Snow in Aberdeen

Over the weekend, we had about 5.5 inches of snow in Aberdeen. A couple of pictures taken from my house.

Cameras in my closet

I looked in my closet a few days back and saw five cameras lying around. I thought why not write a post about them.

Over the past 12 years, I bought a new camera whenever I felt the need to keep up with the latest technology.

My first camera was a Canon Prima Zoom Shot, a film camera, with a 38 to 60mm in-built zoom. I bought this camera in Bangalore from GK Vale in 1996 for Rs.7000, just before I left for UK on secondment from Kvaerner John Brown. This camera was not great, but was adequate. The following photo on the right explains what I mean - good but not having adequate detail.

However, with this camera I clicked some of my most memorable photos both in India (Bangalore, Tirupati, Srirangapatnam, Mysore, Rangantittu, Madikeri, Tala Cauvery, Shiva Samudra), and Abroad (London and Houston).

My second camera was a Samsung ECX1, a film camera, with a 38 to 140mm in-built zoom. I bought this camera in 1997 for circa $280, whilst I was in the US on secondment from Kvaerner Process. This camera was very good and I used it until a couple of years back, at which point the digital camera technology became so advanced that there was no benefit in holding on to an old manual 35mm film camera. Furthermore, storing films was a problem. For a time, I scanned the negatives and try to digitise my photographs. The task was arduous as the negatives tended to develop scratches and degrade over time. A digital negative scanner is limited in its potential to come up with near digital quality photos free of any blemishes. So I am done with my Samsung ECX1.

I got a first whiff of the digital camera technology through a colleague of mine whilst I was in Muscat. He had a Fuji DX-10 a 800 pixel digital camera (a dinosaur in terms of today's technology). He wanted to upgrade to a higher spec one and thus wanted to sell this camera. I bought it for 60 Omani Rials. Looking back it wasn't a great buy, because the pixel count was just good enough for 4" x 6" print size photographs.

Whilst I was at my friend's house in 2002, which was when I newly moved to the UK he showed me his photo collection taken with a Canon Powershot A70. These photos were crystal clear and the detail was unquestionably the best I have seen in my life. This is when I bought a new Canon Powershot A70 for circa £260 from Amazon. It had 3.2 mega pixels with a 3x optical zoom. This camera lasted for three years, before its LCD display gave up on me. I had to return it to the Canon dealer, who was kind enough to replace it free of charge with a Canon Powershot A520. This has 4 mega pixels with a 4x optical zoom. Both these cameras helped me immensely in building up my digital photo collection. My wife and my children have taken a liking to photography and they have taken quite a few photographs with Canon A520. A few selected shots from both these cameras from locations in Switzerland, Keukenhoff, Algarve, North Wales, Barcelona, Tarragona and Paris.

My latest camera is a digital SLR camera. It is a Nikon D50 and I bought it from Costco for about £500 in December 2006. The camera came with a body and a twin lens kit (18-55mm and 55-200mm Nikkor lens). A few selected photographs with my Nikon D50. These days I use Nikon on most occasions.

Footnote:
(1) I used Panasonic PV-GS400 (a camcorder with a built-in camera, which takes decent photos) for the snapshot of all the cameras and the individual camera photos.

(2) I bought my Nikon D50 after reading about it 0n Steve Digicam.

Mini Magnetosphere: An aid to Deep Space travel

A recent article in Telegraph said that the British scientists were successful in creating a Mini Magnetosphere in a 'laboratory' that can deflect solar radiation. The solution lays in the fact that, it mimics earth’s own defence (magnetic field) against harmful solar radiation. The implications of this work are far reaching, as it would some day aid humans in Deep Space travel (beyond moon).

TAS 2008 Diwali Celebrations

During the months of October/November each year, when Diwali is usually celebrated, I get a chance to socialise with the people from the Indian Community in Scotland. Me and my family make it a point to visit the Diwali celebrations organised by the Telugu Association of Scotland (TAS) every year. We attended this year's celebrations held on 2nd November at Ballarup Hall in East Kilbride. This year was a bit different from the previous years, in a sense that we watched a musical performance by a newly formed group of Indian origin singers/musicians living in the UK. The group is named "Rainbow Raagas" and is based in Liverpool. The event was compered by an ex-anchor in Mana Telugu TV, Mr. Vijay Bhaskar.The celebrations were inaugurated by Mr. Murthy an Andhraite, who left the shores of India many years back and is now settled in Glasgow.

Kumari Anjali started the evening with the Telugu song written by Sri Sankarambadi Sundarachari "Maa Telugu Talliki". Pranav and Lalit then recited a few Telugu slokas and Lakshmi Ashtakam.
President of TAS, Dr. Ashok Bhuvanagiri gave a speech highlighting the progress made by the Association in the past six years. Kumari Vakya then performed Kuchipudi dance.This was followed by rendition of Telugu Kritis by Kumari Soumyasi and Kumari Anjali. Few other children performed dances and played the violin and the keyboard.

The proceedings were further enlivened with "Rainbow Raagas" performing telugu songs from the present and yester era. The group consists of founder and singer Andrew, singers Kalyani and Rex, drums player Charles and a Keyboard artist.
During the intervals, Prem a very talented mime artist performed a couple of miming acts. The first was about a man trying to get rid of a chewing gum and the second was about a man's ordeal in search of water.
Later in the evening, "Rainbow Raagas" performed some more melodious songs. There were interludes of dancing by some Indian Students studying in universities in and around Glasgow.

The celebrations concluded with the felicitation of all the participants by Mr. Murthy.