Skateboarding and Biking tricks with a cool bunch of guys

Was out at a community event when I saw a small section made out of concrete specifically for people to horn their skills and tricks with bikes and skateboards. It felt weird to approach them and ask to shoot them, but the the photographer inside of me was aching so much to shoot it, I simply gave in :) Went there with my camera and spoke to a couple of them first and turned out, they were some of the most friendly and cool people I have met so far. Specially Matthew and Chris.. They were both pretty amazing.. The 70D did come through here but was scary as there were lots of guys skating around as I was shooting..

Hoping to get another shoot with these guys before it gets cold here... Specially heard of a move called the "Superman"!!! Really wanna catch that :)

Here's Matthew Marosati showing his stuff... (over and over again for me to get it right.. Thanks)

Here's Chris Oates rocking his bike with amazing mid air turns (He kept on pushing himself higher and higher... )

 
Please note that all pictures are copyrighted and could not be used without the author's consent.

Comments are welcomed as always.

Keep on shooting.

Akila Mike. 

Western Rugby team beat McMaster in grand style

I was invited by a good friend of mine to tag alone and shoot a Mustangs rugby match against McMaster university. Thought this was a great chance to test the burst rate of my new Canon 70D and agreed to do the shoot. The weather was completely against us from the day before.. it was raining like crazy and our chances were looking very bleak. But then just hours before the game, the rain let up. But the sky was completely overcast. Therefore, going into the shoot, we both new that our shots are gonna suffer in details and that we would have to shoot with a relatively higher ISO to keep everything from blurring. The Canon 70D (unlike my 600D/T3i) shone in this situation with almost no noise at high ISO values (I used ISO 800 for the whole shoot). At the end, Western beat McMaster very comfortably and I grew a liking to this game after seeing the intensity through the lens. Here are some results (Picture heavy, I must warn you on that). Btw, I almost forgot to mention that the Canon 70D is an awesome camera to shoot with.

Comments are welcomed and please note that all copyrights are reserved for these pictures.

Thank you!
Go Mustangs.
Akila.  

Few Macros from Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a world renowned paradise for tourists and explorers.. but something even I haven't realized or appreciated is how amazing it is for macro work. There s vegetation all around and with no winter season, you only have to avoid rain. Some shots for which I would travel miles in Canada, I was making them in my backyard. These are a taste of some of those sample shots I have taken during my stay. I will keep on these sort of pics here and there.. specially since its starting to get cold here :)

Please do note that all pictures here are copyrighted. You cannot publish or use these images without the author's consent.

Thank you!
Akila.

Photography is all about having fun.. A simple trick with a light source.

For me, photography is all about enjoying life and having fun.. So its not necessarily a bad thing if you decide to get a little goofy here and there :D ...

I was in Sri Lanka about a month ago and found myself in front of a beautiful waterfall in the hill country. Got to the base of the fall to get some silky water (long exposure) effect of the waterfall. Some of my cousins wanted me to take their picture on the location after I am done with my work there.. So, a thought popped into my mind,... "Why not do it both together?" :)

I found the composition I wanted; metered for the ambient; and then triggered shutter while the camera rested on a sturdy tripod. Then I asked the willing participants to step in front of the camera quickly and pose. I would then quickly hit the pilot on my speedlight to get some splashes of light on them. You could have easily used a regular flash light instead of this.... Had to get a few shots to figure out the number of light bursts needed for the effect... And here comes the GHOSTS made out in front of a waterfall, in broad day light!!! Who says that beautiful places are not haunted.

PS - Should have asked them to strike a scary pose instead of this one.. But the technique works nonetheless.

Special thanks for my two brothers, Indika Panagoda and Charith Perera in this pictures respectively.

All pics are copyrighted.

Would love to hear your thoughts.
Akila.

HDR and Landscapes - Trying to keep it real

HDR is something I personally have stayed out of for the longest time... I think its mainly after seeing so many pictures that looks so unrealistic in the web. That certainly leaves a real bad taste in my mouth and most of my friends may have got the idea that I am against HDR... Can't blame them really but the truth can't be further from that.

HDR (High-Dynmic-Range) imaging came into the field since the camera sensors had a lower dynamic range than the human eye. We humans have the ability to pick details in dark places while still seeing a well lit night city skyline... Then people started to combine images into one single composite which can yield a better dynamic range.. in other words, get the best parts of 3 different exposures and combine them to get one picture. But as I mentioned before, the majority of examples in the web are of cases where the dynamic range was inherently low.. but the user tried to increase it by HDR... (Don't believe me.. do a Google image search for "HDR photography") :D

I will use an example of a landscape shoot I did a little back on a warm summer evening. I saw the signs of an extraordinary sunset and rushed out to get the shot I wanted. I was a tad late on getting there so, had to act fast and think on my feet to capture it before the sun is completely gone.  So, I set up my composition and exposure and took a test shot. Since the sun was still completely visible, there was a lot of light coming into the camera. Therefore I had to go with a fast shutter speed to avoid blowing out my background. I obtained this result below -

This gave me a nice exposure.. but yet the foreground (the tree and the lead up to it) is completely black (dark) due to me adjusting for the sun.  This is not a problem, but it would be nice to show some of the foreground with light as well. Therefore, I changed my frame to vertical (had nothing to do with HDR.. I usually shoot both ways) and took 3 exposures where one was completely under exposed, a normal exposure, and an over exposed picture. Now there are many ways of combining these. Few freeware software packages are out there as well. I didn't like the outcome of most of them.. some were too noisy and some gave halo effects and well as unrealistic color tones. So, I stuck to a more conventional method in combining these 3 images into one to give  a virtually noise free realistic (if you can call it that) image as below -

You may note that the foreground is now lit way better than the previous case. But the clouds may not be as dramatic as the first case. This is something that can be easily fixed, but thought to keep that for another day. You may have also noticed that I have made a nicer signature than before :D (which was simply my name). A big shout out for Scotts Photographics for the how to tutorial on that (link).  Let me know if anyone is interested in how to get this kind of an HDR result.. I will post another tutorial for that in the future (depending on the demand). 

Please do note that all pics are copyrighted. 

Thank you!
Akila.