Parichit & Nisha wedding

                                                           ~ It was just fun all the way :) 

 A pre-wedding shoot at an exotic location 

and then they got engaged :) 

and here comes the D-Day :) 

Click here to see their pre-wedding shoot.  
Click here to see their engagement shoot.
Click here to see their wedding shoot.

गणेशोत्सव २०१४ - पुणे
 

|| श्रीमंत दगडूशेठ हलवाई गणपती ||

गणपती बाप्पा मोरया
पुढच्या वर्षी लवकर या
 

गणपती विसर्जन मिरवणूक सोहळा 

|| Palkhi Sohla ||
 

Highlight ~Anupriya & Kaustubh

                                                                   ~ It's just fun all the way :) 

and then they got engaged :) 

and we got engaged :)and we got engaged :)

and here comes the D-Day :) 

Click here to see their pre-wedding shoot.  
Click here to see their engagement shoot.
Click here to see their wedding shoot.

After writing blogs on Star trails and Panning photography, I am writing a blog on Night photography which is again one of my favorites. There are lot of things that can be done like capturing the City roads at night, capturing light trails of vehicles, night city view as well as night skyscape, capturing fireworks , Light painting etc.

Equipments you need:-

• Tripod is MUST. If not available, then you need to find a firm base where you can mount the camera for long exposure photos.
• Wide Angle lens (preferred). If not available, then 18-55 lenses do a good job.
• Remote cable release (preferred) or IR remotes to shot in BULB mode and to reduce the vibrations. If not available, then camera timer will do the job for you.
• Torch/Laser lights is required if the light is less and also to paint the subject or do light painting.
• Lastly Patience and creativity :)

Play with following settings:-

• Shooting modes:  I use Manual mode (M) which gives the opportunity to change all the settings manually.  Also Shutter priority mode (Tv for Canon or S for Nikon) can be used, where you can adjust the shutter speed of the camera the way you want and camera will do adjustments for other required settings.
• Shutter Speed: Try shutter speed of anything between 1/8 second to 30 seconds or even BULB mode depending on what you want to capture. BULB mode is very helpful as you can time the shots perfectly. So you can expose the shot for the duration you want rather than the fixed shutter times. For example, you want to start capturing when a car approaches and release the shutter as soon as Car drives past, so in this case bulb mode will give accurate light streaks.
• Aperture: Use f/8 or more. This will keep more of the subject in focus. But if there is less light, then you can keep the aperture wide like f/4 or f/5.6. 
• ISO: Keep the ISO low to keep the noise low. ISO of about 200-400 should be fine.
• Focus: Use automatic focus if there is enough light, but most of the times at night, light is the issue so better use manual focus. One tip which can be followed is, use automatic focus and focus on moon or any far light and once it is focused then turn Manual focus on.
• White Balance: Mostly I go with auto, tungsten or Daylight. You can experiment it as per your liking. If you click in RAW, you can change the White Balance during post processing as well.  
• File Type: I almost always shoot in RAW format. The advantages of RAW will not be discussed here, but it gives lot of flexibility during post processing like adjusting the white balance, exposure, noise reduction to name a few.

Things to capture:-

• Vehicle Light trails
• City at night
• Fireworks
• Moon, planets and Stars
• Star trails
• Night landscapes
• Reflection of buildings on river
• Creative Bokeh of  street lights 
• Light painting

 For all of the above, reducing the shutter speed, you can get lots of creative shots. Be creative and have fun :)  

Note:- These steps are written by me based on what worked well for me. Please browse on net to get more details, as there is lot of information available on night photography. 

Do let me know if this note was of any help and do share the blog with your friends as well :)  

Bike light trails and stars in background

EXIF:- f/4.5, 49sec, ISO 800, focal 18mm

Clicked at Sus road, Pune 
EXIF:- f/11, 10 sec, ISO 400, 18mm

For more details on how to click star trails, click here

Well I thought of sharing few things with you all which I had in my mind since long. This is a bit long post, so if you are not patient enough, you can leave reading right away.

So if you are still with me, here is a question to you...

What does it take to make a good photograph?

Camera ? Lens ? Photoshop skills ?  Art ? Creativity? Money ?

So even though all the above applies, the most important answers are efforts and passion.

Well photography is not a hobby for us but a passion. If it’s just a hobby you do it when you get time, but if it’s a passion, then you do it no matter what comes your way, whether you get time or not, you always take out time for photography.

So let me just put some more thoughts on the efforts part. I do my regular software job with its never ending deadlines. So what does a software guy do when he returns home? Spend time with family, watch TV or listen to music, have dinner, if there is some work pending, then do it on the laptop and sleep. What I do? Well when I return home, I spend some time with family, have lovely dinner which my mummy and wife prepares and then straightaway go to my room and spend time on my laptop processing pictures. There are still 6 GB + photos of mine, which are still to be processed and I am unable to do that as I hardly get time. I browse internet and learn new processing techniques, apply that on my photos. So I end up staying awake till 1 or 2 am almost daily. So I get insufficient sleep which I know is not good for health. Anyways, next day I go to office with the same enthusiasm and whenever I get time, I upload the photos. My colleagues say “Damn! You get lot of time to do all this”. But god damn, they don’t know how much effort I have taken to do all this when they were sleeping peacefully.  So efforts cannot be measured by anyone else. It’s only you, who know how much effort you have taken to achieve something. 

 Let me put some more thoughts on passion. Weekend comes up and like everyone else I am also pumped up. What does a normal guy do to enjoy on weekends?

Go to pub, party and drink? Meet friends? Outing?  Or just sleep on the couch and watch movies on DVD? Well, what I do is plan to meet my photographer friends who are equally passionate about photography like me. Sometimes we wake up at 3 or 4 AM in the morning and leave to nearby beautiful places to capture the early morning mist/fog and capture that lovely morning. We capture the amazing people from different places in natural way. You almost sleep on the ground to get a very low level to get a unique angle. In the process, you hurt your knees and back as you completely forgot the way you stressed it while clicking. Then we plan for the next outing and we return home. So again the hard work of processing the photos begins for days to come. Every passionate photographer does sacrifice lot of things to get that beautiful capture.

Now that you know how much efforts goes by in capturing the photos. 

What will you feel when you see someone else steal your photos and put it on his page as his own?

The answer is you cannot relate in any way what actually it feels when that happens to your photos. Only the person who has taken all the efforts to make that photograph, knows what it really means.

As youngsters in colleges, we don’t see anything wrong when we copy assignments or programs from others. But problem arises, when such youngsters feel that this is the way to get things done. They start developing the philosophy which is called “Easy way out”. Such people always want instant recognition without any hard work. So when they see photography pages, blogs and websites, instead of trying to achieve that effect, they know the easy way out, which is to download the image and crop the image and remove the watermark and upload it as their own photo. They start getting likes and good comments which motivates them further to create their own page with all such stolen photos. Such false acclaim is not going to last for long. Problem is that such youngsters don’t even realize that stealing photos is crime and they can be punished in court.   

I have faced such situations many times in past, where my photos were stolen and used in pages, websites, travel websites. Many people used it without my permission. Some cropped it and used. No credits given to me. Well, if someone asks me to share my photos for their blogs, I would be more than happy to do so. But guys, at least show some courtesy to take permission from the creators.

Here I would like to share the plight of my friend “Anis Shaikh” who is a very talented photographer. But he has not developed his talent overnight. It has taken lots and lots of efforts on his part to be where he is today. It requires immense hard work and creativity to make your photo stand out which he is doing since a long time. But one random college going youngster decides to create his photography page and uses all stolen photos of different photographers. Lots of Anis’s photos are also stolen and used there. After action from Anis, facebook has removed the page and its content. But you will find such guys everywhere. You don’t even know who is stealing your photos and what they do with it.

So my sincere request to all the youngsters “Be original. Be yourself”. It’s good to get inspired from someone’s work. Try to emulate what he/she has done. Internet is the best teacher. Try to learn all aspects of photography. But never ever steal anyone’s work as it is the hard work and the efforts that you are stealing from that person which was never yours in the first place. Its like stealing a child from the photographer. 

Do share this with your friends to make them aware that photography is an art to capture and not an art to steal.

Regards,

Rupesh Jadhav

Well friends... this has to be one of the best fun filled weddings I have witnessed.. Check it out :)

Here are the photos from Haldi, Sangeet and Marriage ceremonies... Enjoy :) 

Haldi

The Bride-to-be Rruchita, all set for her haldi.... 

All set for her haldi The bride to be...Rruchita.... all set for her haldi

Nache Dulhan ke bhai, bahen aur bhabhi :)

Sangeet 

Stage set for Sangeet at the Corinthians club 

awesome performance by Rruchita

Rocking performance on "Navrai majhi ladachi ladachi ga"...... hit number and hit pair :) 

Rruchita rocked the dance floor

Marriage

here comes the Baraati........

Like Father like son ... The handsome duo... Father and brother of bride.. 

The show stopper :)

Waiting anxiously for the baraat to arrive :)

Even Rruchita couldn't resist and starts dancing :)

Watching out excitingly for the Baraat to arrive ..

Stage set for the marriage at the Corinthians club ...

Holding hands for the lifetime.... this is what is marriage all about

and here is the bride and groom together... posing for the camera :)

Rruchita's father hugs her during Bidai.... These are mixed emotions....Beginning of new life, sense of satisfaction, content, cries and smile .. :) 

|| गणपती बाप्पा मोरया ||

गणेशोत्सव २०१३- पुणे

Hello friends, Here is a blog on how to shoot Star trails.... hope you enjoy it :) 

Details:- Stack of 140 shots with 30 sec exposures stacked together

Things you need:- 

1) Wide Angle lens (preferred).. If not, 18-55 lens does a good job.. 

2) Remote cable release .. in order to shoot in continous mode... If your camera has a feature which does that .. then its good enough...

3) Torch.. if the light is less... and to paint the subject

4) Tripod is MUST (This should be the number 1 in the list, anyways.... )

5) Patience ... :)

6) Water .. Eatables ... as u get ample amount of wait time when the camera is slogging :) 

7) Warm clothes .. as it might be cold at night... 

Details:- Stack of 146 shots with 30 sec exposure

Details:- Stack of 46 images...f/4, ISO400, 30sec, 18mm focal... Tungsten WB.... 

Steps to follow:-

1) Mount camera on tripod

2) Prepare the frame with some nice subject in foreground... like trees, temple, hills etc... and keep the clear sky in background with stars visible.

3) Try pointing to North or Pole star to get a circular trail..

4) Keep the camera settings similar as follows:-

a) Aperture: Set it somewhere around F4 to F11 depending upon the light 

b) ISO: 100 or 200

c) Shutter Speed: I don't recommend BULB mode.. Instead use 30sec

d) White Balance: Auto or Tungsten

e) Focusing: Set focus to Manual / Infinity...

f) Click in JPEG - quality Fine or Normal. Avoid RAW format to reduce the post processing work.

5) Take a test shot with the settings.. check if all stars are in focus..

6) Once you are ready... Start shooting in continuous mode... for about 1 - 1.5 hours... 

7) Till the time camera is doing it's work .. You just chill out.. just check in between if All is Well ... if the dew is visible on the lens after sometime.. slowly wipe it off with a clean soft cloth... (don't use your hanky or you will make it more wet if u have a running nose :P) 

8) Also you can click 2-3 shots in bulb mode with say 1 or 2 min exposure to get more light on the subject.. or you can use a torch to paint the subject. 

9) Now that you have about 150-160 odd shots .. now you have to stack them together... you can do it in Photoshop .. or there is a free star trails software which can be used to stack all the images... 

Here is the link:- 

http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

Its very easy to do it... let me know if you face any problems.

Details:- Stack of 42 images..... f/4, ISO400, 30sec, 18mm focal

More Photos:- 

You can check some of my old star trails shot

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.177851662258411.38603.131175116926066&type=3

Video:-

I have created a time lapse video of stars. Do check it out.

Note:- All the above steps are written by me. So please also google to get more info :)

Regards

~ RJ

Panning is a technique to photograph moving subjects. It’s particularly useful in capturing any moving subject whether it be a racing car, running animals, cyclist, motorists etc. 

How to do Panning?