Found a Friend in Fatehpur Sikri

After visiting Taj Mahal, next day we visited Fatehpur-Sikri, The mughal captial built by Akbar. Main attraction over there were Akbar's palaces, a beautiful Shrine of sufi saint Salim Chishti and The Buland Darwaza (The Gigantic Gate).

But for my daughter, the main attraction was this puppy that followed her around. I took a few shots of them interacting.

Found a Friend in Fatehpur Sikri
(c) All Rights Reserved

Prince Pup of Fatehpur Sikri

(c) All Rights Reserved

It was a good change from the rest of the scenary - which was all full of very high dynamic range. My choice of timing to visit the place (afternoon) was very bad. But I did manage to get couple of interesting ones... which I'll post next time.

Taj Mahal - at a different perspective

Here are some pics of Taj Mahal from some not so obvious angles. I have not seen many pictures of Taj Mahal with this perspective.

Taj Mahal!
(c) All Rights Reserved

It was possible to take these pics only because I was using a wide angle lens (17-40mm F4.0L). Even then it was difficult to capture the entire central structure from the base of one of the minarates. I took two shots (3rd and 4th above) thinking I'll join them using Canon PhotoStitch. Unfortunately, Canon PhotoStitch refrused to even try to merge them saying the focal length is too small and it cannot do a smooth merge with the perspective at such a focal length.

More 'Taj Mahal' - my favorite shot

Taj Mahal in evening lights !
(c) All Rights Reserved

Out of about 60 pics of Taj that I snapped, this one is my favorite. I did make some enhancements uing Picasa2, but I think the picture itself was great to begin with. With the beautiful symmatry of its design, once you have Taj Mahal in the middle of your frame, there is not much left to do in composition to make it more applealing. Just keep the Taj in the middle - symmatric - and shoot !

Although I did try to take some pics of the Taj at some not so obvious angles... I'll post those in the next post.

Taj Mahal in evening lights!

Taj Mahal in evening lights !
(c) All Rights Reserved

We did sight seeing in northern India for about 10 days. And of course the first attraction was Taj Mahal! I visited this beautiful monument after about 22 years... i.e. first time in my adult life. It was a memorable experience to see and apprecitae this beautiful work of art and engineering.

We also visited Fatehpur-Sikri, New Delhi, Gokul, Mathura, Vrindavan, Haridwar, Hrishikesh and Panna (MP).

Through out the tour, I carried 3 lenses with me.

• 18-55mm F3.5/5.6 : the kit lense
• 50mm F1.8 : the prime
• 17-40mm F4.0L : my proude new purchase for this trip

So what did I really use the most?

17-40mm F4.0L ... exclusively.

Why ? Mostly because ...

• it was the best quality of lens I had with me
• and because I did not want to even attempt to change lens while I am lugging my camera bag on shoulder, a heavy camera and a heavy lens in one hand and carrying my one year old daugher in the other hand :-) ! Camera, The L lense, My daughter... can't drop any of them, can I ? :-)

India Trip !

(c) All Rights Reserved

Hello folks! I just got back from India!
Had lots of fun with friends and Family and also did a lot of sight seeing in northern India. Snapped about a 1000 clicks with 20D and a brand new 17-40 F4L !

I will try to share the best of the shots and lessons in the coming weeks!

Regarding the shot above. Well I wanted to capture the sense of scale of Taj Mahal. So I tried to fill the frame such that the smaller objects - people - do get some attention with the Taj in Back. However, with the 17-40 F4L being a very wide lens, I had to come closer to Taj for this picture.. which unfortunately caused the perspective (top narrower then bottom). Anyways...