Kite Fest..

Kite fests are something special in the coastal regions and i must say they are reallty very fun! This year i got chance to visit 2 kite fests; one at Panambur Beach and the other at Malpe Beach. Both were pretty awesome.

 

Kite fest at Panambur beach was on 22rd January this year. I had been there with my mom and cousins. If i was asked to give a one liner about this event it would be "Too much crowd!". Apart from kite flying there was so much happening around; music, cultural programs, food stalls, sand sculptures; and people just cant resist all those in the weekends. :) I managed to get some shots for my collection, The one below is my favorite.

 

Kite fest at Malpe was on 29th January, just a few days after the Panambur beach fest. I had been there wiht my friends Rajendra and Ratan. This was my first visit to Malpe beach and it turned out to be a good experience. Malpe beach is bigger and thus can handle a bigger crowd. The main feature of the Malpe beach is the sitting statue Mahatma Gandhi at the entry. I managed to get a snap of that in an interesting way :) 

There were some nice sand sculptures made by some fine artists. Here are some of them.

Water droplets teasing..

Nature and water droplets make such a brilliant combination in photography. I discovered it with some of the snaps i have taken. And i did it get them very easily; one taken at Bangalore, one at Ujire Estate (near Dharmasthala) rest are around my house. :)

Morning sunrise..

Morning sunrise view from my room. Just discovered my iPod touch can take excellent sunrise and sunset snaps :)

Light painting..

Light painting is so much fun. Whatever you want to paint into the photo, you have to do it in a mirrored fasion to get it right. :) Also you have to do these activities in the dark. It wasnt easy when i started off, but reallly enjoyed once i got the knack.

"The Knack" is not a very big deal actually. LIght painting is a very sumple technique. Here is a wiki link for Light Painting. In simple words these are just high exposure shots in the dark with a light source in the front of camera. Yes, high exposure time; in some of my shots exposure time is almost a minute.

Tools used you ask? Just my Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 cam, my mobile torch and iPod :) My cam is no DSLR, so i bet anyone with a cam with manual exposure setting feature can rip this off. 

 

I was really impressed with some of the videos i had watched on Light painting. I have shared the best one among them. 

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZohmoG981s]

Some shots in morning sunlight..

These  shots taken at my Granny's place... Morning sun can make such a difference, to the snaps and mood of the photographer :)

Refusing to stop..

Taken at NITK beach, right next to the Surathkal beach. 

F-Stop : f/5.6, Exposure Time : 1/640 sec, ISO Speed : ISO -125, Focal length : 34mm, 35mm Focal Length : 210

 

Lumix DMC-TZ10

Since this blog is majorly going to be a photo blog, i thought of starting off with an introduction to my cam. This is not exactly going to be a review of the cam, coz im no expert.. Personally i think the cam is almost perfect for a casual photographer like me.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 (also known as the DMC-ZS7 in the USA) is in the market for more than a year. Panasonic persisting with this model in a very volatile camera market tells a lot about the performance of this camera.

Its comes under the category of "Travel zoom" camera's. That's probably cause of its 12x optical zoom. Normally the Point and shoot camera's dont come with this range of optical zoom. I am not going to any more spec details, but i would like to provide the review links which give a good description of this cam.

• DPReview for clear specs of the cam
• Photographyblog.com for detailed review.
• CNET for a dependable review.

I bought this cam sometime in October 2011 form flipkart online  store. It cost me 13000 INR (approx 265$ ). Just a few months back it costed close to 400$. The price drop according to me is mainly cause its more than a year old. It still beats some of the cams in the same range from Nikon, Canon, Sony. Anyways that's my opinion. Would like to hear from you if you have a different opinion or query regarding this cam.

So it finally begins..

My personal blog.. Yay!!

I have had some experience blogging. Opensource blog it was. I Started it off as a blog supporting open source softwares and tech stuffs, so i did not want to post any of the personal stuffs in it. (Just a few exceptions ;) ) Also after i finished with my college i had no time for blogging.

But finally after more than 7 months of NOT blogging here i am starting this blog in Posterous. I would like to share some of the photos i take and some experiences. Hope you enjoy!! :)