Our Mangalore Photography Club recently conducted two photo-walk and hands-on training sessions at Pilkula on 12th August and 2nd September 2012. We had over 40 members who actively participated in these photo-walks around Guttu mane and Artist’s village in Pilikula. As I was one of the instructor of the photo-walk, I was not able to photograph during the session. Whole day went in showing and explaining photographic techniques in the field. During the second photo-walk my new Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L II IS USM had just arrived and I used it briefly to check the results. I used both my Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Canon EOS 7D bodies to test Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L II IS USM with Canon EF 1.4x III Extender.
The first picture above is the composite of eleven burst speed photographs of 5D mark III capturing Rock Dove in flight. I combined 11 photograph into a single composite using Adobe Photoshop. It is a simple task to composite photos into this pattern. Open all the 11 photos in Photoshop as layers and apply mask to each photo and repositioning them on the background canvas and saving as a single file. If you like to know more about this technique as well as tricks of cloning in photoshop check photoextremist’s examples of multiplicity. You can check individual photos used here in this post – Bird In Flight Composite
I also found a peacock, who was drenched in rain and subsequently drying his feathers in the warm sunlight. Even though it was raining on an off and rain did not hinder our photo-walk.
The Kambala ground in front of Guttu Mane where the traditional buffalo race takes place once a year was sowed with paddy and in between that paddy field I found a White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus).
An Ashy Woodswallow (Artamus fuscus) was catching a dragonfly. It gave a nice pose for the camera in a nearby light pole. In the background you see the monstrous cell phone tower which seems alien in that surrounding.
On another pole sat a White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis) drenching in the rain little later. 1/800th second shutter speed has frozen the rain drops.
Lush green environment was not just attractive to the birds. A romantic couple who were frolicking in the bush nearby were spotted by the vigilant security guard. I captured the security guard as well as the scuttling couple.
🙂 Interesting to know there is enough interest in photography now in place like mangalore! But i do not see much activity in Mangalore Flickr though!
Would like to join some day… hopefully next year!!
-Avi