Mesmerizing Mumbai

Back after a long pause, this time to document another visit to the Maximum City (Mumbai). As always a trip to Mumbai brings back some old memories that I have when I had first visited the city.  The beauty of this city among st the chaos always leaves me amazed and mesmerized.

Though I have been to Marie lines many times before, I never got a chance to spend some quality time gazing at the Sea and doing just nothing. One of the reasons for not being able to do this till now is that most of the times I will be in a hurry to catch a train to reach Vashi (where I used to stay). This time I was not in a hurry. I had booked a room in one of the hotel that is right in front of the sea.

Sea Green hotel is a compact little hotel situated right on the main Marine lines road and it commands an unmatched view of the Queen's Necklace. For about Rs.4800 per night its a perfect choice, considering the fact that other hotels in the surrounding area charge very high. Make sure you ask for a sea facing room. Its an amazing experience just sitting in the balcony and enjoying the view of one of the best places in Mumbai.

View from hotel's balcony

Nevertheless my trip started from Bandra terminus, from where I headed to hotel. If you are travelling to South Mumbai and are taking a cab or other private vehicle then do try to take the route via Bandra - Worli Sea link, which is marvelous piece of architecture and one of the first cable-stayed bridge to be constructed in open seas in India. You need to pay a toll tax of about Rs 120 for a car, but its worth paying for one time experience. If you of my kind who likes to take photographs then make sure you have your camera out. Though stoppage is not allowed on the Sea Link you can get some decent clicks from a moving car. This is what I got.

It was almost 12.30 PM, and I checked in the hotel. Sea Green Hotel does not have a dedicated restaurant but there are plenty of choices for restaurants in the surrounding area. I chose Shiv Sagar, which is serves decent vegetarian food or all kinds. After a filling lunch, I went back to hotel to take a nap. Later in the afternoon I took a cab to Gateway of India. One thing that I recommend doing here is to hop on to a boat ferry that takes tourists for a 30 minute joy ride on a short spin around the Gateway. The ride is really fun but if you are visiting during a weekend then do expect a long queue to get on to the ferry. Another thing to try here is to take a Tonga (horse) ride which again is fun. They charge somewhere between Rs.300 to Rs.600 based on how long the ride is. Again, don't forget to get your camera ready.

Horse Carriage ride

Later on I took a cab back to Charni road. There is a small sandy beach near Charni road called Chowpatty beach, where one can get an unobtrusive view of the Arabian Sea and if you are not too much of a hygiene freak then you can even get your feet wet and take a walk across the beach. Seeing the sun go down behind the city skyline is an experience in itself. I spent entire evening here taking photographs, playing with my daughter in the sea and later having variety of street food.

So, if you are a foodie and do not mind having food at open air stalls then Chawpatty is the place for you. You will find varity of food ranging from Pao-bhaji, pulaov, pizza, dosas and finally to top it all with Baraf ka Gola (Indian version of Ice candy ). Having golas make you refreshingly fresh and for me it also takes me right back to my child hood memoirs where we would run out of house on hearing the "Tring tring..." sound of the bottles of the "Golawala". Those were the days...I murmur with a sigh. Here are few photographs I took at Chowpaty.


Soon after the sun went down, I took a walk back to the hotel and about half an hour later it rained for almost 2 hours. I sat back in my hotel's balcony and enjoyed cool watery breeze blowing gently across my face. I just wanted to pause that moment for as long a possible.

No moment stays for long though, and neither did this. I had to catch an early morning train to Bangalore the next day so I to decided to hit the sack, but not before taking couple of photographs of the beautiful Queen's Necklace.

I was up early next morning and just before leaving back this lovely experience I took final few photographs. The early morning sight of Queen's Necklace is equally beautiful, just that there is more peace and serenity in the atmosphere as the traffic is very less.

Here is where my trip ends. Getting back to madness of work and responsibilities will be little easier after such a refreshing trip.

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Little wonders of Hebbal Lake

Over the period of few weeks, I had made many trips to Hebbal lake and photographed many birds. Being a lake it is expected to see few varieties of water birds. However since the lake also has a decent garden there are some common birds (other then water birds) which can be seen in plenty. Well I am talking about sunbirds, flowerpeckers, prinia and tits.

Though these small birds can be spotted easily, I find them very difficult to photograph mainly because of following reasons

1. These birds are small and very active. They do not stay long at one place and are constantly on the move.
2. The focal length of my lens is 300mm which works for bigger birds but for smaller birds, I feel its bit short. Which means that I need to get very close to them to get a frame filling shot which good details.
3. These birds usually move in and out of thick cover of leaves. So its difficult to get good focus and exposure.

However now having visited Hebbal lake so many times and spending plenty of time shooting these birds I realized that these birds can be caught on camera. I found the following tips to be very useful when shooting these birds

1. These birds do not stay at one place for long, but they do return to same place after some time. So keeping some patience defiantly helps. There is no point chasing these birds. Just wait for some time at the same place and more often then not these birds will return. 
2. Most of these birds are too busy doing their chores, so if you stay reasonably still without making any quick movements they do not mind your presence. So, just wait, stay still and it will defiantly help to get you close shots.
3. Shoot in Manual mode. This allows you to change the exposure settings quickly and  accurately. These birds move in and out of shade and they are very small, so the camera meter can get fooled by a dark or bright background. I usually keep Spot metering with Manual mode.

Over several visits to Hebbel lake I managed to get few shots of these small beauties. Here are few shots.

Ashy Prinia

The Ashy Prinia or Ashy Wren-Warbler (Prinia socialis), is a small warbler. It is a common bird in urban gardens and farmland in many parts of India and its small size, distinctive colours and upright tail make it easy to identify. The northern populations have a rufous rump and back and have a distinct breeding and non-breeding plumage while other populations lack such variation.

Purple Rumped Sunbird

Purple-rumped Sunbirds are tiny at less than 10 cm long. They have medium-length thin down-curved bills and brush-tipped tubular tongues, both adaptations to their nectar feeding.  The males have a dark maroon upperside with a blue-green crown that is visible in some angles. There are violet patches on the throat and rump which are visible only in good lighting.

Female

Tickell's Flowerpecker

Tickell's Flowerpecker or Pale-billed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum erythrorhynchos) is a tiny bird that feeds on nectar and berries, found in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The bird is common especially in urban gardens with berry bearing trees. They have a rapid chipping call and the pinkish curved beak separates it from other species in the region. This is a tiny bird, 8 cm long, and is one of the smallest birds occurring in most parts of southern India and Sri Lanka.

I have spotted Grey Tit many time but was never able to capture it. So that one is still pending. I do have one shot of Grey Tit that was taken long time back at Lalbuagh. Here it is

Grey Tit

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Achieving the sunburst effect with digital camera

When I started with photography I used to wonder how photographers achieved the sunburst effect (also referred at many places as star burst effect). Off late I have been reading few articles for the techniques required to create such effect. The basic requirement for creating such effect would be a digital camera that allows you to have control over the aperture setting (also called f-stop). The theory says that when the lens is stopped down to a very small f-stop i.e larger f value like f/22, f/32 etc... a phenomenon called diffraction comes into picture. The reason for this is that the edges of the diaphragm blades in the lens tend to disperse the light. At larger apertures (f/5.6, f/8) this diffracted light is only a small percentage of the total amount of light hitting the sensor or film, but as the aperture is stopped down the amount of diffracted light becomes a larger percentage of the total amount of light being recorded. From photographic point of view the diffraction causes loss of sharpness, but can also be used for creative purpose like creating sun bursts.

Having equipped myself with the theoretical knowledge, it was now time to implement it practically. These days I am unable to take time to visit photographic locations so tried all the shots around my house.

Specifically for sun bursts I typically use a f-stop like f/22 and a wide angle lens. The wider the lens more easier it is to get the effect. I have never tried to create sun bursts with a longer focal length as I am afraid of damaging my camera sensor and my eye :)

Here are few shots that came out my experimentation.

Lens: Nikkor 18-55mm@18mm, f/22, 1/100sec, Manual, Handheld

Lens: Nikkor 18-55mm@18mm, f/22, 1/200sec, Manual,Tripod. Manually blended 2 exposure in CS5

18-55mm@18mm f/22, 1/20sec, Manual, Took 2 exposures and manually blended them in CS5

18-55mm@18mm f/22, 1/13sec, Manual, Tripod. Manually blended 2 exposures in CS5

18-55mm@18mm, f/5.6, 1/100sec

As you might have noticed from the exif info that all the shots were taken at a focal length of 18mm and most of the time at f/22. In my opinion the best shooting times for sun burst on a sunny day are in the morning and the evening due to less intense light, warmer tones, and longer shadows.

Also positioning the sun slightly behind another object such as a tree branch, a mountain peak, a building or a cloud and partially hiding the sun may enhance the details of your sunburst.

Many times you may want to take multiple exposures of a shot if you want to preserve both the highlights and the dark areas. Since the light source is directly included in the frame there is good amount of chance that the entire range of the light is too high to be recorded on camera sensor.

I feel that this creative effect really adds a strong compositional element to a frame and if used creatively can produce wonderful images.

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