Crop factor and Depth of Field!

For a change, this crop factor isn't about birds or photography itself; am just seeding a thought :-). Hope you enjoy the pictures though ;-)

I'd the privilege of attending the Vilanatti celebration at the Khammana village in Wayanad/Kerala. Rice was transplanted as part of the village festival.

Plough, Yoke, Hoe ...


Preparation afoot ...



Of the 100,000 varieties of rice, there was a snapshot of ~20 of them here. The focus was on improving the quality of the native rice varities through good seed selection. To get a critical mass of seeds, produced from the farms themselves, it could be a 2-year process.


Rice varieties and the Rice Sprouts

The seed companies are a real threat to the farming practice. They would patent varieties of rice, seeds and control farming in India. It is a huge market. The large companies just need to control the seeds :-). It is important that GM seeds don't become the only variety allowed to be planted in India. The control of seeds should remain with the farmer.


The seedlings are ready for transplanting ...


Transport before Transplanting!



Even the MLA had come over ... the minister unfortunately couldn't :-(
A sound reception


Getting down to the action ...



Experts and the First-timers ...




The Speech Acts ...; Usha Chechi has the minister speaking online; The release of The Bio-diversity Registry of Khammana

Usha Chechi is from Thanal. Thanal is a Public Interest Research, Advocacy, Education and Action Trust with the mission "Gather for all beings". I liked her fire, belief, concern, ...


Ramettan with friends; The Chieftain in a pleasant mood.

Ramettan, the tribal farmer, speaks science and panchayat politics! He believes that it is an important mix to ensure progress of the village and the community!! The Kurichiya community fought with Pazhassi Raja against the British.


In perspective ...

Beauty at every level; A field of view; Dragon flies can help handle pests ...


My photoblog would be incomplete without the picture of a bird ;-)
Flora or Fauna?

This bird is woven using a coconut leaf :-)

Hope you think about the farmers when you head out for lunch :-)

Pulp Fiction

I'd been to Ranganthittu Bird Sanctuary with family on 25/Jan/2008. It was a fun trip and the kids enjoyed it. I was hoping to get some good photos of the birds but wasn't as successful.

As we returned to the parking lot, I noticed some little bird activity in a tree. A little bird (flowerpecker?) was trying to pick a fruit. I knelt down with my 300mm lens and went trigger happy. The picture quality is average but I'm happy that I was able to capture this behaviour of the bird, the whole sequence.

View my Pulp Fiction.

Photos from the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary

In early May, I'd visited the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary (near Mysore, India). The birds are lovely and present in large numbers though many had already migrated out of the sanctuary in April. Check out the full-sized images on Zooomr or on Flickr.

Which one did you like the most? I loved the orange little egret, snowy egret, the details of the black headed ibis, and the geometry of the stork wings ... I enjoyed capturing a 10MP image of a stork in flight - it was perfect timing and I may not repeat it again! :-)

Birds of Kannur

I've uploaded some animal and bird photos on Flickr. They are mostly from Kannur except for the elephant and gaur at the Muthanga Wildlife sanctuary.

I liked 'the call of the sparrow', 'Suspended Flying fox', 'Strolling up', and the mongoose.

I should find the names of the birds and update the photos.

Birds of Ranganathittu

Recently my friend Thej posted lovely pictures of the Birds of Ranganathittu. Ranganthittu is on my wish list of 'must visit' places now!

I requested my avid bird-watching friend Jayachandran (JC) to comment on the birds. He has identified most of them! Thanks JC and Thej. Hope our Ranganathittu trip materializes in May ...

Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 WA lens

The Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 is an interesting wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses rarely come a fixed f/2.8! The zoom range is fairly constrained due to this (unlike Canon's 10-22 or even Tokina's 12-24)

I see a couple of reviews; Ken Rockwell, Koh Kho King. I am tempted to get one to cover the wide angle range! :-)