BAPS Chino Hills temple in Los Angeles at Sunset- June 28, 2015.
iPhone vs dslr camera
Most of us have come to believe that iPhone or any modern smartphone can take nice photos. It is true for outdoor or landscape photos in good light but for portraits, indoor photos or for low light photography, iPhone or any smart phone can be challenging. Expensive dSLR cameras with bigger sensors and fast lenses (wide open aperture) can give you control over depth of field that an iPhone or any Android phone can’t. Having ability to blur background can help you control what your viewer sees. Here are two photos of a rubber bands minion that my 8 year old son recently made.
Here is a photo with iPhone 5:
As you can in photo above, there is lot of background clutter and distractions.
Now see below a photo taken same time in same light with a Canon 6d camera with 50mm lens at f/1.8. See the difference yourself.
Simple Tip for Moon Photos
When you take a photo of Moon with most cameras, your image will look like the one below. You might have seen nice photos of Moon by other photographers so you will blame your camera or yourself for bad photo you got.
Let me tell you that it is very easy to take beautiful moon photos with any high zoom camera.
Click on SetUp options on your camera and find out Metering set up. It may come up as Metering mode. It will have few entries like Evaluative/Matrix/Intelligent, Center-weighted and Spot. Most cameras by default have the first value. They are set in intelligent/Evaluative/Matrix setting. In this mode, the camera try to be intelligent and measures light in the whole scene. As most sky is dark, the camera gets into thinking that the frame is dark so it tries to get in more light. This causes the Moon to be washed out.
Set camera metering mode to Spot (icon with a dot in the center). Then keep the moon in the center so camera will meter light off of the Moon. This will make camera think that there is good amount of light so it will try take in less light. The result will be a stunning photo of the moon, as shown below.
Painting with light
Normally we paint with ink or color. However in dark, you can draw with light! We took these photos during a camping trip 3 years ago. When you draw with light, instead of a pen or a printer, you use a flashlight. With around 20 seconds exposure with Pentax K-100D.
..and here is our arist in the photo.
Photos of Simi Valley, CA
Here are some photos of beautiful Simi Valley, CA. Simi Valley is in Ventura county in California. These photos were taken from an evening hike on Mt. McCoy with a Fujifilm camera.
Sunsets, Sky, Stars on the Big Island, Hawaii
Recently visited Big Island, Hawaii. Had beautiful sunsets most of the days. From the Volcano park and Mauna Kae, had an opportunity to see sky filled with stars. Had never seen that many stars earlier.
Most photos are taken with Fujifilms X-S1 and some are with Pentax K-30
Enjoy some of the moments.
Some flowers on the Big Island Hawaii
Here are some flowers that I came across during my visit in Hawaii.
