Day 2 with the 50mm

SelfShot

So I took the Cam to work today and started clicking at anything and everything I could find. Called Kevin up and one of the first things he asked me was.. 'Did you take the cam to work?', man i'm so predictable :P But only one guy knows me that well and it's Barco Man (Kevin). enjoyed the day with the 50mm, images seemed to be more clearer and crisp. The auto focus seems to be a lot faster as well. Can't wait to wake up tomorrow and start clicking again!

Day 1 with the 50mm

Hitting the Right Notes!

My poor bass guitar! I don't recall what my idea of purchasing this lovely instrument was in the first place. probably thought it would look cool :P . Been almost 3 years that I touched it and mom has been after me to get rid of it. But for some reason I was never really able to do that. Maybe someday in the future I might pick it up and start to learn again, until then it at least makes for a good subject to photograph!

50 Days- 50 Pics - 50mm

Yea to me! I purchased the Canon EF 50mm F1.8 II Prime lens today! It's the cheapest but one of the best lens of it's category. With an Aperture reaching as Large as F/1.8 clicking images in low light is not a problem anymore.

This little monster came in a tiny little box but packs a big punch on street & portraits photography. Already tested it, clicking a few shots and instantly noticed the sharpness of the images. The super compact sized and light weight lens really makes it easier on the wrist's as well.

I have decided to do a project: 50 day- 50 pics with he new 50mm lets see how far I get with this, so wish me Luck!

Morning out with Ian & Kevin!

Yawn!!! still exhausted from all the running jumping and monkeying around this morning. Woke up @ 5.30 am today as we were supposed to go to the beach to click some snaps. We had to still get the 2nd Image done for the 'Ernst & Young' Brand name competition and had been scratching our head for ideas. Sunrise was at 4.50 am and by the time we could all actually hit the road it was already 6.30am and bright

We decided to set up on the lawns out side Al Corniche Club on Gulf road and tried to get some flying images, motion Blur / Panning shots, just random stuff.

 Kevin and Ian decided to go for a Run :P

Ian seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood to get some snaps pics done and was happy to be the model in most of the pics, he didn't even mind getting into the water fountain.:P

And then we started flying!!!

Just me :)

 My planet needs me!!

Show Off!!! hmph!














On the whole it was a fun day with 2 good friends, wish more could have joined this morning.
That's all for now, gonna go back to sleep.

Check some more crazy pics below

Kevin trying to be funny!

Leaning tower of Kuwait???

Trying to frighten his own reflection!



































Enjoying life with every click! :) 

Savio Dsouza

-SnapThat

Photo of the Day - 28 June 2012 - Wrangler with EY Shades

3 days ago, I was asked by a friend to click a photograph of a vehicle with a sun shield having the logo of EY. Next thing I call-up Savio “Man, we have a job to do” and told him what’s on hand.

So we put on our thinking caps…

First of all, we needed a nice vehicle. Who to ask?? Tadaaa!! called up my cousin Ronnie, as he just got himself a nice Wrangler. He agreed to come. (thank you Ronnie). Meanwhile the next day my friend sent me the sun shield we were required to use. The only problem was we had to submit the click by the weekend and we were all pretty busy. As we are all working people we decide to meet up after work and head to location just before sunset the next day. Our location, outside the Hard Rock Cafe as it’s a landmark in Kuwait and close-by for all of us. We reached location (I had a tire puncture fixed in-between to add to the mix) and began to set up quickly as the sun was setting quickly and we had to get a decent shot before we ran out of time.  The result is here below.

As Ronnie had come with his wife Fiona and sweetie pie Rianna,  we clicked a nice family picture. Managed to get the sunset, and some long exposure shots of the Jeep too. All done, RonFioRia headed back home to watch the Euro Cup Portugal v/s Spain, while Savio, Me headed to Church to help at our upcoming Senior Citizen Program.

Photography Tip of the Day- Don't become obsessed with Perfection!

Don't become obsessed with Perfection!

It’s good to try to be your best and want to click good photographs, but do not become obsessed with perfecting every shot. The only thing you should be obsessed with is clicking all the possible pics.

Even Pro-photographers don’t always get all their shots right. Enjoy the time with your Camera and take a few crazy snaps as well. Keep experimenting & practice, practice, practice!

If you see something you like, keep it! Do not delete the images thinking that lighting or composition of the snap is not good enough. Use people's criticism as a stepping guide to getting better.

Savio A. D'souza

-SnapThat

Fun with Motion Blur

So let’s talk about an interesting article today called Motion Blur!

Contrary to popular belief, your photographs don’t always have to be Sharp!

Shocking right? Yea, sometimes a blurred pic says a lot about the photograph, depending on what the photographer was trying to capture and how the image was taken.

As Kevin mentioned in his earlier post on, "how to click Good Photographs", There are no rules to photography. What is important, is what the photographer is trying to portray in the image.

Like all Topics of Photography this one is very vast and not possible to cover in just one post so we’ll break this down in parts.

What is Motion Blur?

A simple definition would be- An image captured of an object in motion (vehicles moving, people dancing, spinning wheels, etc) which show the movement of the object in the form of a blur or streak of light around the object is what is known as a Motion Blur. Examples are below.

This is caused namely because either the moving object was too fast for the camera’s shutter to capture it in a ‘Still / freeze’ shot and / or the photographer deliberately lowered the shutter speed of the camera in order to capture the object’s motion in the form of a Blur.

There as two types of Motion Blur.
1. In which the object in focus is 'Still', while the surroundings are blurred (also commonly known as Panning)
2. The Surrounding are 'Still' and the object in focus is blurred.

But why would you want blurred images?

Motion Blur photography gives us a 2 dimensional view of the object in the image. Unlike still photographs, we can determine the movement and are aware that the object is focus is not just standing still.

Here below is another interesting shot of Motion Blur.

1. What do you notice in this image?

2. What do you think the people are doing here?

This photograph was taken on Yacht Trip a couple of days back. Unfortunately due to low lighting, we were struggling to get any good shots of this dancing group enjoying themselves.

Kevin suggested that we try to click at a slower shutter and instantly we noticed the results were pretty amazing. Now we could capture them dancing about and enjoying themselves and not just still images of people in funny looking poses.

This post will just give you an example of what Image blur / Motion blur is and how it can be used to bring the snap to life.

We will cover the technical aspects on this subject on a later date.
Until then, be it ‘Moving or Still objects’, if you like what you see don’t be afraid to SnapThat!

I want a Digital Camera !

Now if you’re thinking of buying a digital camera and you’re confused which one to buy…well help is on the way. I won’t say which brand or model is the best, but just a few points to think, which might help you to make a decision.

Most of the times we get carried away with what the salesman has to say, so do your homework in advance. Below are a few things to ask yourself:

* What type of camera do you want? Point and Shoot or DSLR?

* Am I going to shoot in Auto mode, or maybe I’ll do some creative photography?

* What is my budget?

* What features are you looking at?

  -Compact/portable

  -Large LCD

  -Macro, Zoom, Wide Angle

  -Weight/Size

  -Maintenance

  -Easy to use / Complexity

  -Speed

  -Image Quality/Mega Pixels

Mega Pixels!! Almost all of the time the salesman is going to say “Check this camera it has 18 Mega Pixel” it’s the latest. Don’t just jump for it. Consider what you’re going to do with your pictures. Just upload them on Facebook? Print a normal album size or you might want to blow them up wall size pictures. If you’re not going to print large size pictures then, a minimum 5 MP camera will be just fine. I’m not saying Large MP cameras are bad it’s just that you’ll be paying more for something you’re not going to use and its going to consume a lot of Hard Disk space.

If you have thought of going for a DSLR, the price tag on the camera isn’t going to always be the final price. There are a few extras to consider (may be not at that time but in near future) you will need to get an External Flash, Tripod, Monopod, Extra Batteries, Lenses, Filters, Memory cards, Camera Bag, Remote shutter release, to name a few.

A thing to consider on a P&S camera is the zoom range. It is recommended that you opt for more Optical zoom rather than Digital zoom. Digital zoom simply enlarges the pixels in your shot which does make your subject look bigger and also more pixilated.

So now let’s say you narrowed down to a few camera models, your next best friend to consult is…Google! Go read some reviews on those few you selected. Then go to your favourite store and check out hands-on the feel and look of the camera.

A lot more things can be added to consider purchase of a digital camera. This is just my general take on buying one. Take your time in reviewing the pro’s and con’s and what do I need or what do I want in a camera.

...and when you do get one just SnapThat!

HDR Images - (HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE)

The snap below was taken and processed in January of this year. For those of you in Kuwait who have visited the Gulf Run car show at the 360 Mall, I’m sure you have spotted this beauty. Although it was on display at one corner of the show, this model attracted the most attention especially the young & avid car enthusiasts.

Yes, that’s the 2012 Chevy Camaro! Obviously modified but, nonetheless, an amazing work of art. The intricacy of the design on the car and the combination of Blue and Black made it stand out against its rivals.

This photograph was done using HDR (HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE). OK! I know for those of you who are not into photography, this might seem a little too technical. So I’m taking the liberty of explaining what HDR is all about.

In simple terms, an HDR image is a blend of photographs taken at two or more light exposures and merged together using post-processing software (eg. Photoshop, Photomatrix, etc). This creates a highly dynamic range between the lighter and darker portions of the image.

In order to understand how HDR works, you need to first understand what ‘Exposure’ is and how to adjust the exposure setting of a camera.

I would simply define ‘Exposure’ as the amount of light absorbed by the image sensor when the shutter closes.

All DSLRs and, now-a-days, some of the ‘Point and Shoot’ cameras allow you to view the exposure meter on the display. As shown below, the higher the exposure, the brighter the image & vice versa. Unfortunately not all ‘Point and Shoot’ cameras offer you this option to change the exposures settings. Under the manual mode, the exposure settings of a DSLR camera can be adjusted to click at minimum 3 exposures, also known as Bracketing. Below is a shot of the exposure meter showing exposure set at 3 points.

 

For example, if you set the exposure at -1, 0, +1, (as shown in the markings) and click thrice, the first image will be captured at -1 exposure which is darker, the second image will be captured at 0 or normal exposure, and the third will be at a brighter exposure of +1

Now that you’ve got your images at different exposures, you only have to merge them on your HDR software and Viola! You’ve just made your first HDR image.

HDR image processing softwares are not free and don’t come cheap, but I’m sure most of you know how to get your hands on them. Do not download pirated software, It’s ILLEGAL!!

HDR imaging is a vast subject and I have tried to put as much of necessary information as I could in this post. We will definitely get back to this subject again another day.

Savio A. D'souza

-SnapThat

Kuwait Towers

So after some 15 years I was back to Kuwait, this time not on vacation but to stay. Riding in the back seat of my cousin's car down the Gulf Road I spotted the Kuwait Towers ! and I go, Hey, Wait Wait !! I wanna click a picture of the towers and Lulu says: Don't worry Kev, your gonna be here for a few years :) 

Well after living a few years in Kuwait, at last I thought, lets go click a low light sunset kinda picture of the most famous landmark in Kuwait "The Kuwait Towers". So I packed the camera, stand and was off to the towers with my Mum (who is now on visit to Kuwait), my Sister and my friend Savio. We reached when the sun was still in the horizon so, Savio and Me both set up our cameras and waited for the sun to set and then we got trigger happy :) Took a few shots, sat a while, chatted, watched the people at the beach & headed back home. So down here we have the Kuwait Towers for you.

(click to view large)

 

Umm...now all those who are not from Kuwait, here is a small article on the towers taken from Wikipedia.

The Kuwait Towers are three towers of reinforced concrete in Kuwait City. The main tower is 187 metres high and serves as a restaurant and water tower. It also has a Viewing Sphere which rises to 123 metres above sea level and completes a full turn every 30 minutes. The second tower is 145.8 metres high and serves as a water tower. The third tower houses equipment to control the flow of electricity and illuminates the two larger towers. The towers hold 4,500 cubic metres of water.

The towers were designed by Sune Lindström and Malene Björn and built by Energoprojekt, a company from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and Vatrostalna, a company from Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Photo of the Day - June 17 - Sunset over the Desert City

Yesterday, I wrote about clicking 'After Sunset' pics and you saw the beautiful light shades in the image at the dock. Today, I decided to go a little earlier, just before the sun could go down but I wasn't even planning on clicking the sunset. 
I went for a walk to the Marina, not knowing what i was going to snap. I thought of going to the beach front at first. Thought, maybe I'd catch some kids playing or some of the youngsters on their BMX bikes or click some snaps of the Yachts at the Dock.
But as luck would have it, when I reached the Gulf road, it was impossible to cross with the vehicles speeding from both ends. I was forced to take the overhead bridge, something I wasn't keen on doing but while half way across, the most Beautiful sight caught my eye. The Sun was setting over Kuwait City and it looked SPECTACULAR.

Finding a good spot, I stood there mesmerized, camera in hand.Clicked almost 25 shots and each was better that the other. I finally settled for this one; I like the sun peeking out from under the clouds :)
The Sunset over this Desert City has never looked so beautiful before, without a doubt, this had to be my Photo of the day.
You never know what you might run into, so always keep your camera close at hand and keep snapping.

Savio A. Dsouza

- SnapThat

Photo of the Day - June 16

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time

Otis Redding couldn’t have got it wrong when he wrote the lyrics to that amazing song. Truly there is something special about spending time out on that dock just looking into the horizon and watching the sunset.

Today we decided to do some ‘After Sunset’ photography. A good tip to capturing beautiful tones of the sky is to wait about 20 minutes after sunset. That’s when the best colors of the sky can be captured with a properly timed exposure. Once the harsh lights of the sun have settled and all you are left with is the soft after-lights. Before the darkness of the sky settles in, take in as much pics as you like, you are going to really love the effects. 

For the above snap, I set the Shutter @ a good long 30seconds to take in as much as the lights as possible. The Aperture was set  to F16 and clicked, obviously using a tripod. 

The snap came out better than I expected, so here it is, my Photo of the Day!

Keep Snapping

Savio A. D'souza

- SnapThat

How to click "Good Photographs"

...thank you Savio for the post on “Rule of Thirds”. Thought I will add a few lines on the same for our friends wanting to click good pictures.

We all must have heard or said at some point of time; He clicks good pictures, must be having a good camera “Hell No” It’s like you go to someone’s home for lunch and say, Wow your food is so delicious. You must be having nice vessels  :p

Now there is only one rule in photography i.e. there are no rules of clicking pictures. The Rule of thirds is just a guideline which will draw the eye and make your pictures look better, dynamic and stand out from a snapshot. Also note to be aware of what’s in the surrounding and try clicking from a different point of view, like, raise yourself higher or lower from the point you would normally stand and take the short.

So if you’re having problems initially with placing your subjects on the thirds or can’t figure where the imaginary lines should be, don’t worry. Cameras now days come with a “Grid” which can be switched on from the cameras menu to be displayed on the LCD (refer to camera manual). Once you get used to this way of photography you will see the thirds applied in almost every professional photograph.

How to click good photographs? go out and click some for a start . The more you click the better you'll get. So just SnapThat!

Click here for some more tips to read.

Photo of the Day - June 15

Woke up at 4.50 am this morning coz a friend of mine wanted to go do some early shooting. Unfortunately he couldn’t make it so after about an hour of tossing around in bed; I decided to take a walk down to the beach alone. Took my DSLR along with me, still wishing I had the prime 50mm lens.

 Surprisingly, the sun was already almost half way up, and very bright. It was a burning 36degC and by the time I reached the beach, I was really sweating it out. Walked passed a few joggers and was wondering, how on earth does anyone run in this weather?

So anyway I got down to clicking a few pics here and there. Nothing really interesting caught my eye. Most of the pics came out nicely but nothing I could brag about. 

The heat really started to get to me after a while & I stopped in the shadow of this palm tree to cover myself from sun. I enjoyed standing in its shade and felt like it deserved my attention, so clicked a few pics of it as well. Left for home soon after that. Well another day another Pic.

Will try to get 'A photo of the day' up on the Blog. I guess today my new 'Palm Tree friend' deserved the place on my wall. 

Savio A.D'souza

-SnapThat

Photo Tip of the Day - Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds

Photographers are notorious for their instinct to center everything. Unfortunately centered pictures aren't terribly dynamic or interesting.

Instead, learn to move your subject away from the middle of the frame. A simple way to frame a photograph in this way is to follow the rule of thirds. To do this, simply divide your frame up like a tic-tac-toe board and place your subject at any of the intersecting lines.

This may seem a bit awkward at first, but once you see the results you'll wonder what you were thinking placing all of your subjects in the center.

>>>> RULE OF THIRDS GRAPH

See Examples Below:

Eg. 1

Eg. 2

- Taken from Below link

http://lifehacker.com/135093/photography-tip-of-the-day-move-it-from-the-middle

Pics provide by       Flickr

Freeze Frame!

 

Ok, firstly, do yourself a favor and get a tripod, they are not very expensive, come in different sizes & extremly important for clicking photographs under low light condition. And yes, I used a Tripod for this shot.  
In this particular image, I set the camera on Shutter Priority Mode & kept the shutter @ a constant speed of 1/2500 to freeze catch the water movement. I only adjusted the ISO (800) until I felt the exposure was perfect. I did use the Nissin DI866 Mark II flash for this at High Speed Sync and bounced it off the ceiling. Note this snap was taken in the night, under fluorescent light bulbs so I had to use the Flash or the image would have turned out very dark.

Even if you do not have an external flash, don’t fret, your pop-up flash on the cam will do just fine; expect that it will click at a speed of 1/200 only. You’re going to have to use a lot of lighting & increase the ISO to max compensate for the low lights. You can also click in daylight if you cannot get enough lighting to click at a higher shutter speed.

After making sure I had the right exposure and lighting set up, all that was left to do was to keep dropping the Almond seed (YES ALMOND :P ) into my Fish tank!!! *(YES FISH TANK :P) and trying to get the right shot. Luckily, it didn’t take too long before I felt that I had snapped the perfect picture and above is the result of this. Not bad, eh? A little tuning using Google’s Picassa editor helped bring out the right tones for the snap.

*No Fish were harmed in the making of this Image ;)

Savio A. D'souza

-SnapThat!



SnapThat – Intro!

Hey folks, thanks for visiting our blog, this is the first post from us @ Snapthat!

Now, what is SnapThat you ask? No worries. Read below and you will get a gist of who we are, what we do and what you are going to see coming up on this site very soon.  

SnapThat has been put together by my friend Kevin Barco and myself, Savio D’souza. We are both enthusiastic photographers and have been clicking away for quite some time now. If you see something you want to preserve a memory of, the best way to do it, is to shoot it. Right? (With your camera off course! lol)

We definitely do not consider ourselves as professionals but would love to get to that stage someday. We do not use any high-end equipment for our photography as of now.

I have a Canon DSLR 500D (that’s the Canon T2i for some of you) with stock Canon 18-55mm lens (yes I know that sucks but I don’t have enough money yet to upgrade it L) +  I just purchased and I’m loving the Nissin 866DI Pro Mark II Flash. I will write a review about it advise how it can assist the average user with a low budget coz for a flash of that power it’s surprisingly cheap.

Kevin has the Canon DSLR 1000D with Stock Canon 18-55mm lens + Sigma 18- 250mm 3.5f lens.

So as you see no high-end stuff here. We are just regular guys who try different photography techniques & will show you how we do it & how to make the most of your DSLR cams with ‘limited resources on hand’. Sometimes you just have to stick to the basics and you will be surprised at how good the pics turn out in the end.

As and when possible, we will try our best to come up with different projects in photography and will show and explain the best ways to do it. Your comments, if you feel you have a better way to improve on it, are most welcome. This blog is open to discussions on any and every topic related to photography. If you want us to get a particular kind of shot that is within our limits, just ask! We will try to get it done and definitely keep you updated with the details on the project.

Please do subscribe to the blog for regular updates and we will keep things interesting. 

Once our Facebook Fan Page is ready, we will post the link here for you guys to check it out!

Until we meet again, keep Snapping!

Savio A. D’souza

-SnapThat!

We shoot at sight! ;)