Friday, 1 July 2016

New York City Cruise Tour

On my recent trip to New York, I embarked on the Circle Line cruise tour, with my colleagues. 

The tour started from Pier 83, which was located at West 42nd Street and 12th Avenue in Manhattan.

Circle line tours are quite popular as we could see tourists from all over the world flocked together on the cruise to get a glimpse of NYC, Manhattan and Brooklyn downtown in the summer afternoon. On top of it one gets to see the famous attractions like World Trade Center, New Empire State Building and of course, the most sought-after woman in the USA - Statue of Liberty. What more could you ask for?

So the hour-long trip started at around 4.30 pm in a beautiful sunny afternoon in May. The weather was pleasant with just a little hint of cold and the sun was not too bright - a perfect combination to click some good landscape photos.

The tour was specifically designed to quench the thirst of the hardcore tourist souls. Through the Hudson river, the cruise went on to pass by the famous architectures and provided enough time for all to be enthralled and click a piece of memory to take back. It also circled around the Liberty Island and went underneath the numerous over-the-water bridges in New York, Manhattan and Brooklyn area - most popular one being the Brooklyn Bridge obviously. For the ones attentive to minute details, a live commentary was arranged by the cruise authorities to present the historical facts and figures. 

It was a lazy afternoon, to be indulged into all sorts of activities, of which sailing and fishing were the prominent ones that I could notice. People were in no hurry, as they seemed to have left behind all their worries. Even the Seagulls seemed to be too relaxed. Undoubtedly an ambiance to soak in and enjoy.

The breath of fresh air, clubbed with a pint of beer was truly invigorating and probably many of us longed for the tour to not end soon, but all the good things do unfortunately. 

And so did the tour.

But happy and content enough, we proceeded for our next event of the evening, the team dinner, but that's for another post.

Snaps below.

Bridge:




Skyline 1:

Skyline 2:




Skyline 3:





Skyline 4:



Skyline 5:





The Approach:


The Statue of Liberty:




The Sun is always shining upon the lady:




The close up of the lady:






The Farewell:


The Macroism

A Macro is generally a magnified version of anything, usually tiny.

Off late I have been experimenting on this particular genre of  photography (the summer heat was also too much to go out). To see the little objects being enlarged is really interesting.

One needs particular equipments to click macro photographs such as extension tubes, macro lenses, reversed ring lens adapters, macro glass filters or dioptre filters etc.

Macro lenses always produce superior images and provide more ease of use compared to any other equipments but they are costlier as well and hence may not be affordable to all. The other options, however, with practice and patience, produce amazing results. I, myself have used an extension tube and a reversal ring for all my clicks.

When using an extension tube or a reversal ring, since usually there are no electrical connection between the lens and camera body, the shooting has to be done manually using manual focusing techniques. Also the Aperture becomes the lowest (f00) with perhaps the shallowest depth of field and can not be controlled because of no direct connectivity between the lens and the camera.

One needs to get too close to the object while shooting. It is advisable to use a tripod or a gorillapod as the slightest movement of the camera would mean losing the object in focus and readjust the camera. In case of a live object, the pain of shooting also gets magnified along with the object. But generally the results should complement the perseverance.

I reiterate (and emphasize) that a lot of practice and patience are required if you don't use a dedicated macro lens for clicking Macros. Even for Macro lenses, practice is a must as for good results, you have to invest time.

Specifications of the equipments that I have used:

Camera Body: Canon EOS 1100D
Lens: Canon EF-S Kit Lens (18 - 55 mm IS II) [For better results 50 mm prime lens is recommended]
Extension Tube: Diameter - 58 mm and Length - 49 mm (Make: Fotodiox)
Reversal Ring Lens Adapter: Diameter - 58 mm (Make: JJC)

All the photos were shot in RAW mode and post processed using Canon's proprietary Digital Photo Professional software.

Here are some of the results from my experiments, with the EXIF details (for all cases shooting was done with manual mode using manual focusing technique):

The Cell:

The head of one AAA battery.
Shutter Speed: 1/40
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 100
White Balance: Auto


The Chivas Regal:

Water droplets formation on a chilled bottle of the famous scotch.
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Circuit:

My Android phone's SIM Card slot.
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 200
White Balance: Auto



The Cumin Seeds:

Cumin seeds from the kitchen.
Shutter Speed: 1/30
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 200
White Balance: Auto



The Charger:

iPhone Charging Port.
Shutter Speed: 1/25
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Jack:

Standard 0.5 mm Jack of headphones/speakers.
Shutter Speed: 1/20
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Macro:

The picture says it all.
Shutter Speed: 1/20
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Queen:

The Queen of Hearts from a deck of cards.
Shutter Speed: 1/25
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Screen:

This is how our computer screens look like.
Shutter Speed: 1/20
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Cube:

Suger cubes from the Kitchen.
Shutter Speed: 1/20
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Match Sticks:

Ready to burn in the fire of life..hutter Speed: 1/25
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 400
White Balance: Auto



The Mosquito:

The house mosquito.
Shutter Speed: 1/40
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 125
White Balance: Auto



Windows:

Windows 7 Tag from my Laptop.
Shutter Speed: 1.6
Metering Mode: Evaluative Metering
ISO: 200
White Balance: Auto



That's all for today. Will come back with another episode with the Macros.