randomsurfer:प्रतीक:Gupte's photostream

Spider and its prey (not very clear).
Shot off-ECR with Tokina 100 mm macro.

Earth's axis of rotation nearly passes thru the North Pole star (Polaris or Dhruv tara). So if u focus the Pole star at center...., with rotation of the Earth over time all the other stars form circular trails around (this) center....What u see here is the trail of stars for ~ 1 hour 40 min, you can also see a meteorite falling at the top (center left) of the image.

Exposure Duration: 1 hour, 40 min and 42 sec. Aperture: f/4.0. ISO: 800. WB: Incandescence @ 16mm. Taken 80 km North of Chennai on Amavasya (no moon) to avoid city lights and pollution to get maximum stars! Tripod Courtesy: Samyak.

Pole star located using Google Sky app on HTC Legend Touch phone of my photographer friend Mathew.

Stiching done using star trails s/w: www.startrails.de/html/software.html

Shot in continuous drive mode on Nikon D80, I googled a lot about how to get the camera click 30 sec shots at regular intervals....but failed, everybody just said use continuous drive mode!!! :(

Here is the method to achieve it: You need a shutter release cable (MC-DC1) for D80. Fix the camera in Manual mode with your settings of aperture and shutter. Change the image mode to continuous photographs.......Press the shutter button on MC-DC1 and move it further to hold slot.....done :-), now the camera fires the manual mode back 2 back till you release the hold button.

A group of Spot-Billed Pelicans (Pelecanus philippensis) caught in action at Nelapattu Bird Scantuary.
These Pelicans came into action when the 7th member landed on the nest and joined the other six. Shot this pic when these guys were playing around for the place on the nest!! :-)

Got a chance to use Nikon D90 for a day, courtesy: Gireeshan
Verdict: Nikon D90 is an amazing piece of equipment, the very fast autofocus is a major enhancement over the (fast :D) autofocus of Nikon D80.

A gr8 visit and a start for the birding season :-)

A Dragonfly is an insect belonging to category Odonates. They are characterized by large Compound Eyes.

A compound eye consists of 100s of photoreceptor units. The image is a combination of image inputs from individual eye units, which are located on a convex surface, thus pointing in slightly different directions. Compared with simple eyes, compound eyes possess a very large view angle, and can detect fast movements!!

Source: Wikipedia + Web

Thanks to Nara for his Tokina 100mm f/2.8 MACRO lens.

Explored on 1st September 2010.

Common Pierrot (Castalius rosimon) caught making love @ Chennai