Weekend in Coonoor

Saturday, March 26, 2005

bernhard_k,

skarra,

sriniram,

thaths,

udhay and I are spending the weekend at Coonoor near Ooty in the Nilgiris.

Getting online is hard. The only cellular signal is from the town of Karamadai two kilometres downhill. My phone’s sitting out the door right now, straining to catch a feeble signal. It took 40 minutes to upload this picture. I’m running an open wireless network for the others, and for some reason they’re having it even worse.

sriniram spent an hour yesterday attempting to dial up to BSNL and VSNL, also without success.

I discovered yesterday that landscape photography is difficult. We’re at a guest house in the middle of a tea estate. Rolling hills all around with tea plantations. Passed through the camera, all that comes out is a little green thumbnail. I think part of the problem is due to the difference in scale. A landscape is large. To even see all of it requires turning the head around. The camera’s narrow field of view covers lesser than an eyeful: covering the scene requires several shots, and then differences in light quality make metering tricky.

Maybe I’ll get lucky.

ashwinb — Mar 26, 2005 9:20:47 AM — # ↩

I had the good luck of spending time in Coonor close to 5 years ago on a roadtrip with family and friends. And quite frankly, I enjoyed the place far better than Ooty. I found it to be one of those places that was still to be touched by the hand of civilization (so to speak).

Have a good time there Jace.
inthing — Mar 26, 2005 9:36:02 AM — # ↩

do post some of the landscape pix. If not the whole thing, part of it !
sriramb — Mar 26, 2005 9:41:43 AM — # ↩

My dad used to be at Wellington; Have fond memories of the region; Make sure you visit Wellington and the Light and Life academy (www.llacademy.org)
deelight — Mar 26, 2005 1:10:10 PM — # ↩

Wow sounds like an idyllic getaway!
shradha — Mar 26, 2005 1:22:24 PM — # ↩

my dad went to school at lovedale - lawrence school.
i've been to that part of india only once and LOVED it. if the school isnt far from where u are, it really would be worth a trip! oh and u need to take the meter gauge train to see some breathtaking waterfalls and views from the mountains!!:)
have fun kiran!
(say hi to thaths :D)
fus — Mar 26, 2005 4:38:37 PM — # ↩

you NEED to read Ansel Adam's The Camera
- Kiran Jonnalagadda — Mar 26, 2005 11:08:54 PM — # ↩
  
  To be more practical, I need to be inspired by local talent.
ravi — Mar 26, 2005 9:01:44 PM — # ↩

The camera’s narrow field of view covers lesser than an eyeful: covering the scene requires several shots, and then differences in light quality make metering tricky.

How about making pano shots the way clivity did on that LJ? Check out the images on this post as an example. I wish I knew how to make images of that nature ...
code_martial — Mar 26, 2005 9:58:43 PM — # ↩

Was the lighting really like that or did you do some colour manipulation?
- Kiran Jonnalagadda — Mar 26, 2005 11:07:45 PM — # ↩
  
  There's only incandescent lighting in here, and the camera was confused. I could have corrected it to look like natural light, but that destroyed the atmosphere, so I left it halfway corrected.
  - code_martial — Mar 27, 2005 7:20:19 AM — # ↩
    
    Well, it looks pretty rich this way.
balaji — Mar 26, 2005 10:58:25 PM — # ↩

have fun, dude!
-b-
arunshanbhag — Mar 27, 2005 8:33:36 AM — # ↩

Followed some of the links. Looks like a splendid place. Have fun.
Your 50mm (75 mm) is going to be tough for landscapes - Now you know what I meant in my "Gates" post. I assumed you had the 18-70 as well :-(
Panos (in Ravi's lnks seem like the way to go for now).

Have a great Easter and a nice weekend!
- Kiran Jonnalagadda — Mar 27, 2005 7:25:02 PM — # ↩
  
  I do have the 18-70, but it's not wide enough for some of mountain landscapes here. I haven't had much luck finding a place to take a 360 degree panorama from.
  - dleed — Mar 28, 2005 3:23:01 PM — # ↩
    
    Hey Jace -- looks like it was a nice weekend. Have a look at this ... I think that a long lens is better to have in many ways. You don't get the distortion of a wide angle. Other than that, to assemble photos just expose all of the frames with the same shutter/fstop and start playing with the gimp.