(Re)Learning Forgotten Tricks

This post is sort of a continuation of this post about my ‘new’ camera.

So what have I learnt in all these past months? I’ve gotten some hang on the use of Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, Exposure Compensation, Flash, Art filter effects, Histogram, etc. My post title refers to the fact that I learn the ‘trick’ in the morning and forget it when I’m shooting photos in the evening and realize at night that I should have used the trick I learnt earlier in the morning to shoot those photos I shot in the evening. That’s why, I don’t think I'll ever be able to achieve everything just right manually! I’ve also started appreciating the need for a telephoto zoom lens so am thinking of buying a Panasonic 45-200mm μ4/3 Lens. These are all the practical stuffs that have been keeping me busy.

One of the theoretical aspect of photography I finally understood was: Why do smaller apertures (larger f-numbers) give greater field of depth and larger apertures (smaller f-numbers) give shallower field of depth? [First of all let me rant: Why the hell are f-numbers inversely related to aperture sizes? Couldn’t they come up with a proportionality scheme? This scheme confuses the hell out of me! OK, now let’s get back on track…] I’m not going to spell out the answer but will give a hint: Make a ray diagram with different aperture sizes, you’ll get it and when it clicks (maybe after a μsec or a week) you’ll be the happiest person alive at that moment!

Anyway, lets start with the photo show for which we’ve all gathered here (at least I’ve!). First of all, let me demonstrate the 6 Art Filters of E-PL1 [I should’ve done this in the last post already but better date than fever!]:

Today’s post is basically devoted to Springtime, specifically Sakura (not a girl). So lets start with an iAuto Photo:

Lets cool this photo:

Different exposure settings:

As SD expected Histograms in such posts, here they are:

A pretty artistic shot:

bent into a 180° polorama:

A grazing goose:

Shot 14 photos in continuous burst mode [I guess the theoretical speed is 3 fps but in reality it would be somewhere between 2 & 3 (maybe ‘e’) and if you keep on pressing the shutter, it will definitely get below 1 fps due to the simple fact that writing on the memory card does take finite amount of time.] and combined them into a panorama [MICE is too damn fast in showing up the stitched result but took nearly 5 minutes in saving the file! PoloramaG is better in this respect as it takes most of the time in transformation stage only. ]:

Lastly, a nod to childhood memories:

For these & more photos with higher resolution, go to my

Flickr PhotoStream

Entanglement

Read the 5^th & 4^th line, ignore the 3^rd line and read the 2^nd & 1^st line:

If you get it, you’ll most likely think of it as things getting

Tangled

Ambidextrous…

…Who the hell truly is???

I think I’m ambidextrous… well, excluding writing (R), erasing (L), playing badminton (L), throwing / catching things (L)… OK, it seems I’m more of a left-handed person but still ambidextrous for purposes of this post.

But something happened today involving my perception of my ambidexterity, which flipped my top. After an hour or so, I was still struggling to get the correct outline of Kokage Kuga, a ‘dark’ character in Sketchbook:

Guess what was the reason for this pathetic display of my artistic ‘prowess’? Yes, you guessed it right… I was trying to draw her facing RIGHT!

After that revelation, I fished for a different picture in which she’s facing left and found one here. After one more hour, I completed my 4^th portrait of a character from Sketchbook. I present Kokage Kuga:

Ok, granted it is not as great as Hazuki’s portrait, in that the chin needs a little more work but after two hours of erasing completed outlines at least 7 times, it looks pretty decent to me right now. Also, the background color scheme may feel a little weird compared to the other 3 portraits. The reason is that her signature look is her black eyes & hair (single ponytail) so if I don’t colour them, the portrait may as well be of Natsumi with an altered hairstyle:

Anyway, that’s enough of Sketchbook for this post. I leave you with a ‘unique’ take of Dylan Moran on ‘vegetarianism’ in this

Short Interview

Yahooooooooo, woḩ maara̅ paapadwaalé ko̊!!!

India has… whatever…

What I’m more excited about is the beginning of scanlation of Sketchbook Volume 7!

This volume introduces at least two new human characters (not in the first chapter, though)! “How do I know that?”, I hear you ask… Well, I’ve seen raws (originals) of first few chapters of this volume! Anyway, this volume started out with a bang, without any words:

If you get this strip in less than 3 ‘going throughs’,  you’re better than me at ‘getting’ physical / visual comedy! Speaking of physical / visual comedy, how can we not bow our feet, bring together our heads and fall at his hands: the ultimate physical comedian extraordinaire of all times to have walked this planet gracing us with his ennobling existence (that’s all the clichés I can think of right now), the indestructible

Mr. Bean

Happy Fool’s Month

This photo was on Bing.com today with one of the four ‘squares’ showing, “What in the world could be tickling this guy’s funny bone today?”

Anyway, here’s a prank to pull on one’s God (as usual, first read the disclaimers regarding my translations of shayaris here or browse other related posts from the tab titled ‘Shayari’ above on this page just below my blog-title & image to get used to what follows!):

भीड़ इतनी थी कि दर्शन पास से सम्भव न था
दूर से ही देख आए हम उछल के देवता
-ओम प्रकाश यती

Bheed itni thi ki darshan paas se sambhav na tha
Door se hi dekh aaye hum uchhal ke devta
–Om Prakash Yati

It was too crowded to get blessings from up close
I returned after a jump with a faraway glimpse of God
–Om Prakash Yati

Now, let me show off some of my polorama creations:

That’s too much showing off… I’ll stop now and let you get back to

the full Ghazal

Rock-Bottom

When your eyes & brain start emulating your camera’s colour reproduction system, you’ve hit rock-bottom!

When forgotten fictional characters start trying to cheer you up, you’ve hit rock-bottom!

When you realize in the morning that the chirping birds sound beautiful, you’ve hit rock-bottom!

When you remember them saying, “The only way you can go after hitting rock-bottom is UP…”, you’ve hit rock-bottom!

When you no longer want to provide an end-of-the-post-link, you’ve hit

rock-bottom

The Final Release

Internet Explorer 9 Final Release became available for download this week. Here are some demos of what IE9 is capable of rendering. I’ll show my own demo of how the following HTML code:

<div align="center">[T(u)+]·[T(u)-] = [T(u)|→]·[←|T(u)]+
<table style="text-align: center; display: inline; vertical-align: middle">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 0.9; font-size: 20px" rowspan="2">⌈<br>⌊</td>
<td style="text-align: center">↑</td>
<td style="line-height: 0.9; font-size: 20px" rowspan="2">⌉<br>⌋</td></tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-bottom-color: black; border-right-color: black; border-left-color: black; border-top: black 2px solid">T(u)</td></tr></tbody></table>·
<table style="text-align: center; display: inline; vertical-align: middle">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="line-height: 0.9; font-size: 20px" rowspan="2">⌈<br>⌊</td>
<td>T(u)</td>
<td style="line-height: 0.9; font-size: 20px" rowspan="2">⌉<br>⌋</td></tr>
<tr>
<td style="border-bottom-color: black; text-align: center; border-right-color: black; border-left-color: black; border-top: black 2px solid">↓</td></tr></tbody></table>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (2.1)</div>

renders in 5 ‘common’ browsers here. Let’s order them from worst to best:

You might have recognized this equation from my last year’s parody paper which is also available here.

HAPPY HOLI

Cautionary Tale?

Last week, I finished reading the last (7^th) volume of the manga: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. It is an amazingly beautiful story penned & illustrated by Hayao Miyazaki. It took more than a decade to come to its ‘conclusion’ and I’m pleased that, like Nobuhiro Watsuki of Rurouni Kenshin, HM also decided to end it while it was still going strong and no one would have been surprised if it had continued unlike Bleach!

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic ‘polluted’ world where a war is imminent (again!) between two powerful empires, which is supposed to be pre-destined. It is expected to annihilate all humans and most of the other life-forms to give way to a ‘purified’ world! It is also prophesized that “a blue-clad one walking across a golden field” would emerge as the savior. As is expected, the title character – Nausicaä – is the blue-clad one but what is unexpected is that the prophesy ‘comes true’ twice – first at the beginning and second at the end of the story! Brilliant coincidences…

The story more or less follows (Princess) Nausicaä as she leaves her small (autonomous) village at the periphery of one of the powerful empires to help avoid the apocalypse, which is going to happen (and does happen) due to the other empire’s ‘actions’. Her quest has allies in all forms imaginable: enormous insects (Ohmus), forest people, dead people / spirits, even enemies including Princess / Princes of her own empire, priests of the ‘rival’ empire, people belonging to different tribes / races, God Warrior... Intriguing, isn’t it? So you might be wondering who is her enemy and I’ll quote Nausicaä on this one: “If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you’ll end up destroying everything!” (This reminded me of Princess Mononoke.)

So, that is the gist of the story but what is the title character like? Here is the answer by the creator HiMself:

I created Nausicaä as a certain kind of girl, and I had her react to various situations as that kind of girl would, but she didn't act on her own. There was one thing that did change, however. I had intended, at the start, to draw her as a more physical person. I thought I'd draw her forcefully, with large breasts. But then, if a nude scene came up, I wouldn't have been able to draw it without apologizing. That was the one thing I was sure of. Really. Not because I would be ashamed, or anything like that, but because I'd feel like drawing things that can't be published. [laughs] So I didn't want to draw her like that. That's the only thing that I can say, without a doubt, that I felt. So that was a change. Of course, if I'd started drawing her like that, I would have had no trouble with it-I don't think that I'm the kind of person who embarrasses easily at things like that. In any case, having now reached this point, I can see that there was no need to have drawn her that way. I think that the only thing that changed there at the end was my desire to depict a more spiritual story.

This answer was given by HiM in 1995 after the manga had ended in 1994 and a nude scene does appear in the last volume, which seemed a little forced but not at all fanservice-y. I guess HM’s take on bath scene here is more or less like Totan Kobako’s (author of Sketchbook), who ‘refuses’ fanservice in “Sketchbook Picture Drama” even in a fanservice setting!

Anyway, head over to bn.com and buy all the 7 volumes of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind or at least buy the movie’s DVD, which covers roughly the first two manga volumes or do yourself a favour by buying all of them! You’ll be proud for all eternity that you did. In the meantime, get to know Hayao Miyazaki’s opinions on other aspects of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in this rather

Long Interview

Secrets…

Sora (of Sketchbook) has a Secret Skill:

Recently, I stumbled on to an anime trailer on YouTube that I’d watched ages ago:

Scrapped Princess Trailer

I’d call it a beautiful anime based on the vague memories of it that remain in my brain and am deeply amused at the words of ‘Scrapped Princess’ at the end of the trailer:

Apparently, the world would be a lot better off without me. … Never mind that! Let’s have tea…

Now that is some great combination of Inferiority & Superiority complexes. Anyway, want to know more names of amusing, brilliant, charming, delightful, engaging, fantastic, great, humorous, incredible, joyous, kinky, lovely, macabre, nice, outstanding, pointless, quirky, remarkable, serene, tasteful, unique, valuable, whimsical, xenophobic, youthful and zestful Manga / Anime? Head over to

My Hobbies