Deepavali gift to myself

This deepavali I gifted a weird stuff [relatively ;)] to myself. It is quite unusual too. So what was it? I was scratching my head so much from many days that why my camera does not see like my eye. After so much R&D around net, I finally realized that I need a 50mm lens :D. The search was ON. First 50mm/f1.2 IS USM lens. I was shocked at its price and immediately went to 50mm/f1.4 IS USM lens. Its cost was also very high :(. The only option was 50mm/f1.8 EF II lens. It was relatively cheap than rest two. However the major drawback is no IS :(. The lack of IS could be felt sometimes. Nevertheless it is quite good for a beginner though. So I tested some captures and videos in my hometown and it came quite nice. I could achieve very nice shallow depth of field. The best thing about the lens is that it can maintain f/1.8 even at high shutter speeds. At nights it can grab more light so that you can capture very good image. I also captured some videos+images in beach side. I know it is not meant for landscape but still wanted to have a try ;). Overall it is good buy for money.

So here is the compilation of images and videos I took in my 50mm lens. All of them [Images+Videos] were taken in Manual Mode with lens in Manual Focus.


As every-time please comment on video so that I can improve further.

Music: Rank 1 - Airwave (Aaron static 2009 remix)

Update: I realized later that my realization was wrong :(. For a crop sensor DSLR, you need 35mm to mimic eye's 50mm focal length. Nevertheless, this lens is great lens in your kitty (few portraits have come really well). Recently I gifted photoframe of my parents and they were excited to receive the gift :). What do you need in the world than the happiness on face of parents! Also my father was convinced on investing few bucks on DSLR :D

Short compilation of Maravanthe Beach

I shared few HDRs from Maravanthe Beach here captured during my visit this summer. Here is short compilation of the video of this beautiful beach. Not much to brag about rather some subjects in mind.

1. The interesting part of the beach is the beautiful beach and souparnika river view which is part of compilation
2. Few sunset clips with roaring sea
3. A dead turtle was spotted on the beach which I included in the video.
4. Sea tides

These were the only aspects included in video. Apart from this, I missed some clips dedicated to souparnika river and a drive along the highway which could have been captured from city bus. Not sured I missed them. However, whatever captured I believe has come well. Hope you enjoy the video :). The video was edited with KDENLIVE with some RGB correction and white balance adjustment. Comments and critiques are always welcome.

My first 1080p youtube upload

Here is first 1080p video uploaded by me to YouTube. This was first time I was uploading Full HD version to youtube. I was just testing the EOS 550D camera with 1080p/25fps movie mode. The initial part is blurred since lens was put in MF mode. So took some time to focus the subject properly. The subject is nothing special. It is usual scene of dogs playing on the road. In my case it's neighbor's dog and a street dog. The neighbor's dog was tied in front of house since it was raining on Sunday. A street dog came and started playing with the home dog. I captured some of their moments and uploaded to YouTube. The kids near by thought the dogs were fighting. After sometime both dogs got bored and the street dog went away.

It is near 2 minute video which was stored in MOV format. The original was around 620MB later reduced to 170MB using KDENLIVE. The video was converted to MP4 format with same H.264 encoding@12K bitrate and 384kbps audio.

Hope you will enjoy the video! Expect more 1080p videos in my YouTube channel :-). Share if you enjoyed it and comment if you have suggestions.

Watch my YouTube videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/nakumar85/videos

Bhoota-Kola - A short video

Bhoota Kola (precisely bhootada kola) is prominent among belief of people of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district. A raw translation to English leads to Spirit worship or daemon worship. People in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district are firm worshipers of Goddess durga and Lord Ganapathy. Apart from this, they worship the spirits and have small fane dedicated to it. The event happens amongst family groups and not as public worship. There is also Serpent worship (Cobra) which occurs as public event. Our family group conducts this event every year during winter time. Pre-dominantly the event is conducted during nights of winter season. The worship prolongs for entire night. The protagonist for the event is well experienced in performing the worship as acts as representative of the daemon. It is believed the daemon enters his soul after performing certain chronology and later on he acts as messenger of daemon. The event starts around 10PM and ends at 4AM. There are reasons as why the event tends to be under night sky (may be spirits appear only at night?). The event starts of with tiny "pooje" and later the performer adorns himself with artistic patterns resembling the imaginary spirit. The event is initiated with "Gaggara", the later moment it is believed spirit enters the soul. Thereafter, the acts performed are not well defined and carried out as per wish of spirit. A short break at the middle narrates the story of the spirit worship during which, the soul is back to human nature. Later on, the spirit is pleased again to enter the soul. As concluding part, people seek queries on their problems and spirit provides solutions to them. Any deficiencies in family group, the spirit seeks remedy for the same. The day ends with distribution of prasada and its time for us to have deep slumber.

Here starts my story :-). This was the first time, I burnt my eyes whole night videographing this special event for first time. I guess once during childhood days, I watched event for entire night. As life and civilization modernizes, such type of events are being perceived as superstitions and people only watch them as a folklore. It is up-to to people to decide their beliefs. My job here was to concentrate on the videography concepts without hindering the sanctity of occasion or hampering people's belief. I was on duty based on request from one of the visitor for free :-). It was also sort of learning opportunity for me despite curtailing peaceful sleep. I did few video editing too! All videos were shot hand-held which was sufficient to maintain steadiness. Eventually around 10GB of footage was accumulated and later compiled in KDENLIVE for final touch up. Only prominent aspects of event was retained in compiled video and turned out to be quite huge too (around 25 mins). I shared the compiled DVD with my cousin brother in village and he was enthralled to watch it with high quality. Even I was satisfied with the kind of reception the video drew (my father was happy too!). Hope you find time to watch lengthy video. I compiled video after a gap of 4 months from the day of event. Somethings require time and they deserve too (Like Subramanya train journey which I uploaded after gap of 4 months).

 I self reviewed the video and found few observations

• Missed some important events like the performer being decorated as spirit especially painting. I was away during his preparation.

• The middle of event is called "Paad-dhaana" in Tulu during which, the fable of spirit worship is narrated. The audio turned out to be feeble since I lacked external microphone
• The last part of event when prasada was distributed. I was quite exhausted during wee hours desperately wanting to lie on bed.
• Usage of tripod was not possible since the performer wanders abruptly around due to which lot of dynamism was required while videographing.
• The reasons may seem to be excuses however will try next year for better glimpses.

Last Note:

"What kind of worship is this which finds place in modernized world full of robots", someone may lament. As mentioned earlier, my part here was to enjoy the event and videograph to my known knowledge. I have not uploaded for debating. Any comments/critiques on perception, quality of the video are highly appreciated. While on contrary, any praise/flames on the authenticity of worship will be mercilessly scrapped :-). I do not expect any critiques here other than videography