This is another amazing place and a photogenic place to visit in South Wales, its called the Gower peninsula.
How to Photograph Northern lights
Here is a quick guide on how to photograph the Northern lights.
http://alaskaphotographics.com/how_to_photograph_northern_lights.shtml
I definitely want to go here…
Cheetah in the dining hall in a lodge in south africa.
http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=134537
Can you imagine walking through the dining hall of a lodge in Africa and not even noticing a cheetah??
(“Savannah” was orphaned as a cub then raised by humans. She is free to come and go as she pleases,
and she hunts for herself – but she often prefers to hang around people at the Tshukudu Lodge in South
Africa…)
Canon Auto-Focus Technical Information
Have you ever wondered why your images are sharp or not when the camera performs an auto-focus? I found the following text on the Internet and is a very interesting read!
In summary Canon’s AF should be accurate for a 6×9″ print viewed at 10″, double that print size when using an f/2.8 lens. So viewing your images at 100% may be deceiving!
Ok! Enuf of copy paste and here is the link to the actual read.
http://night-ray.blogspot.com/2006/09/canon-auto-focus-technical-information.html
Alternate link – http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic2/228079/0
Creating a Photo Frame using Paint shop pro
The beauty of a Photo is in its framing, defnitely wont deny it lies on the viewer and the photograph itself, but a beautiful photo is face lifted by framing it with minimal chaos.
A photo frame should be simple and still be very effective in emphasizing the actual image, so a Frame should ideally not deter attention away from the photo itself, a very colorful frame in essence will not provide the necessary focus to the actual image.
What should you be looking when creating a frame, the key things are create a little bit contrast by adding some black and white areas around the photo, so a first border of black, then a very thin line of white and then a black again will do a good job in boosting the local contrast when looking at the image, a little drop shadow raises the image from the background and pops it to the eye.
Step 1:
Create a new Transparent image of 800×600 pix.
Step 2:
You will be presented with a checkered background image, this means its a transparent image. Using the selection tool, draw a square around the image to mark the border with the width of the border of your choice.
Step 3:
Choose Selection>invert selection from the menu to select the border, use the flood fill tool to fill the selected border area with white color or any color of your choice if you tend to be a bit more on the colorful side of life 
Step 4:
After filling the border with your favorite color, now again invert the selection to select the inner square (Selection > Invert) of the image.
Now select Effects > 3D Effects > Drop shadow from the menu to create a shadow effect.
This drops a shadow to your image for the selected area giving a pop out effect, if you want the shadow on the opposite side, just drag the cross hair in the drop shadow window to the place where you like the shadow to be, if you want it on both the sides, create a shadow on one side then create the shadow again on the other side
Step 5:
Your PSP frame is almost ready, save the image as a .pspframe type and the next time you want to frame a photo, simply select your new frame from the frames list and it will be applied to your photo.
Framing on the above image, Add a border white of 10px width, then another border black of 40px width to the photo, Add another border white of 50px only to the bottom, make all other values to 0 except for the bottom value, then add the new picture frame, this will result in the above photo frame effect. I have added some extra picture tubes to the frame for the flower and the green line below the text. Using the text tool add a text to your beautiful photo.
Now you are all done, your beautiful photo has now got a wonderful facelift.
You can do all this as part of the script and automate the framing process for a batch of photos on just a click of a button.
Download the PSP framing script here, download and then rename the script to .pspScript, copy this to your PSP scripts/frames folder, PSP should find this script and will list it in the scripts dropdown, select this script and run it.
Hope you enjoyed framing your picture and have Fun!
Depth of field revisited
A very nice read for anyone in Landscape photography.
Baby Pinto Seahorse
This is a baby Pinto Seahorse captured at the National Sea life centre in Birmingham, this is an aquarium with more than 60 displays of marine and freshwater life, it also includes a one-million-litre ocean tank that house the giant sea turtle that weigh a little over 900kgs, reef sharks and tropical reef fish.
All these ocean creatures can be viewed from a fully transparent underwater tunnel.
A unique fact about seahorses is “Its the dads who have babies”, might be a big relief for the mums!
Technical details:
Model Canon EOS 450D
Lens Sigma 50mm 2.8 EX DG Macro
Aperture Value f/2.8
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO 1600
Shutter Speed Value 1/200 sec
Flash No Flash
Colour Space sRGB
Seahorses are a genus (Hippocampus) of fish belonging to the family Syngnathidae, which also includes pipefish and leafy sea dragons. There are over 32 species of seahorse, mainly found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world. They prefer to live in sheltered areas such as sea grass beds, coral reefs, or mangroves.
Seahorses are so named for their equine appearance. Although they are fish, they do not have scales, rather a thin skin stretched over a series of bony plates arranged in rings throughout their body. Each species has a distinct number of rings. Seahorses swim upright, another characteristic that is not shared by their fish relatives who swim horizontally. Seahorses have a coronet on their head, which is distinct to each seahorse, much like a human fingerprint. They swim very poorly by using a dorsal fin, which they rapidly flutter to propel them, and pectoral fins, located behind their eyes, which they use to steer. Because they are poor swimmers, they are most likely to be found resting in sea grasses or coral reefs with their prehensile tails wound around a stationary object. They have long snouts, which they use to suck up food, and eyes that can move independently of each other much like chameleon. Seahorses eat small shrimp, tiny fish and plankton.
Text above is from Wikipedia.
More informaiton available here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seahorse
Birmingham Sea life centre
http://www.sealife.co.uk/index.php
A view of Bergen at night
Here is how Bergen looks at night.
Technical details:
Date/Time 23-Mar-2008 9:21:09 PM
Focal Length 13.80 mm
Aperture Value f/16
Shutter Speed Value 75
Lens Sigma 10-20mm
Processing : Stitched using PTGUI
White balance using Expodisc.
This photo is a 2 shot panoramic image shot using the sigma 10-20mm, i deliberately did not crop off the black regions in the foto to give it a kind of a 3D effect as if looking at a photo on a corner of a room on both the walls, i guess it works a bit here.
About the place:
This is Mount Bergen in Norway, a lovely place for some snow trek and a good city to spend a day roaming around.
The Story behind this capture:
We trekked the Bergen mountain in the morning, started by 10 and with cameras and water and bags, we started ascending, there was slight snow which was the main cause for the others to walk instead of taking a cable pull train up the hill.
The snow became heavier as we climbed and every place we could see started covering in white magic.
This view is particularly a famous view point of the Bergen city where the cable car terminates, there was no visibility at all due to the snow, then a thought lighted me up, how would the view be from this place at night, but if only the snow and cloud had to clear. Rest of the trek went fine and to my amazement the sky started to clear and the snow had stopped as we came down the mountain. All my plans were set for the night view shot.
So I started by around 8 waving off all my friends for dinner and got a ticket for the cable car, but it was only when i got into the car i came to know that was the last car for the day, but i cant miss a chance for such a lovely night scene, and i knew its going to be a long walk down the slippery snow track bacl to my place.
I set the tripod and composed the scene and started capturing the beauty with different shutter speeds to ensure i get a correct exposure. My hands were almost numb due to the biting cold of the night, so at last I have some sets of pics which i would be happy if some turned out to be keepers.
Started the descend and finally reached my hotel by 11 for a good dinner which my friends had got some take away for me.
Photoblog up and running
The idea of a Photo blog came up after a visit to a fellow photographers photo blog from the fredmiranda forums, so a fire started within, why not start one myself, its just an expression and more of an intimate connectivity to the photos and the story and the adventures that made the art.
So here is my new photo blog up and running after hours of effort Enjoy!!
