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We are moving to a new blog integrated with photoduniya.com

Ranjay Mitra — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 04:16:52 +0000

We are now integrated with our website, photoduniya.com. We have moved over to http://www.photoduniya.com/. Although we shall keep this blog up and running, most of the future posts will be on the Photoduniya Blog.

Please take a moment to view the new site and let us know your feedback.

journalimage.com Launched for street documentary

Ranjay Mitra — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:35:02 +0000

We have finally launched journalimage.com, a website & blog specifically for street candid pictures and documentaries. After having your trust & readership for almost two years, your constant feedback, suggestions for more concentrated street photography and encouragement have convinced us to move ahead with journalimage.com.

We hope to present candid street pictures, stories, techniques and documentaries from New York City, San Francisco, Boston & Chicago among other cities & metros of US. As in the past, we will also run street projects including street artists, street musicians, body art, street fairs & portraits on journalimage.com..

Please update your bookmark with journalimage.com. The feeds are available on http://journalimage.com/feed/

New York City street musician – Vincent in Broadway

Ranjay Mitra — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:33:23 +0000

From: photoduniya.com

Vincent has been playing the pan for over 25 years and about a decade in New York City. He is from Trinidad, but has been entertaining the New York City tourists for over a decade now. On my request, he played the Jamaican Farewell. I had first heard it on the pan in San Francisco by another street musician by the name of Jonathan.

I shall post more on Vincent in my later blogs. This picture was taken on a hand held Nikon D200 with fill flash & is part of an extended documentary on Street Musicians. Read more here.

I have used a watermark on the above image. I apologize for the inconvenience but I am using it since the time I found out that Musicnation.com and a few others have violated copyrights & copied my images while being very insensitive to the musicians all in the name of driving more traffic to their websites.

Alan Rabinowitz & his Search of the Jaguar

Ranjay Mitra — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:06:38 +0000

Mr. Rabinowitz of the WCS, New York, has been fighting his personal battle to save the wild habitats of the Jaguars. The “necklace” as it is called, is a strip of of green forest nearing Panama in South America that has been very crucial to the successful revival of the Jaguar population.
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As for the video, its am amazing 90 minutes if you are interested in film making, photography, traveling or saving the wildlife, and the delicate eco-system. But more than just that, it re-instates in us the feeling of worthy selflessness and the incredible strength one needs to have to stand up for a cause. Jane Goodall, who made a strong forte in my heart by moving into social oblivion, and so has Alan Rabinowitz.
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The National Geographic documentary, In Search of the Jaguar, gives us a tiny glimpse into the life of Mr. Rabinowitz as well as his eternal struggle to save the Jaguars. If you would like to help Wildlife Conservation Society please call or visit their website.

How to take pictures while driving, with your Nikon

Ranjay Mitra — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 01:49:24 +0000

Since I posted my pictures from the cross country drive from California to New York New England, many of you have asked me how to take such pictures, what did I use and similar questions. Before I begin to explain, I must say that such photography is risky. You would be traveling at high speeds and all your attention should be on the road. So I would not recommend it to you, unless you are in the passenger seat or in the navigator’s seat.

Taking pictures while driving at high speeds is very similar to taking the picture of a deer running very fast from where you are standing. I have used three techniques for all those pictures.

1) For pictures where I did not have something in front of me to lock-focus, I set the focus manually at infinity, and set the shutter speed at over 100 for most of them.

2) For pictures where I had an object in front of me, like a vehicle or a sign post or a high land, I locked-focus and took the picture.

3) For pictures of landscapes, I again set the focus at infinity and shot through the wind shield.

All the pictures are taken through the windshield, with the camera held up high enough to avoid the bonnet. Note that none of those pictures have been cropped (they have been re-sized for sharing over the internet). So did I miss any shot? Yes, certainly. There is a certain amount of unpredictability with taking these sort of pictures. But since I have been doing it for long, I could get 8 or more good pictures from 10 gates.

The camera was Nikon D200 and I had used a wide angle lenses from 17 mm all though 120 mm. The higher the focal length, the better the composition and lesser chance of getting your car’s bonnet in the frame. But that also increases the chances of camera shake. You got to do the balance somewhere in between.

Since they were all taken from behind the windscreen, I did not use any flashlight. The ISO was held between 100 & 200 so as to get sufficient resolution in case I needed to crop.

New Nikon lenses – PMA 2008

Ranjay Mitra — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:06:17 +0000

Its been a week since the PMA 2008 and the news of Nikon’s new camera and lenses have already flooded the markets. The new D60, another 10 megapixels digital camera for the amateurs, with in-camera photo editing capabilities and an auto dust cleaner. Priced at about US 700.00 dollars for the camera it is on the higher end for the amateurs.

Along with that Nikon also rolled out 3 new lenses. Though the new VR tele lenses (500mm et all) are yet to hit the shelves in US, the new ones probably will be retailed sometime in June or July 2008.

The AF-S DX Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens – this is a G lens, which makes it usable only on the electronic cameras. The focal range is very attractive for street shots and travel photography. And then there is the AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm f/2.8G ED is more of a close up lens, but the specifications say that the nearest focus point is 0.6 feet – and that isn’t quite attractive. But if you’re using a 1.5x crop camera, you could still get a good magnification for the distance. This is again a G lens, which makes it quite difficult to use on the manual cameras.

I would be very interested in the PC-E NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED lens. With its tilt shift capability and the wide angle is a good make. Although,if you’re using a low end camera with a 1.5x crop, you will not benefit from the wide angle (effective focal length on a D200 or a D300 is 36mm). But put it on a D2X or a D3 and you have some powerful composition at hand! It is nice though that Nikon has relaunched the Perspective control lens again. The 85 mm PC lens is still available, and this is a welcome addition for the serious photographers.

Nikon Launches D60 – 10 Megapixels advanced digital camera

Ranjay Mitra — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:43:25 +0000

Note: We are now integrated with photoduniya.com and have moved to a new location. Please update your bookmark. Click here to go to the new location http://www.photoduniya.com/photography-blog/

Nikon announced the launch of Nikon D60, a 10.2 megapixels camera, today with a street price of about USD 700.00. The camera has been launched in Europe today & is supposed to hit the US shelves by March 2008.

With the D80, D40 & the D40x targeted at the same market segment of amateurs & advanced amateurs, the camera bears a significant trend of the market – help more in-camera processing & reduce the dependency on a computer. In terms of technology though, it bears the same high level of Nikon techniques as in any other along with an advanced dust cleaning mechanism. People have been known to depend on their computer mostly for (a) cleaning up images (b) changing saturation levels & (c) cropping. Having an advanced dusting mechanism would certainly help those who would prefer to spend more time with the camera than with the software!

Here is a detailed report from DP Review on the camera along with it’s specifications.

San Francisco street musician – Henri

Ranjay Mitra — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 04:19:27 +0000

From: photoduniya.com

Henri is not new to my readers. He is a fantastic vocalist playing for the band called The Jimmy Hendrix Experience (Experience This). I have been photographing the team of Henri, Rob and Johnny for over three months now near the union square. Photographically, the extremely low light, a combination of fluorescent lamps and tungsten ones and an extremely busy side walk make the task very challenging.

Henri @ photoduniya.com

The image was taken on Nikon D200 with a fill in flash and recorded on Lexar Pro media card. More images will be uploaded on the Projects section of Photoduniya.com.

Nikon D300 launched – Nikon steers well ahead of Canon again

Ranjay Mitra — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 04:58:00 +0000

Along with the latest Nikon D3, the company also launched the Nikon D300 on Aug 23, 2007. From the specifications, it is closer to D200 in features, though it uses a CMOS 13.2 effective megapixels sensor.

This is a DX format sensor, with the benefits of the improved auto focus mechanisms of the Nikon D3. It still uses the battery from Nikon D200, the EN-EL3e, which is known to have a very poor battery life.

Priced at about USD 1,900, the body is expected to hit the US & UK markets in November 2007, the same time as the D3.

You could read the Nikon D300 specifications on their official website here.

Nikon D3 launched – Full Frame 12.1 MP CMOS

Ranjay Mitra — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:18:44 +0000

After years of speculation, the much awaited Nikon D3 comes to being today. Although the company officially released the test drive, the Nikon D3 will be available in stores by November 2007 (per the company estimates).

Here’s a brief of what the D3 has to offer:

12.1 MP CMOS sensor
FX format (thats a full frame 36 x 24 format)
Continuous 9 fps in FX mode and high speed 11 fps in DX crop
Noise reduction in extreme 25,600 ISO
51 point auto focus with 3D focus tracking and improved Scene Recognition System

Here is the link to the detailed specifications on the Nikon’s website.