Viknesh Nadaraja

Got this baby as a gift for my birthday. A Konica Auto S2 Rangefinder camera made circa 1966 in Konishiroku Photo. Ind. Co., LTD Japan.

Konica Auto S2 Rangefinder Camera

The camera is coupled with a sharp Hexanon 45mm 1:1.8-16 lens and was in pristine condition to my disbelief.

With ‘pseudo TTL’ metering, this camera is shutter priority with manual controls on the shutter and aperture. The metering is ‘pseudo TTL’ because the metering is right at the top edge of the lens and not through the lens. This allows for metering compensation when filters are mounted.

The RF viewfinder coupled rangefinder with automatic parallax correction. It has the aperture displayed as projection in the viewfinder and this allows one to read and then use this information to do exposure compensation.

With ISO 25 to 400, this camera just sufficient. The exposure range is 1.7 to 17 @ ASA 100. There is a self-timer and accessory shoe and PC Sync too.

Simple controls and manual focusing, this baby makes me think and execute the shoot… it slows me down and I have only 36 clicks max where I have to be truly economical. There is no instant gratification of looking at the LCD panel and Histogram as what I am accustomed to with my Canon EOD 5D DSLR.

I feel more as a photographer now…. there is no luxury of the digital age. This RF is a pleasure to use and it teaches me a lot on photography… the simplicity of this camera makes things truly complicated for me but it rewards me with the opportunity to focus on taking minimally great photos.

Posted here are my few photos from the 1st roll… the Illford Super XP2 400 Black & White.

I’ll post more on this baby, shots taken and my experience… until then please enjoy the photos.

Irfan... friend and respected photographer

Back portion of Houses at Sepang Gold Coast

Beach at Sepang Gold Coast

Kids playing at the beach

Camps & Guy Relaxing

I had launched my photoblog late last year and had been test driving it. The photoblog is to have a simple one photo one post concept with little text to describe the photos. The blog is more of a text heavy concept and I wanted to be direct to the photos.

The photoblog URL is www.vikneshn.com/photoblog . Please visit my photoblog and leave your good comments.

Some screenshots from my photoblog…

This is me after 1.5 years of photography… taken by Tiru while I was getting ready to shoot a Punjabi Wedding.

Hey Guys & Gals,

I am Tirumaran [My Facebook profile here] - Viknesh’s partner in crime ( it sounds better than partner in photography ). Here I am gonna share some of my photos from travels,  football matches, adventures, misadventures and many more.

Lets start with some from my India trip, back in March 2009.

1. Thiruvalluvar Statue in Kanyakumari

Its 133 feet tall statue of famous Tamil Poet – Thiruvalluvar.  He is well known for 1330 Thirukurals  (couplets) which are presented in 133 chapters- which explains the height of the statue.  Each Thirukural consists of seven words and discuss almost every worldly matters. “For more info, try search in wikipedia” – thats my seven words for you to know more about him.

2.  The Sunrise in Kanyakumari

Breathtaking view is guaranteed – from December to March time period every year. I was hoping to see the perfect sunrise where it looks like the sun just emerged from the sea level.  However, the tourist guide told that, in his 20 years experience he just got to see it twice. 

 3. Entrance of Thanjavur Temple

This temple was built  in 11th century. The grandeur of the temple is very visible in this entrance alone.

 4.  A statue in Thanjavur Temple

The restoration/cleaning work in temple was completed recently. This can be seen from the cleanliness of the statue in the picture above. There are thousands of statues and rock carvings can be seen here. To be fair for this otherworldly venue, I may need to dedicate a special blog entry in future.

5.  Random guy on a bridge.

This picture was taken in Kerala. I saw the color combination of the guy’s dress and the background. It looked interesting to me…

6. Bridge n River

Another picture taken in Kerala. They said our country, Malaysia closely resembles Kerala in terms of its greenery. May be it was true 20 years ago. Now, instead of coconut trees, there are lamp posts eveywhere here.

 7.  Arunsunai in Poochikaadu

Directly translated into English, Poochikaadu means Insect Jungle. That is the name of village of my fellow traveller Jeeva. In spite of the name, there were not  much insects to be found. May be if we stayed overnight there, we would not be disappointed.

 8.  Outside of Suchindram Temple

Another ~ 1000 years old temple. Camera is not allowed inside the temple. Thus, I settled with this view.

 
9. Wrecked fish boat in Dhanushkodi

Dhanushkodi aka at Lands End is infamously known as place of destruction. This is due the cyclone in 1964 which destroyed the place and took a trainload of passengers into the sea. We travelled 90mins from Rameshwaram in an ancient jeep on sand dunes to reach this place.

Throughout the whole journey (back & forth), we were attacked by couple of hundred flies . By Muscina flies to be exact – not just the house flies. The jeep driver + tourist guide told us that, the illegal fish fermentation activity by some of the powerful locals caused the presence of the large number of flies.

Once we reach the end of the land, we got down from the jeep for a minute. Just 60 seconds.After that, we cant stand the massive swarm of the flies. I just took two photos and quickly get back to the jeep for cover. I wish there will be another chance to be there longer without any disturbances.

Thats all for now, frens. Thanks for reading till the end. There are more to come…

I was sitting and looking back from the days I started photography and it provoked this beautiful feeling in me. It was less than 1 1/2 years ago when I got my first DSLR with the kit lens. Back then it was a very big investment and the 40D with EFs 18-55 IS lens was more than I could have imagined. I got myself a sturdy Manfrotto tripod too.

It was exciting and profound times and with my wife and daughter, we went to shoot the iconic Petronas Twin Towers. I got my wife and daughter to shoot on our Kodak Super Zoom Point & Shoot with the free tripod that came along and I shot on my priced DSLR. We had good fun being there at night and shooting like pros.

Shot with my loved ones on 27th June 2008, these photos have such memories and beauty to me.

Here are some photos from that day… shot with kit lens.

We had the privilege of shooting the pre-wedding shots for Joel & Ameeta early this week; just after the Deepavali weekends. I’ve known this young lovely couple for many years now and it was beautiful be able to shoot these important shots for them.

After many years of knowing other, this dashing engineer and lovely accountant turned early childhood development educationist decided to embrace each other in holy matrimony. Their wedding is at the end of this month.

Here are some of the lovely shots Tiru and I had captured …

Dashing Joel

Beautiful Ameeta

Joel waiting while Ameeta gets ready for the shots

Romantic walk

MFEO - Made for Each Other

Loving Embrace

There are more beautiful shots and I’ll be posting them soon.

This is my 3rd consecutive year heading to Kuantan with my family for the long Hari Raya break. Kuantan is about 3 hours taking a comfortable drive from Kuala Lumpur and I personally have not met any traffic jam during my travels here. The drive is picturesque and taking it slow is simply refreshing.

The beach is the main attraction and the hotel provides plenty of space for my family & I to spend time together and rejuvenate ourselves. Hyatt Regency Kuantan is almost perfect for all the different needs that the whole family has…. daughter get the beach and pool, wife gets the spa and I get to shoot awesome photos of the sunrise and beach. Oh not to mention the awesome food the hotel provides… the Kampung Restaurant and Italian Bistro is simply amazing… one must not miss the sumptuous Ramadhan Buffet served at the Kampung Restaurant and my favorite Seafood Grill at the Italian Bistro. The Hari Raya Eve has this beautiful firework that is managed by the hotel and it is something the while family looks forward to every year.

This year I took very minimal gear for my photography and the only lens I had was the UWA Canon EFs 10-22 mm USM and my trusty Manfrotto tripod. After a lot of photography assignments lately, I spend my time with my loved ones ond only on the last day of my stay, I got up early and ventured with my gears on photographing the lovely scenery around me.

Without wasting time, here are some of the photos I took on the last day…. I selected the theme of Postcard and here are my photos…

Early morning at the beach…

Watching the sunrise…

Damn early beach volleyball ….

On the way to Kemaman…. a postcard photo…

On the way to Kemaman… another postcard photo…

Somewhere near Maran…

A very dreamy sunset while driving back home…

I enjoyed the holidays and hope you enjoy the photos I have posted.

Here are some photos from my recent lens, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM. I have been using this lens for a slightly over a month now and shot two major event with it and this lens has allowed me to produce images to my great delight.

On my Canon 40D, this baby has a focal length of 80 mm and DOF at largest aperture equivalent to f/2.2 taking the full frame 35mm format camera as the baseline. I love the bokeh, perspective, the ability to shoot at available natural light even at night indoor events, the size & weight (for travel especially), image quality, the super fast and accurate focusing and the list goes on. Now that I am blogging about this lens, there is literally nothing I dislike about this lens. This is one lens I cannot live without and it is such a joy to use in my photography.

Oh yea… here are the photos. These photos below are all taken in natural available light, handheld and at the environment of events where there is no time for a photographer to think and shoot… these photos are taken intuitively so to speak.

I have travel photos taken with this awesome lens and will be posting them soon. My advice to any Canon DSLR user… this lens is a MUST HAVE.

After much research on the UWA (Ultra Wide Angle) lens, I came down to two choices… either the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM or Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X.

I want to shoot landscapes and events with this UWA baby. For landscapes, I wanted ultra wide vistas and for events I wanted to tell the drama. Asian weddings that I shoot often are done on a big and impressive scales and I wanted the UWA lens to get the wow photo that shows the grandness of the event.

The Tokina was cheaper and gave better constant aperture when compared to Canon. On the other hand Canon had better range and USM will make focusing faster and accurate. Of course a constant fast aperture would be on the top of the list for anyone buying lens especially when the cost is real good. For me it was a balancing act and I traded off the fast aperture to wider range and faster and accurate focusing and bought the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM has range 35 mm equivalent focal length of 16-35mm. All reviews that I read in the net points very positively to this lens. Ken Rockwell mentioned in his review of the Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM… “If I shot with Canon 1.6x cameras, this would be the lens I’d use most often. I’d get one pronto!” < http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/1022.htm>

I used this beauty to cover a wedding cum reception and I am truly impressed with this lens. Its focusing speed and the USM is damn accurate. The bokeh is marvelous and sharpness is awesome. It was not love at first sight, but love after first date.

Here are some shots from this awesome lens, from Prem & Renuka’s wedding & reception…

I know I am gonna be shooting with this beauty for a very long time … capturing memories with my photography.

Sneak peak of a beautiful event that I shot on the eve of Merdaka Day at the Bankers Club.

I’ll posting more photos soon.