Manila Bay

Manila Bay Boat_HDR
Originally uploaded by sbalani

And so here it is, the blog post of the week. Not that I have much to post about these days, however thats something i hope to change...soon. It seems I may have an impending buyer from my camera extracting shrilling screams of joy from my masculine voicebox. I am just that step closer to a D300 and flash goodness. Oh all the things I have planned....I hope not to dissapoint. Anywho this picture is from my previous trek with my D40, when I went off to Manila Bay! Much to my surprise it was quite a pleaseant walk-about adn with the sun just starting to set created a virtue of oportunities to shoot all sorts of things.....if only I had flash xD.

Anywho this was at around 5PM with probably the best setting sun I was going to get as the sun was promptly setting, and whilst it created a nice sillhouwhette I felt the picture told more of a story and drama if it were properly exposed. Without the aid of a tripod or an able fash system I was forced to handheld a series of shots and pray for photoshop to do its thing. And as always, it delivered in beautifull HDR my rendition of this Image. However it doesnt end there. I DID manage to get some nicer sillouwhettes of when the sun was a bit higher and more orangy, especially closeups which I am quite happy with. Something to reassure me that as I await my new toy my skill has little but deteriorated. My biggest fear. Hopefully I will be able to quell such fears and resume shooting on a weekly basis once I get my equipment in order but for now I leave you this lovely picture to enjoy . And if you're lucky There may be a second post this week. If not! see you next week!


oh and as usual the rest of the pics from manila bay can be found hencewith:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbalani/sets/72157622384859460/

or by simply clicking on the image.

Catching up

Prior to my trip to the United States I had attended the Benalmadena Anime/Comic/Roleplaying convention in Malaga, Spain. I find cons are always a fun and interesting event as there are always people dressed up as cosplayers more than happy to pose for photos



Although I've been to cons before, this was my first one as a photographer resulting in more challenges than I had anticipated, and coming to realisations that some things could have been done easier than the way I had done it. However its always a learning experience. I took the oportunity to get to know people within the communities making it, of course easier for me to get what I needed done for future cons.



My next challenge is to attend one of the UK cons, which are considerably bigger, and of course brimming with quality cosplay's just waiting to be photographed. I was planning to go to the upcomming london expo, but with recent developments I may find myself that weekend in Madrid attendind a photo marathon. We'll see how things turn out

Wet ´n´wild

I´m sure many a photographer out there has gone the extra length to get that image they so desperately want to have just right, wether its trekking through rain, hail, sleet and snow in alaska to caputre polar bears, or hanging upside down from a lamp post so that your subject is not framed by other people taller than you when youre hundreds of meters away, or running around avoiding local security and attempting to setup, shoot and take down an on location fashion shoot before they return, a true photographer will do what me must for that image.

Although my stories dont quite compare, i think beeing chest deep in the sea, in one hand my flash gun, wrapped around my neck so that i can support my telephoto lens and camera on my elbow to shoot shoot and light my model on some rocks in the sea deffinetly constitues as a dangerous adventure!

Of course most people at this point start thinking what kind of a nutjob runs into the sea with over a thousand dollars worth of equipment. Well my only answer to that would be a photographer. And for the most part, if things go as planned (or even if they dont) the pictures that end up as a result of the shoot will have any photographer tell you that the risks are always worth the picture.

(i´m still processing the pictures i took on the rock, but i will deff include one in my next post.)



The picture below was another one that i took on the beach, however there was an old house nearby with some interesting grafiti which i thought would contrast well with the outfit my model had chosen, although more details on that in my next post)

And as for the lighting the top image was natural light from teh rising sun (this shot was done at 8am)

and the one below i had a canon flash right next to the model camera right

and a flash next to me camera left toned down to just complemetn the natural light as fill.

More of Roshni's Photoshoot

Full album can be viewed here

An important Difference! Canon Eos 350D/400D vs Canon 30D/40D

For today's blog post i thought i would outline a crucially important difference between the Canon Eos 350D and its predecessor the 400D range of DSLR's and the Canon Eos 30D and its own predecessor the 40D. When i was first getting into SLR's and DSLR's I made the grave mistake of opting for a 350D when I had the option of getting a 30D ( i wanted to save the difference for my ultimate upgrade to a 5D), thinking that the only real difference between the camera was autofocus points, size, speed, and Megapixel count. Little did I know (and a few review sites forgot to mention) that there was indeed an extremly vital importance between the two Camera ranges, very much in the same way that the difference between the 5D and its younger cousins is that it has a full frame chip, as opossed to a cropped one. The important jump from the entry level Dslr's to the 30/40D is that the Entry level camera's do not possess a shutter! Yes thats right, they lack a shutter. Now if you are wondering how the heck does it take the pictures, well the entry level cameras, instead of having a real shutter installed, they emulate the effect of a shutter by quickly activating parts of the sensor chip to simulate as if it was a shutter going past recording the image bit by bit. Now if you dont know the effect that this has on your image, think about when you turn your tv on, particularly the old projector tv's theres always a moment of static/noise before you get a clear image. In the same way that as a camera chip is activated it creates a certain ammount of digital noise which is of course shown in the picture. The advantage of having a real shutter is that the chip is always on, so the initial static has already dispersed and the chip simply records the light that is let thru by the shutter. :)

Just a little bit of random camera knowledge for all those looking to invest or upgrade in a DSLR, or who simply just didnt know. and for those who were eagerly hoping for some images to be put up today, dont worry this is not the last post of the day, i will have some up (hopefully) by the end of today so just keep checking back, or just suscribe to my RSS and be notified! :D (the atom feed is available at the bottom of the page...should really set up an anchor link for that)