No Aj Sighting But.....

[Greenside]

This year I noticed that many of the ladies perched on the floats (what an ordeal that must be for four or five hours) seemed to be wearing braces and the same went for the Bor Sang festival a few weeks back. I wonder if it's recently got a lot more popular in Thailand. More Flower Festival pictures here.

Edited February 7, 2009 by Greenside

[WaiWai]

But, "Where have all the flowers gone?"

We also need a poll on Best Hat.

(Nice work, Greenside.)

[Greenside]

Actually I don't find it very easy to get a decent picture of the floats. You either get the whole thing in and then it's not obvious that it's made from real flowers or go up close and then you don't see the extent of it. This afternoon at the end point on the moat would probably have been better but I was feeling my age having got up early and walked from the station to Thapae Gate and back carrying my stuff.

[IanForbes]

This is a truly lovely photo. Thanks for that. I also like the first one with the girl in the straw hat.

I got a few nice ones myself, but don't have them on my website yet. I didn't spend too much time at the parade and I only went to be with friends. I don't usually care for parades all that much... and hence my comments on the gay rights parade. A popular parade certainly makes driving through the city a nightmare. You REALLY have to know your way areound all the little sois to get anywhere if you actually have to be some place. I don't mind walking, but I'm constantly amazed at how many people will drive for an extra half hour just to be a few hundred meters closer to where they want to go. You can walk the same distance in minutes.

[IanForbes]

Actually I don't find it very easy to get a decent picture of the floats. You either get the whole thing in and then it's not obvious that it's made from real flowers or go up close and then you don't see the extent of it. This afternoon at the end point on the moat would probably have been better but I was feeling my age having got up early and walked from the station to Thapae Gate and back carrying my stuff.

It helps to have an SLR camera with a long zoom lens. You can adjust the ISO rating on the camera to get better speed and there is no pause beteen pressing the shutter button and the picture being taken like on so many point and shoot cameras.

Here are just a few that I took to get close ups while shooting at 200 mm zoom.

[Ajarn]

Every digital camera has a long pause between clicking and taking the photo. The only way around this is to press a little first, allowing the meter and focusing to work, then when you are ready, simply press the shutter all the way, and 'click'

[Greenside]

Every digital camera has a long pause between clicking and taking the photo. The only way around this is to press a little first, allowing the meter and focusing to work, then when you are ready, simply press the shutter all the way, and 'click'

I think that's a bit of a sweeping statement! Even moderately recent DSLRs have virtually no shutter lag although it's still an issue with some lower priced point and shoot cameras. Before the advent of auto-focus you'd have had to find focus before pressing the shutter so it's hardly fair to class this as a delay and higher end lenses can react at least as fast as I could do it manually unless they get confused and "hunt" to find the right point. In any event, other than a real emergency picture you're pretty likely to be focussing on the subject by the time you actually want to press the button. As far as the metering goes, the time taken is so small as to be almost immeasurable - about as fast as the flash from your strobe.

[IanForbes]

Every digital camera has a long pause between clicking and taking the photo. The only way around this is to press a little first, allowing the meter and focusing to work, then when you are ready, simply press the shutter all the way, and 'click'

"Every" digital camera? Huh? My Nikon 200D SLR will shoot 5 frames a second (as will the Canon SLRs). I can photograph racing cars coming at me at 200 kph and still get sharp, focused photos. I can even get a golf swing in motion as a series of stills. The newer model professional grade Nikon can do better than that. The ISO can be turned up to 6400 and it is as sharp as the 400 ISO setting on my 200D with about the same amount of noise.

However, it DOES take some time playing around with the various settings to get the most out of any camera. Too often I just leave it on "Program" mode and I might have been better to choose shutter priority or aperature priority. Looking into the sun, or having the sun at your back can change photos dramatically. The beauty of digital is you can adjust the pictures later with Photoshop if something isn't quite right.

[orang37]

Lovely photographs, Khun Greenside, did you notice any plants ?

The very nice "bokeh" on some of the close-focus (macro ?) shots makes me curious what camera and lens you were using if you care to comment.

Thanks for sharing ! I always enjoy your website.

~o:37;

Edited February 8, 2009 by orang37

[BSJ]

Now there's a good reason to spend time in Chiangmai!

[Greenside]

Lovely photographs, Khun Greenside, did you notice any plants ?

The very nice "bokeh" on some of the close-focus (macro ?) shots makes me curious what camera and lens you were using if you care to comment.

Thanks for sharing ! I always enjoy your website.

~o:37;

Plants? I went to the moat to try and get some pictures today - they don't last long when they're stuck into polystyrene...

The close-ups were all done with a Canon 70-200mm lens but if you're asking about the bokeh (that's the out of focus bit, for those who think this is getting a bit technical ) on the girl with the straw hat and the girl with the red head dress then I confess to enhancing both using a new Photoshop filter by Alien Skin. Both were nice shots of the subject but I thought the background wasn't soft enough and so a bit too distracting. By the way, you can see the technical details of pictures on my site by hovering the cursor over the main picture and clicking on the "info" symbol. Hope to see you at another CMPG meeting soon.