and functions and features of the camera...even THAT is proving pretty complicated for me. I KNOW I am a reasonably intelligent individual...why does this defeat me SO easily?
I feel old, antiquated, fossilized and vegetable-for-a-brained...not really, I know this is nothing to do with age...it is due to some lack in me.
I must learn how, after taking videos, to post them to my comp, then to YouTube and then to my beloved LJ....the flash doesn't seem to come on when I press the button, as it should, and I am unable to find out why it isn't happening..and so the list of puzzlement goes.
I usually love learning and learn, perhaps slowly, but steadily...this is one of the few instances where I am very dispirited. And I have just one month to learn to use this camera well. Why the timeline? Ah, that will soon be revealed.... |
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| KM visited the Cheetah cubs again.... |
[Jun. 14th, 2007|05:34 pm] |
Remember the post about the Cheetah cubs that I had gone to visit in St Louis Zoo? Here it is, at
http://deponti.livejournal.com/177329.html
When KM visited St Louis last week, I asked him to visit them again, and nothing loath, off he went to the Zoo one afternoon. One of the original four cubs had died even before we had been to see them..but the other three are thriving...Here they are!
ONE!....
TWO!....
THREE!.....
And now for the rest of the news....
1. Laptop is back, doing absolutely fine, I am very happy with my "local" repairman who did such a good job for such a reasonable amount.
2. These pics were taken by KM on....MY NEW CAMERA!! Since KM wants to hog the Canon DSLR when we go on any future wildlife trips (a trip of a lifetime is being planned for July)...he and DnA got me a wonderful anniversary gift...a Canon S3 IS .
With everyone (er, except ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif) chirdeepshetty and sainath) telling me that after being used to a DSLR I would not find this very good, I was under the impression that this would be a simple point-and-shoot kind of camera. Far from it. I am still wading through the manual, just trying to identify the features...
And of course, now, even *I* can see the difference between pics taken on the DSLR and this camera; but I did need a lightweight camera to cart about everywhere....and I am thrilled with the S3IS.
I will need a LOT of help from all of you great photographers out there to be able to use this camera properly.... |
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| The latest Canon ad |
[Dec. 6th, 2006|12:24 pm] |
The latest Canon ad has what I think is one of the most amazing pictures ever....a picture of a bubble in the act of bursting.
I want to know how I can get a URL of the picture...I really do want to store this amazing photograph! And the ad doesn't say WHO shot that picture...I am hoping to get some more info I guess.
Can anyone help me? WHAT a photograph....
I remember being amazed by Lenart(spelling?) Neilssen's photographs many, many years ago, in Life magazine...of the human body, of a drop of fluid, of a speeding bullet...they captured, like this one, moments, or micromoments, that exist, but which the human eye cannot see. |
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| Back to the birds... |
[Oct. 27th, 2006|10:55 pm] |
...
I had the afternoon free and found that amoghavarsha was free too, but it was too late to go too far out, so we just decided to go to Kanakapura Road, and went near the Valley School campus looking to see what we could find.
Well...the first beautiful thing was the sunlight through the moisture-laden clouds....this picture just doesn't do justice to it, but it's an attempt to share it with all of you....
( For pictures of some of the birds that we saw, click on this )
I need a bird id and have asked a friend for it; I will post the other pictures when I get it. I had a lovely afternoon, because I also got to use Amogh's Nikon with the macro lens while he used KM's Canon....watch out for the photos when he gets around to processing them and posting them. I took pictures of a grasshopper, some unknown-to-me wildflowers, the flower of the African Tulip....I just hope he doesn't delete them as not being good enough! |
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amused