Yum Yum Yummy!!

Food in a picture needs to look equally appealing, inviting and appetizing, just like what it is in real.

After going through so many good pictures of really simple dishes or just plain fruits and vegetables and also a bunch of "not so appetizing" food, which actually tastes good, I did a small study on the net to take better pictures of our everyday, not so fancy food. I started taking pictures for the next one month of random things from my kitchen, some prepared by me and some not. This was sure a learning experience and I am sharing the tips and techniques to take better and inviting pictures of food that I learnt and sure, some of those pictures that I took.

First of, starting with the tips,

* I always preferred using Canon EF 50mm /1.8 lens, since I preferred shallow DOF when it came to food, and what else beyond my prime lens?
* Lighting: Natural light preferred. But in my case, I have used the kitchen light, since most of them were set on the counter. Needless to say, with Sujaya around, she will disturb the subject. If taking in yellow light, donot forget to change the white balance or make one - of your own.
* Take several pictures, from various angles, first covering the safe angles like "from the top", "45 degrees" and then explore a few more creative angles. The one I liked the most was getting low as much as possible - lower than being low, to an angle where the texture and depth of the food is actually revealed.  And also found the "from the top" or "bird's view" was the most non-appealing angle, since it shows the food more flat and doesnt do justice to its texture.
* Use Rule of Thirds.
* Make best use of the subject. Now that this subject is not going to squirm, walk away or complaint, take your own darling time to try taking pictures from various angles, juggling the props, altering its arrangement and etc.,.
* Also be quick! In certain cases, the dish gets tired easily and since we are doing tight closeups it is clearly visible that this food is been traumatized for quite some time now. So QUICK - finish it - finish taking pictures and finish the plate too.
* Watch for colors - some are so bright and vibrant and add a zing to the picture as a subject or as a prop.
* When there is a bunch of choices available, choose the best. Like a muffin with a dent would ruin the shot, where as one with a uniform shot would complete a perfect picture otherwise.
* Some food categories are really easy to take pictures of and surprisingly they turn out well even with minimal effort. While some are not that nice, even after trying from various angles with various props and etc., The problem is the color and texture of the food. Examples - soups are so sloppy and messy. How much ever you try they cant be shown with a dash of glamour. So are curries - anything that is brown, they are better off when eaten. They are just meant for that! Brown food, sloppy food, anything gooey is plainly not going to turn that great!
* Some also rub oil on the food to make it more glossy and glitzy for pictures. I did not do that though, since these food were actually consumed sooner or later and not just destined to trash.

The pictures:






The regular 45 degree angle, which I personally donot find great.



Sliced it up, to show more texture and color.




Very shallow DOF.









Birds eye view - seems to be working for this picture.



A bit of prop (clock) to show that this was a bedtime snack + drink.



Rule of thirds.





With this super low angle, I love the texture details in this shot.



And no, I dint down them all. I am not a cookie monster, though I popped in one or two. That was certainly hard to keep my fingers on the camera and camera alone :)


I had one more lolly - a pink one, which I had to offer as a bribery to Sujaya to keep her engaged, without which this shot would have been impossible.



This was the only shot that I had taken with the 18 - 55mm lens and was taken at ISO 400, that the grains are clearly visible.



And the brown curry shot, with which I certainly did more than 25 shots and not any of those were good despite serious editing and natural lighting. Lesson learnt - brown curries and soups, put that camera away and fetch a spoon and enjoy the dish when it is still hot! :)

And some more known facts:

* To get nice shallow Depth Of Field, use the lowest possible f stop. It fetches a good DOF and also helps in low light situations like inside the kitchen.
* Since mine was a prime lens, I took pictures and then cropped them to compose them.
* Prepared for cropping and editing, always take pictures in RAW.
* Use a tripod when required.

Happy cooking, happy clicking and happy enjoying! Num Num Num!!

The Gift!

I wish it had snowed when we were there in Tahoe. But I cant ask for it knowing, we were really lucky to have snow at all, considering the time of the year we had been there - last week of May.

It has been and is still in my list to take a macro of snowflakes. 

But well, I was excited to see the snow everywhere, since this was the first time ever I have ( we have - Sujaya and me) seen snow. 

The bright and beaming sun was good in one way, since it was warm and not a typical "snow" climate, where I should be freezing. But it sometimes brought in problems, particularly when ever I took my camera. The sun and the full white snow made things over exposed easily. So I kept popping up the f stop to bigger numbers, which also brought some nice landscapes.

This picture of Robin is for my sweet little Sujaya, who likes all kinds of tweety birds and she loves Robins and Blue Jays. I kept chasing this guy who was busy digging his dinner. The Golden Hour - as it is called (the last hour in a day with Sun light), brought in the dramatic light effect to the bird and the grass. The colors are natural - untouched. Straight Out Of Camera - not even cropped. 

And one more !

What else did I get to take with my wide angle inside the kids play area / casino?! 

Okie, here is a small game that I played. The pictures and settings are here, the inference is so very obvious:

Night view of Reno from 18th floor. 

Lens : Canon 55-250mm, ISO :100,  Exposure :30 secs, Aperture : 22, focal length: 55mm

Lens : Tokina 12 - 24 mm, ISO 100, Exposure : 30 secs, Aperture : 22, Focal length : 24

Lens: Tokina 12 - 24mm, ISO 100, Exposure : 30 secs, Aperture : 22, Focal length: 12mm

Lens : Tokina 12- 24mm, ISO 400, Aperture 4, exposure 1/60 secs, focal length 24 mm, flash used: Very much YES (one can see the flash light reflection on the glass)

Needless to say :) Camera dial turned to manual and just one press - click!! ONE REASON TO GO MANUAL. You will stick there. You wont mind deleting about 10 pics you have tried to get the settings right! But will sure get the thrill of it.

Walking straight into the boat!

The lovely shore of the beautiful lake. Converted it to B&W to make it a bit appealing, since the original version had harsh mid day light. Also tweeked the contrast a bit, to make it look not too gray. 

One can see the horizon in the above picture is all messed up. :) I was indeed tired after holding the super heavy wide-angle for more than two hours, that my hands became partially senseless and didnot even realize I was holding the camera all tilted. This is AFTER adjusting the horizon :)

Settings for above picture:

Lens : Tokina 12 -24mm, ISO 200, Aperture : 22, Exposure : 1/250 sec, focal length : 24mm.

Higher the shutter speed, starry the Sun. Lower shutter speed renders a big white Sun with circles but no flares/starry effect. So the key was to keep increasing the shutter speed after setting the required ISO and aperture till we get the starry effect.

One more mistake that I will keep regretting about for next few weeks. I wonder what on earth I was thinking when I left back the tripod in car to run to this place where I HAD thought of taking long exposure water shots. The only shot that came better in about 50 shots that I had taken - hand held! 

Atlast got a chance to try good landscape pictures. Thank my husband for giving this wonder trip to a scenic spot, with a wide-angle lens. Perfect Gift for our 6th wedding anniversary. Couldn't have asked for more. L.O.V.E.

Getting Wild with WIDE!!

TOKINA 12-24mm WIDE ANGLE LENS. Cant stop thinking of this!

Wide angle lens does better justice in capturing the majesty of Mother Nature. It is THE best for landscape photography.

Had been on a trip to Tahoe/Reno and I decided to rent a Wide angle lens for the trip after some study I made while we planned for the trip.

I found out 55-250mm is no where when it comes to taking landscape pictures and I was on a lookout as what would cater to my need. I found out buying a wide angle was out of question since it starts from $500+.which is certainly a big budget.

But wait, how about renting / borrowing one for 3 days. I dont travel a lot and I dont need a wideangle for day to day pictures. So why lock $500+ in a lens which would come out may be for just 10 days a year? How about  paying $35 for 3 days ( or $40 for 4 days), use it, and return it? That seems a lot more effective as well as, well withing the budget.

When I started out what kind of lens I should be taking, I was completely lost -there are so many in the market -to buy/ to rent.

Some key points that I inferred to consider before choosing one:

* Lesser the number , wider the angle. Example : 12-24 mm is preferred than 50mm or 85mm, since more of the scene can be brought in via 12 - 24 mm. But the old-school says 35mm is the preferred number and anything less than 14mm gives distorted images - better for artistic results.
* No greater zoom required.
* No smaller f# required. Obvious, since landscape is usually done with larger f numbers - 18 and above. So it doesnt matter how wide the lens can open.
* Donot forget tripod.
* Get a polarizing filter.
* Dump that UV filter particularly on bright and sunny days.
* And last - a crude tip : A lens with a red ring around it is considered to have better picture quality than a regular one. Not sure as how true it is, but this sure caught my attention, though I didnot go for one with a red ring around it.

Some pictures:


























The last picture shows a lizard right under my foot to the far away clouds and still the blue/green color of the lake is yet intact!

Wish I just had warmer light - not the harsh mid day light in almost all of these pictures. Also regret for not removing the UV filter which has rendered its lens flare in almost all the pictures.

But end of the shoot, I was happy - indeed. And not my job of explaining / convincing my husband as where to use, how is it different from the lens that you have, what can it do and etc., questions of my husband when I actually need one. Infact he is more than happy than me with this lens (All SMILES).

Will soon update another post with the other "non-wide angle" pictures.

Easter Egg Hunt

Happy Easter.

This was our first easter egg hunt. And Sujaya sure enjoyed it thoroughly.



She did not like any one touching her face. So the face painting was now hand painting.



You cant pay the kids to sit still for a minute - BUT SURE CAN PAINT THEM TO SIT STILL. Was seriously surprised to see the eeniest of kid, who otherwise is so busy totting around, to sit without a squirm to get their favorite picture drawn on their cute little face.



These kids under 3 did not understand / care for the rules of the egg hunt. They just entered the hunt area even while they were setting the field. Their rule was:
I know there are candies inside some of these eggs. And there are already so many of them lying around. So GO GET THEM!



Busy little bodies slowed down to concentrate and put the fullest effort in opening the eggs to find their treasure.





Sujaya opening her first OFFICIAL treasure. And her basket of eggs.





Kids Hunting - showing off - and enjoying !

Had ideas of taking some pictures of children getting wild after all the stimulation and sugar. And sure I got a couple of them. But then, I stared getting my own doze, at which point I certainly didnot enjoy or even thinking photographing those moments. So without a go, had to put away the camera :) But sure, one can imagine the scene after the hunt!

And the settings part:

Lens : Juggled between Canon EF 50 mm and 55-250mm lenses
ISO : 200 since it was an overcast day

Kept changing the aperture for various scenes - from 1.8 to maximum 5.6 and adjusting the shutter speed accordingly. Actually, I preferred 50mm, since it opens wide, which means, I can take "non-grainy" pictures with better shutter speed, which is a must with children



And at home - we dyed (painted as Sujaya calls) some eggs at home. Sure it was fun, though it was a mess. One can see some patterns that I had ATTEMPTED to make - but they didnot turn so very well.



Wasnt able to take more pictures of these eggs, arranged any different, with Sujaya and her dad waiting to eat their favorite ones.

Sure, it was fun and event - full weekend.

A Trip to CAS

A Trip to California Academy of Science.

Something to learn and play for me and my daughter.

2 eyes and 2 duties.  One taking pictures and the other enjoying Sujaya enjoying her weekend mini trip.

It was just a 3-4 hours outing, with NO stopping anywhere. Had we got some more time, I will bee feeling blessed to have tried the "outdoor shoots" that I have been wanting to do for a long time now.

But Sujaya was so tired after so much of exploring, playing and learning, that we immediately had to leave. Otherwise, it was beautiful sunshine (evening yellow) and very beautiful cherry orchard right outside of CAS. Perfect time I should say. But unlucky - we didnot find one parking space also. It was so crowded. I was able to see so many people out with their tripods and cameras trying to capture the magnificent cherry orchard.











This little blue bird which comes from the family of humming bird was so swift and was a good challenge to lay a focus.





The jelly fish is the only sea creature that I have ever uploaded or edited. One thing - most of the pics did not turn out fine. Second thing - I am tired of seeing them any more - even for the sake of filtering and editing. I was looking at them with bare eyes or through the lens the whole of the 4 hours we were there. So a BIG no to any of the fish, star fish, and anything else from the water.





Ok these were frogs - nice and with corasting colors, but  I seriously doubt if they were real.







And some butterflies. This summer, I am seriously planning to take good pics of "free range" butterflies.

It was a good experience inside the CAS - not bad. but it would have been wonderful, had we got a parking space to experience capturing the beauty of the cherry orchard.

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