My favourite

Welcome back Again!!

Click on the picture to see the real beauty!

As usual I started off for my lunch time walk one day - my back pack adorning my back once again! As many of my colleagues were walking too, I was hesitating to pull out my camera. My office buddy said - 'Oh Come on Raghu click this one'. Waited for others to pass, then pulled out my camera. This was just a wild bush. I had to pace around for some minutes before settling for this angle. It was a cloudy day and that added to the beauty too.

I just fell in love with it the moment I saw it on the LCD. Many of my colleagues liked it and used it as their desktop background. I really liked the bokeh. Hope you like it too..

Tech details: Canon XSI

Nifty Fifty - 50mm at 1.8

1/640 sec

ISO: 100

Spring showers

Welcome Back!

To see spring showers you really need to get down! Looks like misty dew! As I was walking taking pictures of flowers, I noticed these flowers. But then there was a hitch. They were pale and didn't look quite beautiful as to keep. What do you do then? Just click them anyway. And use some picture editing software! Took a couple of pictures. This seemed to fit in well with what I had in mind.

It was an overcast day and that added to the beauty. All I did was saturate it a bit. Then it looked beautiful. Click on the picture to see the details. Hope you like it!

The tech details:

Canon XSI

Nifty-Fifty

f/1.8

1/800 sec

ISO 100

Used Picasa to saturate

Pine Cone

Welcome back!

Ever since I read the strange importance of Fibonacci numbers in Photography, I wanted to take a picture of a Pine Cone. Incidentally we had kept a pine cone at home since I found it beautiful never knowing the scientific reason behind it's beauty! Two spirals go upwards in two opposite directions. Both these spirals have different frequencies - one goes 8 rounds when the other goes 13 rounds.

After having decided to take a picture, I wanted to take it in angled natural light - because I wanted to capture the contours of it to the maximum effect. When one day the late evening sunshine entered our living room, I set it on the floor, set the camera on the floor took some shots. This was the best of the lot. Hope you like it.

Technical details -

Canon XSI

50mm prime

f/2.2

1/250sec

ISO: 100

California dry grass!!

Beginning of the dry summer of California!

As summer advances in California, the green grass ends up like this - scary particularly because of the frequent fires that break out. Very soon they will be mowing the whole place to avoid any danger of fire. But now it has it's own silky beauty you can see above! 

This was taken during a photo walk to a location called DISH on the Stanford University campus.  I had to sit down to get this angle in the hot sun light. But it was worth the effort because, in a week it would have all gone and also because it was picture perfect!

Tech:

Canon XSI

50mm

f/1.8

1/4000 sec

ISO: 100

Cherry Blossom!!

Spring time!

I found this tree right in front of my office. Though I noticed the white bloom a bit early, I was not satisfied with the light. I had to keep an eye on it for the right direction of light and amount of light for a FULL week. Also, I wanted to make it as discreet as possible - I didn't want to show off in front of colleagues. Finally I got the right moment in an afternoon. I quickly clicked a series of pictures - it was worth it - because, after one more week, this tree was completely green!! No trace of white.

Technical:

Canon XSI 

55-250IS at 84mm

f/4.5

1/320sec

ISO: 100

Respect the KIT lens

Really!

As I bought the 55-250IS along with the XSI, I never respected the KIT lens (18-55IS) and hardly used it for any shooting. But recently when I went to the meetup group of Southbay Photography group, I saw a photographer show off his work which was done using this KIT lens and I was clearly impressed. From then on, particularly when I travelled to Anaheim and Disneyland, I used it exclusively.  The result is I use it now regularly.

The above rose was captured during one of my walkarounds. I really loved the result - it is now hanging on my living room wall.

Settings: 

Canon XSI

18-55IS at 55mm

1/320sec

f/5.6   (I couldn't go to f/4.0 as I was already at 55mm)

ISO: 100 (lowest, it was a bright sunny day)

Canon 50mm 1.8 - cutting edge of creativity

Welcome back!

Hmm, being a lazy guy, finally I took the effort to walk around only to find this fabulous stuff just around the corner from my lunch time walking path next to a creek. Beautiful setting ofcourse..

So just to give a short intro - I finally got my canon 50mm 1.8 - the 'nifty-fifty' But was lazy to check it out around. Finally I took some pictures during my lunch walk.What I learnt about this lens is - it will keep ONLY ONE layer absolutely in focus. Whatever is 1 inch before or 1 inch behind will be out of focus. That is what I have learnt.

I really loved the result! Loved the Bokeh too!!

Technical data: Canon XSI(as usual)

                            50mm 1.8mm

                            f/1.8

                            1/1600 sec

Portrait photography - Best suited lens

Welcome back!

Though I had an SLR for nine years, never experimented much because of, you know what! Cost!! Now that I moved to DSLR and three lenses - 18-55 + 55-250 + 50mm 1.8 - I have got enough resources to play around for free ( already paid for:-) )

I got the most flattering results with my 55-250 telephoto zoom at around 100mm WITH NATURAL LIGHT before noon - indoors. I stand next to the window and I ask my subject (so far only my wife) to stand facing me (window). I can not post these photos as she didn't agree to.

Cut the crap - my personal style is to focus as close as possible with just the face filling literally the whole frame - if that suits you. The results are usually very flattering. Try it.

General technical data I used: 

Canon XSI with 55-250 at around 100mm

f/4.0

1/2 sec - 1/50sec

ISO: 200

Without flash