Back in town..

Daddy Narayanan has been traveling over the last few weeks, busy with work.

We also did some travel as a family to Reno and back. Today we spent a few hours in San Francisco visiting the Ripley's Believe it or not, followed by ice cream at our favorite joint..

The skies were a bright red, white and blue and the lights had just come on.. could not resist an attempt to make a composite HDR image..

Definitely going to buy this Photomatix software next time there is a discount coupon!

More photos of trips and funny events around the house later..



ps. The image was a composite of three images shot with self timer by placing camera on a table in the restaurant using my iPhone under the lens to lift it up..

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Karthigai Lights and Christmas Deepam

In our house we have a tradition. On the day of Kaarthigai Deepam (the day we light oil lamps and pray to lord Kaarthikeya and eat Pori Urundai's), we also put on the Christmas lights. The Kaarthigai day in the US also coincides with my star birthday in India as they are around 12 hours ahead and overall turns out to be a great experience.

In summary, I get to eat pori urundai's every year for my Birthday!

The oil lamps come back in the next two days but the Christmas lights stay on till the New years!

This year daddy Narayanan aka limpy Narayanan was given an ultimatum by the kids. Either get on the ladder and put on the lights with help from mommy and the kids or go hire someone to put on the lights, NOW!

With a lot of help from the three of them, the lights were up after an hour..

We also celebrated with the kids lighting lamps (or switching on battery operated lamps that look like real lamps)and placing them inside and outside the house!

Good eats..

Notice daddy's slight paunch. 15 days of eating, limping and no calorie burning and trying on pants a tad smaller on the waist can do that!

A full moon night as always for Kaarthigai and this year it coincided with an eclipse in many parts of the world. The moon as seen at 400mm and ..

and back lighting our house..

We had one busy day. Children's party in the morning. Lighting up the house in the evening!




This special day was made possible thanks to isolation from the internet. We are now planning to cut the internet cable on festival days as a policy!

Hope those of you who celebrate Kaarthigai, had a great day yesterday!


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The kids in HDR..

Human subjects are difficult to do HDR using bracketed images(the overall Google opinion seems to be that). Most Human subject HDR images are from tone mapping with single images.

This was an attempt to do bracketed images using high ISO and lower f numbers but have the shutter speeds still short enough to pull off three shots in rapid succession before the kids moved..

We are almost there..

Thanks to my wonderful subjects who pulled in a deep breath then let it go and off we went

click
click
click

These days the weekends seem to fly! Well we still have another day to ourselves...



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Playing with HDR on a saturday morning

That passes for a break from work and relaxation..

Morning Yoga, tea, then HDR photo tricks in kitchen..

Seriously thinking of buying this Photomatix thing

Planning to spend the afternoon trying to taking more pictures. Need a break from the routine.. badly!


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Navarathri Golus - 2010

This year's nine day celebration went by real fast. There was a three day time lapse with heavy pain killers that made it look like a six day festival.

The previous years golu collections are in this link. I know a lot of folks look for how their golus have evolved over time using the blog posts. Thank you all for allowing me to chronicle the fantastic doll displays.

The spirit of this festival is not in the doll displays. It is watching your kids have fun. Go to every one of their friends houses, play, eat sundal, dress up, sing, dance, collect goody bags and just enjoy being a kid!

A few photographs that capture this essence

The elaborate jewelry that kids wear with great love..




The joy of comparing goody bags..




or the joy of making photography really challenging for daddy (had to chop grandma's face because she was not amused by the kids making the photo session difficult!)




Now for this years golus. The HDR ones are obvious (most shots are a composite of 3 images std , +2 eV, -2 eV)and you can see the difference it makes.





































This year was fun. Next year as the golus morph in shape, size and color... will have a different way to capture the displays.. maybe go B&W to create that 1980's nostalgia? Go take close up of dolls in a set instead of the entire display?

Your ideas are always welcome!



Note to self: Just like we do an oil change or scheduled maintenance on the van two weeks before any long weekend for an anticipated road trip, always get your dental checkup two weeks before navrathri! It is a bad idea for Sundar to be left out in Sundal season..



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Lamphead

Manual mode shot of a swan on top of a traditional Indian lamp in a Navrathri golu..




Tonemapped and noise reduced with Photomatix trial software..




Had a wisdom tooth infection that prompted a short notice surgery and extraction of both lower wisdom teeth. Recovering nicely so far. Have been forced into a "silent" fast (mouna vrath)for the last three days. Looking forward to a nice meal today.

The golu trips continued with San, MIL and kids attending some golus during the week. Tonight we will round up the rest of the golus and post pictures.

Until then..


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Golus are the perfect subject for HDR

See this one below!



Note, if you take a picture with a flash and capture this really good golu with a wide angle set to 18mm, you will not get the details in the shadows. You can even see the shadows of the beads in each step with the HDR image..

Loving it so far..


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Navaraathiri . . . thookam Yedhu.. ohhh

If you have not seen the Kamal movie MMKR, the title won't make sense to you. My apologies.

The last week was hectic with San being out of town till Thursday. Let us say that I pretty much went into survival mode as Daddy trying to juggle work and the kids.

When it was time for a much needed rest, there come the Navarathri celebrations and they started Friday.

So the afternoon nap still eludes me.. but this year thanks to the nice lenses taking photographs of Golus(doll displays) is a lot more fun!

This is a photograph of a lamp shot with the macro.




So far we have seen nine golus over friday evening to sunday evening. Have another 6 more to visit for sure between now and next saturday.

The pictures of all the golus will have to wait till next weekend. For now, work calls...



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HDR with kids

HDR photos involve getting multiple exposures and combining them into one photograph and then tone mapping them to get details in bright and dark areas.

At least that is my one line understanding of the concept.

The best results seem to be for images shot in early morning or early evening where shadows play a big part of the shot and there are possibilities for increased hues and color saturation. Works best with monuments in the foreground, brick houses, waves etc.. you get the idea?! No, go see these photos..

You usually do not see photos of people in HDR because it is difficult for the subject to stay still while taking three shots (especially ones with long exposures).

The kids are extremely co-operative and have posed for >10000 photographs put together . .

So, here is a first attempt. Downloaded a trial version of PHotomatix to do this. Very very impressed with the software (better than the free version of FDR tools), but doubt the Mrs. will allow the real version to be purchased with the 99$ price tag. Nevertheless, a great tool to understand HDR better..




Suggestions and ideas for the kid-HDR learning part 2 are welcome!


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HDR

A HDR (High Dynamic Range)image got by superimposing 3 macro shots with 4 second exposure and f2.5, 4.0 and 9.0. Shot without flash using a Disney birthday cake figurine.. (this section shown in photo is around 2 centimeters. whole thing is 2 inches tall)

Just wanted to try it to see if it will bring out the details in the shadows. It does, but not the best use of the macro or the HDR freeware.

Need to find a dead fly.. and take a picture of its head. The live ones are too fast to capture...



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Two plus two plus two equals...

Pumpkins + some time available on a gloomy Saturday afternoon + new lens = HDR photos!!

High Dynamic Range photos, created by superimposing multiple shots of same object with a constant exposure time but with different f stop settings to get fine details on over exposed and underexposed areas of picture.

If that was all information overload, the idea is to create a photo that closely captures what the human eye can see. (It also adds a depth perception)

A glass globe on our dining table (composite image from 4 images 1/8 s exposure f2.5, f3.2, f4.5, f6.3)




and the pumpkin, a composite of 5 images with 1 second exposure and f11.0, f8.0, f5.6, f4.0, f2.8




Okay, time pass is over..

Off to do more serious things!

Wishing all those who celebrate a "Happy Hallllllloooooweeeeen!"





ps. Updated globe..






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Bloom

We have a new cluster flower blooming in our front yard. There was no breeze and the stalk held steady enough to be used for multiple shots in sequence.

This is the best superimposed HDR image that is blog worthy, given the sway and the sun setting behind the flower.

Now that the camera has graduated from still objects to slightly moving objects, more exploring will be done.




Tomorrow brings us new subjects..


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aaaawooooooooooo

It was a full moon yesterday. There were lots of clouds as well and the moon was throwing red hues through the clouds!

Thought it would make a good HDR subject and was really challenged.

1. you have to take the shot with a long exposure
2. if you are limited to a 90mm max zoom then the moon keeps moving.. and the clouds keep moving as well. it can be a problem if the moon keeps moving slightly and you have a 10 second exposure.
3. if you shorten the exposure it is all black

The HDR did not work. Just could not align everything. Did get one picture of the moon.




If you have a 200mm or higher zoom try it. You might have much better results.


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More photos from around the house

Playing with the software, realized that there is an alignment feature to align each picture to a reference to capture the light variation without increasing the blur.

In spite of using a tripod and taking the individual images in self timer mode, the few seconds it takes to change the exposure setting and clicking the shutter somehow moves the center of the image by a few pixels and that is enough to change the quality of the picture.

Found this trying to image a cabbage rose in our front yard.








Went back and zoomed in on a single rose in the flower vase and it came out crystal clear with fantastic detail even inside the shadows within the petals.







Original plan to go to take a picture of the golden gate didn't come through. Will have to try that another day..

For now, I am like a kid in a candy store.. so many possibilities with the same camera...


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A bouquet of roses - HDR Photography

Yesterday, our friends got us a bouquet of roses for the pooja. They are really beautiful roses and have a rich variety of colors.

The photo crazy idiot that I am, started taking pictures of the flowers. The colds were captured but somehow the depth of the roses were not coming out on the JPG's.

Then thought of using the HDR software and shot a series of pictures with the tripod and set it to a 2.4 second exposure with a range of aperture settings from

4.0,4.5, 6.0, 6.3, 7.1, 8.0, 9.0, 10.0, 11.0, 13.0, 18.0, 20.0

and then using the software superimposed select pictures to get a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image from this subset.

Sure enough, the image takes on more depth and gets the bright and dark ares of the roses to have the same amount of detail..

Here are two such composites.

One with almost all of the aligned images..



and one with a smaller subset..




Two realizations at the end of the photo editing process.

1. HDR is the closest I have seen a photograph capture what we see with our eyes.

2. Our eyes are way ahead! Way way way way ahead than any camera or software. God is the most brilliant camera maker! He provides us fantastic subjects like roses and fantastic images to our brain, courtesy of some amazing cameras, our eyes.

The fun continues tonight. Planning to go to my all time favorite, most photographed architectural subject in the bay area tonight..

No marks for guessing what that is!


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HDR attempt 1 - stone egg on granite

A rock that my friend Maria gave me a long time ago for my 25th Birthday.. has always been lying around in my shoebox... realized that it had the same color as our granite countertop!

This is a composite of 6 shots with f4.0 to f9.0

there will be more subjects and more pictures by sunday.


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HDR photography

Have been playing with a free HDR software called FDR Tools Basic. Still trying to get the hang of it.

The basic idea is to get bright and dark parts of an image to work at the same time while creating a three dimensional effect on the photograph by superimposing multiple shots with different exposure compensations into one picture.

Some good examples

a. from AP
b. from google images
c. still forms

The free software is not that easy to play with.. will post some images this friday.

tinkering.. tinkering.. still tinkering...


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