Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Life after a light meter

.. is splendid.

When I got the lights I thought of ordering the light meter also, but then it did not seem like a good 300$ spending that time. Also the lighting gods of the day, declaring that if you can read histogram, you probably don't need a light meter, discouraged me from getting one. I had some success using multiple flashes without one in the past few months but it always took many many attempts to determine the intensity on the lights and their relative distance to the subject. Today I got one, Sekonic L-358 from Desktop Darkroom Inc, in Jax.

It is a nice simple meter, even without having to read the manual completely I was able to start playing with it. I tried to shoot myself, as no one is around, against a white background paper, with three lights. 2 lights for BG @ f 11 and one for subject @ f8. Shooting at f8 gave me over exposure for BG. I have to figure out whether I am doing something wrong or the meter needs to be calibrated at + 1. This is the shot with f 11.

I wish I had bought this sooner, having light meter available is making life easy. Probably once you learn lighting and play enough with multiple lights a meter may not be required. I wish Sekonic made the remote flash trigger compatible with Elinchrom skyport.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

భరతనాట్యం ఫ్యూజన్

నిన్న రాత్రి జాక్సన్ విల్ లో కలైవాణి డాన్స్ అండ్ మ్యూజిక్ అకాడమి, అట్లాంట వారి నృత్య ప్రదర్శన జరిగింది. భరతనాట్యం, కథక్, బ్యాలే కలయిక (fusion)తో కూర్చిన నృత్యాలు ప్రేక్షకులని అలరించాయి. ఒక ఫోటో -




Canon 40D, 70-200 2.8 IS @ 200
ISO 1600 2.8 @ 1/200

Sunday, May 16, 2010

జాక్సన్ విల్ నృత్య మేళా 2010 - కొన్ని ఫోటోలు


మే 15న జాక్సన్ విల్ లో రసఝరి (http://www.rasajhari.com) వారి 2010 శాస్త్రీయ నృత్య మేళా జరిగింది. పాతిక మంది పైగా స్థానిక కళాకారుల శిష్యులతో పాటు కొందరు పెద్దలు నాట్యం చేసిన ఈ కార్యక్రమం ఆద్యంతం ఆసక్తి కరంగా సాగింది. ప్రత్యేక ఆహ్వానితురాలిగా వర్జీనియా నుండి వచ్చిన కూచపూడి కళాకారిణి శ్రీవిద్యా అంగారా నృత్యం ఈ ప్రదర్శనకి ఒక ప్రత్యేక ఆకర్షణగా నిలిచింది. ఆమె ఫోటోలు కొన్ని -








Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Cape Griffon vulture

Canon 40d, ISO 400
f 2.8 @ 1/1600

TWO weeks ago I went to St Augustine Alligator Farm hoping to find some hatching birds. There were plenty, all most all trees have one or more nests with eggs. I carried only 70-200 2.8 and a body. Seeing many photographers there with their longer glasses I was thinking, may be I should get a 1.4x or 2x converter next time. While walking near the vulture camp found this one spreading her wings. I walked near and took a few shots before she closed her wings. When I turned back, there was a photographer walking back trying to get a shot. As she closed her wings, he took the body away from his eye, and said, smiling, 'lucky ah.. too bad I brought a 400'.