April 15, 2013

I am talking at “Learn the Basics” a discussion on Photography Fundamentals, at Indore

Indore Photographer’s Community, a group of hobby photographers that I moderate, is organizing a series of discussions on Fundamentals of Photography on 20 and 21st April 2013.

The timings is from 2 pm till 7 pm on both Saturday and Sunday.
The venue is: Pritamlal Dua Gallery, Regal Square, M.G. Road, Indore

It is a fun, friendly and free event for all hobby photographers. If you are at Indore during this weekend, do join us

I will be talking about Post Processing of Photos using Adobe Lightroom and also on Monetizing the photography skills using Microstock Photography.

Hope to see you guys there.

PS: If you are related to Indore and are a hobby photographer, do join us at our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ipcmail/

July 11, 2012

10 things that I love about my Nokia Pureview 808 that makes it an awesome phone to own.

I got a Nokia Pureview 808 couple of days ago. Yes, the “camera” which plays music and videos, surfs the net and also makes phone calls

I have used iPhone 4, Android Phones (HTC Hero, Google Nexus, Galaxy Ace and Galaxy Note) and lots of other phones so I am in a pretty decent position to compare this phone with other phones.

Here are some things that I absolutely love in my Nokia Pureview 808 phone and I believe these features are worth the price that Nokia charges for this phone.

These features also sets this phone way ahead of any other phone in the market today.

Note: All the photos in this post were shot with my pureview. Click on the photo to visit the Flickr page where you can check out larger versions and also view exif info of each photo.

1. Camera with 41 Mega Pixel Sensor, Carl Zeiss Lens and Intelligent Xenon flash

Let us get this out of the way. Everybody who has heard about this phone knows it as a phone with a 41 Megapixel camera. And yes, everything that you have heard about this camera is absolutely true.

This photo looks equally good in full 38MPix resolution

Did you know that despite such outrageous amounts of pixels, even by DSLR standards, the size of each pixel in the sensor is almost the same size (1.4 micron) as that on iPhone or Samsung or similar phones in the market.

So you get photos that are of similar or better quality than other camera phones. The sensor is also larger than the sensors of serious compacts like Canon S100 or Canon G12 etc.

For this photo, the camera exposed for the sky and fired the intelligent flash to expose Madhulika properly.

It has a Carl Zeiss Lens that is rated at f2.6 max aperture and it has a Xenon Flash that intelligently adjusts intensity according to the scene that you plan to shoot.

This photo and this wonderful memory would not have been impossible if I did not have this phone with me.

And it has a dedicated core in its processor for photography so the camera can handle such huge photos both in the camera module and in the gallery module without breaking a sweat.

2. Quality of the photos captured by the camera

As all photography enthusiasts know, more megapixel does not mean better photos but in the case of Nokia Pureview… it does.

Pureview uses a technology called over-sampling. It takes a 38 Megapixel photo, removes bad pixels (noise etc) and uses the remaining pixels to create a 5/8 Megapixel photo that has the best data from across its entire sensor area.

The result, awesome pictures even in low light conditions such as inside a restaurant or drawing room in the evening.

Not only that, even if you click a photo at the full 38 Megapixel resolution, the quality is awesome. Thanks to the Carl Zeiss lens, the smallest details in the photo are very clear.

So I can click a photo first and then compose it in Lightroom by cropping a 12 Megapixel image from it without any loss in quality. It also allows me to zoom in on any specific area very closely. The closeups are mind-blowing.

This was a big photo, I cropped a portion of it in Lightroom. Even the heavily cropped photo is 12 Megapixel in size

3. Video Recording with lossless zoom

The Pureview over sampling of pixels is done even during video recording. This results in less grainy videos if you shoot in dim lights. And depending on the video resolution, you can use the lossless zoom to go closer to your subjects in the video without any loss in video quality.

When shooting in 360p mode, I can zoom to 12x size with no loss in quality… that is mind-blowing.

I think this is the only camera phone in the market right now that can do this.

4. Sound Recording with “Rich Recording”

Nokia uses a technology called “Rich Recording” to record audio both for Vidoes and also for audio recording. Like pureview, it cleans up the noise and allows you to record really loud noises very clearly in the sound and records crystal clear audio.

You have to check it out to understand what I mean.

5. Unlimited free music download

Since I am in India, I get the option to download unlimited numbers of songs from the Ovi Store at no extra cost. It means that I get all the latest movie songs without buying CDs. This is huge.

6. FM Transmitter

Nokia Pureview 808, like some other Nokia phones comes with a FM Transmitter built in the phone. It means that I can use the music system of my car or the hifi system at home to listen to the music that I play on my phone… wirelessly.

This is an awesome way to manage all the music in one location and use the high-fi music systems to listen to these music. The audio quality that is transmitted on the FM is also great.

Add this the fact that I can download unlimited music from the Ovi Store… this is amazing.

7. Alarm plays even when you switch off the phone

This is unbelievable. If I a set the alarm and switch off the phone, the alarm will switch on the phone and play the alarm.

Imagine, I can switch off the phone when I go to sleep (so I save battery) and the phone wakes itself up and then wakes me I don’t think either Android or iPhone can do that.

8. Turn by turn Map Navigation

This is a real value that Nokia gives for free. In India, Google Navigation is not available. All other navigation/GPS systems are commercial and charge a license fees. Nokia gives a turn by turn navigation GPS unit that is not only free, it is pretty accurate, works in smaller cities like Indore and Bhopal and it even gives spoken instructions in Hindi (and tons of other regional languages). How awesome is that.

Gaara checking out an old Road Roller

9. USB Client

I can transfer photos, videos, music or any other file from my usb drive to my phone and vice-versa without having to use a computer. photo_pen_drive It becomes so easy to click a photo and give it to a friend on a pen-drive or copy the videos from my friend’s pen-drive to my phone.

I don’t know about the world… but in India, that is huge :)

10. It is a decent smartphone.

There are many things that I would like to have in my phone and I have them in my Nokia 808, such as

Dolby Digital Sound Playback
Ability to sync Google Contacts, Calendar and Mail
All the apps that I use personally e.g.
- Ionic for reading ebooks
- Opera Mini for browsing
- Sports Tracker for outdoor fitness activities like Running, Cycling etc
- Pre-installed Microsoft Office for viewing/editing office files
- Pre-Installed Social app for Facebook and Twitter
Great music player and audio quality etc
Video player supports all the formats that I use e.g. DivX, Xvid, MKV along with the standard video formats that all phones support
Perfect phone features like clear audio in phone calls, good battery life, good connectivity etc
I can manage the contents of my file from any PC without having to use any software like iTunes etc
Tethering of internet from phone to my laptop

And generally everything that I need from my phone. For everything else, I have an iPad, Laptop and a DSLR.

11. The most important feature: Now I always have an awesome camera+phone with me.

Sleek user interface, high res screens etc will continue to evolve and will improve with each generation of phones that are launched.
If you have an iPhone with retina display today, you will have something else with an even higher res display next year…
If you have ice-cream sandwich or IOS6 today, next year you will have something even more gorgeous and sexy on your phones.

But the photos that you take today will remain with you for your life and generations to come.

A common cliche is that the best camera is the one that you have with you. Now with Pureview 808, the best camera (both figuratively and literally) is always with me along with a great music/video player, a decent ebook reader, a decent web surfing device and a fantastic phone.

Gaara and Me

Having fun with my son

Because of it, my wife could click photos of me having fun with my son,

I could click the photo of my son playing with a puppy when we were walking to his bus stop on the first day of his school,

and the photo of my wife waiting for my son’s school bus and so many trivial things in life that are such great memories.

I think I will hang on to this phone for a very long time.

PS: Like all devices and everything else in life, this is also not perfect. And the problems that various technical reviewers mention are obvious features (not bugs) of the OS and hardware used in the phone.
I have some other general things that I wish were fixed or did not exist in this phone but that calls for another post

February 18, 2011

14 Days to Valentine: A personal photography project or how to win a girl with your photography skills :)

This valentine, I decided to work on a photography project called “14 Days to Valentine”.
The idea was that, starting from 1st of Feb, I would click one photo everyday. The theme of the photo would be about love and each photo would be accompanied with very mushy and romantic text. And of course, all the photos would be dedicated to my beautiful wife.

Needless to say, these 14 days were the best days of my married life in quite sometime and I strongly recommend this “technique” to other married men/women.

Here are the photos that I made during that time along with the texts for each of them.

Day 1

Love is all around us… and the feeling grows.

Day 2

In your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches

Day 3

Happiness is:
being with you
watching you smile
watching you talk
watching you dance
watching you love me

…just watching you

Day 4

I watch the sun come up… I want another day with you.

Day 5

You’re the cream in my coffee,
You’re the salt in my stew;
You will always be my necessity:
I’d be lost without you.

You’re the starch in my collar,
You’re the lace in my shoe;
You will always be my necessity:
I’d be lost without you.

You’re the sail of my love boat,
You’re the captain and crew;
You will always be my necessity:
I’d be lost without you.

-performed by Nat King Cole

Day 6

Have I told you lately that I love you
Have I told you there’s no one else above you
You fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do

- Performed by Rod Stewart & written by Van Morrison

Day 7

A house is made of brick and beams,
You made it home with love and dreams.

Thank you for making this house a home

Day 8

She’ll lead you down a path
There’ll be tenderness in the air
She’ll let you come just far enough
So you know she’s really there
She’ll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She’s got a secret garden
Where every thing you want
Where every thing you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

Day 9

She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes,
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies,
And she only reveals what she wants you to see.
She hides like a child but she’s always a woman to me.
She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you,
She can ask for the truth but she’ll never believe you,
And she’ll take what you give her as long as it’s free,
Yeah she steals like a thief but she’s always a woman to me.
And she’ll promise you more than the garden of Eden
then she’ll carelessly cut you and laugh while you’re bleeding,
But she brings out the best and the worst you can be.
Blame it all on yourself cause she’s always a woman to me.

Day 10

I’ve been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I’ve been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive
I’ve been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life

Day 11

There is so much a man can tell you,
theres so much he can say.
there’s so much inside.
You remain…
My power, my pleasure, my pain, baby …
To me you’re like a growing addiction that I can’t deny

Day 12

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Day 13

No New Year’s Day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring
No song to sing
In fact here’s just another ordinary day

No April rain
No flowers bloom
No wedding Saturday within the month of June
But what it is, is something true
Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

Day 14: Valentine Day

There will come a time, when I will lose everything,
my wealth, my health, my sanity… my breath.

There will come a time, when I will not be me,
when each part of me would be lost forever.

But when you are here, I’ve nothing to fear,
because I know that my heart will go on.
bruised, battered, torn to pieces… but still going on and on…

by Gunjan

~~~

So, that is how I celebrated my Valentine fortnight
How do you use your photography skills to improve your relationship?

January 25, 2011

Workshop at IIM Indore

Gunjan at IIM

Yesterday (i.e. Sunday 23rd, 2011) was an awesome day for me. The photo community that I moderate, Indore Photographer’s Community was invited by Aperture, the photography club of IIM Indore to conduct a workshop at IIM Indore during Mridang, their annual fest.

We had invited Mr. Hemshankar Pathak to conduct a workshop, followed by a photo walk in the campus of IIM, followed by a photo competition.

The thing that I learned during the workshop was that the most important aspect of any photography (or for that matter any form of art like music, poetry, dance, painting, sculptures, literature etc) is composition.

If your composition is good, your viewers can forgive bad exposure, incorrect colors and other imperfections of your photograph. And the best part is that for a good composition, you do not need any special equipment.

Whether you use a basic point and shoot camera (or even a cell phone camera) or a high end pro medium format camera… your composition skills do not depend on your equipment.

It depends on how you look at the things and how well you have developed the aesthetic sense (which in part depends on how critically you look at your and other people’s photos).

Here are some guidelines for composition shared by him (He re-iterated, that these are just guidelines, the best judge of a good photo is you… you should be happy with it first before you show it to others).

The difference between shooting with a gun and shooting with a camera is that when you are shooting with a gun, you just have to focus on your target, but when you are shooting with a camera, you have to look at the subject, its back ground, its fore ground, all the four corners of your frame etc.
The difference between painting and photography is that when you paint, you decide what to ADD to your canvas. When you click a picture, you have to decide what to REMOVE from the picture, so that your main subject gets maximum attention.
Remember the rule of thirds. That is a good starting point. It basically says that you should never put your main subject in the center of the photo.
If your subject is moving in a direction, or facing a certain direction in your photo, make sure that you have more vacant space in that direction and less space behind the subject
A good subject is something that stands out in the photo. Try to make sure that your subjects and your background do not merge.
Subjects can be separated from the background by various techniques like using different color from the background, using light to highlight, using selective focus to make the background blur etc
If you are clicking photos of patterns/textures (i.e. repeating patterns), try to find something that breaks that repetition. Make it your make subject
Before clicking the photo check out the lines (edges) in the scene and make sure that they support the mood that you are trying to create… horizontal lines depict width and tranquility, vertical lines depict height and strength/power and diagonal lines depict movement and action.
Observe the light and be aware of how the quality, intensity and direction of light affects your subject. Sometimes, you will get a better picture just by taking a few steps to the left or right.
Be aware of the features and limitations of your camera. If you know that, then you have more chances of getting better photos. And the key to being aware of your camera’s features and limitations is to click thousands of photos and get frustrated a few hundred times. Then you will know exactly how your camera will capture any scene.

It will be impossible to cover all the points but I found the discussion very informative.

The campus of IIM, Indore is awesome. It is situated on a hill and the sunset looks out of the world from there. The sky had all the colors of the palette and it proved a challenge for many of us to capture it properly.

Here are some of my photos from that trip

IIM Indore
Welcome to the IIM, the main college building with the setting sun illuminating it

Arches and the sun
The view of sunset from within the IIM building

The sunset at IIM Indore
The sunset at IIM

The path to knowledge
The road leading to IIM, Indore

The bodhi tree
The tree than enlightens them all

Hope you like them.

Have fun,
Gunjan

January 12, 2011

Why your photos are not sharp…

A photo is not sharp due to a combination of

Bad photography techniques
Bad subject
Bad light
Bad equipment

Today, I will talk about these issues only. In my future posts, I will discuss the various techniques that I have learned to get sharp photos.

Reason #1: Bad Photography Techniques

Most of the times, the problem is with you, the photographer. Most of us, who “graduate” from Point and Shoot camera, tend to use our DSLR in the same way i.e. like a bigger, better point and shoot camera.

There is nothing wrong with it, in fact the DSLR does perform better than a point and shoot camera in Auto mode, but using your camera in Auto Mode is like buying a Ferrari and not driving it above the speed of 60 Km per hour

You need to be familiar with all the features i.e. menus and settings of your camera so that you know what to do when your camera does not produce the photos that you desire, specially in special situations like high contrast or low lighting conditions, continuously moving subjects, very narrow depth of field etc.

Did you know that almost all the cameras have picture mode where you can set the sharpness, saturation and contrast of your photos? Bad technique means that you are not using it. Neither are you using a computer (Yes software like Photoshop, Lightroom, Picasa, Gimp etc) to sharpen your photos.

In one of my future posts, I will discuss how to work on these areas.

Reason #2: Bad subject

Have you taken photos of children or pets or running horses or fast cars, specially in the evening or cloudy days and were you frustrated by all the blurry photos that you got. It is time for you to find out the best adjustments in your camera for these subjects. The auto mode of your camera will not help here.

Another difficult subject to get sharp photos of is when the subject is flat and does not have textures etc. Because of this the auto-focus of your camera is not able to lock focus on the subject and you get blurry, out of focus photos.

The standard method of point and shoot might not work in these conditions.

So learn to manually control the shutter speed and also use the manual focus feature of your camera.

Reason #3: Bad Light

Photography is all about lights. As the available light reduces, your camera has to keep the shutter open for longer durations to get sufficient light needed for creating a well exposed photo.

Longer exposure time means that even the slight movement of your hands or the subject will blur the photo.

Sometimes you have to introduce additional light using flash and sometimes you have to find a sturdier stand (a tripod) for keeping your camera steady.

Reason #4: Bad Equipment

Your photo will be as sharp as can be captured by the combination of your lens and the camera.

Almost all the lenses have a sweet range of aperture and focal length in which they generate the sharpest photos.

Cheap lenses have a very small range of aperture and focal lengths and the pro lenses have a very wide range of aperture and focal lengths.

E.g. Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR II is a pro lens and is sharp almost across the focal length and across all apertures where as Nikon’s 18-55mm kit lens produces its sharpest photos in a much narrower range.

Another problem that many lenses and camera bodies face is that they are mis-calibrated. This causes a problem known as back focusing or front focusing.

Back focusing means that the camera knows that it has to focus at a distance of say 10 meters and due to mis-calibration of its gears, it sets the focal distance to 10.1 meters. Similarly in front focusing, the camera would set the focusing distance to 9.9 meters or so.

This again is a very common fault and you, as a photographer should be aware of it. You can read more about it at http://www.focustestchart.com/chart.html

How to handle these problems and get sharp photos

Getting a sharp photo is just a matter of being aware of the limitations of your camera and knowing the best work-arounds for these limitations. Getting sharp photos is a matter of good practice.

Usually it involves doing one or more of the following steps.

Set sharpness in the picture mode in your camera
Check your focus
Check your shutter speed and make sure it is set according to the subject you plan to shoot.
Check your aperture and try and keep it in the sweet range of your lens
Check your focal length and try and keep it in the sweet range of your lens
Enable Image Stabilizer of your camera/lens (and know when to disable it)
Check the ISO. Higher ISO value creates blurry photos.
Use tripod if your subjects are not moving
Use flash if your subjects are close
Use computer software like Photoshop, Lightroom etc

In my future posts, I will pick up each of these points and discuss them in detail. Don’t forget to subscribe either by RSS or Email to receive a notification as soon as I write the next tip.

Happy clicking,
Gunjan

December 31, 2010

Wish you an awesome 2011

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I’ve played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~Edgar A. Guest

December 27, 2010

Trip to the Pipliyapala Regional Park at Indore

In our photography group (Indore Photographer’s Community), we schedule regular photo walks and get-togethers. Last weekend we had been to a newly constructed Pipliyapala Regional Park, here in my city, Indore.

This park is the best place to spend an evening here in my city. Here are some photos from that trip.

All the photos were taken with Canon S90, hand held. This is the time when you appreciate the importance of wide aperture lenses (Canon S90 has f 2.0), image quality at high ISO (most of the post-sunset shots are at ISO 800) and Image Stabilization.

An evening by the lake

The birds are returning home over the Pipliyapala Lake.

Trees in the evening

These evening light adds magical colors to everything.

I am a disco dancer

This is Aadi, Arjav’s Son, showing off his dancing skills with the setting sun behind him Had used flash to get the details on his face and

This Park has various themed sections. This is one of the gates constructed for the entrance to the Moghul Garden.

If you ever come to Indore, do visit this Park. It is awesome

October 18, 2010

Why high ISO performance may be the most important feature to look for in a new camera.

When we are planning to buy a new camera, we compare a lot of camera for mega pixels, zoom range (if you are buying a compact camera), auto focus points, etc.

Although all these points are very important for a camera, but in my opinion, the most important feature of any camera is its performance at high ISO.

Why?

Good performance at higher ISO ranges means that I can take photos using the ambient light of my room. If I cannot go above ISO 400, then I am forced to purchase a lighting system (flashes, strobes etc) to take photos in low lights.

Good performance at higher ISO ranges means that I can increase the shutter speed of my camera to capture sharp photos of my 2 year old son or my German Shepherd as they having fun in the evening in my garden.
It also means that I can hand hold my camera even if the lights is low. If the high ISO performance of my camera is not good, then I either have to wait for good lights or not take photos at all.

Good performance at higher ISO ranges means that I can use the existing kit lenses or the cheap lenses that start from f3.5 or f4.5 etc and yet achieve fast shutter speeds. Otherwise I would have to purchase the expensive pro lenses that start from f2.8 etc and cost 5 to 10 times more.

I recently bought Nikon’s entry level SLR D3100 (Cost me Rs 28,000 i.e. $633 with the kit lens, a 4 GB card and a camera bag with 2 years of warranty) and am super impressed with its performance at higher ISO settings.

Here are some high ISO photos taken with this camera. Most of them would not have been possible if the camera was not so good in low lights.

A temple at night

Vinayak (photo at ISO 3200)

Photo taken at ISO 6400

Photo taken at ISO 3200

Photo taken at ISO 800

So folks, the next time you plan to buy a new camera, give a lot of importance to its performance in low lights (High ISO).

Take care,
Gunjan

August 7, 2010

Best photo from the Worldwide Photowalk at Indore

Best Photo: Nilesh Bhange’s photo titled “Apartment Reflections“

Hi Folks,

It gives me immense pleasure to inform you that the best photo for the photowalk at Indore this year has been selected…

It is Nilesh Bhange’s ”Apartment Reflections” (yes, the one above)

Honorable mention goes to the following photo.

Peace By Sandeep Ramje

And Abbas’s Photo of the Lady in Red Sari

Note: I do not have a link to the web page of this photo by Abbas. Please somebody send me the Facebook/Flickr etc link to this photo so that I can link it back from my blog, facebook etc

A big congratulations to all the winners and everybody who participated in the photowalk

Take care

Gunjan

July 21, 2010

Second Worldwide Photowalk at Indore

Photographers at work

Hey folks,
It is time to explore your beloved Indore, once again… it is time to pick up your camera, look at your city from the eyes of a tourist and click some interesting photos.

It is time for the Second Annual Worldwide Photowalk at Indore.

Photowalks are a casual get-together of photography lovers. Yes, you do not need to know photography, nor do you need a fancy camera to participate. You just need to love photography and love the company of all kinds of photography lovers ranging from amateur-cell-phone-camera photographers to professional-studio-owning-photographers.

So if you love photography, love meeting new people and are located at Indore, you are cordially invited to join us this Sunday.

Here are the details.
Date: 25th July 2010, Sunday
Time: 5:30 AM
Venue: Opp Hotel Infinity, Indore
Charges: Free

More information: http://worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/indore-madhya-pradesh-india-hotel-infinity-opp-bombay-hospital/

Click on the link above to know more about the event and also to register for the event. Registration is free but is limited to max 50 people… now we have only 28 slots left, so I guess, you need to hurry.
See you there at morning 5:30 this Sunday

Feel free to contact me at 099930-99959 or at gunjan@kalptaru.in if you have any questions.