soubhagya's PhotoBlog

129. Fallen...

2010-03-10T21:57:23Z

Just tired, nothing much to say today... Let the picture do the talk! :) regards, Soubhagya

128. Streets - 2

2010-03-09T23:21:54Z

Some of my street candid pictures. You can see my previous post 99.Streets Thanks, Soubhagya

127. Kite airlines...

2010-03-08T16:02:51Z

Another of the could have been better posts. Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) subadult continuation of the previous post... I had mentioned this before also, in my Cormorant post, how i had missed a moment cos of slower AF and slower shutter speed, so keeping that in mind, during this shoot, i boosted up my ISO to 200 so as to keep my shutter at 1/512 of a second. There it was, a Brahminy kite subadult flying so very close to our boat, i was able to get good pictures of it. BUt then, it saw something in the water, and all of a sudden it was in a stoop making a sudden dash for it. That is where it went all wrong. One must thing, 1/512 is very fast, but i learnt the hard way, as although the bird was in focus (thanks to the AI Servo) I got the motion blur as it made the dash for its food. It was over in about 2 seconds and all i came home with were a few slightly unfocused, blurry pics. Atleast this has been a learning experience and i made a vow to keep my shtter speed atleast 1/800s or faster. One more thing i noticed when the kite went on to the stoop. I got excited. I was excited that i am witnessing this as well as capturing this. That excitement was quite detrimental to my otherwise calm demeanour i so well display during my any work... Well anyway to err is to human...ef75300mmusm canonrebelt1i kerala haliasturindus brahminykite And yeah the kite got nothing as visible by the last photo! Poor fellow! Have a nice day! Soubhagya.

126. Brahminy Kite

2010-03-07T14:19:01Z

Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) Also known as Red backed Sea Eagle. They are found primarily in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Australia. The Brahminy Kite is distinctive and contrastingly coloured, with chestnut plumage except for the white head and breast and black wing tips. The juveniles are browner, The Brahminy Kite is about the same size as the Black Kite (click on the black kite for my own link) and has a typical kite flight, with wings angled, but its tail is rounded unlike the Milvus species, Red Kite and Black Kite, which have forked tails. It is mainly a scavenger, feeding mainly on dead fish and crabs, especially in wetlands and marshland but occasionally hunts live prey such as hares and bats. Young birds may indulge in play behaviour, dropping leaves and attempting to catch them in the air. When fishing over water, they may sometimes land in the water but manage to swim and take off without much trouble. In India it is considered as the contemporary representation of Shree Garuda, the carrier of Lord Vishnu, the protector, one of the Tridev (the big three Gods)

125. Old?

2010-03-05T20:15:15Z

St. Mary's Church, Champakulam, Kerala Established in 5th century AD, it is one of the oldest churches in India. It has been rebuilt many times over the centuries, but this building has been standing for the past 500 years. Nice place.

124. Land ahoy!!

2010-03-04T17:23:56Z

A view of the backwaters of Alleppey, Kerala. Taken from our houseboat, these waterways form the lifelines of the people. Boats are the standard way of travelling in these backwaters, so much so that Alleppey (or Allapuzha, as it was called earlier) has been nicknames as Venice of the East. I add in again, a colour and a monochrome. I loved the colour one for about 2.5 minutes after which i made the bw and it became my favourite between the today.

123. "Weather"ing heights...

2010-03-03T14:24:08Z

I know the title seems ridiculous... But this is the only way i could describe the sudden change in the weather of our 2 days of Alleppey, Kerala. From bright sunshine to humid cloudy weather, not that it hampered my spirits. This was taken in a village (whose name eludes me at present) along the backwaters. The position of the two coconut trees was really catchy with the post sunset sky giving an amazing sky. Sadly i shot 1.5 stops under exposed (dunno why, maybe the humidity did clog up my neural synapses), but raw saved me as usual. I was able to pull out the exposure into normal looking image, with WB at cooler temp. I did some noise reduction in colour picture, but left the BW noise as it is. Anyway I have been asking a lot of folks on PB how their images would look in BW. Today i too add in both colour and mono (so i dont sound much of a hypocrite..) Both click for me.

122. Finding calm...

2010-03-02T15:39:05Z

Hi, I know I have been an absentee for a while. Till last week, i found myself stagnant in life ... so ended up giving a jump start to everything and as things turn out, they overwhelmed me and i lay sick in anger, desperation and frustration. Being sick also did not help. Anyway i pushed out that chaos from my head and slowly organizing my work, studies, fun and getting back into my full Soubhagya-mode. In hindi language poets have referred to chandni or moonlight as one of the most calming experience. I am calmer... What about you?

121. Osprey

2010-02-28T16:39:40Z

Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) A large raptor, reaching 60 centimetres (24 in) in length with a 2m wingspan. It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts, with a black eye patch and wings. The Osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. My first time of observing this beautiful bird. It flew of and the distance was too far and it was too fast to focus properly. It wasn't hunting then, rather just scouting, so i guess I did not miss much! Shot at Periyar National Reserve, Kerala on the lake where it perched so conveniently on the barren tree.

120. The silver lining... Still?

2010-02-26T22:42:39Z

Thanks every one for the valuable inputs regarding yesterday's post. I put my head together and tried to get a picture with the sky same as yesterday's 1st but slight more detail in the hills with a clear silhouette of the coconut trees. What i discovered was the Exposure Fusion option of Photomatix. My understanding of the technicalities behind the procedure is still weak, but how it differs from HDR is that instead of making a 32 bit HDR and then tonemapping it into something viewable.., it can directly create a 16 bit file most probably seamlessly adding the pixels together. I dunnoif it is so in photoshop or not. I took 2 pictures, one dark and one with slight detail of the hills visible and made the picture as above, with fine tuning the contrast, sharpening etc in photoshop. It may not be a better or worse pic than yeaterday's, but it has the best from both worlds. Thanks! PS: I would love to know if someone has the experience of exposure fusion method with photomatix or photoshop or any other.