Moon Photography

Moon photography is one of my dreams. Being a regular reader to DPS (Digital photography School),  I used to surprise when people click and post their moon shots on web. I wondered, how they gone such close and get the clear shots. Were they used any space ship or a telescope???

To make the dreams come true, I finally purchased a high zoom point and shoot camera (FUZIFILM S1800).  It has 18x optical zoom which is equivalent to 504 mm on a 35mm camera. This helps me to reach quite close and capture the moon.

Exif info: ISO – 64, Exposure – 1/30, Aperture – 11.0, Focal length – 90 mm

I would like to share few important things, which needs to be considered when capturing the moon.

• Choose narrow aperture to get greater depth of the field.
• Keep the ISO as low as possible to avoid noise.
• Focus manually and use spot metering.
• Set the white balance to fluorescent as the light coming from the moon is white in colour.

Exif info: ISO – 64, Exposure – 1/60, Aperture – 11.0, Focal length – 90 mm

• Mount the camera on a tripod for steady shot, With the long zooms, even a small hand shake can blur the picture.
• Use self timer or remote to operate the camera. so that you do not introduce any movement as the shutter button is pressed.
• Switch on your live view to compose the shot easily,  bending for a long time will introduce noise in your back and results backache.

Exif info: ISO – 100, Exposure – 8, Aperture – 11.0, Focal length – 90 mm

• Try with various shutter speed ranging from one second to 1/100 of second to get the right exposure.
• Follow rule of thirds for creating interest in the frame.

Exif info: ISO – 64, Exposure – 1/20, Aperture – 11.0, Focal length – 90 mm

Exif info: ISO – 64, Exposure – 1/30, Aperture – 11.0, Focal length – 90 mm

The super moon, captured on 19th March 2011.

Exif info: ISO – 64, Exposure – 1/160, Aperture – 11.0, Focal length – 90 mm

Gokarana - Honnavara Beach trek

The konkan coast is famous for its beautiful beaches, landscapes and lush green forests. Planned to trek from Gokarna to Honnavara. Worked on the trail along with Mudhasar and finally prepared the route map.  Send the invitations to the Bangalore ascenders group. Huuuhhhh.. The registrations are flooded like Tsunami. Finally confirmed 23 participants and booked the to and fro bus journey tickets.
Started our trek from Gokarna beach and ended at Haldipur beach. In between we had covered Kudle, Om, Half moon, Paradise, Barka, Sangam, Holanagadde, Mangodlu, Vanamali, Kumta, Dhareshwar, Ramagandi beaches. This stretch is part of the Golden route, which starts from Ankola to Honnavara.
Day 0 :
Started from Bangalore by a luxurious and comfortable VRL semi sleeper. When the bus stopped for dinner, We had celebrated the bithday of Ashwini. It was a surprise and memorable birthday for her. Thanks to Ashwal for making the arrangements of plum cakes, candles and greeting card with signatures of all the participants.

The journey was a great musical night, The birth day baby Aswini is a great singer. All the team felt her like the "Nightingale of  BASC". Here is her sweet voice, which was recorded in the bus itself. Mixed with the memories of the trek.

Day1 :
Reached Gokarna by 7:30 AM and walked towards the Gokarna beach. This beach forms the coast of the town while the other four beaches lie to the south of Gokarna. Near to the beach a basic hotel and public toilets are available. Finished the basic amenities by 9:30 AM and started the trek.

Rajesh, Sreedhar were choosed as the sweep leaders and me as the Navigator. Filled the water bottles at the temple after crossing Gokarna beach. Needs to climb few steps from the temple and a  clear trail will takes you to Kudle beach. Reached Kudle beach by 10:30 AM.

At the end of the Kudle beach, climbed the hill and just followed the trail. Finally reached Om beach - 11:00 AM 
Followed the trail and reached Half moon Beach - 12:00 PM

Paradise Beach - 01:00 PM


The sun was on high and make us low . All the team had lunch in a resort at the paradise beach. On request, we had a French song from a visitor and then followed by a photography session.Started trek after lunch. Before the end of the paradise beach, on the left hand side there is invisible trail. A steep climb and 15 mins walk from here will takes you to a broken bridge. During monsoons it will be difficult to cross the bridge. Another 30 mins walk through the village will takes you to the Tadadi fishing port. Finally all the team reached tadadi port by 3PM, waited for the boat to cross the Aghanashini river. After crossing the river, we started trek to beautiful Barka beach. After lot of confusion in the trail, we finally managed to reach Barka beach by 4:15 PM. So, to avoid this confusions always follow the trail which is running parallel to the beach.

Tried to explore a new trail in finding out the ruined fort, almost reached the peak. But unable to move further due to the thorny bushes and steep climb. Huuuhh.. We lost the trail... Steep climb and steep decent. Thorny bushes..Few injured people...Sun is setting down and anxiety on the people's faces start increasing....Some time loosing the trail makes the trek more adventurous and memorable.. The communication between the navigator and sweepers through the Walkie- Talkie really helped in this situation. keeping the sun set in mind, we get back to the Barka beach and moved towards the Sangham beach. Its already late and few people missed the sun set. Sun set on the hill before getting down into the Sangham beach

Spend 1 hour at the Sangham beach and started trek to the camping spot. It was a night trek under the full moon(Almost). Everyone tired but the weather makes us to cover a distance of 7kms after sun set. Finally reached Ramanjaneya temple at Hollanagadde, which is on a small hill. This is a ideal place for camping as the temple authorities are co-operative. Had fresh water bath, finished the dinner with Rasam rise, Bise beli bath, Chapathi, veg salad, sweets and many more. Don't be jealous :P.

Later introduction session with lot of PJ’s, where everyone came to know one and another well . The night weather was warm and it was damn good. Before going to bed done some light painting experiments 
Day 2:
Get up..... get up.... Ram kumar started shouting at 05:30 AM. I thought of beating him like hell and finally requested him to let me sleep for another 30 mins. After another 15 mins the priest came and  Started ringing the bells of the temple. Finally we woke up and got ready for the breakfast. Near the foot hills of the temple there is a hotel, had yummy yummy upma, poori, blah blah blah..

The day started with a beautiful sun rise

Manghodlu beach - 9:15 AM

Vanamali beach - 9:40
From here most of the beaches are looks like private beaches and beautiful

Kumta headbunder beach - 10 :15 AM
 
Back waters @Kumta This 50 Mt's width back waters makes us to walk additional 5 km

On the way we noticed so many star fishes, Looks like sub marines. Here is survival tactics of a star fish

Dhareswar beach - 1:15 PM 
covered Ramagandi beach and finally reached Haldipur beach by 4:30PM. Played beach kabadi, It was full of masti and jhoosh... The kabadi series was draw by 1-1 score.

Enjoyed in the sea waters for 1 hour and took a fresh water bath near by villagers home. Thanks a lot for the villagers for their coordination. Then we had a beautiful sun set 
The team who covered the entire stretch of 47 kms. 
Honnavara - 8PM
At the end of the day everyone are hungry. Reached Honnavara, the team divided into veg and non veg. Actually, I planned this trek for having sea food. Our non veg team had great time with fish meal, fish fry. Then we had a Gudbud ice cream..it was dam good..
After a strenuous trek having a good meal makes us to forget the pains and only remember us the sweet memories. The return journey was by the VRL full sleeper. so, had a nice sleep and dreaming about the next trek. Here is the complete set of photos of the trek - Picassa photostream.
A sincere thanks to Rajesh, Abhi, Srikanth for helping me in organising the trek and a big thanks to everyone for making this event successful.

Image Courtesy: Rafi, Ravi, Ram, Rajani and Deepak

Summary and info for future trekkers

Theme               : Beach Trek
Terrain              : Beach, Boulders, Hills.
Grade                : Difficult
Start time          : 09:30 AM, Sat, 18th Dec, 2010
End time            : 08:00 PM, Sunday, 19th Dec, 2010
Trek Distance   : 47 Km’s
Nearest town    : Gokarna, Kumta & Honnavar
Team size          : 23
Total expenses : 930 INR/head
Camping           : Hollanagadde Ramanjaneya temple. Good place
                              with sweet water and wash rooms.
Transportation  : VRL Travels, KSRTC

Day 0: (Friday night)
08:00 pm - Start from Bangalore.

Day 1: (19 km’s trek)
07:30 am - Reached Gokarna, fresh up and Breakfast.
09:30 am - Gokarna beach.
10:30 am - Kudle beach.
11:00 am - Om beach.
12:00 pm - Halfmoon beach.
01:00 pm - Paradise beach, Lunch break.
03:00 pm - Aganashini river bank.
03:15 pm - Tadadi port
04:15 pm - Barka beach.
05:45 pm - Sangam  beach & Sun set.
07:30 pm - Camping at hollanagadde Ramanjaneya temple.

Day 2: (28 Km’s trek)
06: 00 am - wake up and refresh
08: 00 am - Holanagadde beach
09: 15 am - Mangodlu beach and Halt for Break fast
09: 40 am - Vanamali beach
10: 15 am - Kumta Beach
10: 45 am - Kumta fish market
11: 20 am - Kumta beach
01: 15 pm - Dhareswar beach and Halt for Lunch
03: 30 pm - Ramagandi Beach
04: 15 pm - Haldipur beach
07: 00 pm - Exit to Haldipur village
07: 30 pm - Main road to board bus to Honnavara
08: 00 pm - Dinner at Honnavar
08: 30 pm - Start from Honnavar

Day 3:
07: 30 am – Reach Bangalore.

Few Tips from our experiences

• Carry proper sun gear and full sleeves dress to avoid sun tan.
• Start early on day1 so that you can reach the camping spot before sun set.
• Don't use floaters for this trek.
• Don't forget to carry energy drinks.(Non-Alchohal )
• Kindly follow no trace policy and saves mother earth.

Light trails

Light trails is pretty easy to capture, Here is the way how to get them.

After seeing my Light painting photography album, my friends started asking me how i captured the light trails??? Is it editing in Photoshop or any technique to capture. So, finally they made me to write a small article about it.

For this you need a camera with manual mode, Tripod and a light source. Switch the mode dial on your camera to manual mode to control the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, light metering and white balance. Before going how to capture them, first we will go through few basic things about the photography.
ISO
The ISO speed determines how sensitive the camera is to incoming light. Lesser the ISO, the lesser will be the noise. So, set the ISO to as low as possible. i.e. ISO – 100.
Aperture
aperture setting controls the area over which light can pass through your camera lens. Narrow aperture will gives good depth of field. So, choose a narrow aperture’s to get a sharper light trails.
Light Metering
Light metering is used to determine the proper exposure for a photograph.  Set the metering to Multi-zone or evaluate metering such that camera measures the light intensity in several points in the scene, and then combines the results to find the settings for the best exposure.
White balance
White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic colour casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo. Set the white balance as per your light source. I am using a LED light, which gives pure white. So, I set the White balance to fluorescent.
Shutter Speed
shutter speed is a common term used to discuss exposure time, the effective length of time a camera’s shutter is open. In light trail photography shutter speed plays an important role. Try with different shutter speeds varying from few seconds to minutes depend upon the situation. Some DSLR’s will have the bulb mode. In bulb mode we can open the shutter for desired time.

Procedure for capturing Light trails
Choose a dark room with a plane back ground. Mount the camera on a tripod or stable surface to avoid hand shake.  Set the self timer to 2 sec and click the shutter button. When its finishes the self timer, took a live torch and then rotate in circles or the desired shapes in front of the camera at a distance of 3 – 4mts for a period as per the predefined shutter speed.
This is the final result


Exif info: Shutter Speed – 8 sec,  Aperture – f/6.4, ISO – 64, Flash - OFF.
If you use flash, even u can get the model who is making this light trail


Exif info: Shutter Speed – 8 sec,  Aperture – f/6.4, ISO – 64, Flash - ON.

Exif info: Shutter Speed – 8 sec,  Aperture – f/3.1, ISO – 200, Flash - OFF.
Capturing the Light trails created by the moving vehicles will be interesting. This picture is captured at the Nagavara signal, outer ring road, Bangalore.

Exif info: Shutter Speed – 4 sec,  Aperture – f/8, ISO – 64, Flash - OFF.
If you practice, you can make many experiments with the slow shutter speeds. Even you can write names in the air, but dont for get to write the letters in inverted form. So that the camera will takes its reflective image and you will get the normal as below.

Exif info: Shutter Speed – 8 sec,  Aperture – f/8, ISO – 64, Flash – ON.

Exif info: Shutter Speed – 5 sec,  Aperture – 6.4, ISO – 64, Flash – ON.

Exif info: Shutter Speed – 8 sec,  Aperture – 9.0, ISO – 64, Flash – ON.

 

Hope so, this article is useful for you. Let me know your comments and suggestions. Here is the complete set of light trail pictures.

 

Light trails

Mr. Jerry - The butter thief

It was Saturday night, I was awake till 1 AM watching TV. Heard some sound in the kitchen. when i checked it was a rat, searching for its favourite food - butter. I am fan of Tom and Jerry comic TV shows. Watching the fights between fun between the Tom and Jerry relax me from the day to day work pressure.

It was small and looks like Jerry. I thought of capturing its pictures. So, slowly left the kitchen with out making any sound like the Tom. Got my camera, did the required settings and start clicking the photos Jerry with my cam.  
I think its vision is not good. Even through, i moved pretty close, it didn't stopped the searching of yummy yummy butter.

After a couple of tries, it finally find the butter. Slowly started lifting the plate above the butter bowl.
I don't wish Jerry to spoil the entire butter. So make it ran away and safely put the bowl in fridge.

Beautiful Sun set @ Yelhanka railway station

My home trip always creates beautiful memories. It was Friday and I was late for the train. Board the BMTC bus and get down at NES stop, Yelhanka. Checked the time and I was scolding myself, why I didn’t started early. By the time I reached the Station, the Prashanthi express is on the platform. Running like hell and finally I reached the platform before the train moves... But, it is moving towards the Bangalore city not away from it.

I got confused and enquired the gang man who is repairing the track. He told that the train is late, it has to go to City central rail way station and then again come back to Yelhanka. Which will take at least another 3 hours... Then, I had been to nearby hotel for lunch. Done some office work until the laptop's battery drained out later started photography. The last 30 mins sunset was so beautiful. Thanks to the train for being late else I might have missed this beautiful sunset.

Some times late train will creates beautiful memories

Here is the complete set of pics

Beautiful Sun set @ Yelhanka railway station