Yellownary and Rednary of Autumn

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. A famous quote by a french philosopher sums up the treat to the eyes one experiences when trees are abundant with yellow, red and other unusual color leaves.

Where to find trees with yellow and red leaves trees in large numbers at Seoul. Google search gave us a few links about some locations. The most prominent search result was a link of Korea.net, it had a list of - Best places to walk under autumnal leaves in Seoul.

Samcheong-dong Road
Very first weekend of autumn I had been to Samcheong-dong Road (the road adjacent to Gyeongbukhang palace) with Rollei, Suma and Sudhamshu. The array ginko trees on either side of the road make an everlasting impression to the eyes, especially for people like us who were witnessing the autumn for first time. A km down the road led us to a location brimming cafes and restaurants. It had a feel of an european city. Chilly weather tempted us to have a cup of coffee at one of the cafes. The major deterrent of the outing was that the defective battery of my new baby(DLSR) as it got exhausted very fast and I could capture all the moments.

Stadium Near my hotel.
Subsequent weekend I had been for a casual walk to a athletic stadium near my hotel. There too were sufficient amount of autumn foliage. Especially the trees in the parking lot turned out to be a perfect candidate as a subject of my experimental photography.


Namsan Park.
Final weekend of autumn I had been to Namsan Park to witness autumn foliage. Since it had rained previous day many of yellow leaves had fallen and created a bed of yellow leaves, certainly a exceptional experience. I ascended the hill by steps and reached the base of Seoul tower capturing many snaps on the way. Being at the base of the tower, I captured a few snaps of the tower with autumn foliage as perspective. I was planning to see LASER show which is scheduled every hour after 7 pm. But at 5 pm itself it became very cold and without any proper winter clothing I gave up my plans of seeing the show.

Scientific Reason:
Now after capturing all the snaps I had one curious questions why the leaves of trees in temperate region turn yellow or read unlike trees in tropical region which directly turn brown. A link of NewYork Photo institute link How to Photograph Autumn Color had the basic reasoning about yellow, red and orange foliage.

Basically, all you need are hardwood trees and enough cold weather to go with the short days to make for bright fall colors. Remember, the shorter days signal trees that it's time to go into rest mode. All summer long, the leaves have been making food via photosynthesis. It's chlorophyll in the cells of leaves that absorbs energy from sunlight and makes photosynthesis occur. Chlorophyll is also what gives leaves their green coloration. During the summer, trees make more glucose than they use, so some is stored for the winter. When fall approaches, the production of glucose slows and then stops. Moisture stops flowing into the leaves, and the chlorophyll breaks down. When the green of the chlorophyll disappears, we see the other colors caused by various pigments – carotene (orange), xanthophyll (yellow), and anthocyanin (red and purple).

Some useful links:
- Beyond Megapixels: 5 ways to shoot autumn leaves.

Penta Cites # 5

Two great Indian cricket players hanging up their boots in back to back test matches, created a lot of discussion in web. But the biggest newsmaker of the week was Barack Obama who will be breaking 'white' jinx of the White House. Let's start with cricket first.

Sports/Cricket/Saurav Ganguly.

Ganguly's career can be looked at in two ways - that of a gifted cricketer who never quite fully delivered on his full potential as a batsman. Or that of a deeply flawed cricketer who hung in and achieved more than he should have thanks to his self-belief.

Gaurav saying bid adieu to Dada in his blog Vantage point

Sports/Cricket/Anil Kumble.

Kumble was never a dramatic bowler. His armory lacked anything that had the flair of an Akram in-swinger or of a Waqar toe-crusher or of a Warne’s pitch-outside-leg-and-take-out-off-stump delivery or of Murali’s doosra. People wouldn’t bunk classes and slink away to the TV in the common room when he came onto bowl, unlike what they would do when Sachin came into bat.

Great bong's in his post Leaving On The Jumbo Jet and explaining why Kumble was never a box-office cricketer

U.S./Politics/Obama

There's nothing like a mortgage mess, a falling stock market and a looming recession to turn voters against the incumbent party and toward an articulate merchant of hope.

A write-up in International Herald Tribune on people's expectations from Obama.

Business/ Mobile Phones

So unless the boys and girls in Chicago can get their Android-supportin' butts in gear on the double, we could see a drop to number three within a quarter or two.

A post in engadget warning Motorola to buckle up, after getting dethroned No.2 by Samsung in U.S market

Economic Crisis

Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

A famous quote of Warren Buffet used in a Business-week article indicating that best innovations have taken during recessions.

A long awaited upgrade

Last weekend I finally upgraded to a SLR by buying Nikon D80+ 18-200 VR lens at Yongsan market(Seoul). The decision was not an easy one. It required more than 6 months of analysis and research. The upgrade was on the cards from the time I was getting saturated with my current camera S2 IS. The limitations started to get highlighted one by one. And because of this I was gradually started losing enthusiasm in my one of major passion ... traveling.


Before talking about limitations, let's talk abut some pros about the camera which I have been using for last 3 years.

- Video Mode - capability of recording VGA clips at 30 fps was an amazing feature. The video recording can be started in any mode. And while shooting videos one can shoot photographs too. The feature which helped me to be capture various signature moments from Phooljhadi fest at my office to most recent Seoul Fireworks festival.
- Supermacro Mode - the mode to capture objects less than 25 cms was very helpful in capturing macro shots of Neelkurinjis while trekking in Mullyangiri to different kinds of flowers in last four editions of Lalbagh flower show.
- Swiveling LCD: The feature useful while talking macro shots and while photographing in crowded places.

Limitations experienced with S2 IS
- Neither small nor powerful. Being so bulky it didn't had performance as good as entry level SLR and being point and shoot it was not as convinient as small cameras like Canon IXUS.
- High Noise even at ISO 200: The maximum ISO level was 400 and noise was very evident at ISO 200. It had very tough time while capturing snaps at stage shows and even street photography
- Tedious Manual Focus: While doing street phtography getting the right picture was troublesome.

Things which I did over months before buying.
- First thing was participating in Kalyan varma's workshop. I got to know basic fundas i.e. relation between exposure, shutter speed and aperture. Also got some tips regarding camera equipments and the trade offs associated with body and lens.
- Participating in Bangalore Photowalk: This was major a real time self learning event. It gave oppourtunity to talk to people who were involved in serious photography from years and to people bought a SLR recently. Comparing my pics with the uploaded pics in flickr-photowalk group got me an idea what really a SLR can do and can't be done in point and shoot.

After doing several online readings and considering my budget I decided to go for D80+ 18-200 VR lens. But after owning the costly stuff shooting has been pretty difficult especially getting the right exposure in a pic. However here a few snaps from my new cam.