Day 31/365 Orange Rose, originally uploaded by mssphotos.

This photo was shot about few days back but I had some time to process today. Its shot at ISO 100, 187mm, F/16 at 1/20 sec. The flash was wireless with manual setting set at 1/2 output and set through the umbrella. Tweak the contrast and increased the clarity a little bit. As usual the border is given by flickr Picnik

Day 30/365 Orange Roses, originally uploaded by mssphotos.

About 20 min back I took this picture. ISO 100, 187mm, F/16 at 1/20 sec. The flash was wireless with manual setting set at 1/2 output and set through the umbrella. Tweak the contrast and increased the clarity a little bit. As usual the border is given by flickr Picnik

The Fall/Autumn is a wonderful time of the year to see the colors of nature in and around the foliage areas such as north east US. We can witness several amazing colors among those trees changing day-by-day. As a fact these colors can be found only few weeks during October. To talk about the subject, everything that is colorful becomes a subject. A tree with its beautiful mixed colr unto itself is a subject. leaves are beautiful to see the details of the color. The landscape of the foliage is marvelous to find several brilliant colors.

Red Leaves (55mm, 400 ISO, F/8, 1/30 sec)

Where?
Binghamton, New York, is surrounded by several mountains and valleys. It is one of the best place to enjoy the fall season with beautiful colored trees. There are several places one could visit such as Binghamton University Nature preserve, Susquehanna River, Cole Park and etc. I choose to visit the Binghamton University Nature Preserve because it has several trials to choose from. I happen to choose the pond’s trial because it had a beautiful pond overlooking a mountain full of colored trees.

Pond Landscape (70mm, 400 ISO, F/8, 1/45 sec)

Concepts and Techniques to shoot Foliage

Lighting
I was there up in the morning between 7:00 to 9:00 am, unfortunately  it was a cloudy day. To my luck the clouds started to roll out for the last few minutes to give some good lighting. Because of no sunlight I was unable to try backlighting or side lighting but took the advantage of soft ambient and overcast light that was formed due to clouds. As per the advice from canon tips these forms of lighting are diffused, or non-directional, and will produce shadowless subjects and render colors in soft pastel shades.

Standing with Pride Yellow Trees (18mm, 400 ISO, F/11, 1/45 sec)

Exposure
Some of the basic exposure techniques were employed to achieve the results here
1. Move Closer and fill the frame
2. Use longest focal length on the zoom lens (most of my photos here are shoot at f/9 or greater)
3. Used ISO between 200 – 400
4. Sometimes used longer shutter speed as I increased the focal length
5. 50mm f/1.8 used for closeup depth of field photos so that the background is completely out of focus

Green-n-Red (93mm, 400 ISO, F/8, 1/20 sec)

Composition
I did not focus a lot on the composition except leading lines and little bit of landscape photography. Getting up low, point to the tall trees, frame a piece, getting up high. I used 50mm f/1.8, and 70-200 mm F/4 IS lens on my Canon T1i.
Fall is a great opportunity to shoot these colorful photos. I hope you like these photos. Visit my flickr to see more photos.

Pink Droplets (50mm, ISO 320, F/5.6, 1/60 sec)

Shoot Using Time Value Settings

The Broome County Department of Aviation and the Greater Binghamton Airport jointly conducted the 2009 Binghamton Airshow teaming up with David Schultz Airshows LLC. It was on the 4-5th July and I had an opportunity to visit on the 5th July.

The Firebirds Extreme Aerobatics
(Canon T1i, 18-55mm, ISO 200, 1/1600)

One of the main reasons I attended the show was to be able to take some shots and try out my new Canon T1i. Although the lens that I carried was not the typical lens to shoot flights in motion but thought of trying my best to capture some good photos. I wanted to put my new camera into action.  While shooting I came across a pro-photographer (www.jessesimmersphoto.com) using these huge prime lens and with two cameras. I happen to shoot next to him. Fortunately to explore further, he let me use his 24-105mm lens and few tips. His tips were to use manual focus, continuous shoot and zoom at 105mm. So did I follow. Here are few photos of the F-16 fly machine.

USAF F-16 Viper West Demonstration
(Canon T1i, 24-105mm, ISO 200, 1/1600, Shot at 105mm)

The whole shots on the F-16 were done using 24-105mm lens. I was able to get an hang of what I was shooting. The Continuous shoot helped me several times to get some very sharp shots. The following is one of them with very clear details about F-16.

USAF F-16 Viper West Demonstration
(Canon T1i, 24-105mm, ISO 200, 1/1600, Shot at 105mm)

Carol Pilon Third Strike WingWalking
(Canon T1i, 24-105mm, ISO 200, 1/1600, Shot at 105mm)

I wish I had a telephoto lens and would help capturing some sharp, closer images. At the end of the day my experiment and learning did pay off. What I learnt from this shoot is summarized below

1. Shoot Manually

2. Use the Time Value settings with 1/1600

3. Aperture was somewhere between F/4 and F/5.6

4. ISO 200

More photos

Thank you and I hope this was helpful for you too. Please do not forget to leave a comment.

Perhaps the reason’s to keep my photography hobby off were my school and my family. My school work is completed and graduated but my daughter keeps us real busy. She is a year and half now.

I started to get back to my hobbies and thought rejuvanating myself with my lost hobby. At the same time one of my colleague transferred his photography bug which I acquired instantly when I peeked at his Canon XSi Digital SLR. His gear was a Canan XSi DSLR with a nifty-fifty lens and added a 70 – 200mm F/4 L lens later. All of these made an excellent advanced amateur photographer’s gear.

I ventured into my lost photography hobby by looking at several websites, reviewing materials and also some personal suggestions from friends. At that time Canon was coming up with T1i which had this inbuilt HD video recording capability, waited for a month and there you go! I had my Canon T1i with HD Video capability. My photography gear is now made up of Canon T1i DSLR, 18-55 F/3.6-5.6 lens that comes with package, bought a nifty-fifty 50mm F1.8 and finally invested in 70-200mm F/4 L IS lens 15 days ago. Although this lens is expensive I bought it because of its picture quality, image stabilization and its worth in retaining its value even years later. BTW I did not give a second thought for other camera brands such as Nikkon, Olympus, Sony, Pentax or others because I had used film SLR from Canon before and my instinct pushed to look for Canon only. This kit setup kick starts like a pro!

Visit my blog as frequently as possible and enjoy the great tips on photography.  I am a newbie and I depend on the great internet resources to feed my learning curve.

Enjoy! Will see you again