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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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

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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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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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