~* I d e a s f o r L i f e *~

Happy Holidays!

posted by mErCuRiAn @ 11:20 PM 0 comments

My Arsenal of Photography

Now that I've completely given into photography, I decided to look back in time. I began collating all cameras in my immediate family and ended up with a mini museum. Here's the list:

Rolleiflex 2.8F
Year of Manufacture: 1960s
Film Type: 120mm, Medium Format, 12 exposures
Focussing: Manual, TLR
Frame Advance: Manual Winding
Exposure Control: Aperture size, Shutter speed, optional external flash.
Comment: Though I am yet to see the Rolleiflex 2.8F in flesh-and-blood, my dad tells me it is somewhere safe in the house.

Agfa Click III
Year of Manufacture: 1978
Film Type: 120mm, Medium Format, 12 exposures
Focussing: Fixed Focus
Frame Advance: Manual Winding
Exposure Control: Three modes (Daylight, Cloudy, Indoors/Night)
Comment: My parents' wedding gift. Working as good as new!

Minolta Freedom AF 35
Year of Manufacture: 1989
Film Type: 35mm, 36 exposures
Focussing: Autofocus
Frame Advance: Automatic
Exposure Control: Auto-flash with red-eye reduction
Comment: Working fine despite taking several crashes and abuse.

Canon Prima DX Junior
Year of Manufacture: 1995
Film Type: 35mm, 36 exposures
Focussing: Fixed Focus (32mm,1:5.6)
Frame Advance: Automatic
Exposure Control: Auto-flash with red-eye reduction, Manual override
Comment: My first camera. Not used much, just a couple of rolls. The Minolta never gave it a chance!

D-Link DSC-350F
Year of Manufacture: 2002
Film Type: CMOS Sensor, 0.3 mega pixels, 8MB internal memory, non-expandable
Focussing: Auto Focus
Frame Advance: N/A
Exposure Control: Auto-flash with red-eye reduction, manual override, sunny, cloudy, indoor, and macro modes.
Comment: Software malfunctioning after a crash. D-Link has stopped manufacturing this model.

Sony Handycam CCD-TRV-460E
Year of Manufacture: 2004
Film Type: CCD Sensor, 8mm Digital8 tape, MemoryStick Pro/Duo
Focussing: Autofocus with 20x optical zoom, with manual override
Frame Advance: N/A
Exposure Control: Auto with full manual override.
Comment: Working great. Helped me get some good footage of SpeedRun 2005.

Nikon F75
Year of Manufacture: 2005
Film Type: 35mm, 36 frames
Focussing: Autofocus with manual override
Lense(s): Tamron AF 28-105 1: f/4-5.6 & Tamron AF 70-300 1:f/4-5.6 LD Macro (1:2)
Frame Advance: Automatic
Exposure Control: Auto-Multi Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, Landscape, Portrait, Night Portrait, Sports, Multiple Exposure, Exposure Compensation, Exposure Bracketing, Multiple-Frame, Auto-flash, Front-sync flash, Rear-sync flash, and Red-eye reduction.
Comment: My baby!

posted by mErCuRiAn @ 10:29 PM 1 comments

The Moon

Got a super zoom picture of the moon. Here it is.



To get this picture, I used a Sigma telephoto AF Zoom 1000mm lens, which I brought today - making it the newest piece in my photography arsenal. Ok, I'm kidding. Although the result would lead many to believe that I have a 1000mm telephoto zoom, this photo was, indeed, clicked using my Sony Handycam, which features a 20x optical and 990x digital zoom. Cool, ain't it?

posted by mErCuRiAn @ 1:30 AM 2 comments

Yellow, Brown, and a lot of Green

Sorry for the misleading title. I can't think of a better title for my new set of photographs. They were clicked so randomly that they fail to fall under a theme. What started as a trip to Pune ended with me getting extremely trigger-happy in Vashi. All in less than an week.

Several shots in this roll were experimental in nature, which included playing with depth-of-field, under exposing, and over exposing shots. I expected at least a couple of discards. Surprisingly, all of them came out well. I guess the electronic analog exposure meter of the Nikon F75 ain't that correct, after all. Or may be it is the Kodak Gold 200.

Here are the pics, enjoy!

Ice Candy Shop (Gola wala)


Gulmohar Leaves


To view othe pictures, click here.

posted by mErCuRiAn @ 11:14 AM 1 comments

A Stab At Organizing The Human Race

A few days back, an interesting thought crossed my mind. I wondered who my great-great-grand father was, where he lived, what he did for a living, and who consisted of his family. Essentially, I was trying to dig up my family tree. Then, I realized, as with most families, the historic record of my family tree only extends to a couple of generations.

In retrospective, I began wondering how I could provide these answers to my future generations - when I will be a great-great-grand father and dead. I realized that the answers to my question lies in our genetic build up - the unique DNA finger print we are born with.

I imagined a world where DNA finger printing would be as compulsory as a blood test. When a child is born, he/she would be finger printed and the "finger print" would go into a central, world repository. Linking the finger print data with other data, such as the name, date of birth, sex, address, would help identify every person - living or dead. Not only would this method help identify the owner of the DNA finger print, but also his/her parents and even grand parents!

Crime scenes would no longer have to rely on standard evidence. An analysis of blood, semen, or even a hair strand could convict the culprit by just matching it with the finger prints database. Over a period of time, genetic patterns or trends would be established to identify a DNA to its gene pool. This would allow us to identify a person's roots quiet effortlessly.

To further complement my idea, I googled and found out that something like this had already crossed the minds of some great bio-scientists. These scientists carried out a project they call The Human Genome Project and completed it in 2003. Although the project was aimed at mapping the entire human genome consisting of approximately 20,000-25,000 different genes, analysis of this data continues till date. For more info on the project, click here.

Sounds far fetched, but this technology could well be used to make the world a safer place. It could be used for commercial interests, proving relations, convicting the accused, and acquitting the innocent. After all, it’s not such a bad idea to have a database of all human beings! But nature always has its way. Being so complex, nature will always be a couple of hundred yards ahead of our so-called scientific advances!

posted by mErCuRiAn @ 4:30 PM 0 comments