Fireworks - July 4th 2009 - one more

Click on the picture to see the real beauty!

Hello All,
Welcome again! I think I should get over more of my laziness in sharing what I am doing! Anyway this is one more shot which I took during the last July 4th celebration. I was sitting with a group of friends in the lawns of the nearby school watching the fireworks. I was holding the camera in my hand clicking away.. Since I was exposing it long enough, it came out wavy beautiful. Hope you like it!

Tech:
Canon XSI, 55-250mm at 96mm
f/5.0
1/6s
ISO: 800

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

Palm Tree on a rainy day

Welcome to Digital photo talk again!

What do you do when you have to just wait in your vehicle doing nothing but staring into the sky and it is raining heavily? Just pull out your camera!  That's what I did. I focussed on the sun roof of our X5.  The rain drops made it an interesting composition. I took a couple of shots (power of digital!). This one had the palm tree clearly in a number of drops. I really loved the way it came out. By the way this photo is absolutely un-edited! Taken at Anaheim, california.

Data: Canon XSI with 18-55IS at 20.0mm.

          f/3.5

          1/1000sec

          ISO 800

Beautiful sunset at Orange county, California

Welcome to Digital Photo Talk !

When I visited the Newport beach in Orange county, I had nothing much to do. So I wanted to enjoy the sunset in this beach. By the time I reached there the sunset was over. But the colors were so beautiful. Since it was getting too dark, I decided to use a long exposure with a high ISO.

I used my Canon XSI with 18-55 IS at 55.0mm, ISO 800

Shutter priority - Shutter speed 20.0 sec, f/29

It was so windy I had to hold the tripod -I was afraid it might fly off. But when I saw the result, I was really thrilled. It was my first sunset picture. The long exposure also caused a glitter to the lights. The pier added a eye-guide into the picture and the beach added foreground.

Lonely Autumn Tree

Welcome to Digital photo talk !

Autumn trees always fascinate me - may be because of their bare bone structure. You can see everything they have! And they are not covered up by the leaves.

I had stopped at a red signal while driving home one day. It was a waiting time of around 1 1/2 minute. Hence I was lazily glancing around. When I noticed this tree, just jumped up and pulled out my camera and clicked it. Took only one shot in 

AV mode.

Equipment: Canon XSI

                      55-250 at 55mm

                      1/2000 sec

                      f/4.0

                      ISO: 200

Only hitch - there were electrical wires running just behind the tree. That was a spoiler! I used MS paint to manually remove the wires. Later, I added some saturation using Picasa 3.

My Beautiful photo gallery

http://raghugollapalli.imagekind.com

Bedroom window Bokeh

Welcome to the Digital Photo Talk !

I was playing with my brand new canon tele-photo 55-250 IS to focus on a distant home through the gaps in this tree. Later I noticed that this tree itself was beautiful. I shot the picture in the header above using my XSI with 55-250 IS at 250mm using Manual focus, f/5.6, 1/10sec, ISO:200. Taking the picure at f/4.0 was keeping only some leaves in focus. So had to turn it down a bit to keep more leaves in focus.

I really loved the shades of green in this picture.

What to read in Digital photography

Welcome to Digital Photo talk !

I am sure there are many like me - just stepped into the world of digital photography. I have been reading a lot of books, blogs, websites, magazines and the list goes on. Let me list them down so that you too can get benefited - I am not listing useless books which waste your time.

1. Most important: Read your camera manual. You should know how to handle your camera completely. Trust me. I know the manual is small in size and not easy to read. You can download a soft copy and read it - this is a lot easier. Handling your camera should become your second nature. Particularly Canon models where many settings go by menus unlike Nikon where there are buttons on the back of the camera body.

Also the canon online resources for the cameras are very informative. Check out - 

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=HomePageAct

--> tips and techniques & EOS digital sections

--> it also contains videos explaining stuff.

2. Scott Kelby's Digital photography vol 1 & 2 : This is the set of books where he tells you exactly what to do in a so-and-so situation. You don't have to buy them. I borrowed these books from my local library repeatedly.

3. KODAK digital photography books: If you really want to understand why some photos work and some don't, I found KODAK books to very authentic. I never thought I would read about Fibonacci numbers in a photography book.

4. National Geographic publications - Field guides & magazines.

5. YouTube: Can you imagine, YouTube contains tons of videos explaining everything you ought to know about photography using YOUR camera. All you need to do is search for your camera model and some one there will be explaining how you can do this and that using YOUR camera. For example search for Canon XSI and in the list, look up for what you want to do, like for instance - setting custom white balance (pretty easy), recompose a shot using exposure lock etc.

6. Blogs: 

http://www.digitalprotalk.blogspot.com/

http://digitalphototalk.blogspot.com/      <-- you are already here!!!

7. Websites:

http://digital-photography-school.com/

8. Your own vision: develop a sense of photography. You have to start to see things differently - as if you are always looking TTL :-)

Welcome! An intro about me and my camera(s)..

Welcome to Digital Photo talk !

Hi,

Welcome aboard ! I hope to entertain you with my photography talks, discussions and titbits.

(Updated on June 29th 2010)

About me -

You can call me Raghu. Born in India. Lived in India and Germany. Currently living in the sunny california.

Always been interested in Photography ever since I remember. Got into Film SLR around 2000(around 9 years back). Didn't dare to experiment with film because of cost. Recently moved to DSLR. I have always been a CANON guy.

Camera's owned:

Film SLR: Canon EOS Rebel GQD with Sigma 28-80 with Macro at 80 (used mostly while in India & Germany)

P&S: Canon IXUS 40 (used mostly in Germany and US)

DSLR: Canon EOS XSI with EF-S 18-55 IS f/3.5-5.6

+ EF-S 55-250 IS f/4.0-5.6

+ EF 50mm f/1.8 II (ordered recently)
Bag: Lowepro Nova AW 170

Tripod: Dolica Proline AX620B100 (updated on June 29th 2010)