Photography Life cycle: Beginer Guide

Recently I have bought a Nokon D7100 DSLR camera. Then started to play with it for some time and started to take photos around the home. Then I realized how interesting it was as I had a passion from childhood for Art which influence for the art of photography. So I would like to go through the steps I have followed from buying a DSLR camera to best practices to take good photos for a beginner. So I'll be covering the following topics in this blog.

1.  Comparing and buying the appropriate DSLR camera
2.  Other essential accessories required
3.  Learning the concepts behind Photography
4.  Leaning to operate the camera (menu Guide)
5.  Taking photos depending on the environment conditions
6.  Editing the photos
7.  Upload and sharing the photos with the friends and community
8.  Best Practices of using the camera

1. Comparing and buying the appropriate DSLR camera

i. Camera models

When it come into camera models, we can find Nikon and Cannon as the most used and recognized models available in the market.

There are different classes of Cannon models

•  XXXXD (4 digits) entry level -- ex: 1000D
•  XXXD (3 digits) beginner level -- ex: 700D
•  XXD (2 digits) mid level --- ex: 70D
•  XD (1 digit) professional level -- ex: 5D

Single digit cameras having full Frame Sensor where as others having a crop sensor

Resealable models available are :
Canon EOS 750D with 18-135 IS STM
Canon EOS 700D with 18-135 IS STM
Canon 60D, 70D

Nikon has two series..

• D3XXX / D5XXX beginner 
• D9X / D7XXX advance

Reasonable models are :
Nikon-d3300-with-18-55mm-vr
Nikon D5300
Nikon D7000, D7200

Anyway I'm not recommending to go ahead with beginner level camera as you may need more features when you get some experience with it.

ii. Camera lenses

WRT to Lenses, there are multiple sizes. 18-55mm, 18-140mm etc... So better to go for 18-140mm as you can take objects which are far away from you. That is you can use it for wide angle to telephoto. 18-55mm is wide angle range and when the range is low, this lens can be use. That is very good for wide angle photos.  Best option to learn photography is to use 18-135mm lens.

So my I have selected 55-135/140mm lens. As a beginner 1 lens option is sufficient so later we can buy more lenses once we get some more experience. Anyway once you become a professional,  you may need more variation of lenses definitely.

In addition to that, please check for vibration reduction lens. When you are buying the lenses check whether it is a 'IS' or 'VR' one.  It is reducing the handshake effects.

Based on my requirements and budget, I have selected Nikon D7100 with 18-140mm-vr Lens

iii. Compare camera models

If you are to compare the camera models, there are enough web sites available.

Eg:
http://snapsort.com/compare/Canon-EOS-750D-vs-Canon_EOS_60D
http://cameradecision.com/compare/Canon-EOS-60D-vs-Canon-EOS-750D
http://www.dpreview.com/products/compare/side-by-side?products=canon_eos750d&products=canon_eos700d

iv. Places to buy

You can try Amazon or ebay. Or locally there are places like https://cameralk.com/, http://www.phototechnicasl.com/ available with reasonable prices

2. Other essential accessories required

In addition to the camera body and the lens, following accessories are essential to operate and maintain the camera

•  Camera Bag
•  SD Card
•  Dry Box
•  UV filter

Tripod, Lenee Cleaning set are optional items and you can buy them later as when required.

3. Learning the concepts behind Photography

There are lots of youtube materials available to learn the photography. Basically we are to have a very good understanding about the aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I would like to recommend the following learning materials for you.

• Photography Tutorial - FIRST Lesson! What is Aperture ? DSLR Photography Lesson for Beginners : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3833CgvK7MU
• DSLR Photography Tutorial - Shutter Speed - Important Lesson for Beginners : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8cCnuTNaic
• What is ISO or how to use ISO? Digital Photography Tutorial. Basic lesson for beginners : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9-fifSFxQw

4. Leaning to operate the camera (menu Guide)

Operating the camera properly with very good understanding about the menu is a very important aspect. Since I'm having Nikon D7100, I have used the following guide.

Nikon D7100 Tutorial. How to Tutorial Menu Set Up Guide Part 1/2 :

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXuhMgtEFkY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeeLBS2AAVI

5. Taking photos depending on the environment conditions

If you have gone through the aperture, shutter speed and ISO tutorials, then you have the basic understanding of how to take a photo based on the environmental conditions as well as per your requirement. I herewith share some of the Tips of photography.

•  To take Group Photos or Landscape --> Use bigger 'F' value. Like 8, 12.
•  For portraits and you wanted to blur the back ground--> use low 'F' value. Like 5.6
•  To take the moving items freeze --> use higher shutter speed. Like 1/400
•  If you are to take silky like look of a water fall --> Use Lower shutter speed. Like 1
•  Take Sun set --> Use fast shutter speed
•  If you are taking photos in day time with enough light --> use low ISO. Like 200
•  Low light situation like concert, Night birthday party --> use high ISO. Like 2400
•  When you are taking photos of people --> Focus to their eyes
•  Wild life photography --> Concentrate on FPS(Frame per second) so you will not miss the scene, Also consider tge High shutter speed like 300
•  If we are to take photos with low shutter speed --> Use tripod as much as you can

Few other very important Photography tips can be found here too: https://www.facebook.com/ILFOTOGRAFO.it/videos/10152740716317821/?fref=nf

6. Editing the photos

Once you have taken the photos, better to use editing tool to edit the photos. So you can add some amazing effects to the photos, crop the photos and removed the unwanted areas etc... One of the bet tool I'm using is picasa. You can download the windows client from https://picasa.google.com/

Follow this tutorial on how to edit photos using picasa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckoQey7720w

7. Upload and sharing the photos with the friends and community

Once you have done with the editing, best thing is to upload and share with the friends. Best place to use if the flicker. (http://flickr.com/) It is having 1TB free for you and specially designed to share the photos.

In addition to that, you can use https://picasaweb.google.com, Facebook to share the photos you have taken. But picasaweb is having 15GB of storage with other Google services as its a free service provided by Google. Even Facebook having lots of friends and community, it is not designed to use for professional photo sharing

I would like to share my flicker photos with you : https://www.flickr.com/photos/26742288@N08/

8. Best Practices of using the camera

•  Don't delete the unwanted photoes from the camera as it will corrupt the SD card. Once you have fransfered the data to a computer, you can do the deletions as required
•  Don't move the focusing wheel if you have configured auto focusing
•  Use a good SD card with high speed and high class
•  Use a dry box to store the camera to protect from fungust
•  Use UV filter to protect the lences
•  Remove the baterries when you are not using the camera as it will improve the life time of the battries
•  Clean the camera and the lenses at least once a month using the camera cleanng kit
•  Protect the camera from rain/water

So have a nice time with photography and make it as your hobby. Cheers

Travel guide to Istanbul, Turkey

Recently I was able to visit Istanbul, Turkey to participate TAD Summit to represent hSenid Mobile Solutions with our API Management platform.

During the stay, I was able to visit couple of historical places around Istanbul city in 2 days. I would like to share the details of each in brief where you can use these info as your travel guide to Istanbul, Turkey.

1. Bosphorus - is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. The world's narrowest strait used for international navigation, the Bosporus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. Between the limits, the strait is 31 km long, with a width of 3,329 m

2. Hagia Sophia -  is a former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica (church), later an imperial mosque, and now a museum

3. Prince Islands -  is in the Sea of Marmara and consists of 7 islands. As there is no traffic on the Islands, the only transport being horse and cart, they are incredibly peaceful compared with the city of Istanbul. Princes and other royalty were exiled on the islands, and later members of the Ottoman sultans family were exiled there too.

4. The Blue Mosque - This consists of blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is still popularly used as a mosque. It also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasa and a hospice

5. Galata Tower - is a medieval stone tower. The nine-story tower is 66.90 meters tall.

6. Topkapi Palace - residence of the Ottoman sultans. As well as a royal residence, the palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments. It is now a museum.  It also contains important holy relics of the Muslim world, including Muhammed's cloak and sword

7. Streets of Grand Bazaar - is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world with lots of shops.

8. Obelisk of Theodosius - is the Ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Originally 30m tall, like the Lateran obelisk

9. Ottoman Empire - the Turkish Empire or Turkey, was a Sunni Islamic sultanate and later a caliphate founded by Oghuz Turks under Osman Bey in northwestern Anatolia in 1299.

10. Church of St. Anthony of Padua - is a basilica and the largest church of the Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul, Turkey.

11. Taksim square - situated in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey. The monument commemorates the 5th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, following the Turkish War of Independence.

Interesting use cases of NFC (Near Field Communication)

NFC is opening up new possibilities for mobile applications. Applications using this short-range radio technology can greatly simplify how a user gathers data from and interacts with their environment. When a phone touches, or is held near an NFC tag or another NFC capable device, the phone can exchange data with the tag or device. This data could be a link to the download of the menu from a favourite restaurant, the specifications for an electronic gizmo, or paring information from a Bluetooth headset or another phone that can be used to exchange objects: the possibilities are endless.

Good video tutorial for BIRT Reporting platform

Good video tutorial for BIRT Reporting platform.

BIRT Demo

BIRT is a open source reporting platform and its consists of Report designer and a Runtime component that you can add to your app server. It also provide a charting engine that lets you add charts to your own application.

Some of the important features provided by BIRT

Charting
Drill Down Support
Connection Pooling
Multiple Master Pages
Enhanced Cascaded Parameters
Joined Data Set
Internationalization
Export to PDF/Excel/CSV formats

Hadoop the high-performance parallel data processing and reliable data storage technique

"I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians" - Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian

If you want a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using a simple programming model, then Hadoop will be the best option.

Technically, Hadoop consists of two key services: reliable data storage using the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and high-performance parallel data processing using a technique called MapReduce.

Hadoop Architecture

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Open Source chart libraries

Good Open Source chart libraries.

JfreeChart - http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/
FusionChartsFree - http://www.fusioncharts.com/free/
JCCKit project (LGPL)
QN Plot project (BSD)
OpenChart2 project (LGPL)
PtPlot project (UC Berkeley copyright)
JRobin project (LGPL)
Java Chart Construction Kit (LGPL, works with JDK 1.1.8)
JOpenChart project (LGPL)
jCharts project (BSD-style)
JChart2D project (LGPL)
Chart2D project (LGPL)
ThunderGraph project (LGPL)
E-Gantt project (Q Public License)
MagPlot project (GPL)


I'm going to demonstrate code samples for bar chats and pie charts with JFreeChart

Note: jfreechart-1.0.13.jar and jcommon-1.0.16.jar should be available within your classpath.

1)  PieChart example....


package sample;

import org.jfree.chart.ChartFactory;
import org.jfree.chart.ChartFrame;
import org.jfree.chart.JFreeChart;
import org.jfree.data.general.DefaultPieDataset;

public class PieChart {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // create a dataset...
        DefaultPieDataset data = new DefaultPieDataset();
        data.setValue("Category 1", 43.2);
        data.setValue("Category 2", 27.9);
        data.setValue("Category 3", 79.5);
        // create a chart...
        JFreeChart chart = ChartFactory.createPieChart(
                "Sample Pie Chart",
                data,
                true,    // legend?
                true,    // tooltips?
                false    // URLs?
        );
        // create and display a frame...
        ChartFrame frame = new ChartFrame("First", chart);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }
}


2) BarChart example...

package sample;

import org.jfree.chart.ChartFactory;
import org.jfree.chart.ChartFrame;
import org.jfree.chart.JFreeChart;
import org.jfree.chart.plot.PlotOrientation;
import org.jfree.data.category.CategoryDataset;
import org.jfree.data.category.DefaultIntervalCategoryDataset;

public class BarChart {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // create a dataset...
        double start[][] = new double[2][3];
        start[0][0] = 3;
        start[0][1] = 4;
        start[0][2] = 2;

        start[0][0] = 4;
        start[1][0] = 6;
       
        double end[][] = new double[2][3];

        end[0][0] = 2;
        end[0][1] = 5;
        end[0][2] = 1;

        end[0][0] = 5;
        end[1][0] = 2;

        CategoryDataset data = new DefaultIntervalCategoryDataset(start, end);

        JFreeChart chart = ChartFactory.createBarChart("title",
                "x axis", "y axis",
                data,
                PlotOrientation.VERTICAL,
                true,    // legend?
                true,    // tooltips?
                false    // URLs?
        );
        // create and display a frame...
        ChartFrame frame = new ChartFrame("Second", chart);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

}

MongoDb In Action

MongoDB is a scalable, high-performance, open source, document-oriented database. MongoDB bridges the gap between key-value stores (which are fast and highly scalable) and traditional RDBMS systems (which provide rich queries and deep functionality).

MongoDb In Action

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