It’s always great to capture all those memorable moments with your camera for every family outing, birthday party or any other events.  Unless you own unlimited disk storage, you will notice that you will run out of space sooner or later, especially if you take high resolution pictures. You might choose to regularly back up your pictures on DVDs but it is always nice to have a copy of them right onto your computer for quick viewing, isnt it?

I am sure that only a few of you probably need to keep the original high resolution pictures but we all like to have the best quality shots so that we can later edit them (and crop them). So, I needed a (free) software which could batch resize all the pics, looping through all of my folders. After a quick search, I found out that IrfanView was the best suited software to do my job.

Here are the steps, once you have installed the software :

With the above resizing, an image file of roughly 1 or 1.5MB can be compressed down to 100-200Kb. Just imagine how much space you will be saving

You have perhaps noticed that I have selected the option (6) to delete the original pictures and save the resized pictures in a different folder. At the end of the conversion, the original folder will contain only those files which could not be edited. Examples might be videos files.

I can now overwrite the original folder with the one containing the resized files. Since the resized folder contains exactly the same sub folders, the resized pictures will be moved (or copied) to the original location. Your videos files will still be there.

I highly advise you to do a test first or you might end screwed up if you find that you lost some of your files. You can also choose to do a back up first before launching the batch resize. A back up which you can delete after verifying the results.

If you liked this post, feel free to like and share it among your friends. And come back soon

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Welcome back to yashvinblogs.com !

My advice was sought so many times on this particular subject. Just like the article about Ebay shopping in Mauritius, I hope that this article will bring some more light into your lives

Some months ago, owning a DSLR (Digital single-lens reflex) camera was considered as a privilege, reserved for the rich ones. Mauritians can now acquire the entry level camera D3000 for as low as Rs20, 000 (VAT inclusive). DSLRs are now part of our daily life, they are now everywhere…

Impressed by the wonderful shots captured by Mauritians around us, many among us are tempted to go for a camera but unfortunately, we end up asking ourselves if investing all of our savings in a good camera will really be worth. After all, we are talking about spending over 20k, at least to start with the basic camera and lens.

As a student, it is kindda difficult to go to your parents and convince them by saying “Pa/Ma, mo envie aster 1 camera Rs20, 000″ or even as an independent person, spending thousands of bucks on a camera is quite a big deal.

Today, I am writing this article with one main point in mind : A LIMITED BUDGET, putting myself in your shoes.

Features you should look for

Let’s forget about the small compact or the bulky camera for a few minutes…

If you want to step into digital photography, you should start avoiding to switch your camera to the “Automatic” mode. Instead, you should progressively learn how to control the amount of light and the time duration during which the light enters the camera, the sensitivity among others. Technically, you will be playing with the Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO settings. Hopefully, I might come up with detailed articles to demonstrate each of these mentioned words very soon. [Update : It seems that I already wrote something about some of the points above, have a look at this post]

So, while choosing a camera, you should make sure that you can control/have on the camera :

• Aperture
  It is a measure for the wideness of the lens opening, thus controlling the amount of light entering the camera.
• Shutter Speed
  The amount of time during which light is allow to enter the camera’s sensor. You will need shutter speeds of several seconds in order to be able to shoot trailing lights along roads while you will need extremely short shutter speed if you want to shoot water droplets.
• ISO
  The sensitivity of the camera’s sensor.
• Viewfinder
  The small opening at the back of the camera which allows you to view what you are shooting.
• Built in flash
• Image stabilization/Vibration Reduction.
  This one helps in low light conditions.
• Macro mode
  This mode allows you to shoot much closer to the object as in normal mode.
  A side note : a normal basic camera lens of a DSLR (Nikorr 18-55 VR for example) has a minimum shooting distance of about 0.28m, i.e. the camera will not focus on objects which lie under that distance. My 70-300 Tamron lens allows me to shoot at 1.5m in normal mode while in macro mode, I can be at a nearest distance of 0.9m only from my subject.
• Memory Card and reader
  You should get a memory card of a decent size. 2GB might be the minimum nowadays. A memory card reader is optional here but do note that transfer speeds are usually higher if you connect your card to your computer using a reader.

Remember, do not fight over the number of megapixels. I don’t think that most of you will be printing your shots for your family album or even posting billboard-sized printouts.

Optionally, you can go for the following features:

• Recording Movies
  You should not forget that you are looking for a camera to make photos. If you really want to shoot video, go for a camcorder instead, it might offer more options for a lower price!
• Live View
  The live view allows you to see what you are shooting using the LCD at the back of the camera, just like in compact (point and shoot) cameras. However, do take note that in Live View mode, things turn out to be much slower, focusing can turn out to be a real pain.
• RAW
  Cameras usually save the processed images in JPEG Format. On the other hand, a RAW shot contains all the data captured when the shot was taken. This allows the photographer to access unprocessed values, thus modifying them at his will.
• Time lapse/Interval shooting
  This feature allows you to automatically take a shot at a regular interval. You can then turn these sequence of images into a nice movie like the one I have here.
• Continuous shooting
  Ever pressed the shutter button 1/2 a second before the actual time? In continuous shooting mode, the camera can take several shots per second when the button is pressed.
• Spare Rechargeable batteries
  The recent cameras now come with rechargeable batteries, specifically designed for the camera model. It costs less than AA or AAA alkaline batteries or even, rechargeable AA/AAA batteries and I believe that they might be more effective for camera use.

Should you really wait for the latest model?

Do you (or your parents) wait for the latest BMW or Mercedes model to be announced so that you can go to purchase it?

Unless you already own a camera, I do not advise anyone to wait for some camera model to be announced for a few reasons :

• You do not really need to the latest camera model to learn photography.
• You probably won’t find any difference between a camera offering a video mode of 720p or 1024p, except for the price. As I said, you are most probably looking to buy a camera for still photography not for shooting videos.
• New stuffs usually cost more and the price of previous models will be most probably reviewed.

And finally, by the time this new item is onto the shelves in Mauritius, another model can probably be announced by either the same manufacturer or a competitor.

Will you wait for that new one to be available too?

So, if anyone advises you to wait for a new model to be announced and you are especially tight on budget, you know what you should do.

And what zoom should I go for ?

Everyone dreams of a camera which can shoot as close as a few cms to get the minute details of an insect’s eyes and also, do some paparazzi work in order to grab a nice portrait of a “zoli 35″ sitting 500meters away, using the same camera and lens.

Unfortunately, we live in a real world and these are rarely possible with limited budget. Point and shoot cameras usually offer a 3-5x zoom and may additionally offer digital zoom, which is completely useless in a digital camera. On the other hand, zoom on DSLRs depends on the lens attached to it. The most common basic kit lens offered with cameras nowadays are about 3x. You can read more about this in an article in which I demonstrate and talk about the power of lenses.

If you are really planning to invest into a DSLR, I would highly recommend you to spend a few thousand bucks for a higher zoom lens instead of the basic 18-55 lens, just as I did a few months ago.

My 18-55 VR lens for sale

As I just mentioned, I went for a 18-105 lens recently. Since then, my kit lens, a nikkor 18-55mm VR lens is carefully packed and stored, waiting for someone to take it away. A similar unused lens usually costs around Rs6k in Mauritius and around $150 on ebay (shipping, customs charge included).

I can offer my lens at half the price or even less. It comes together with a free UV Filter and a free lens hood. So, instead of buying a camera with a brand new 18-55 lens, you can go for mine at a much cheaper price. Feel free to contact me.

The last words…

Bridge cameras are usually more interesting. They are available at very affordable prices while offering more or less the same features of a DSLR. The zoom on these cameras can go up to 20x and I can tell you that 20x on a DSLR costs a lot of money, I really mean A LOT!

For info, I previously owned a 5MP second hand bridge camera before I took the decision to invest into my D5000 camera. You should also keep in mind that if you go for a DSLR, that might not be your final purchase. After nearly 1 year, I ended up spending twice the initial amount allocated to photography. Photography is a costly hobby, so be careful in your setting your budget.

To end this article, I will advise you to go for something within your budget because at the end of the day, you are the one paying, not the guy who’s asking you to wait for a model which has not yet been announced.

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Il valait la peine de se réveiller   3heures du mat et prendre la direction de la “Montagne Signaux” afin de faire des photos de la ville et aussi du levée du soleil. Environ 500 photos ont été nécessaires afin de monter la vidéo qui suit.

Ces photos ont été prises à des intervalles de 2 ou 5 ou 10 secondes. Vous avez peut être reconnu Les Beatles avec leur tube “Here comes the sun”. Rien de mieux pour donner une touche musicale à ce week-end.

Bon weekend, et n’oubliez pas, restez branchez sur yashvinblogs.com

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What can be the most pleasing thing other than a nice compliment onto your photographs?

However, it can be quite challenging to praise a good shot without making use of the traditional words : “nice, wonderful, great, beautiful, belle, superbe, zoli, awesome, lovely, gorgeous, excellent, good work, artistic” and thousand other adjectives. As you may notice, you might very soon run out of original ways to express the feelings behind the shots.

Since a few days, I have been noting down some of the most widely used phrases across my Facebook pages and when you put everything altogether, it gives these interesting cloud tags :

(CLICK on them to enlarge)

Feel free to share and like this article on Facebook!

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It may sound fairly easy to add your watermark(logo or name) onto 1 or 2 pics but how will you achieve this if you have to share 100 or 200 pictures? You may have your own technique, but let me show you mine, just discovered this feature a week ago on Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Today, I will be using  the “Actions” of Photoshop CS2 to add a watermark and also resize the image before uploading it to Facebook for example.

Step 1

Open an image and click on the small icon to open the small window shown.

Step 2

Then type in the name of the action, here defined as “Resize-Watermark”.

Step 3

All actions performed on photoshop will now be recorded. Once done, these actions can be replayed on one or a set of pictures for executing the exact actions.

As you can see above, the “Record” button has been activated.

Step 4

Now, you can add a text layer onto your picture. Additionally, you can change its position or style it.

Step 5

Above, the picture is being resized to a width of 720pixels. All these actions will be recorded accordingly.

Step 6

After you are done with the modifications, you can now click on the stop icon. So, here ends the initial set up/recording of our action(s).

Applying the watermarks and resizing (Actions) to other images.

Now, your life is going to be so easy!

Let’s say for example, you have a folder full of pictures that need watermarking and resizing before the uploading process onto Facebook.

Step 7

Go to “FILE > SCRIPTS > IMAGE PROCESSOR”

Step 8

If you wish to process files from 1 specific folder or images that are currently opened in the Photoshop workspace, this is where you should select the right image source.

Step 9

Choose the action you recorded earlier

Step 10

Click “Run”.

That’s all

No more additional steps required.

You might now witness a matrix-like effect during which the pictures will be rapidly opened and processed. These pictures will be saved at the location specified in the previous window. After all the processing is done, you can have a look at them.

You want a preview of the results?

All the shots displayed on the Infotech blog post were watermarked and resized using the same technique. As you can see, all the watermarks are exactly positioned at the same location.

Whether you have 1 or 100 pics, it will now take a few seconds to get everything digitally signed

This technique has been tested on Adobe Photoshop CS2. I haven’t tested on other versions but it might work. Anybody, please confirm.

I am sure that some of you might have other techniques as well, do you? Please share how you do it and also, don’t hesitate to share this blog post with others

Thank you for your visit

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After uploading a pic a few minutes ago onto my flickr page, the following appeared :

New page layout

Flickr has worked out a new photo page which is much more nicer. Here’s how the new layout looks like :

Current page layout

And the same picture :

As you noticed, some big changes : The picture is now larger, use of lightbox to display picture when pressing keyboard shortcut “f”. For more details about all changes, go here. (Launched yesterday)

I chose to switch to the new design immediately. You can browse my flickr for viewing some of the best shots I take and for the regular picture uploads, you can always keep tuned to my wordpress customized photoblog at http://www.yashvin.net/

Have a nice weekend everyone

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Digital cameras do not have unlimited life, as most of us believe… They will die someday, just like any one of us.

We all know the limitations of the old cameras among which is the film roll capacity, 12/24/36… Only the most important moments were captured on the film and later processed. However, with the invention of digital cameras and larger memory cards, everything changed… Many of us click at anything.

Yeah, absolutely ANYTHING that comes in front of our eyes!

Counting the number of clicks…

Just like human’s have a average life expectancy, let’s say 80 years, cameras have one too; determined by the number of actuations. That’s the number of pictures you shoot with your camera.

Before continuing any further, let me bring one precision. By saying that the camera is dead, I actually mean the Shutter Unit. For the sake of simplicity, the shutter unit opens to allow light to enter the sensor for a definite time (shutter speed). Hence, each time you press the button, that’s one actuation.

Each camera model has it own average shutter life expectancy. [check yours here or just google it].
For example, the Nikon D5000 has an average of 100,000 shots.

However, that number is only an estimate. Your camera can and will probably hold for a much higher number!

Rest in peace…

Once the ‘camera’ dies, the shutter unit can actually be replaced by professionals. However, it takes long (perhaps years) to shoot those thousands of pictures and when it actually dies, it would be most probably time to upgrade your camera. And it might also not be worthy to replace it, depending on the value of your camera.

Henceforth, I will be using my d5000 more intelligently… Thinking before shooting to get the best result instead of shooting loads unnecessarily… And you should adopt the same technique too, if you care for your camera shutter unit!

I guess that most of you were not aware about this fact, am I right?

So, now you got another additional reason to keep tuned to yashvinblogs.com for more informative posts!

Join my facebook fan page or get these posts directly into your email!

The End…

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For most people, the first thing which comes to their mind when thinking about a camera is “How much megapixels does it have”? I was among those people too until I discovered that the number of megapixels does not really matter.

I guess that you are not here to learn the definition. Today, I will again share some of my knowledge acquired since the last months while practicing photography as a hobby. You may or may not agree with what I have written below but please do feel free to share any valuable data. btw, this article is intended for photography newbies.

A few years ago, they did weigh a lot before you make your final choice about your future camera or mobile phone. Most of the newer mobiles phones nowadays have a 2MP or + built in camera. And cameras? The simplest point and shoot cameras now have more than 6-8MP while Nikon’s latest entry level cameras like the D3000 and D5000 can shoot at a maximum of 10.2MP and 12.3 MP respectively.

Getting a nice shot

Unfortunately, shooting with a 24MP camera will not get you a nice image… Else everyone would be walking with huge cameras and boasting about being a ‘professional’ photographer.

You probably heard it loads of time, nevertheless I will repeat it again… The higher number of MP a camera has, does not make better images. It is just a lie and a misunderstanding which I hope will be cleared out after going through this post.

One needs to play with various factors first which are lightning conditions, the subject, depth of field, exposure among others. And above all, the Photographer and his skills!

Needs for shooting with a larger MP?

You probably need to shoot at the highest megapixel settings of your camera when :

• You will need to get a large print out of the shot for example on bill boards
• You will display that shot on a HUGE screen
• You will crop some important portion of the image without losing quality

Feel free to share any additional points here.

The chart

Technically, a picture shot at 2MP should look fine on a 4×6″ paper when printed.

Here’s a small table to give you an idea :

So, the next time you shoot a picture using your 3MP mobile phone, you can have a fairly good print out of 6.82″ x 5.12″ ( 17.32cm x 13cm).

More Megapixels = Bigger file size

Unfortunately, this is the bitter truth if you are always shooting at the maximum MP.  Personally, I rarely shoot using the 12MP that my D5000 can offer.

Let’s keep this section simple.
Below are the approximate size of pictures shot at Normal JPEG quality :

4288×2848 – L  - 3.0MB
3216×2136 – M – 1.7MB
2144×1424 – S   – 0.8MB

Most of us already curse our internet connectivity daily… Uploading a 0.8MB file will be more quicker than a 3MB one, isn’t it? On the top of that, most of us will upload them to Facebook which will in turn compress that picture, hence losing much details.

Months or years later, you will notice your available disk space running low! Why? Because the larger pictures are taking more than 3 times space than the smaller ones! And you will probably never need to print those pictures…

So, the next time you gonna click, think about how you gonna use and store that shot and keep in mind, better images does not necessarily mean bigger images…

Anyone wants to share some words about their experience or camera? Even mobile phone camera owners will do! Feel free!

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The group members organized quite a few events in the past (Catamaran, 24/7 night out, Shooting in Port Louis among others)  and today, we met Chez Pepe, Flic en Flac for lunch. 25 members turned up at the restaurant at around 1230… There was loads of things we talked about, for example photography, photography and photography. We tried to discuss about other things like photography and photography. Do I need to say that people around us most probably talked about photography too, lol!

I felt a bit “shy” with my 18-55mm lens when I was among those holding huge lens. One of the most amazing lens is the first one in the picture below : a 70-300mm lens which all of us had the opportunity to hold and shoot a few pics. Wow, it weighted so much but the weight does not really matter once you start playing with it

This part of the beach was crowded with girls and boys holding their big DSLRs and shooting everything which moved around…  Even the static objects were not spared!

Sorry to people out there in case you felt that we were a group of paparazzi!

Leave all of you here, I will upload my shots later tomorrow (hopefully).

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Après la première édition à Port Louis, suivie de celle à Rose Hill, la HRDC a donné rendez vous à tous les mauriciens dans le village touristique de Grand Baie depuis hier et jusqu’à  demain, le 20 décembre 2009.

Enorme embouteillage sur l’autoroute, la file de voitures continuait à perte de vue! Heureusement, la route de Triolet à Grand Baie n’était pas si encombrée car après une dizaine de minutes d’attente, j’ai pu rejoindre la route cotière et garer ma voiture quelques centaines de mètres du poste de la garde cote nationale.

A noter que les véhicules n’étaient pas autorisés de circuler de ce poste (ex-poste de police) jusqu’à l’autre bout de Grand Baie (très probablement près du centre de conférence).

La foule a répondu présent, comme toujours! Presque tous les magasins de cette partie du village sont restés ouverts et les marchands ambulants ont profité de l’aubaine pour écouler leurs produits, principalement les fast foods.

Quelques photos :

Plus loin, des centaines de gens assistaient à  un mini concert avec la participation de plusieurs artistes.

Quant aux pirogues, dizaines d’entre eux étaient dans l’eau et décorées avec des flambeaux.

Après presque deux heures dans cette ambiance de fête, j’ai pris le chemin du retour.

J’étais un peu déçu par le comportement de certaines personnes, notamment de cette femme qui hurlait à  l’arrière de sa voiture, bloquée dans la circulation :

“Ki couyonade sa, ene ferfoute pas pu marser!”

Je n’arrive toujours pas à comprendre ce que pourra bien faire plaisir à  ces gens. Curieux, beaucoup de mauriciens se déplacent pour vivre cette nouvelle expérience et ainsi participer à cette initiative de la HRDC afin d’étendre les heures d’activité de l’économie mauricienne. Les autorités essaient de faire le maximum pour assurer la sécurité des gens et je dirais qu’ils sont impuissants face aux milliers de voitures convergeant vers Grand Baie.

Si seulement cette femme avait garé sa voiture un peu plus loin, cela aurait certainement contribué à une meilleure fluidité de la circulation. Et si tout le monde en faisait autant?

Je me demandes bien si elle se rendra à la prochaine événement “24/7″.

Très probablement oui et elle y seras en voiture, encore une fois.

Et finalement, “note to myself” :  Je ne suis pas encore très habile avec mon camera, surtout la nuit.

Qui était aussi à Grand Baie?

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