42: Surat Fort

Plan : Click the pic of fort from the opposite bank of river. This is more like a document shot.

Story: Usually for clicking he monument we usually use a wide angle lens but since the face of fort which I wanted to capture was towards river. I had to go to the opposite bank. It is about 1km from the opposite bank. Set up the tripod and took few shots. I thought that evening light would be good but it was very soft.

40: Butterfly

Plan : Get a butterfly shot with creamy background.

Story: I had earlier got few butterfly shots and this time I got lot many of butterflies around. So thought it was easy. But AF was useless. Tried with manual focus and got this one where the insect is leveled and the BG is really far.

36: Squirrel

Plan: I always wanted to shoot the squirrel for they are fun to watch. The issue is they are too fast and would not really pose.

Story: One sunday afternoon I went to the park and found that these squirrels were feeding on the grains and were coming and waiting at one location for quite a while. So decided to sit on the nearby bench and took few shots @300mm.

Learning: In sony I had good advantage about shooting in live view and the AF is really fast. So I kept the cam in my lap and took this shot.

34: Smoking

Plan : Taking a picture of smoke had been on my agenda. So when I saw the smoke from this incense stick I tried it right away.

Story: I had attempted smoke earlier but in vein. Not very confident that this attempt would be successful I attempt in half mind. My earlier learning were put to use the light have to come from side or behind and the background have to be dark. Made a setup tried a test shot the counters were coming great. So waited for some decent pattern to appear and focused manually on the incense stick. It took a while for this pattern to appear and I clicked. Happy that I had got the click. Processed the jpg out of camera but was not happy. Attempted the raw file in Rawtherapee and some touchup in GIMP made a real difference.

Learning: Raw processing is yielding better result provided we know what we want as a final result.

Setup

33: Painted Stork from Bridge

Plan : Head to bridge and checkout the birds. If I find the painted stork than shoot it.

Story: Painted stork were there but the distance was really long for them to be captured. Tried manual focus and multiple exposure.

28 Bug closeup

Plan : My lens has a macro mode but it is 1:2 so I would call it more of a extreme closeup. Since this is monsoon time there are many bugs/insects around. So seen one interesting insect and taking an extreme closeup of it is a plan

Story: Went to revisit the Flamingo location and there was no flamingo there. So went to a small garden instead and there were many bees and insects there but this worm (If I may say so) was interesting with all spots.

Learning: Additional flash are useful for such photography.

27: Flamingo

Plan : Got the confirmation that Flamingos were in Surat. Also really close to my place. So try to capture a good flamingo click

Action: Tried them once on sunday but no luck to get a keeper since cloudy and less light. So decided to make another try when there is some more light at 7:00PM So this was the day. Just after the office grabbed the camera bag and headed to river. One good click out of 20 odd tries again light was fading fast. The keeper is shot at 1/80s at 280mm very lucky to have minimum motion blur with handheld.

Learning: Tripod would have worked wonder.

23: My First Camera

Plan : To shoot a pic of my first camera. ie Film point and shoot from Kodak.

Story: Since the body of this camera is black decided to create a setup using white clothes near the window for the light. Focused manually on its lens. This makes my first attempt at product photography.

Learning: If using cloth for the background "Iron It first".

22: Local Cricket

Plan: To pay a visit to my office friends who plays cricket every sunday. Take some of their clicks in action.

Story: When I reached the ground there were many other people playing in the same ground. Tried few clicks for baller and batsman. Looking at the croud changed few angles and moved to high speed jpg mode so that could catch the action in one of the 7fps.

21: The longest day.

Plan: To shoot the sunset on the longest day ie 22nd June. (Un)Fortunately this June is not raining and I could reach river bank for the sunset.

Story: Tried few click and was waiting for the sunset at 7:10PM sun was quite high. Located a place and made some trial shots. Found that sun vanished in mid air since there is too much moisture in the air. Had to be satisfied with this trial shot taken at 7:10PM

11 Powder puff flower

Plan: To click powder puff flower. Have my focus correct is important since I had earlier missed lot of shot of this flower.

Story: Since I had missed focus in earlier shots. I took to manual focus this time. Used the focus magnification feature available in the A58. Clicked 3 shot handheld. This one is one of the best.

Learning: A dried flower next to my subject flower created a confusion "to keep or not to keep". I was not comfortable removing it in PP hence kept it instead. So keeping it out of frame would be better.

10 X-citement

Plan: We visited the "Imagica" and I planned to take few pics where people were enjoying the rides. This trademark roller coaster shot where the train is entering from top was in my mind.

Story: First I took the ride of the roller coaster. This made me notice few spots where people were most excited. Alas most of those points were very high. Found one spot where this roller coaster dropped suddenly under a bridge. Took the position from where I could shoot this roller coaster taking the dip. Used high shutter speeds and focused on the rail waited for the train to arrive.

Clicked one and it was good to go shot.

Learning: I might have used the "spray and pray" technique here but my confidence was quite high that I could nail this one.

8 "U 2 Brutus"

Plan: Take the Chess board and make an interesting arrangement by replacing the queen with opposite colour. Take a photo with the queen in focus.

Story:  Was not having very good chess set. Once got a very good set at hand took this photo. Tried both black queen in white set. and while queen in white set.

Learning:  Background could have been better. . .

Flower in grass 5 of 104

Plan: Go to garden pick up a flower and click it in a different background.

Story : Went to a near by garden. Saw that under a three lot of yellow flowers were scattered in the green lawn. Thought of putting a white flower (Champa) in it and clicking it as a point of focus. While I was focussing on the white flower this dragon fly visited the same flower. As they say "Luck favors the prepared mind". I got to click this dragon fly on champa lying in the grass.


Learning: When in clutter focus Manually for best results.