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the sky is so blue right now in Bombay that i want to rush out of office with a camera. and there a couple of nice rolling clouds.

Incoming! (as we shout in Unreal Tournament, except it is now about the monsoons)

Exactly. I was reading on photography techniques (for dummies :D) those days, and one of the suggestions I found somewhere was to include nearby objects in a landscape shot to make it more attractive. Just put it into practice in this shot... (dead branch and the rocks)

Suren,
A very cute expression on the bats face and the contrast in colours is good.

I would be going up to the hills soon and hope to see some snow covered peaks. Can someone kindly give me some basic tips on mountain photography. The equipment with me would be
1. Sony A200 DSLR
2. 18-70mm kit lens
3. 70-300mm lens.

I read somewhere about filters while clicking snow capped mountains. I dont have them and I dont think I would have time to look for them. Any suggestions??

was away to Lansdowne. took some snaps but everything was so dry because of no rains the "freshness" of the hills didnt come out :-(
though my wife's portraits that i did using the macro during the trip have come out nice, honest!

@ Clevermax, Fazal, Vivekiny - thanks for your comments. i do get a perspective now.

@ Rudra - the Thakthok monastery shot, well what do i say simply awesome.
you give me inferiority complex big time

dkey, the Alpha's 18-70 is a good lens but not the very best. It has some CA issues but there's a sweet spot for the lens, at F/8 or so, where it gives very nice image quality for wide angle shots. Please read the lens review on dpreview or somewhere.

Coupled with this, you can apply the Sunny-16 rule to shoot in bright daylight. (I have personally checked whether Sunny-16 directly applies to our cameras - A200 - and found that the aperture should be bit more wider in broad daylight. To me, F/8 and ISO 100 worked rather than F/16 and ISO 100, for a shutter speed of 1/100.)

Having said all these, I might probably turn the dial to Auto and shoot, if I am up there in the mountains. :) Need to enjoy in real time also right?

I join the club with my first pic on this thread.
Taken with my new D90, cropped in picasa.

Was just playing with my birds. I know the whitebalance is little off and the noise is very high (shot at high ISO).

Here I come!




Landing Cleared!




It's my turn!




As you might notice that I have not clipped my birds. I really do not like the idea of clipping their wings off. In return my birds oblige by making the entire room dirty.lol:

Please do feel free to comment on how this could be improved.please:

1) Beachside houses - Elliot Beach, Besant Nagar, Chennai. (Tried long exposure for the first time. The "tripod" was an abandoned corn vendor's table. :)



2) Close up shot of a Rose...




Cheers!
Goutham

@sj_koova: A bit oversaturated to my eyes, but looks nice. Welcome to the DSLR world!

@TSEA: Good shots. I would crop these pictures and only show the bird in mid air. You could have shot them in daylight.

@Venom Rider: First picture would look better if you cover the road (if its lined, empty and move the buildings to one side of the image. Some pictures like this will look nice if you have the main subject in one of the sides of the image than just having them at the middle. Looks like you've cropped the image to get this panoramic aspect ratio.

Second image has an overall yellow/red color cast. Work with the tone curves in PS a little and it will look lovely.

Thanks clevermax for the tips, I guess most of the times, ill keep the camera on P mode and keep clicking.

Hey I also have an old Minolta 28-80 lens with me, do you think i should take that one instead of the sony18-70. Would the minolta lens be better? What do you suggest?

here's one from me...(no pp done)

Well, I dont know much about the Minolta 28-80mm. I have a Minolta beercan (70-210mm) and it provides very good optical quality. We can assume that all minolta glasses will be like that.. Old is gold you know... :)

What I'd suggest is, just take the lighter and compact lens out of the two so that it will be easier for you to carry around. I went for a trekking once, with my Alpha, and I had a tough time walking around with the camera. Next time a good compact P&S for such purposes.

Take all the nice scenaries in RAW mode as well, you might want to do some PP on them when you're back. Since you're going to usea fixed mode to shoot, make sure that your white balance, metering mode etc are set to the correct values before you begin. A wrong white balance setting will screw up your jpegs but not the RAW images.

Edit: One good reason to pick the 18-70 is that it provides more wide angle than 28-80.

Edit2: I am going to pick this up, if this guy still has this gear for the same price! It is more than a steal!

$125 to take them off my hands on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

here's a macro (no pp done)

Thank you so much for replying.

Will certainly keep that in mind. I was almost 100mtrs away from those houses & on the beach, did not have too many options to compose differently. My main focus was to get a night shot :)

Will try that... Thanks for the tip.

Cheers!
Goutham