How to take photographs of lightning

Warning: Before you go out and start taking photographs of lightning, remember that a lightning hit on a human can be fatal. So, pl note these points before attempting so.

• Don't take refuge under a tree while there is lightning around.
• Don't be the tallest object in the area around you. There is a good probability of you getting hit as a lightning strike chooses the shortest distance it has to travel before hitting something.
• The best place to photograph lightning is not from the roof-top but from a balcony or a room which has an opening looking out. Stay inside such that there is always a roof over you and then point your camera towards the part of the sky where there is lightning.

So, this is what you have to do (one of the ways, not the only way) to get a good picture of a lightning strike.

• You need a tripod. You have to be really lucky if you are to get a good lightning photo without a tripod or the lightning strike has to be real long and bad!
• it is very difficult to see a strike and then press the shutter to photograph it. It happens too fast for us to react. So, go to Shutter Priority mode.
  
• Choose an appropriate shutter speed. If there is lot of lightning, then it is enough for the shutter to be open for a few second. In the cases above, the lightning was sporadic and hence i kept the shutter open for 30 seconds.
• Manually focus to infinity and leave the focusing mode at Manual.
• The press of the button to take the photograph may introduce a shake in the photograph. So, choose the self-timer option and leave it at 2-5 seconds. This will give the camera enough time to stabilize after the shutter release is pressed.
• That's it. Press the button, sit back, enjoy the lightning and your camera will capture it for you!

Living on the edge

Well, i don't want to spend an entire life living on the edge, but from time to time, such an experience is entertaining. If you are thrilled of heights or cliff edges, you have to go on this trek. in Cyprus. This one starts from Pissouri village and goes to an isolated beach. You can see more information and "on-the-edge" photos at the Cyprus Blog.

Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!

This is the situation in Cyprus. Even though Cyprus is a small island and you are less than a 100 kms from the sea in any direction, Cyprus is facing a water problem now. The Cyprus government has gone into crisis mode and is rationing water supplies much to the dislike of the citizens.
Now, people have started talking that Cyprus should have planned for desalination plants and should have foreseen such a crisis. I don't think there are even any plans for desalination plants. This water crisis will indirectly have an adverse effect on the tourism in Cyprus, though the government has promised not to ration the water in the tourist areas. But, most of the tourists don't just stay within the tourist areas. They rent apartments throughout the city limits and would definitely not be pleased to know that the hotel they are staying in would be rationing water! Why would i want to "store" water and do such regular-day chores on a vacation ?
There are also many other side effects to this problem. Read about them at the Cyprus Blog.

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The Cyprus Carnival Parade

The Annual carnival a big affair in Cyprus. It happens over a fortnight in Spring and ends with a long parade on the main road in Limassol, Makarios Avenue. The parade is a visual spectacle and is a good opportunity for photographers looking for colorful subjects!

For more photos from the carnival, check out the post on the Cyprus Blog.

Fun in the snow on Troodos

First trip to troodos this winter and it was great fun! It was too crowded, but we persisted and managed to find a parking place. Then, it was the usual dose of fooling around on the snow. This time, it was not just restricted to the sliding, but also a bit of target practice, reaching for the snowball with a kick!

See more pictures of even more crazy antics (and even a video) on the Cyprus Blog.

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A visit to Avakas Gorge in Cyprus

Avakas Gorge is a much smaller cousin of the grand canyon though there is nothing that it not grand about this place. We have been there many times in the past. A few weeks back, we rented a jeep to travel to Akamas peninsula and our first stop was at Avakas Gorge. See more photos of avakas gorge on the cyprus blog.

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A traditional cypriot house

We had been to Omodos village sometime back and we were given a tour of a traditional cypriot house with all the old tools and machines still intact. The condition of the photos, the items which were used by the current occupant's grandparents/great-grandparents were amazingly good. They even offered home-made wine for tasting. You can see more pictures of this house and also pictures of Omodhos village at the Cyprus Blog.

How not to feed fishes

If you had seen the photos and videos of the undersea walk we had done last week, you would have noticed that we were give pieces of bread to feed the fishes. In fact, this was the most fun part, as you get very close to the fishes as they eat out of your hand. But, there are always people who start to get unheard-of phobias just when they shouldn't happen. So, one of my friends (who went for the dive in another grp) in the video had mini-Ichthyophobia or for the layman, fishbitophobia! So, look at the video to learn how not to feed fishes.

A walk on the wild side

The weekend before last we decided to take it easy by going camping. This weekend, we decided to do something brave (at least for me). We went for an undersea walk, a walk on the sea floor feeding fishes, supposedly the only one of its kind in Europe! For more photos, videos and details, Visit the Cyprus Blog.

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A weekend in the tents

Had been camping over the last long weekend to Governor's beach, a short drive drive from Limassol. The beach is clean and the waters clear enough for snorkeling. Over the past few weeks, i have perfected the art of floating, though a close-up would clearly show that i am extremely nervous while I am attempting to float!

Go to the Cyprus Blog for more pictures from the camping trip.

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The Cyprus Invasion - Is Cyprus ready for war?

Breaking News: Read about it on the Cyprus Blog.

IKEA opens in Nicosia, Cyprus

IKEA is probably the biggest thing to happen in Cyprus since Souvlaki and Halloumi Cheese. The new Ikea store in Nicosia (next to the upcoming Mall of Cyprus) is big, very big, extremely big!

I had been to one Ikea store in San Jose before, but i went straight to the bulbs section, so i never realised that the store could be so big. If you are in the mood for a good walk, but the weather outside is not conducive, then all you have to do is to go inside Ikea in Nicosia and check out all the items on display. Yeah, you may burn a hole in your wallet, but you will , for sure, burn a lot of calories too!

The Cypriots are going gaga over this new store. Of course they have to, this is just too big for the cypriots! The shop opened on Friday and we were there yesterday and we had to wait outside the store for 15-20 mins, as the crowd was so big that they had to let people in, in batches.

We spent more than 3 hours inside the store and we came back home with lots of stuff, stuff not necessarily useful, but stuff that were so attractively displayed that Vidhya just wanted to buy them.

The prices currently are introductory ones and they are very reasonable compared to other shops in Cyprus. So, go on, have a picnic in Ikea!

Update: I have already been to IKEA two times and it is a wonderful place to spend time and I always end up buying some stuff or the other. If you are driving from Limassol, take the roundabout when Nicosia (don't go over the bridge, but under it to the roundabout), then take the last exit (turn right) and then turn left at the first roundabout. You will then reach the backside of IKEA where you will find signs to reach the parking.

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Limassol Wine Festival 2007

The annual wine festival held in Limassol, Cyprus is going to start the coming Friday (August 24th) and will go on for a fortnight. This is a good opportunity for one and all to taste all the local wines. If you are a teetotaller, you can do lot of other things. The opening ceremony will give you a good opportunity to take photographs of fireworks if you position yourself properly on the pier close to the old port. You can also win lot of prizes in the various games which are organised in the municipal gardens where the wine festival is held. Keep watching the Cyprus Blog for updates and photographs from the wine festival.

Btw, i visited the wine festival on the opening day. You can find the photographs on the Cyprus Blog.

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"Atlas Jet" plane hijacked from Northern Cyprus to Istanbul

The plane was not hijacked from the southern free part of Cyprus, but from the occupied Northern part also known as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Atlas jet was travelling from Ercan Airport in Northern Cyprus to Istanbul when it was hijacked. The hijackers wanted the plane to fly to Tehran, Iran, but the plane landed in Antalya in Turkey to refuel. The latest news is that most of the passengers have escaped from the plane unhurt.
Cyprus, a country probably unheard of outside Europe, is gaining prominence in the world. First it was Marcos Baghdatis and now it is this plane hijack. If you are from outside Cyprus and worried about visiting Southern Cyprus and feel conerned about this hijack, don't worry! it is very difficult for some one to carry out a hijack on a plane from Southern Cyprus, the airports here are amazingly efficient.

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Euro-Mediterranean Dance Festival in Limassol

Been in Cyprus for more than six years and i have never been to any folk dance festivals until now. A BIG mistake! I went yesterday to the 2nd Euro Mediterranean Folk dance festival being held in Limassol currently.

There were participants from many European countries including Serbia, Belgium and Greece. It was one of the best dance shows i have ever seen. The show went on for a little more than 2 hours and the crowd enjoyed every minute of it. The elaborate costumes and the well choreographed dance sequences were too good not to be captured on a photo.

For more photographs (lot of them), go to the Cyprus Blog.

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6 tips to take great photographs at music concerts

The Bryan Adams concert here in Limassol was my first music concert ever. So, it is obvious that it was my first ever attempt at taking photographs at one. Prior to this, i had attempted to take photographs of musicians on dimly-lit stages during the various festivals which happen here in Cyprus and needless to say, the outcomes were not so good. So, this time, i did a lot of ground work and i was happy with the photographs of the concert. So, i decided to pen down few tips which might help anyone take good photographs at such concerts.

• Avoid using Compact Cameras, the point and shoot type. They are slow to start up, slow between photographs and have a shutter-lag. Even the latest point and shoot cameras suffer from these drawbacks. If you want good photographs, go the SLR way. Better still, go for a digital SLR so that you can immediately check whether the photo you captured is good enough for your liking.
• Use High ISO. Most of the concerts would have sections of the stage well-lit, but the rest of the area would be dark. There will always be some kind of a spotlight on the artistes on stage. But this light is not enough to get a good exposure. So, use a higher ISO to get a good picture in spite of the little light. Avoid ISO 1600 as it can get too grainy. But, take many practice shots to get the exposure you like. A high ISO would help you get photographs like the one below where you can see the lights from the all the mobile phone cameras in use.

  

• Use Shutter Priority Mode. I have had good success with Shutter Priority mode on many low-lit situations. You can customise the shutter speed based on your capability to hold the camera still. Using the program mode will make the camera try to get the best possible picture and in most cases (for concerts), the shutter will be opens for many seconds! Override this and use shutter priority. The Big Ben photo below was shot from a running open-top bus. I used a shutter speed of around 1/20s (don't remember exactly) and ISO 1200.

  

• Use a Zoom Lens, unless you are a good friend of the rockstar and manage to get a seat on the stage. Of course, not having a zoom lens would give a different perspective of the concert like the first photo below. I carried both the 18-70 and the 70-300 lenses with me and i switched them from time to time to take different views. From the first photo, you can kind-of guess where i was seated - far away from the stages and yet, with the zoom lens (and some cropping), I managed to get some decent close-ups of Bryan Adams.

  

• Don't use Matrix Metering. If you don't understand what I am saying, then it is time you take out your manual and look up on this. Matrix metering will work for many landscape shots but will mostly fail in concert shots where a small section is brightly lit and the rest are almost pitch-dark. Switch to Spot Metering and meter for the person whom you want to take (if you want to get the rockstar in focus).

  

• Obviously, Flash is useless. Ok, in some situations I am wrong. When you want to take a photo of yourself standing in front of the dimly-lit stage, you need to switch to the night-portrait mode or if you don't have one, manually enable the flash so that you are also well-lit. But, in other situations when you want to take the photo of a far-away rockstar on a stage, a flash is useless as it can light up, probably a few feet away from you. Worse still, if you have any object close to you, it will show up in your photograph in deathly-white. When i was in egypt, i had been to the sound-and-light show at the pyramids (first photo below). At that time, i had the "relatively ordinary" Nikon Coolpix 2500. I put in on a tripod, disabled the flash and let the camera decide its own exposure and I got pretty decent pictures. There were people around me pointing their cameras at the pyramids and shooting in auto mode with the flash. All they would have got is the chair in front of them with a white colouring!

  

Even if you follow these tips, you might not get it right the first time. So, practice a lot (another reason to move to Digital-SLR cameras) when the local artist comes on stage before the main act. Find the correct exposure (shutter speed/ISO) needed to get a decent image of the rockstar.

Hope you find these tips useful. Feel free to add more in the comments. Would also love to hear about your shooting experiences in music concerts.

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A trip to the Shipwreck near Limassol

The most famous shipwreck in Cyprus is the Xenobia Shipwreck. You can take a submarine trip to see the Xenobia Shipwreck. But, this post is not about this shipwreck. It is about another small one located very close to Limassol off the coast of Akrotiri village. Below is one photo of the wreck. If you want to see more photos, go over to the Cyprus Blog.

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Kelefos Bridge in Cyprus

Kelefos Bridge is a medieval/venetian bridge by the Kelefos river located in the mountains of Pafos in Cyprus. This is a very scenic place ideal for an afternoon picnic. I went there last weekend. It was terribly hot in Limassol. So, i was more than ready when Puneeth asked us to accompany him on a drive to the mountains. In fact, it was also drizzling a bit in troodos and the nearby mountains, something unheard of, in the cyprus summers.

I took lot of photographs including, for the first time, photos of crabs and some insects floating on the water. To see more photographs of this beautiful place, go to my post on the Cyprus Blog.

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EU Laws for safety equipments in private cars

Yet another disadvantage of Cyprus joining EU! EU laws state that even private vehicles including your car and mine have to have first aid kits, warning triangles, fire extinguishers and fluorescent jackets. Just as is the trend in Cyprus, various departments in the government have totally different interpretations of the law.

According to the Nicosia Police Department, "The law does exist, but that it only affects public use vehicles, such as buses and taxis, which are required to carry first aid kits and fire extinguishers." According to the Cyprus Automobile Association, "private vehicles were also affected, but were only required to carry safety triangles".

It seems that having all four items is an EU law that has been around for several years, and that the police have the right to ask the owner of any parked car permission to search for them. So, to avoid paying the 60 Cyprus pounds fine, never ever park your car in any parking lot, as the law applies to only parked cars. As long as the engine is running, you can always argue that the car was not parked and is in fact moving forward at the rate of few millimetres an hour.

I am sure that Cyprus, as with any other law, would introduce an customisation in the EU law, stating that as an additional safety feature, the driver of the car should know to shout "help" and "stop" in greek, so as to safely come out of situations which require the help of locals.

But, I am not worried as i already have all the required safety features

• We have an old almost empty bottle of amurtanjan in our dashboard, which qualifies as a first aid medicine. If the police questions questions me on this, i shall give him a bit to apply and then explain that it burns so much that you would forget the rest of the pain you have.
• Warning triangle is not a problem, as i have the entire cricket kit in the boot if my car. I have enough bats and stumps to even form a warning hexagon behind the car. In fact, any other local driving past would definitely stop, as they would have never seen any cricket equipment in the past.
• I always keep a bottle of water in my car which according to latest scientific research done by the American Fire-Safety board is the best way to extinguish fires.
• My friends from the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh (in India) had gifted me a t-shirt for my birthday few years back. Even after many washes, it still retains the fluorescent colour, as it was so bright and clourful when i received it. I shall make it a point to always keep this in my car.

So, you also better be prepared with all the safety equipments or be ready to shell out 60 pounds.

Source: Cyprus Mail

Bryan Adams concert in Limassol, Cyprus

We are going to the Bryan Adams concert, supposed to be the biggest ever concert staged in Cyprus. The concert is being held tonight at the Tsirion Stadium near the Limassol Highway. This is my first ever live concert. Vidhya tells me that she is a big fan of his music and there is no way we could have missed this concert. The only time i have listened to live music was during the Rock Shows back in Pilani. I have never survived the loud music for more than 15 minutes. Lets see how this concert turns out. Hope to take some photos. If i do manage, i shall post them early next week.

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Volleyball Collage using the Burst Mode in Nikon D-70

The Volleyball event is currently going on. After having been eliminated in the first round, i had nothing else to do but to take photographs. Below is a collage (Not exactly a collage, but a layering of different photos) of photos taken with the burst mode. I put 5 photos on top of each other in photoshop and deleted sections of the them such they give a continuous feeling to the action. Wish i had captured one more in the sequence where the person takes the service. Today is the final and I am going to attempt to take a long sequence.

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Extremecy - Cyprus x-games

Extremecy event happened over the weekend in Limassol. It included all kinds of shows and competitions for bikers, skateboarders and people attempting anything else which normally sane people wouldn't attempt. I somehow forgot about this event, as i had also last year and ended up watching only the closing stages yesterday where some skateboarders were fooling around on the ramp. Below are some photographs taken by Puneeth who had been there earlier in the day.

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