Past Dinner Time in Belgium

Airplane tickets to India are expensive even though airline companies are finally making profit. Qatar Airways was the cheapest deal, at a fantastic price, but we had to pay a different price too- a 12 hour pit stop. Our first flight was 13 hours, then a stop in Qatar for 12 hours, and then a final flight of 4 hours. I traveled with my sister, my aunt, her 2 sons, and a friend. The first flight was very long but never boring because time flies when you have countless movies to watch in front of you. But phew it was a long ride.

We took off in the morning from Philadelphia. We saw the sun set on Europe, and rise again on the Middle East.  I took this picture somewhere over Belgium, near Brussels to be exact. And you could see city lights in every direction. Very cool view. The sun is just starting to set, I'd say I took this at 8 o'clock there. Just past dinner time. 

I took the picture above (original) with my iPod because I didn't have my camera with me. I was sitting in the middle on the left section of the plane, so I had to lean over to take the picture. I didn't try to focus or anything. Just snap and done. Once I took the picture, I saw that it was too dark and you couldn't see the lights. Again, iPod quality. I didn't delete it because I thought I could always edit it later. Once we landed, and when I was stuck with jetlag, I edited the picture above. The main thing I did was add exposure, and tadaa, you can see Belgium! Buut it's not that great because it's iPod quality. 

Oh and by the way, the 12 hour wait in Qatar was boring. 12 hours is a long time in an airport and it was day time there too, but we just slept. Our food and sleep schedule was really messed up. The next 4 hour plane wasn't great because the number of movies was very limited. Qatar airways has pretty good service, not so great food, all for a good price. 

Dragonflies

I was raking the grass one afternoon, and I noticed a few dragonflies were attracted to the grass. A few days later, I went to the edge of the woods where we dispose of the grass.  I saw some more dragonflies, and decided to go get my camera. I got my camera and went back. I wasn't worried about the dragonflies leaving because there were so many. They were just clinging on to the heaps of dead grass. I came closer and closer, to see if they would fly away. Nope, they were too busy doing whatever they do.  

I got this one on a flower weed. I came closer and closer and it didn't move (which was good on my case). Either way, I had my big lens on, so I could stand farther and still zoom in. This type of dragonfly is called the blue-fronted dancer (argia apicalis). 

I admit, I cheated on this picture. My camera could have never zoomed in that much. Or I don't know how. I just cropped up another picture so that it would zoom in like this. I was glad that the picture was still very clear after cropping. Some pictures have very poor resolution and becomes grainy if you zoom in. Oh and this picture is spiced up a bit. A little contrast, highlights, temperature, shadows, and saturation. 

Is it there? Is it not? I thought this picture was really cool. You can describe what's going on in two ways: a dragonfly unfocused or of dead grass. I got by being too close to the dragonfly. I wanted to zoom in as much as I can, but the camera couldn't focus any more, so it started to focus on the grass back there. 

I cheated on this one too :( Cropped a different picture, just like the other one. Only because I had no way of getting a closer, clearer view of the insect. And I think this looks really good. The detail of the grassy weed thing and the dragonfly. 

This is of a different dragonfly. This was the odd brown one out of the whole flock. It was also a little harder to get too because it kept moving around. Unlike the blue dragonfly, this didn't stay in a spot for long. I waited for a good 5 minutes for it to find a spot, and when it did, it was too far. I had to stamp my way through some dead grass and crouch down to get a good angle. Even then, the camera couldn't focus on the dragonfly because there was too much going on behind it. 

Tips from Firsthand Experience

Hello! I'm going to throw some helpful tips and hints based off of my past experiences.

What I would to suggest anyone when they first get their camera is, to learn the camera. Learn your camera from the manual, maybe some videos, or experiment with it. It's best to familiarize with it first instead of missing great shots later on.

 Here, I'll tell you a short story. It was July fourth, American Independence Day, which means fireworks! We went to New York City and New Jersey that day, and I didn't get the opportunity to take pictures. We came back home for the fireworks in our township, and bam! Perfect opportunity for pictures! I didn't bother to research how to take good firework pictures. I just assumed that I should take it on night mode. But when I got there, night mode was terrrible. Half way through the fireworks, I switched to manual. And I set it up manual, but it still wasn't the best. A little later, I tried sports mode, and, bam! I took some spectacular shots. Lesson learned, learn the camera first. 

Treat your camera like a year-old baby! I use to take care of my camera like it was a newborn baby, but there's no need to be so careful. Cameras are designed to experience some rough and tear. Buuut that doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of it at all. Do not damage it, let it swing around, let it immerse in water, or even drop it. Treat it like it's a one-year old. Wipe the lens, filters, and even sensors once in a while. (Sensors are a  little tricky to clean so search up how to online before you clean it.) Store the camera safely and don't let it lay around. Do not let the lens get scratched up or get bashed around in a bag. I recommend you specify a bag for your camera and other materials.

Anytime you head out the door with a camera, make sure you have what you need. Do you have a bag? Is the camera even in the bag? Is the battery charged? Is the battery even in the camera? Do you have a memory card in the camera? Does that memory card have any available space? Do you need a backup memory card? Is the lens clean? Do you have all your lenses ( if you own more than one lense)? Do you need to bring the charger? Do you need a tripod? Do you need a cloth (to clean up the camera)? Do you need to bring a manual? Take what you need before heading out the door. And remember to charge your camera the night before. True story: in the morning on July 4th, I realized that my camera was dead. We had to leave soon for NYC, so I quickly charged the battery for 20 minutes. The camera was half charged throughout the day and thank goodness it lasted me through the fireworks. I learned my lesson there. 

I know I've said this in a lot of my posts, but it's very important; Take more pictures than you need. Taking more pictures than what you need is definitely better than not taking enough. It's ok if you take too many pictures. There's something called the delete button right? Just go back and delete the ones you don't like. I find myself "cleansing" my camera very often. And it's important to be like Stalin (who was responsible for about 50 million deaths directly) and kill any unimportant pictures. 

When I go through my camera to delete pictures, I go through it at least 2 times. The first round consists of deleting the obvious. The pictures the were taken by accident, or the blurry ones, etc. Then I go through them again to compare. For example, if I have ten pictures of the same subject, I'll find the best one and delete the rest. I may go through them a third time to be strict about which pictures to keep and delete. 

After taking all those firework pictures, I had to sit and go through all of them. And the funny thing was, I knew it was going to be a pain to delete some of it, yet I still kept taking more. That's because you should take more than what you need in case some don't turn out the way you want. You're left with options to choose from, which could be a good or bad thing. 

This picture down here was after round two. I still have so many left! I have to go through them once again. :(

There's also something else I learned recently when taking pictures. I find myself never looking at pictures as soon as I take them. I just keep clicking and move on. I'll take a picture of a flower and keep walking, assuming that the picture was good. Later when I look back at the flower picture, whoops, it's blurry. It happened at the July 4th fireworks too. If I hadn't look at my pictures while I was in night mode, then all my pictures would've been blurry. So make sure you reward yourself with instant feedback.

Tips from this post:

Learn the camera

Treat your camera like a one-year old baby

Have what you need

Take more pictures than you need

Be strict about which pictures to keep and delete

Instant feedback