Hello Friends,
How are you doing? I guess seasonal changes made photography enthusiast busy, as lots of stuffs around grabs your attention, from your backyard to nearby parks. Off-course, if you go for hikes in bigger parks defiantly you will see lots of interesting colored flowers and leaves. Here I am posting some such pictures taken from the park which is in my neighborhood.
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For this shootout I used following gears (Further details were also provided with each pictures, open in new tab by right click to view full size picture).
Canon 7D markII camera.
Canon 55-250 f 4-5.6, attached with 12mm extension tube.
Canon 100 mm L Macro lens.
Tripod (Vanguard).
Yongnuo 600EX-RT flash.
You do not need all the listed equipment for spring bloom capture, any camera & any lens which has macro capability &/ or lens attached with extension tube can yield reasonable pictures. However for better quality I recommend to use good tripod & focus lens manually.
I have provided more details of lens and camera setup along with with each pictures, please refer to it. If you have taken any spring bloom pictures please share them with us with this link click here.
If you need more technical details or you have any questions related to photography, do not hesitate to leave your comment, alternatively you can reach me on social platforms Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Hello Friends,
Spring is sprung and we are just few weeks away from official summer in Canada. This post is just intended tell you guys that, do not skip going out on day with bad weather, specially if you are photography enthusiast. Here I am posting some of my picture which I took last week, all the pictures were created on stormy &/or rainy day. The way pictures turned out were very interesting, lighting and sky was amazing, in-fact these two factors together made common landscapes look great.
Old wooden cart along with the farmers house in background. This is single capture (not HDR), picture was shot in manual mode at 18mm (~28mm in full frame). F6.3; 1/640sec at 100 ISO.
This picture was created at lower Fort Garry, Manitoba last week on Victoria day. Just look at those beautiful sky, what do you think about this picture ? are you wondering, how did I get proper exposure for the sky? here is my trick. Since it was outdoor shot I kept ISO 100 and at f6.3 I have wooden cart in focus, in this case only shutter speed (SS) was variable. First I focused to sky that gave SS of 1250 sec; then 500 sec when exposed to the house, and the SS was 250 sec for cart, averaging these three values will give you 640sec. It was little underexposed for foreground subject, but you always can recover the shadow in post processing.
Beautiful Red Chairs on Bank of Red River, Captured at lower Fort Garry. The camera settings were 18mm focal length (~28mm in full frame) at F6.3, 1/800 sec at 100 ISO
Somewhere I read that once a famous photographer told “if you must shoot color simply put something Red in picture” This is one such example. Unlike previous picture I did underexposed 1-1/2 stop to capture details in sky.
Beautiful View of Lake at Bird`s Hill Park, Manitoba, at 35mm, F11, 1/40 sec, ISO 100.
Again this is single shot (not HDR) from viewpoint on north drive, Bird`s Hill Park. In this composition two things to be noted. 1. Use sky only if it adds some meaning to the picture and 2. Use sky as background in only required proportion, too much is not too good friends. This picture was also 1-1/2 stop under exposed.
Making most out of the scene- Reflection in puddle. At 21mm (~33 in FF), f9, 1/200 sec, ISO 100.
Making most out the scene to create composition that is more interesting is also important thing, here reflection in this puddle makes best foreground for this composition, and in addition it adds sense of depth as well. Picture was shot at Selkirk, Manitoba on same rainy Victoria Day.
So, friends go out and shoot, get the best picture. Do not forget to share your opinion comments with me, also feel free to share your picture and stories with us at Here.
For more interesting picture and daily stories visit my Instagram .
Last week Saturday the 22nd, while my way back from Oak Hammock Marsh, I spotted a giant bald eagle feeding on its pray. I puled the car a side, and in a moment I got ready with my camera, it flew far away. Considering the low light conditions, had decided to come back again to the location.
Exactly a week after I went again this time with Stephanie in search of Eagle. My bad luck, it wasn’t seen even after waiting long time, may be it went to another territory. But I had plenty of time, so we started hiking through various short- trails (Click) around and took various bird pictures including American coot, Geese, Mallard duck, Yellow headed Black bird, Red winged Black bird and Grackle (Click here for picture feed). Along with aforementioned birds we also spotted the the bird with most interesting behavior called “Tree Swallow” this post is all about it.
Well, long story short, these birds follow certain pattern, may be for every 5 minutes they fly away from the tree, and comes back after some time and again after 5 minutes they fly away. They are very fast moving and hard to capture individual bird, so, I almost spent about 20-30 minutes to get the below picture of birds sitting on the tree branches, it almost look like leaves all along from far distance. The same picture was also became editor`s favorite in National Geographic Your shot (Click here for picture). Though I went for Eagle with open mind and curiosity of exploring things around could able to create one nice picture.
Photography technique
Tree swallow birds on branches of dried tree
Lighting: It was sunset and getting beautiful golden hour light to get that light on tree and in sky, I positioned myself in a way that my camera facing south.
Camera & settings: I used Canon 7D-MarkII coupled with Tamron 150-600 lens. The focal length was 150mm at F8 with shutter speed 1/2500 and ISO-800. It was hand held shot in AI-Servo shooting mode. To capture warm colors, I had cloudy white balance setting in evaluative metering mode.
Post production: Picture was captured in RAW and processed in Light room with basic adjustment of White-Black balance, shadow and highlight. This is original composition picture was not cropped.
Notes or Tips
In my experience, when you are in field always look around for nice moments
Consider light and its angle before you take picture
Always check your camera setting before you start shooting (specially WB and ISO)
Play with white balance and always get multiple pictures, to make sure one would have better focus among
Try to use tripod for better quality pictures.
Let me know what you think about this post, do follow me in social sites using link below in wedges.
I took very long time to process this old picture, it is old but new! On final leg returning from Grand canyon to Las Vegas, Guru my friend and me decided to stay in small town called Ashforks. After dinner, as Guru was browsing about our next visit, we found out the history of HWY 66. After learning the history we decided to take highway-66 instead of other super fast highway, we traveled through until Seligman. The story of these small town tells due to new high-speed highways, less people travel through these small-towns. Seligman & Ashforks were among the popular town on HWY66, but now deserted towns with very few people around.
What is that first thing comes to your mind, as soon as you hear the word #spring ? If I’m not wrong most of us think sprouting buds, cherry blossoms, chirping birds, flower blooming & green all around.
Have you seen or documented how this transition happens from #wintertospring ? I’m going to post some of such pictures for you guys from my recent trip to Nopiming provincial park, MB, Canada.
This part of Manitoba I have not explored so far, but I found out that, it is very huge park with lot of scope for #bird and #wildlifephotography. I am sure, if you spend some time and do scouting, you also get very interesting #landscape pictures. Lets check some of my pictures.
Tiny Yellow bellied Sapsucker bird found near bird lake
As a bird/wildlife photographer with big lenses, I always notice birds. This is one among many birds I have spotted, the brilliant colored birdy were seen around bird lake of park.
Melting ice on Bird lake, Nopiming park.
This is view of Bird lake from the low angle, shot this picture with polarizer to add little silky water touch & to show how clear was the #water. Friends as I mentioned “The transition” melting ice is one among them, however part of ice look thick like someone threw ice blocks on lake. This location also has campground near by and benches around grills for BBQ; very nice place for camping or even for picnicking.
Tulbi falls yurt with scenic Lakeview
Who don’t want to stay in yurt with scenic view ?
These yurts are still under construction, I am already started to find availability to reserve in this location for the scenic view from yurt click here.
Waiting for right time
The above picture has many elements of transitionofseason. The fallen #pine cones, idle boat, thawing lake, melted ice to water this landscape moment I composed from one of the cabin house on lake. For picture with similar moment click here and also from the other part of the lake you can see how this ice is Melting (click the link).
Finally with last picture I took on our way back to Winnipeg I’ll end this blog. This picture is of very beautiful town/village I saw, sunset was added third dimension to this picture.
Beauty of village in golden hour
How you seen or took pictures if seasonal transition? If yes please feel free to share your picture with others using this link here or use hashtag #lookingthroughlens. Finally if you liked my pictures and story please hit like and share with your friends. For any questions related to photography, contact me using links from below wedges.
This picture was captured at end of summer 2016. The story behind this picture was very funny. While I was driving back to home after finishing bird migration shootouts from oak marsh hammock, I saw a big bald eagle is sitting in near by crop field, next moment I pulled my car and started to approach the eagle with camera, after taking several shots I realized it is a decoy, put to protect crops from other birds, it was very hilarious.
Have you ever try taking pictures of common everyday objects for fun? Things you often see like cutleries or the special food you prepared in the weekend, or the vegetables, which are one of the most interesting objects found in any kitchen.
Considering you like photography and you live in North America this will be alternative fun activity in Winter. I’m here with sharing some the common objects I shot around the house, most of these pictures are taken from mobile phone. Availability of high resolution camera, in addition awesome photo editing apps like ‘toolwiz’ you can create wounderful picturs with great quality at home.
Folks, if you are interested in learning basics of photography, this type of activity will greatly help you to better understand basics of composition, angle and lighting. Though spring is here, it’s still cold out side. Why don’t you guys take this assignment and show, how good are you in photography ? Hope you guys like some of these pictures. Share your work with me atFacebook page -lookingthroughlens@facebook.
Looking forward for your pictures
Hello Folks,
In continuation with my previous US trip stories, here I am sharing some of the pictures from Grand Canyon, a place known as natural wonder of world.
View from Desert view point: Picture was shot with Canon 7DM2 hand held attached with Sigma 17-50 (f2.8) at 1/160s, f8 ISO 100 and +1/3rd exposure compensation.
Just before Grand Canyon National Park
Desert View point Watch Tower
Colorado passing through canyon at desert View Point
Grand view point
Another angle from Grand View Point
Sunset shot at Majove view point
Beautiful views from Grand canyon, click on individual images for full view.
It was really great experience being there and capturing exiting moments. Some of my favorite pictures below, please feel free to click on individual images for full view. For more follow me twitter/ChitnisVijaya or instagram/vijayachitnis using the links from bottom.
Looking forward to hear from you guys about this post.
Cheers
Looking Through Lens 