Sleepless

So this one morning, I was all alone at home, and I got up early, really early. The sun wasn't out, and I had spent an hour trying to go to sleep, so I decided to make the most of the early hour. Stepping out I realized that it was drizzling and my camera isn't weather proof, so I stayed indoors, clicking my most faithful and patient subject, the tree outside my window. The security lights were on, and the sun was illuminating the clouds. I took a bundle of books from my bedside, and placed it on the window sill, placing my camera over it (I still don't own a tripod). Clicking without a shutter release is trickier when the camera is peculiarly balanced. I managed to get 2 shots, one with a lot of shake, and one without, before the security lights were shut off, and the scene didn't appear as lively as it did a few minutes ago.

Steady, steady.

A tripod is an essential piece of accessory in a photographers kit. I have often had difficulties clicking pictures in low light, but have figured out ways to keep the camera steady. If you are clicking pics with exposure times over a second, it is essential to take care of the shake caused, when you click the shutter release. An easy way to avoid that is to use the timer option of the camera. When set at a 2 sec timer, you have a good two seconds to click the button, and get a good grip of the camera before the picture is clicked. Also, if you are clicking pictures with exposure times of around the one second mark, the vibration caused by the mirror would also be a cause of concern, especially if you don't have a lens (or in rear cases even a camera) with vibration reduction. And for this you can use a feature called "Mirror Lockup", which I was kinda surprised to find hidden in my camera as well. What this does is, it locks up the mirror well before the image is actually captured. This way there is no mechanical movement when the image is actually clicked. The Live View option of your camera could also be used to solve this problem, but for some reason, it just doesn't do it for me. Anyway, I leave you with two images, both derivatives of the same picture. One slightly touched up, and the other a highly touched up picture, the result of an exploration session of the Adobe's Lightroom.

Waiting for the rains

Here's another picture, which could have been better, but unfortunately isn't. Though I did get to learn new things clicking this one. I faced one of those situations where there was too much light in the background, and too little illuminating the subject. This is where the in-built flash came in. However, with the solution came another problem. The shutter speed went down to 1/200 th of a second. With the ISO as low as I could take it, and the shutter-speed s fast as it could be, I was forced to play with the aperture, thus increasing the depth of field. Lesson learnt, I think, I am gonna invest in a neutral density filter.