Trying my SLR attachment lenses with Lumia 800

About an year ago I had purchased a set of attachment lenses for my Canon 1000D from EBay. These were kind of very cheap replacement for doing some extreme macro shots, as the actual macro lenses from Canon were way too expensive and I simply could not afford to buy them. The cheap replacements turned out to be ok (see one such shot of pollens here http://www.flickr.com/photos/tovganesh/sets/72157628049776643/). But over time I realized that the color reproduction was poor in low light, more over the field of view was extremely narrow. Further, it was quite a task to screw these attachments to the lens only to discover that the subjects have moved away.

 

So when couple of snails visited to my backyard today, I decided to experiment a bit. And today being a bit sunny day helped. Here are some of the shots taken on my Canon 1000D.

 

Shots of 'mother' snail. Top one via normal lens, bottom one using additional attachment lens. Both shot using my Canon 1000D.

 

 

The 'baby' snail. Shot using additional lens attachment on Canon 1000D.

 

 

'mother' snail, shot using normal lens of Canon 1000D.

 

Now snails are very interesting creatures to watch when the crawl by, and my dad wanted me to record a video. My Canon 1000D, though pretty good at photography, doesn't have video recording. This is where my Lumia 800 chips in, which can take pretty good 720p videos. Initial shot was pretty ok. But then it clicked: how about just placing the SLR attachment lenses on top of the Lumia, hold it by hand and shoot?

 

Simple placement of SLR attachment lenses on Lumia 800, and just hold the lens while shooting.

 

 

Surprisingly, it worked out pretty nice. See the video below to get an idea of the additional zoom offered.

 

 

 

So it turned out to be my "jugaad zoom" for my Lumia 800 ;) I will experiment more with "jugaad zoom" till I can get hold of Lumia 1020 or a higher version of that :P

 

In any case, now I will more often than not be using these lens attachments.

 

 

Fun with 3D anaglyphs : TouchDevelop and MeTA Studio

I just enjoy writing stuff in TouchDevelop using my Nokia Lumia. So this time I wanted to write an app that generates on-device anaglyphs using two images (left and right channel photos). To use this script (3DCAM) head straight to : https://www.touchdevelop.com/gxtp on your Windows Phone.



The resolution of final images from the above script is not that high though. So if you want to make anaglyphs from the images taken from your DSLR, you would like to try a script I hacked together for MeTA Studio (available at: http://code.google.com/p/metastudio/source/browse/trunk/metastudio/apps/3danaglyph/anaglyph.bsh?spec=svn544&r=544)
A few tips while taking 3d photos:

• steady hands! or else use a tripod
• images whose background doesn’t change gives more depth feeling
• if the background is changing the images might not give the ‘real world’ feel
• subjects of interest must also be stationary
• the closer the object, the more displacement you will need for taking the left and right channel images

To see some of my initial trials head to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tovganesh/sets/72157629179484577/

You will need red-cyan glasses to view these images. To make your own red-cyan glasses, the following youtube video will server as a good starting point (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIEn9z0oBE8):

Have a nice week ahead!

(Un) Portables :-)

Three decades and a DSLR

Well that is a bit of farce. I had been planning to get a DSLR for quit a long time, but just have not been convinced to spend on it, until recently, I went ahead and ordered one (from digitalyes.com.au, whom I would rate as quite excellent and prompt online retailers). And they delivered exactly on the day I turned 3 decades old ;) … sounds like getting old.

Well so, I have done quite a bit of photography before but have never handled an SLR before. So the piece I ordered for is quite an entry level but good camera from Canon: EOS 1000D. This came with twin lens : 18-55mm and 75-300mm. Both of these lenses are with out IS, so essentially for the later one I would need a tripod (which I already have).

In any case, I am still learning to use this camera. In the mean time I tried to take various shots with varying settings to see how the photos turn up. These are just a some of ones that turned out to be reasonably good. All photos are taken in and around my home and other places in Canberra. All shots were taken mostly with manual settings, and no flash turned on. More to follow, as I learn more. Just got another reason to travel more :-)

Enjoy!

One day journey to Sydney for eResearch’09

On 10th I went to Sydney to attend and give a talk at AustralAsia eResearch’09. It was a terrific experience. Probably the first conference I really enjoyed being at. This is just the non-technical side of the experience I am posting here. I will later on post some of the technical sides particularly on the feedback I got for MeTA Studio in coming days.

Ok, so first of all this was unique travelling experience for me where I took road(cab and walk), air, rail and water(ferry) transportations [only missing in the equation was a “bail-gadi” or a tractor, but the well this is Oz :-)]. Taking all these modes of transport and still reaching well in time for the conference to start was quite an experience. The best part of course was the ferry ride.

The road and the air transport were rather standard, nothing exciting to describe about. But I was eager to experience a train travel in Oz. If any thing I came out not being really thrilled about it (may be next time I should try monorail). I do still feel though that train travel in India is a lot better experience. Next, I have travelled in ferry a lot before (in Kerala), but never so big (well this was actually a ship), and never in sea. This experience turned out to be the best of all them. The ferry ride was from Circular Quay to Manly (where the conference was being held). And on the way you see pretty much of every thing Sydney has to show on its shores. The best is the Opera House.

The beach on Manly is also pretty good, and the best part was that the conference was organized in a hotel just facing the beach :-)

The journey back was made by sitting on the ferry deck rather than inside, another wonderful experience. In short, any one coming to experience Oz, a ferry ride in Sydney is highly recommended.

 

 

And well finally some pleasing experience :-)

 

A few snaps ;)

Was writing, writing and writing this week (don’t ask me what :( … ) , so though will take some break and put on some snaps …

The bubble: does it appear to be cut through?

And what about this? Progressively becoming transparent ;-) Wonder if something like that could be used for making the “disappearing act” gadget.

Well … am … the picture says as thousand words, they say!

Have fun!

A reboot on Photography

Well this time at a different place in the world… Oz, the “island continent”, place of kangaroos.

When I got my first digital camera, I had been regularly with my photography interest. But I soon hit into how much I can stress with my very minimal HP camera with 3x optical zoom. Most of times I am interested in either far away objects or macro shots. For either of these I have to strain a lot with my HP camera to get good shots. I also tried things like putting extra lenses for macro shoot and also a telescope for getting a closer look at the moon.

In any case, my interest in photography has not gone done, least because I can not yet afford a good quality DSLR ;-)

So, I decided to go about my photography again with my HP camera, this time a new place. All the photos here are in fact indoor photos, in that me and the camera were both inside my home or on a balcony at a friends place, but what was shot was all outside ;-)

On my backyard, the clouds begin to appear…

 

they are a bit shy ;-)

and then they are all over!

and the rain…

and the storm was hard for this branch…

no one out there, its raining there !

and I try to cook in the mean time… Those potatoes stacked up on their own, I didn’t do it :-)

 

and at the end there was this wonderful rainbow. All shots are taken with different EV exposure settings.

And then, I go to play tennis on weekend these days… but since my games is very bad, I though its better to shoot some thing that looks better than my self ;-) which now really makes for  the outdoor photography :D All these photos were taken on my mobile (Nokia e51) camera.

Then we went to a small (but quite steep) waterfall near Canberra

and some of the photos on Bateman bay

 

That is it for this photo story ;-)

Have fun!