Camp rocks :)

Since I have already given you a clue about this in my last post, I don't think I have to mention that no, this post is not going to be about the teen movie :-p. After 3 years, we went on a camping trip. It was obviously Snugli's first camping trip, unless you count the fact that the last time we went I was pregnant ;-).

Well, the story happened on 13th August, Friday, that too pretty late in the day. We have been planning to go camping right since the start of summer, but something always came up (its funny how things always come up in summers and there's absolutely nothing to do in winters :-p). That day we faced a tug of war between going and not going. The weather was predicted to have rains in the night and camping is certainly not fun with thunderstorms (well, I disagree, but I digress :-D). When we checked at about 6Pm in the evening, the weather prediction had miraculously (yup, I am being sarcastic :-p) changed to clear skies :-D. After a little bit of to and fro, we simply decided to get going.

Packed up all we needed, bought the rest and got to the Lake Kincaid park (where we camped 3 years ago). We liked having the lake right next to the camping sites and thought that with Snugli around, the place would be a known devil scenario :-D. Plus the place has proper restrooms (albeit a bit far from the camping site). We were able to find a site (without advance booking) and started setting up stuff. Everything was smooth except that there were clouds near the horizon and it got dark pretty fast.

It was amazing how we put the tent together in a matter of minutes (another thing you never forget once you learn how :-p).




It was a little too dark to get stuff ready for cooking in the fire, but that part was manageable. The parts that weren't were the heat (it wasn't pleasant in any way) and Snugli's bewilderment. She was not really scared, just that being outside in almost total darkness with the sweltering heat was a strange experience for her. There were a few times when she hung onto me and refused to let go. But I did manage to distract her with the stars (that was one of the reasons we went - for me to try and photograph stuff ;-) :-D) and chirpy cricket sounds :-D. We somehow managed to eat up our usual camp diet of roasted corn, roasted veggies, roasted panneer and roasted burgers in the dark (we made a note of lanterns as things to buy for the next camp trip :-D). Later pumped up the bed and settled down for the night.

Or Sri and Snugli did ;-). I got up at around 2 AM to first catch some more meteors if possible (I saw around 25 meteors on the previous night, but no photos since I don't really have a lens wide enough top cover the entire sky :-\) and photograph the dark non-light-polluted skies. I did catch about 5 meteors, but again no snaps. It was literally Murphy's law :-p. So presenting the Deepthi's corollary to Murphy's law -

"If your camera is pointed to a specific part of the night sky, then the probability of meteors appearing in that particular area is much much much lower (almost close to 0) than that in the rest of the sky".

Sad, but true :(. Anyways I did manage to capture some pretty pics including this one of the Pleiades star cluster and emerging dawn (click to enlarge) :).




And one of Jupiter, the biggest "star" in the pic below (Before you jump to correct me, I know its a planet :-p).




I did take lots and lots of snaps (I think I was up for more than 2.5 hours! But the thing is without a tracking mount (which is helpful in contradicting earth's rotation), the only way to take good pics is by taking multiple short exposure photos (minimum 25 of each object!). I still haven't gotten to the post processing of images, so maybe will get back once I do :).

Went back to bed and got up after 8:30 AM :). After finishing our morning ablutions, Snugli got to play in the playground for a while..




And then we had breakfast at camp (yeah, I took the photo with a timer, had to run to and fro from the tripod :-p)..




Snugli enjoyed the morning camp much much more than the earlier evening (she surprisingly slept well and didn't fuss at all in the night). Here's her posing from the tent..




We then proceeded to dismantle the camp and head home :). All in all the trip was pretty much a success. It was great that the adventure lamp is still burning brightly within us and Snugli enjoying most of it was a bonus :). And photographically, it was another successful experiment :). Here are 2 daytime snaps I am pretty proud of :).







Very much looking forward to camping once again before winter sets in :).

"Fair"y tales :-D.

I've been meaning to write something other than a "birthday countdown" post for what seems like days. But have been busy - hopefully will get to one such post in a couple of days. Meanwhile thought of putting up a couple of pics of the local fair we get here annually (I wrote about it last year). Last year Snugli was a bit too young to enjoy all the bits and pieces and I wrote how it'd be different this year :-D. Well, yeah, it was different as in suddenly we were pushed into the role of spectators and she was the adventurer.

We made it 2 times to the fair this year and this post is mostly about the 1st time (the 2nd time my camera was already poof and the iPhone taken photos don't really count :-p). The first time we did take passes for all of us, because we thought she might create a fuss and its better to ride with her. But she was totally at home :-D.




That was her first ride on her own, ever :) (well, the boy eventually did sit beside her, so on her own as in without us :-\).




We did go on the caterpillar roller coaster ride together (same as last year :-D)..




And the giant wheel (or the Ferris wheel as its called here) later..




I don't really like rides which go round and round, so Sri went with her whenever required (yeah I conveniently dumped the honours on him, hehehee).




And then there was a helicopter ride..




A dinosaur ride..




A bike ride..




The standard merry-go-around..




And a racing car ride which was her "favourite" (she says its so to this day ;-) :-D).





There was also a plane ride (no good pics to speak of) and this dragon roller coaster which she loved.




Phew! I think she enjoyed 12 rides in all. Seeing her enjoyment, I "absolutely" "had-to" take her there once more and hence the 2nd time (I pestered Sri until we went :-D). The 2nd time, we didn't even buy passes for ourselves and bought one for her, thats it. I was ready to run out and get one in case she panicked, but well, our little girl is truly growing up. She went on 12 to 14 rides without even giving us a second glance. I cannot be more proud, believe me, but some part of me was actually sad to see her be so independent. It was difficult for me to let go.

Its not like she's totally independent, but that day brought home the fact that time is slipping away. And no matter how hard we try to hold on, time always gets the better of us. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's nothing you and me can do about it..

P.S: On a totally different note, the Perseid meteor showers are this week, supposedly peaking on Aug 12th night and 13th early morning. I have already seen a couple of meteors in my pursuits of Astrophotography (thats the post I have been meaning to put up, so will be up soon) in the past week and I will be up on Thursday with my camera trying to photograph the pesky things :-D. Oughta be fun :).

The circle of camera life :-p.

Finally!! After much deliberation, research and what not, my new DSLR Canon EOS 50D arrived last week on Tuesday the 20th July 2010. So why wait till now for a post, you ask? Well, I "assumed" that the camera would work on an SD card and found out only after I got it that it needed a compact flash card, which arrived today ;-). So here's the gear:




This photo above was taken by my trusty Canon S2 IS which promptly died soon after the arrival of the new one, apparently as if from jealousy :-p. In fact this was one of the last photos I took with it. Last friday, I was working on re-capturing the same image (because I wasn't completely satisfied with it), when the lens got stuck and refused to retract. Supposedly its the infamous dreaded Lens error. I felt very very sad, it was difficult losing something that was so close to my heart. The camera was a silent ever-present friend to me and it was as if I lost a part of myself. I found out that it'd cost almost as much as $150 to get it repaired.

So I decided to open and check it myself. Well, the engineering degree I have in electronics has to be useful sometime right? :-p.




Please forgive the bad quality pic - it was taken from my iPhone as I hadn't gotten the CF card for the DSLR yet :-p. I have to tell you, I was scared like hell that I'd end up corrupting it further. But I didn't. Yesterday evening, with a bit of Sri's help, I pin-pointed the fault to the USM (ultra-sonic motor) inside (its most probably that or else there's nothing I can do about it). Now have the option of getting a spare part from ebay and fixing it myself, but still thinking about it :-\.

Lets get back to the DSLR now. Today I got the CF card and immediately had to take snaps :). Here are my favourite subjects :).









Looks good on these hands right? :).




So the first 2 steps in my Astrophotography dream are done (learning photography and getting a DSLR). The next step is to master the DSLR and try taking astrophotos without an equatorial mount (used to negate earth's rotation while taking long exposures of the night sky). Just can't wait :).

Meanwhile the MasterCard ad was made for this post ;-).

Canon EOS 50D with 28-135mm lens - $957
Canon EF 50mm f1.8 lens - $87
LCD protector - $3
Compact Flash card - $60
Having it in my hand and jumping up and down - Priceless!!

Man, was it a lot of money. I thought again and again on whether I'm confident enough to invest such an amount (had second thoughts about it even after buying it :-p). But you know what? I'm ready for this, to move on and learn more. To know and to do more :).

Or else, I can always blame this particular madness on the big three-oh (coming up soon), hehehe :)).

I did not know that about astronomy..

Did you know that you can take perfect photos of galaxies, nebulae and many other DSOs (Deep Space Objects) right from the earth? If you knew, kudos to you. Well, I did not.

I am a big fan of astronomical photographs. So much that "astronomy picture of the day" is my daily cup of tea. I always assumed that most of the photos of space were either from the Hubble telescope or some of the special satellites designed to take them. Well, assuming certainly made an ass outtta me :-D.

From the past couple of posts, you know that I was feeling down. I wanted to come back up and one way I thought I could do that was to immerse myself in the activities I love. I thought I would take photography classes or attend a photography workshop, but they don't have them in my town and the private lessons available in a nearby town are atrociously priced :-p. So next, I searched for an astronomy club and found one. While I was exploring through the site, I find the members' photo gallery section and thats when it hits me. Amazing photos taken by people right on earth!

The standard search on Google for more information revealed the term - Astrophotography. Suddenly it was as if the last puzzle piece clicks into place. Felt like a true calling. Felt like, hey thats what I always wanted to do, since I learnt the basics of astronomy (I gave up because of all the math, hehehee). I started reading more and more, getting more and more interested. Don't know how or when really, but I know I want to get into Astrophotography soon.

Its certainly not going to be easy. Astrophotography brings together 2 extreme things in photography and astronomy. It requires the knowledge of operating a high quality telescope (not to mention some knowledge of night sky) and a Digital SLR camera, both of which in turn take quite a bit of mastering. All these don't come very cheap either. Plus from what I have heard, its going to take years to get it right. Just pointing a camera into an eye-piece of a telescope will not get the perfect pics. So its going to be an expensive hobby if it is a hobby and I don't know whether my interest will be strong enough to go on for years and make it into some sort of a career. But right now, I am interested and I am excited.

I have decided to start off initially reading about photography, experimenting and then moving onto buying a digital SLR (which has been one of my all-time wishes). Meanwhile probably will also simultaneously explore buying a beginner's telescope (after going to a couple of meetings of the local astronomy club ofcourse) to learn and explore the possibilities. By then I should know whether I want to pursue this or not ;-). I have several good books on hold already and I can feel the impatience boiling in me ;-) :-D.

I know I am going to have lots of fun figuring it all out :). My only hope in all this is that this will make me look back on the bad phase in my life I have had for the past month fondly as a new beginning :).