Experiment!

  That was in May, when I was in my grandma's home in Sirsi. I normally spend couple of hours in the morning in areca plantation, each time I go there. 

  That day I was not in a mood lug around with my 300mm lens and hence I  decided to put my 50mm lens on the body and went for a walk. 

  If you are familiar with the areca plantations, you will very well know that there will be plenty of lizards in the plantation. By a bit careful approach they allow you to go closer and I tried something similar that day.

  Step by step I went close. I must have taken at least 10 min before I step further each time. Every step I go close I was getting a different perspective. I was clicking each time. Because of the sound of the shutter it went couple of feet above the tree. I bet he (it was a male!) would not have heard anything like that in his entire life! Not only him but any of his ancestors also most probably! :)




  As I was giving enough time for it to get used to my presence, it came back again. Now I was closer to him. Then decided to test his boldness! I slowly stretched my hand and through the tiny view inside the viewfinder I made sure that its complete body is placed inside the frame. As I was approaching in an angle, many a times the focus was at the tip of his mouth and the eye was going OOF. After a bit of adjustment finally I managed to get the eye in focus.  Then slowly taken my hands back! Status quo was maintained! I was happy!





  Then struck another idea - how about taking an image in the bottom up fashion! Sounded interesting! The challenge here was the exposure! The sky was bright and the subject was pretty dark and this time there was absolutely no way that I can see through the viewfinder! With the built-in flash there are only very few controls available and you cant bounce the light as well. Still decided to use the flash as just fill light, just to lit its underparts against the bright background. The problem with the Auto Focus(AF) engine is that, in the condition of high contrast, it ends up in focusing the brighter subject. Most of the time it was focusing to infinity (which was the bright sky)! Being not an AF-S (silent) lens, the focusing makes bit sound, which was of concern. Then after around eight to ten tries , tilting the wrist in such a way that the AF focuses on the nearer subject, and when the distance meter on the lens read that it has focused on the closer subject, I just stared clicking. After couple of frames, adjusted my hand a little and again clicked couple of frames.





   The one that you are seeing here was the very first frame and I got only two good frames out of six. 

 

  I sometimes force myself to use only 50mm and try to look the world around only through that. If I were having any other lens with me, I probably may get tempted and hence I would not carry any other lens on certain occasions. I get to learn a lot on those occasions. This one was just one of them.

  We should not hesitate experiment with the things. Its very easy to aspire for bigger and better equipments but the real challenge lies in showing our vision through our photographs with whatever equipment we have with us. The only way to put them for better use is by experimenting with them. Using them in some unconventional ways and try to come up with some really different images and trust me you dont have to have costly equipments with you to prove this one.

Apply thought!

Cheers,

Ash