Almost full moon

{ August 7, 2009 @ 11:06 pm } · { Photography }
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First time experiment to shoot a photo of the moon using the 55-200 mm lens at the highest possible zoom.
to get it that clear, I tried to have the highest f number (smallest aperture) and lowest ISO (200) to get the final result like this.
alas the lens is not strong enough to get the details of the moon surface, so I had to crop the edges of the photo and rely on the resolution of this photo.

Camera Model: Nikon D40
Lens: Tamron AF 55-200mm F/4-5.6 Di II LD
Aperture: F45
Exposure: 1/13 Seconds
Sensitivity: 200 ISO
Focal length: 200.0 mm (35mm: 300.0 mm)

Almost full moon

Almost full moon

Dubai Mall – Aquarium

{ August 6, 2009 @ 7:44 pm } · { Photography }
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Dubai Mall Aquarium is the best attractions of all, I spent most of the time playing with my camera, playing with ISO, Aperture and zoom/focus. Hope you like it.

Dubai Mall – Revisited

{ August 6, 2009 @ 4:38 pm } · { Photography }
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This time I was equipped with a tripod and two lenses, a 18-55mm and a 55-200mm, I used the later only, for some reason I like it more, don’t know why.

I tried to shoot different locations in this day, it wasn’t that good as I imagined.

Clean Day

{ July 23, 2009 @ 5:57 pm } · { Photography }
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If you have three children, then the best way to keep them from making a mess at home is to send them outside to clean the backyad.

Gear Review: Tamron AF 55-200mm Lens

{ July 22, 2009 @ 6:26 pm } · { Gear Review }
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First Gear Review in this blog, since this is the first purchase I have done after getting the SLR itself. Allow me to introduce the Tamron AF 55-200 mm lense for Nikon DSLR.

What brought it to my attention in the first place is it’s relativly cheap price compared to other brands, it cost me AED 410.- that is almost USD $111.40 which is almost one third any other lense available in the market here in UAE.

This lense has the following specifications:

Tamron AF 55-200mm Lens with Lens Hood

Tamron AF 55-200mm Lens with Lens Hood

  • Focal Length: 55-200 mm
  • Maximum Aperture: F/3.5-6.3
  • Angle of View: 75 degrees 33′ – 7 degrees 59′
  • Lens Construction: 9/13
  • Minimum Focusing Distance: 0.95 m throughout the entire zoom range
  • Filter Size (Diameter): 52 mm
  • Length: 83 mm
  • Diameter: 71.6 mm
  • Weight: 295 g
  • Lens Hood: DA15

It comes with manual focus, it’s ok, I can survive with that, actually this gives me better control over the pictuer quality and I can play around more with Depth of Field efects.

DSC_0059

Nikon: AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm lens

What makes me super excited about this lens, is the range of photos I can take, starting from the 55 mm focal length giving me the chance to take nice portraits, to the 200 mm giving me somehow the ability to take telephoto shots. Compared to the other lens coming by default with the camera body itself, the AF-S Nikkor 18-55 mm, having a smaller range of functionalities especially when it comes to portraits and telephotos. However, it surpasses the Tamron in two areas:

  1. The macro photos are some how better since it gives minimum distance of 0.28 m
  2. The servo motor controlling auto focus with a switch allowing me to manually set focus

{ July 22, 2009 @ 11:13 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Portraits, Again

{ July 22, 2009 @ 10:42 am } · { Photography }
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I have been playing around with the new 55-200 mm lens. It gives great output, especially the 55 mm setting.

As usualy I used my children as guinny pigs for these photos, and I like some of the results.

This is the largest post by number of photos so far. it took me almost an hour to upload these photos, there are some repeated photos so please forgive me for that.

Convert from Nikon RAW .NEF to JPEG?

{ July 19, 2009 @ 9:01 am } · { tips }
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Why waste time with CPU/GPU consuming GUI apps on Linux to get your photos converted from Nikon RAW files to JPEG?

Here is how to do it:

  1. Create a folder on your Linux box in a file system free enough to hold the data to be copied x2, that is if you have 4 GB for example, make sure it can take around 9 GB, for the time being
  2. copy the NEF files into this folder
  3. run the following shell script

for i in `ls *.NEF`
do
exiftool -b -JpgFromRaw $i > $i.JPG
rm -rf $i
done

Now you have your photos converted into JPEG format with the names DSC_xxx.NEF.JPG

if you want to rename it to be DSC_xxx.jpg, then I know one lame method to do so as follows:

  1. Type: >process
  2. Then Type:

    3. for i in `ls *.JPG`
    do
    echo “mv $i $i” > process
    done

  3. Type: vi process
  4. Now you are editing a file containing all File Names
  5. Press Escape, then type the following:

    6. :0,$s/NEF\.JPG/jpg/g

  6. then press Enter, and wait for it to finish
  7. then press Esc
  8. then type :wq
  9. then enter
  10. now type chmod +x process
  11. then ./process

now your files are ready with the desired format

Ibn Battuta Mall – 1

{ July 19, 2009 @ 8:12 am } · { Photography }
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Last night, the family went for shopping @ Ibn Battuta Mall Dubai, UAE (25.043082, 55.118101), a nice 5 themed themed Mall about China, India, Persia, Egypt and Tunisia with some artifacts from different locations.

No posts for a while

{ July 3, 2009 @ 6:42 am } · { Uncategorized }
{ Comments (1) }

I know, am sorry. but I have been stuck at work for the past month, spending every working day with an average of 13 hours a day, and spending at least one day of the weekend fixing problems. and when I don’t have the go to work, family has the right to go shopping and going out to see friends. too much to do, with no available time.

please forgive my negligence for not putting something new and interesting in the past God knows when. I will take my camera with me one day, leave it in my car, hoping that I can take some night shots of the streets of Abu Dhabi.

Take care everyone, and wish me luck in this project.

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