The first pic is near the Golf Course, just after the High Grounds Police station. This is a region with heavy traffic and soothing tree cover ... but the traffic looks, just a blur @ 6 sec and f/6.3.

Second pic is the line of cars and lights in front of Windsor Manor hotel. 10 sec exposure and f/18.

Last pic is a Bajji/Cutlet stall near my house @ Ganga Nagar. Had been seeing this almost everyday during my return from office and I finally made an attempt at taking it. In the full size pic, the journey of the batter from the container to the frying pan is kinda visible :-) Unfortunately it didnt survive the resize :( This pic was 4.5 seconds and f/8.

Nowadays, every morning, when seeing the light coming in to the house ... I think of taking a pic :-) This time, the light was a little brighter and I cud use shorter exposures and higher DOF (f/6.3 and 1s for the 1st pic, f/6.3 and 1/2s for the 2nd).

Obviously, as is evident from the bored expression of Achan in the 2nd pic, this was more of a staged photo session and lacked the impromptu feel that I would like in portraits.

One thing I just cudnt decide was whether to use sepia or not. The pics, especially the 1st one has so many colors in it and it sometimes made sense to retain them. But, after doing sepia conversion ... I was in two minds. Just wasnt sure what to put ... finally I put both!

Best thing I cud've done on a monday morning :-) I wanted to take the pic against the light coming from the background. Obviously, the pic didnt come as well as I visualized ... and it lost a lot of sharpness after resizing ... but any pic of Achan is always good :-)

Against the light, manual mode was the only option @ f/3.5 and 2.5s. Needed a few retakes to make sure that Achan stay still thro' that 2.5s :-) Also, am not sure if sepia is the way to go here ... mostly I'll revisit this frame sometime.

Given a chance, I would have planted my tripod somewhere in the divider and set a long exposure with narrow shutter, trying to capture the entire gridlock of vehicles.

Adarsh says ... 'U r never caught in a traffic jam ... u r part of one!' I was part of one and had the clutch half pressed, with amma and achan sitting behind! Right @ the center of the city, junction of Brigade and MG Road, entering Kamaraj Road on a saturday evening!

Only thing I could manage was a hand held shot, with the camera outside the window and held high @ f/4 and 1/4 seconds!

This is the only photo session I had for almost a week now. So, I am putting it here, in spite of the results not being very encouraging.

In the second pic, the light effect is caused by a two wheeler coming down from the road, right in time! I also added Sepia effect to that pic. For completion sake, the 1st pic is @ f/4.5 and 1/2 s and the 2nd one is @ f/32 and 4.5 seconds.

I had a tough time getting decent pics @ Hogenakkal. Coz the sun was too bright there, making most of the things, most importanly the flowing water, too bright to photograph.

For example, the first pic of the canyon is taken @ f/22, the minimum 'f' I could've had @ 18mm, with my 18-55 lens. Even at this 'f', the time I could use was around 1/50 seconds, not allowing me to do any experiments with the shutter speed. I would have loved to try out something of the order of 1s. Just, wished I had a few ND filters with me! I am soon going to acquire a couple of 3-stop ND filters ... btw! Hope to come back to Hogenakkal after getting them :-)

The second pic is taken on the way back @ f/8 and 1/100s, when I got a little shade and still waters ... where I could get some reflections.

Third pic is taken on the way back to Bengaluru near a place Palacode. Liked the variety of colors due to the greenery, soil and the clear bright sky. Here, the available brightness allowed me to go to f/16 (@ 1/50), allowing me to get the whole frame in focus and take the pic handheld.

These pictures are the usual ... with tripod, long exposure ... thin shutter pics, first one is f/22 and 20 seconds, with ISO 100. Third one is very similar, with 10 second exposure.

For the 2nd pic, I wanted to capture the movement of people ateast vaguely and at the same time, keep the DOF long enough to cover the whole scene, as well as make the lights look like stars. Finally, had to resort to ISO 400, since that was the only way I cud've taken an f/22 and 1.3 seconds.

... on a Diwali day. All these pics are from MG Road, Bridage Road area:

Usually while taking water streams/falls camera would let you freeze the action, by using the widest shutter and the shortest exposure (something to the tune of f/2.5 and 1/125s). Just try a little longer exposure and that'll give a much smoother / nicer pic. I saw this initially in Dan Heller's site (danheller.com) and tried it for couple of pics. Was initially trying to use exposure times of about 2-4 seconds, but soon realized something like 1/8 seconds is more than enough. In most practical cases, this is all that is possible with the thinnest shutter width (f/32 in my camera / lens).

In the first pic of the stream, taken near Mullodi village @ the foot hills of Kudremukh, the settings used is f/32 and 1/8 sec, to give a smooth / continuous effect to the stream. The small 'f' value also ensures that the whole frame is easily focused.

The comparison picture just shows the difference of using longer exposures. Left side uses f/2.5 and 1/125, while the right side uses f/16 and 1/3 seconds. Btw ... the higher exposure pic may get blurry without a tripod or atleast a support!

Some landscapes during a Kudremukh trek: