Art of post processing

With the advent of Digital photography one of the hot topics that has come up is about post processing. In the context of post processing, lots of discussions have happened starting from whether it is OK to post process to can you make a photo instead of taking! Each photographer (whether digital or film) has his own opinion on this. Pro-Post processing team argues that processing has always been a part even in film days, now the only difference is that it is done by everyone at home in a PC. Anti-Post processing team (who were also present before digital, but now has grown much more in number due to digital era) says a photo should depict what is out there.
OK, I am not going to take sides here, but will only give one interesting read here on post processing:

http://www.naturelyrics.com/articles/process_feelings/process_feel.html

Personally, I do feel that given an option to change my image (irrespective of film/digital) I would go for it if I feel that the modifications result in a better picture for me. If my mood is right, I wont restrict myself from generating an abstract out of a bird picture! Its upto you to decide how much time before computer is considered the right time :-)

Enjoy shooting and processing...

Back again

I am back after a "No Computer" weekend where I decided to shut myself out of the web world for the weekend! I find it interesting to take such short breaks and indulge in other creative activities (like eating, sleeping, playing with my daughter etc! :-)... And today, when I login, I feel refreshed and ready to go racing!

Ok, we'll get back to the story again... Once I had my Minolta Dimage Z1, I really started experimenting in the real sense! Now I had a camera where I don't need to spend for experimenting! WoW, that was a real bonus with the digital. I just took lots and lots of shots of a juice can in all possible angles and modes just for the heck of it! And I was never tired or bored. Though learning was not proportional to the number of snaps I took, it still was worth it as I was now fully comfortable with the camera, could operate it blindfolded. And the more I used it, dearer the camera felt. To tell the truth, Dimage Z1 is a really responsive camera (except in low light conditions where focus lock was tricky). Otherwise, I was able to lock the focus quickly and shutter lag was pretty acceptable. And it offered me almost all controls I wanted. Though I had to go to menus to set some options, I felt OK as I got used to this mode very soon. And then I started taking my camera out into nature which was the whole purpose of getting a ultra-zoom...

My first digital camera

Once I decided to go for a camera, the choice whether to go digital or film was a no-brainer. The only question was which digital camera I should buy. During that time, the prices of digital cameras were still not as low as it is today, and hence buying a digital SLR was somewhat out of question (You know, I was married by then :) Hence I had to go for a Point and Shoot. Since I was itnerested in nature and birds in specific, the long zoom catergaroy was obviously the focus. Now started the next research as happens when you decide to go for a camera. The specs were read and re-read many times, various forums were visited very often, reviews scrutinized heavily, excel sheets were filled with all possible feature comparisons, and at the end, putting all this research aside, I went for the cheapest one at that time - Minolta Dimage Z1.

And the camera has not disappointed me and with time, I fell in love with my "cheap" ultra-zoom. And I also learned that camera brand really may not matter much, but the man behind matters,... yes, that really matters!