Prem Sagar's blog

Photographing fireworks

On July 4th, we had gone to see the fireworks display at Pier 39. It was pretty good, but personally, I was disappointed that it lasted only for 30 minutes.

Nevertheless, here are a few things that helped me photograph the event. Hope it is useful to you too.

1. Use a tripod
Since you will be photographing primarily in the night and shutter speeds will drop to several seconds, you just cannot do without a sturdy tripod.

2. Use a low ISO value
Since you have a tripod, and since you need slightly longer shutter speed to capture the firework trails, use a low ISO value.

3. Aperture of f11-16 works best for me
Wider than F11, the light at the middle could be blown out. Narrower than F16, you could have diffusion issues depending on your lens. F11-16 works best for me.

4. Shoot manual
Go to manual mode. With the aperture mentioned above, you should be able to click at 4 seconds or so and get a decent light trail of the bursting cracker. Depending on the firework, you could get a very nice streak of light.

5. Focusing
Focusing in the dark could be an issue. Few like to focus on infinity and shoot. However, I waited for the first firework burst, when it turned bright, focussed on it and then turned auto-focus off. Until I changed my focal length, I used the same focus. However, you need to be careful not to accidentally turn the focus ring to offset it.

6. Compensate for the fluorescent colors of the crackers
You may perhaps like to use a warm flourescent light white balance if the crackers used tend to emit strong flourescent colors.  Of course, shooting in raw will help you play with multiple white balance options.

7. Mirror lock-up mode with remote release
To avoid shutter release vibration, use the mirror lockup mode and trigger the shutter using the remote. You could also use the 2sec timed release option in your camera if you do not have a remote.

8. If light is too blown out even at low ISO and F16ish apertures, use neutral density filters
Use neutral density filters. If the burst happens in the top portion of the frame, perhaps a 2-3 stop gnd could help.

9. Time the burst
Note down how many seconds every burst and its light trail lasts. Try to match the full duration of the burst trail to get proper trail streaks.

10. Try to shoot when the wind is calm
When the wind is strong, clicking a picture could mean that the streak trails could be blown away by wind causing a fading light blur which you may or may not like. If you want a proper trail, try to click when the wind is calmer.

11. Turn off noise reduction in your camera
If your camera has noise reduction feature turned on, you could spend quite a bit of time between shots when the camera is busy working on the noise reduction (this is why clicking a long exposure could take a long time before camera is ready for next click).

Have fun!

US diaries-7: A quick review

Am returning to India on July 11th.

Yes, I am excited to be back home and look forward to playing with my kid. But there is a tinge of sadness too. I had a great time here. Easily, it was one of the best trips of my life. I visited a lot of places and made a few friends too. Will miss them all. I will especially miss the wonderful national parks of US and those mammoth landscapes!

This post is a quick reflection on my trip in Twitter style. Few words. A photo or two, thats it.

My 3 favorite photos of the trip:

1. Tule elk shot at Limantour wilderness area

2. Antelope canyon

3. Tufa’s of Monolake

Places visited and a one line description of each

• Point Reyes (Limantour, Drakes beach, Bear Valley, Tomales point, lighthouse, Muddy hollow): An amazing place with a great diversity and a great place for birders.
• Bryce canyon: Amazing hoodoos that can inspire your soul and a clear night sky that can transcend you to Neverland.
• Grand canyon south rim: A geologists dream. Huge. Did I just say huge?
• Antelope canyon: An awesome awesome awesome place to be in when the crowd is less.
• Monument valley: An interesting place at the right time of the day.
• Horseshoe bend: Sitting at its edge can pack you off to eternal bliss’dom.
• Colarado river gorge: Unnoticed beauty with extremely inspiring rock formations.
• Marin Headlands: A cyclists dream route.
• Golden gate: Shot to death several years ago by photographers.
• Yosemite (Toulemne meadows, Le Vining, etc): Wonderful. A big big bang bang wonderful. Did I say wonderful?
• Monolake and its Tufa’s: A wonderful and ever-ongoing love story between a certain Mr Calcium and one Miss Carbonate.
• Convict lake: Be there at 5.45 am.
• Alcatraz prison: I went to the once most dreaded jail in the world and came back! Alive!

Most memorable moments
- Cycling in Marin in pitch dark of the night. Taking a detour on Conzelman road and photographing Golden Gate in pitch dark from an isolated area.
- Walking up the Sunset point in Bryce Canyon and being wowed by its beauty.
- First morning in Point Reyes HI hostel. Waking up early and seeing through the large window. Chilly morning. Rain drops. Dreamy mood!
- Driving through Toulemne meadows in Yosemite early in the morning.
- Driving through Point Reyes, esp the Pierce point ranch early in the morning.
- Being so close to a bear in Yosemite.

3 most admired things in US
- Amazon.com
- US national parks
- ownership of assigned tasks

Random thoughts from the trip
- Absolutely love Galen Rowell’s adventure photography and his go-light-on-gear attitude. A huge Galen fan now!
- David duChemin. I knew him before, but got hooked to his photography during this trip.
- Tenting is fun.
- Night photography is way too much fun.
- VR/IS/SR can never kill a tripod.
- US has as many problems as India does.
- US media is worse than Headlines Today in India.
- We Indians respect white folk more than we do our own folk. The spillover effect of a British raj!
- When you are in trouble, do nothing. Just wait until your head is clear. Most likely, the issue would clear by itself.
- Ghana deserved to win the game. Suarez snatched a goal and got away with a penalty. A sure goal != a chance for a goal.

Additions to my equipment during the trip
- Gitzo 3541LS tripod and Arca Swiss Z1 monoball head
- Nikon TC17E II
- Singh Ray 3 stop soft GND filter
- B+W Kaesemann polarizer
- Canon S90 pocket camera
- Eureka Nxt 2 man tent

Books purchased
- Mountain light by Galen Rowell
- Picture this: How pictures work by Molly Bang
- Photography and the art of seeing by Freeman Patterson

Lazy cash

I hate lazy cash.

To me, lazy cash is money that doesn’t work at least as hard as a decently performing short term floating rate fund. As of today, the average short term floating rate fund would return around 4.5-5% annually.

Anything that sits in low interest account’s especially due to activity paralysis and status-quo mindset would qualify as lazy cash. Few examples are

• excess money in savings accounts
• excess money in floating rate funds when higher return alternatives are available (lets say the market is at a 15 P/E, then I think an index is a better option)
• money lying in the safety locker at home
• money lying in dead assets like jewellery
• and since I am into photography, now,… I know a few photogs out there equate photography equipment as assets. I wouldn’t qualify them as assets let alone lazy assets. Duh!

Any guy who does his math well would do well for himself by moving his lazy cash at least to a decently managed floating rate fund. If you have been sleeping, act on it today. What you don’t need in next 1 month, move it to a higher returns account.

Of late, I have been too lazy and caught up with other things in life (travel, photography, etc). These coupled with a stock market that has moved out of my comfort zone have meant that I have a rather high % of my money in low-return avenues. Yikes!

But I am pretty happy that I am sticking to my decision of not getting into the stock market when the odds are not strongly in my favor. For now, it should be a decent short term floating rate fund like one managed by Birla Sunlife. Picking dividend option should save a bit more for the ones in higher tax bracket.

One of my goals in financial management is this. Zero lazy cash. Reviewed every month first week. I admit, I have been a bit slack in the last 3 months.

Now, don’t just read this. Go and do your homework. Review your accounts. Dig out your lazy cash. Set them on work. Getting that 2-3% extra will help you in the long run, especially because, small amounts add up!

CAUTION: Now, taking undue risk with such cash is stupidity. And as I said, I am not deploying such money in the stock market, esp the index as I find the P/E above 22 and beyond my comfort zone. Find out your odds of safety. Stay withing your comfort zone! Better safe than sorry!

US diaries-6: Yosemighty!

Another week went by. Another trip etched into memory! 

Mighty mountains that are a geologists wonder , snow capped peaks that glow like an orange ball in the early morning sun, freezing cold lakes that have just begun to come out of their long hibernation by shedding their icy coats, innocently clear water in the lakes that can chill your bones, American black bears that stare straight at you with stone-cold eyes within 500 metres of distance,… Yosemite is a wonder! This time, we avoided the usually visited and much crowded areas in and around Yosemite and went to the Le Vining side which was very beautiful.

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US diaries-5: Merryin’ in Marin

Last weekend, I visited the Marin headlands area. 

My plans were simple

• reach Marin before sunset and click pictures of the Golden Gate bridge at the twilight hour
• stay in Marin Headlands hostel for the night
• to reach Point Bonita before sunrise and click pictures of the lighthouse / Golden Gate

But, my planning ended there. I had not thought about transport, food, maps, directions,… blah blah. The minimalistic planning either made for a great trip or screwed things up depending on how you view it.

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US diaries-4: Camping in the Canyons

Last week, from May 29-31, Adarsh and I had gone on a camping trip to the Canyon’s of the west – the Grand canyon, Bryce canyon, Monument valley and the Antelope canyon!

May 30th was Adarsh’s birthday. 31st was mine. Need I say that I had the best birthday till date!!!

On May 28th night, we flew down to Phoenix from San Jose and then drove to the places mentioned above. Well, we started on a shaky note at Phoenix when the car rental guy told that our already booked Nissan Sentra would be parked at J-8 and that this was the ONLY compact car available there. Upon reaching J-8, we were taken aback to see a totally worn out car with its bumpers and headlights literally falling off!!! We were for a minute unsure whether to take the only car or to cancel it, but decided to do the later. Just then, we noticed that we were looking at the wrong parking slot. The place had 2 numbers for some reason. And both the J-8′s had Nissan Sentra’s. One nice car from the car rental guys.. the other, a torn down car belonging to someone!!! Laughing at our blunder and the strange coincidence, relieved, we jumped in and quickly sped-off! The time was 12.15am on Saturday.

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