Virtual Moon 4 : Final One :-)

click on the pic to view the moon clearly

Thanks for liking my virtual series, specially the Full Moons. So posting one more virtual moon, on a photo taken in dust on the way to Berlin, in Germany. The plant beside the rail track was looking beautiful.

Virtual Moon 3 : The last one

First of all sorry for not visiting your blogs, I will be busy for another 2 weeks. But will go through each and every post after coming back to normal life.

This one is the last one in my virtual series as of now, same place again (from the top of the Acropolis, Athens City in Greece).
Take care!!

Olympic Symbols

A vertical shot of some cups in my drawing room - forms a Olympic symbol

Virtual Moon 2 : View of Athens from Acropolis

This time its a full moon, from the top of the Acropolis, the moonlit Athens was looking wonderful. Just to remind you that its a virtual moon.
I have started my kharagpur series in my Random Thoughts. One photo collage of Kharagpur is posted there.

Virtual Sun 2

Playing with Picasa still continues and I just love to create virtual Sun now, specially above the sea. This one was captured in Greece and the small church like structure in roadside made it special for me.

I have just written in my other blog, one post on

Ten Tips for Travel Photography .

The Land of Midnight Sun

This photo was taken in Voss, a small town of Norway, almost at midnight, though you can find some light in the sky. In pick summer the sunlight is more than this and if we go further north the Sun can be seen in midnight; that’s the reason Norway is called

“The Land of Midnight Sun”.
What I like in this photo is the illuminating street lights, fascinating and glowing like candle sticks. The Voss railway station is visible in right side.

Virtual Moon 1

While cleaning my disk space, I was about to delete some unwanted pictures, which are not nicely captured. But I was reluctant in doing so due to my affinity to all pictures. Thus, though to play with Picasa and change the whole outlook, something like make the day a moonlit night, put a red Sun under above the sea, etc. Already posted the one post on Virtual Sun and here goes the Virtual Full Moon. Will continue posting some more.

Real Sky after Sunset: Kolkata

These shots are captured from the rooftop of my apartment in Kolkata(Calcutta), after the sunset, last weekend. The reddish saffron shades delighted me and I was thinking the beauty of the sky is as beautiful as the sky of Norway. Actually either we don’t get time to enjoy the beauty or sometime it is hidden in the din and bustle of congested architectures.
These shots are absolutely real – posted as it is taken.

Virtual Setset 1

Maple Leaves

The maple leaves look colourful in spring and summer. These are specially found in Europe and America, even in Asia. The flag of Canada featuring a stylized maple leaf in the centre. The distictive shape and kalaidocope nature makes it very special.
I made it Black and White to achieve the contrast and sharpness.

Diagonal and shades

This is the shot I have taken in my apartment last week. My focus was on the diagonal roofline of the drawing room. But after taking the shot what amazed me most are the semicircular shades in the wall. I found these are originated from the small circular lights. Its amazing!

Flowers in the Tub

This is a picture of a flower in my hometown, kharagpur, 130 km away from Kolkata(Calcutta). I was amazed to see such beautiful flowers next to my door step, in an unused tub, was looking to it for minutes and then decided to take a snap. This picture reminds me the famous poem of Tagore.

In one of his Poem Rabindranath Tagore had written…

“ Dekhite giyachi porbotmala, Dekhite giyachi Sindhu.
Dekha hoy nai chokkhu melia,
Ghor hote du pa felia,
Ekti dhaner sisher opor, ekti sishir bindu. “

The English meaning is something like..

“Have seen the mountain, seen the river…
Have not had seen with open eyes
Next to my door step where lies
A dew drop over the grass looks like a drop of tear…”

The inner meaning is we often miss the inherent beauty of trivial things very close to us. We travel to see the touristy places, enjoy remote destinations, but never care to watch

“the God of small things”.

Monk - Tibetan Lama in India

It’s a snap of a Tibetan Lama in Mussouri, India. Last year I went to Uttaranchal and visited a Buddhist monastery nearby; governed by local Tibetans. Since, China has taken over Tibet; thousands of Tibetans came to India and settled here. They came because of two reasons. Firstly, India a soft nation, who adopt all religion and nationality to live in harmony; and secondly the Buddhist culture in India has a deep root including its emergence from Goutam Buddha.

The human right violation is not an unknown story in China; the encroaching dragon was always a problem for its neighbors. Recently I came to know about the Arunachal issue in details from Kalyan’s blog. It is really petty to claim a state of India, which has been an integral part of India. A part of Kashmir is under China, were they at all involved in the controversy in past? Because of this aggressive nature even Dalai Lama has taken shelter in India.

Coming back to the picture, it’s an instant shot. So the face of the Lama has a typical vivid expression of innocence and hesitance. The dress is typical Tibetan and the surrounding is of greenish Himalayan valley.

bangles - Churias in India

The word Bangles (Hindi: Churias / Kangan) is derived from Hindi word bungri (glass). Bangles are part of traditional Indian jewelry. In India, bangles are usually worn in pairs by women, one or more on each arm, and a single bangle is rarely sold. They are made of numerous precious as well as non-precious materials such as gold, silver, platinum, glass, wood, ferrous metals, plastic, etc.

This picture is taken in New Market (even though its quite OLD), Calcutta (Kolkata). Not only in Kolkata, but there are numerous shops just for bangles., in every Indian city. These colourful bangles are very cheap and looks georgious in the soft hands of Indian women; thus has huge demand in India.

Mountains in Greece

Mountain, originally uploaded by ghosh_pijush.

"A mountain becomes great as a human personality does, by extending its influence over the thoughts, words and actions of mankind," so said R. L. G. Irving, an English mountaineer writing in 1940. The thoughts and words inspired by mountains and the people who live there have been very important influences in the development of mountain environments in modern times. The Matterhorn, for example, is a disagreeable, tall pile of loose rock but thanks to literature and photography it has become one of the world's best known tourist symbols and is as important to the national economy of Switzerland as the watch industry itself.

SLR vs Non-SLR

To start photography, its better to have non SLR normal camera where we don't bother for focusing, mode, DOF etc. Just open and click. Maximum we can change the mode from landscape to portrait or night shot. It gives us liberty to concentrate on the object and we can take pictures much faster. A beginner can easily operate normal digital camera. He need to have a steady hand sometime if not the camera has image stabilizer.

The subject of the picture is completely independent irrespective of the nature of the camera. So choosing and concentrating on object has nothing with SLR. But what matters in SLR is how you want to make the picture better, different and SLR gives the flexibility to play with the object depending on its nature.

So just compare SLR vs Non-SLR one by one.

1)Depth of Field (DOF)

The following two pictures have been taken in SLR, canon 350D; with varied apertures, shutter speed and ISO. In the first one DOF is so small that even the last leaves are not prompt, whereas DOF in second one quite long. The background is clear. This variety of DOF is only possible in SLR, where as in normal camera it is fixed.



2)Portrait (First one taken in SLR Canon 350D and Second one in Normal Canon Powershot)

Both the picture has taken in Portrait mode. One can observe the sharpness in SLR, with narrow DOF, a true Portrait picture; whereas the other one in normal one is in wide and fixed DOF. So, undoubtedly the SLR one is quite better.

3)Landscape

Nothing more I have to say, see the links of Sunio (normal Canon) and Nafplio (SLR)

4 MP and 8 MP

For ordinary use, I think normal (not SLR) 4 MP camera is more than enough. Even though we zoom little and play it looks perfect for 5x7 even 8x10 printing. So never go for more than 5MP if you do not have any special need for it, as more the MP bigger the size of it. So it can be problem in storing the pics after certain point of time.

But If you want to get more out of a picture 8-10MP is best and SLR is obviously better as I have compared in the following picture.


This one(following) is taken in Konica Minolta Dimage Z2 , 4 Mega Pixel camera - the best normal camera I have seen so far. I have edited the picture in two ways.
1) Full Saturation - Color of sky and trees are faded
2) 100% Zoom - Got little Blurred







This one(following) is taken in Canon 350 DSLR, 8 Mega Pixel camera - I am currently Using. After compacting(resizing) I have edited the picture in two ways.
1) Full Saturation - Color of sky and trees are not faded

2) 100% Zoom - Much Better than the 4MP one

New Camera : Canon 350D

Description: EOS 350D SLR Digital Camera 18-55 lens ; Manufacturer: Canon

Memory Type: CompactFlash ; LCD Screen Size: 1.8 in
Camera / Lens Type: Interchangeable
Optical Zoom: 3
MegaPixels: 8.2

Image Processor
Number of Image Sensor Pixels: 8200000
Image Sensor: CMOS
Image Quality
Number of Resolution Modes: 3
Max Vertical Image Resolution: 2304 pixels
Max Horizontal Image Resolution: 3456 pixels
Image Format: DCF,DPOF,EXIF,JPEG,RAW

Lens Features
Min Focal Length: 18 mm
Max Focal Length: 55 mm
Min Focus Distance: 11.3 in
Focus Features: Auto Focus,Focus Lock,Manual Focus,Multiple Point Focusing,Predictive Focusing
Max Aperture: 3.5 1/f
Optical Zoom: 3 X
Lens Mount: Interchangeable
Min Aperture: 22 1/f

Exposure Controls
Number of Scene Modes: 5
White Balance: Auto,Manual,Preset Modes
ISO Equivalencies: 100,1600,200,400,800
Metering Characteristics: Center-weighted Average,Central-area Partial,Evaluative
Exposure Settings: AE Lock,Aperture Priority,Auto Exposure,Exposure Bracketing,Manual Exposure,Multiple Exposure,Multiple Program Modes,Shutter Priority
Bulb Setting: Yes

Shutter Performance
Shutter Lag: 0.001 second(s)
Continuous Shooting Speed: 3 frames/s (fps)
Frames per Second: 3 frames/s (fps)
Minimum Shutter Speed: 30 sec.
Maximum Shutter Speed: 4000 1/f

Other Features
Power Source: Lithium Ion,Rechargeable Battery
General Features: Flash Cancel (On/Off),Red-Eye Reduction,Self Timer,Slow Speed Sync,SLR Camera
Interface Type: USB - Universal Serial Bus,Video - Out (Unspecified)
Flash Characteristics: Accessory Shoe,Built-in Flash
Included Components: Carrying Strap,Charger,PC Connection Cable
LCD Screen Size: 1.8 in

Dimensions
Height: 94 mm
Width: 127 mm
Depth: 64 mm
Weight: 485 g

Photography in Scandinavia

Scandinavia is full of diversities and natural beauties. I found it an exiting place for photography. The white mountains of Norway, cultural heritage of Sweden and lash green vallies in Denmark - are really mesmerising.


Some of the pictures of Street Lights I have taken in Denmark,Sweden and Norway in 2005. These lights of different shapes and colours, reflect the cultural trends of Scandinavia in general. http://picasaweb.google.com/pijush.ranjan.ghosh/StreetLightsInScandinavia

Here goes Some links:

NORWAY IN NUTSHELL : http://pijush-norway-in-nutshell.blogspot.com/

Denmark : http://pijushdenmark.blogspot.com/

My Photography

Photography, by itself is an art; art of capturing beauty in different approach and look. It’s easy in the sense that once one has a camera, he can go for it. But it’s tougher to be a good photographer. For that we need to have passion for it, a feeling for World’s beauty, and eyesight for different views. Once you start taking good snaps, you will start enjoying it.

Taking photograph is my passion from very childhood. I can remember my father has gifted me a simple cheapest hotshot camera when I was in class V. But it was the only resource till my uncle bought a SLR camera and I bought few digital cams.

Sony T33 and Canon Power shot are good cameras, but they have their own limitations. I am looking for a digital SLR, probably Canon 350D or Nikon 70S. But these cameras are expensive and I have to wait for it.

Picasa from Google is one of the best photo editing software. One can take a simple picture and get it modified by Picasa with different looks. Specially the Graduated Tint options makes the sky colorful and Sepia makes it almost blank and white. I don’t think, to make one original picture modified is bad. Its adding more color to it, with a nice composition, it reaches different magnitude.

Some of the Pictures taken by me are shown below. Some of them are modified by Picasa.

Pictures from India
Nature : Mussouri in the Himalayan Vally
























Kharagpur : My Primary School














Sculpture: Qutub Minar in Delhi ; Temples in Bankura (WestBengal) ; and Victoria Memorial of Calcutta

Faces : Child Labours in India







Night Shots
River Ganges in Haridwar and The Dam in night with the scintillating view of Kumari and Kangsavati River in Mukutmanipur





Pictures from Europe:

The world is full of diversity and it is really mesmerizing to enjoy the beauty of it. We all enjoy the captivating nature, its colors and the melancholy tone attracts thousand of tourists to have a deep fragrance of its essence. Going through some parts of Europe, all what I have seen is various color of nature, sometime hypnotized me, sometime quite similar to my home land, The Bengal. The Green fields, the Yellow crops and light n Shade look of charming nature, comes in a different package, keeping its base same. If you look earth from a small flight (relatively smaller height), this looks something special. Blue ponds, sea, oceans and gray costs, light green - yellow crop fields, green forests and big trees make Earth kaleidoscopic. I keep on capturing everything in my camera.