He was Simple... He was Adorable ... I Loved him

My little hamy passed away this evening... I think he suffered so much in the past 3 days. Today he was suffering so much and I wanted him to die sooner some how. I some how managed him a better death ... And I weeped like a child... I loved him so much. He deserved atleast some rolls of my tears.. I knew him better than how much I know about many people here. He never gave me pain other than for once when he bit me - long back on the very next day I bought him. If animals can be in heaven I wish my hamy in heaven. Making every one smile and adore him there also. May he rest in peace forever. Even when he died he was cute and soft like a fur ball which made me weep more!  

Please refer to my post on Jan 2008 for those who don't know who is Hamy! 

Light and Exposure ...

Ayeeee .... here it comes... at the speed of 3lac km/second - yes ideally in the vaccum ofcourse - LIGHT... what a wonderful thing to have; have you ever imagined a world without ligt, something like living in Mariana Trunch or something. ho i can imagine. So here i am writing about light and the wonderful moments it illuminates. And also the moments which are captured for later time; ofcourse thats what we are talking about Cameras. A moment is captured in a film or a sensor through a process called exposure. An exposure is nothing but the process of exposing the chemicals on a film inside a film camera or the light sensors on a sensor in a digital camera to the light. This light excites the molecules and is stored for ever on the film or stored temoparaly on a buffer in digital camera.

Exposure is measured in lux seconds and it is the amount of light allowed expose the film. Its also mearured in Electron Volts (EV) which is the normal photographer term for telling it. In advanced digital cameras we have option to see the image histogram which shows the tonal distribution of light across the frame. From which a person can understand how good the exposure was. If the histogram is distributed across like a bell shape and is concentrated in the middle that indicates a good expoure.

Under Exposure: As you know if you expose a film for less time than the ideal time requred to record the details of the scene we call it as Under Exposure. In an under exposed photo all the details or most of the details would be dark and not properly illuminated. The histogram of an under exposed image will be drifted towards the left of the graph. Normally a photographer does is when there is so much light in the scene, like when you are shooting in the midday or shooting the sun or sky, or greeneries (this is a particular case i will tell you later)

Over Exposure: This is the term used when we have / or camera in AUTO mode has allowed more light than necessary to the film or the sensor. This is some thing which normal photographer would never like to happen as all the detail would have blown out; the term blown out is used since the pixels would have stored the maximum electron volt it could store. So pixels of the picture would be completely white in color, in a blown out picture most of the picture pixel would have store no color or details. An occasion when a photographer does is when the light is not evenly distributed over the scene and some of the subject is under darkness, if the priority of the subject in dark is more important he would prefer to get the correct exposure on that subject ignoring the over exposure of the other subjects. Same situation applies to Under Exposure also.

In a camera there is a Light Meter which measures the light from a scene where we are pointing the camera. The metering circuit of a camera is one of the most important part of the camera. The camera in auto mode measures the light and calculates how much time the film or the sensor should be exposed to get a perfect exposure. For this what the light meter does is it theoretically dilutes all the light from the scene and you know when you mix all the colors you would get one color. This color is then coverted to greyscale by the metering system and compared with the stored value. This stored value is equivalent to 18% grey card. So what the metering system will do is it will quickly changes the shutter speed and aperture (which i will talk later about) to control the light coming in to get the 18% grey value from the scene. People use a card which is equivalent to 18% grey to get consistant results, they will read the light from the grey card at the scene and this will give the camera and oppurtunity to ignor e the influence of colors in the calculation of exposure.

Check this picture, the bracket shows where the light is read from to get the exposure given; when the light is read from the sun the picture is under exposed since there is so much light coming in. When it is read from the absolut dark areas the picture has been over exposed. And the idea exposure is got from the areas where it is correctly lighted or half of the bracket is dark and half is bright. http://www.easyphotography.info/page3images/histogram.jpg

This is how an automatic metering system find the perfect exposure. The better the calculation and measurement is done by the metering system the better the image would be. In DSLRs we have option to alter the perfect exposure found by the camera using Exposure Compensation. There would be a button which would let you choose an exposure value which is in the range -3 to +3 (varies camera to camera) in steps of 1/2 or 1/3; if we take a negative value the image will be under exposed and if positive it will be over exposed.

So thats all for today, so i think now you wouldnt blink when some one talks about exposures, under exposure, over exposure, image histogram, metering, grey card, exposure compensation etc. You have learned how to read exposure from histogram and even how camera calculates the exposure.

Changing Lives ...

I don't know how to start, but I want to write this blog about this subject "Are we loosing our compassion?"

Today as being a sunday I had gone to the church for mass, going for mass has started being more of a need than a compulsion to me. I am happy for that. There we had a visiting priest from Cincinnatti who came representing an organisation called Food for the Poor. He is 83 years old and very energetic and he has been asking money for food and shelter for thousands in the Caribians and Latin America. He didn't try to question or tried to make a guilty feeling in us, he just said the numbers and needs of those people there. He was proud when he said they could change the lives of the people there. That made me think about the compassion of every human being of this generation - may be in situations where we need it we are showing it but the need for compassion and love is far more.

I have been reading a book of John Grisham - Street Lawyer - its about a lawyer who would have made millions by being in the firm he was working, but an accident in his life made him compassionate about the poor homeless people and he decided to throw the job and his dreams to work for them for their rights and welfare. Hope you have heard of Oskar Schindler who saved hundreds of Jews during the holocaust. He was an industialist and he could have made so much money ignoring those whom he could have saved but he found the lives of people are more valuable than the money. Climax scene of the movie Schindler's list is one of the most touching moments I have seen. In the middle of the people whom he has saved he sobs, thinking he could have saved even more people. That is the compassion he had, may be we dont have any holocaust to deal with to show the compassion. But there are millions of children whose parents can not afford to give them food. And a mere 24$ can give 420 children a meal, yes Four Hundred and Twenty children.

When we strive to achieve our dreams for personal gain; I dont know how much we should be thankful to the god for letting us born on the other side of the world where there is no poverty and lack of food or clothes. I believe its our responsibility to help those who can not pay you back. God once said, help those who can not pay you back, by which you create wealth in the heaven. To tell you the truth after the mass I didnt feel the taste of the food I was eating.

How much ever you earn or how much ever you become successful in life, you can never get the same satisfaction you get by feeding a hungry child. We can never take the money we make in this life but we can take those smiles to heaven. Find a reason for our lives, there are people around us who needs compassion and love. I know we ignore and think we can not make a change in the lives but we can, think about it. May we grow to understand how fortunate we are.

Spread the love around.... bring smile to atleast one person a day!

Please visit the site http://www.foodforthepoor.org and do something... :) Love you!!