Kishor Krishnamoorthi’s WebsiteKishor a.k.a Mjuboy’s Blog

The Canon 5D Mark II.

A camera that completely changed the digital SLR game.

When I first wrote about it around a year and half ago, I would’ve given up everything I owned for it. Today, I would still do the same. However, Canon decided that they would lend me the camera without me having to give up my possessions.

After my Round Table Meeting with Canon in December, I was lent the Canon 5D Mark II for 3 whole weeks, most of which would be spent at home in India. I got the camera literally 12 hours before my plane left and the moment I held it in my hands, I fell in love with it.

Every photograph looked stunning, every video looked brilliant, I could sing praises about it for hours at end. One thing is for certain, this is not going to be a technical review of the camera. If you want a technical review, head over to DPReview’s 40 page review. This is going to be a summary of a personal experience with the camera, a brief narrative of what I loved about the camera, what I didnt like and how it fit into my life.

The camera didnt handle particularly different from my 40D except for the fact that it was considerably heavier. The button layout felt very similar as did the menu. The viewfinder was absolutely fantastic, the joy of full frame is really something else. The high-res screen was a much needed upgrade and was gorgeous to look at, although it was a battery drainer. The High ISO capability was outstanding, and being able to take photos lit with nothing but a LED from a crappy phone and make it look like strobes was definitely fun. We shot plenty of videos at dusk, making full use of the sensor and the bokeh with a 50mm f/1.8.

One of my minor complaints with the camera was the autofocusing which didnt seem to have much improvement over my 40D. It proved quite annoying when trying to autofocus in the dark since ultimately it wasnt the ISO that prevented me from taking a photo but rather the focusing. Hopefully Canon are working to sort this out soon, and I’ve heard the 7D has a better autofocus system.

It wasnt only I who fell in love with the camera, it was pretty much everyone who laid their eyes on it. A couple of my friends in India were considering not letting me leave for England so that we wouldn’t have to return the camera. We made the most of it in the 3 weeks I had it and secretly hoped that Canon would let me keep it forever.

During my last day with the camera, I made a small project titled ‘A Day in my Life’ wherein I took photos of my daily activities right from the time I woke up till I went to bed over the course of 16 hours. It was great fun, especially while trying to find an artistic angle for things that would normally be deemed as boring and then attempting to use the tripod and setting the camera to the perfect position. You can see all the 30 photos here.

I got quite attached to the camera and was gutted when I had to return it. I’m back to my loyal 40D now but n eedless to say, the Canon 5D Mark II will definitely be my next investment.

Update – Canon Camera Buzz has been kind of enough to link to my project, check out their post here!

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The Paintball Machine at its finest!

The Glue Guns

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by the BBC (Yes, British Broadcasting Corporation themselves!) to know if I would be interested in taking part in an exclusive preview of their new online creative programme ‘BBC Blast‘. Not wanting to miss out on revision time for my toughest exam, I was about to turn down the offer but thought twice and accepted it since I wouldnt really get a chance like this often.

Upon further research, I found out that I was one of fifteen people creative minds invited to attend the preview and have a fun day out basically. I was quite excited about it and lo and behold, I was not disappointed. On Monday, I headed down to London and after meeting up with everyone and quick introductions, we were taken to Topolski Studio at Southbank London, just off the London Eye.

Since the studio was not big enough to accommodate all of us simultaneously, we were taken in 3 batches. The place was definitely like something I’ve never seen before, different and fresh. It housed four different creative ideas, one was a set of four paintball guns, hacked to be controlled via computers, another was 3 glue guns, once again hacked to be operated via a computer, a couple of printers and fifteen coloured lights sync’d with sounds.

This plethora of instruments could all be operated via a computer there, and you can do it online as well over here. The paintball guns were pointed against a then white wall, now a mish mash of colours, and you can direct it however you choose. The glue guns are pointed vertically down upon a plastic dome and they hope to build a sculpture by the end of the month. The printers can print out anything you type in online on the website and if I’m not wrong, I think they’re going to be displayed eventually in an exhibition. The coloured tube lights can have a different tune assigned to each and glow when you hit the respective key on the keyboard.

The Backend

Overall, there was a decent bit to see, and we were also given booze and snacks which made the whole experience even better. After some tinkering around, we went to the park to do some sweeding, as can be seen in ‘Be Kind Rewind‘. There were a lot of ideas and thoughts being throw around but we eventually settled on the movie Hancock with some random robots thrown in, it was good fun and we’ll have to edit the clips before we can get the final result which should quite amusing to watch.

I’d like to thank the BBC for organising this interactive day, and 1000Heads as well for finding the me and guiding us during the day. It was definitely different, and new and hopefully, as the programme expands, it’ll get lots of people involved in it!

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Travel. Time. Destiny.

Man has forever tried to find the meaning of life.

Some say its 42. And as much as I do agree with it, sometimes, we do need to look beyond numbers because there is no greater lie than statistics.

After hours of wondering, pondering, and walking on my own “thinking path“, I dont claim to have solved this ever lasting question but I may have come to some conclusions of my own which explain the way forward. Strangely enough, it comes back down to religion. It comes back to Lord Krishna’s message to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita – Do your duty.

Simple but strong. Nothing too vague so that the common man can understand it but still complex enough to baffle the most learned of minds.

There is a lot of potential argument to be raised against the message, especially with the freedom loving youth of today. I dont blame them. Its in your nature to argue but people will hopefully realize that life is a journey of happiness to yourself and those around you.

I can see questions arising asking what one’s duty is. One’s duty is to make the world a better place for yourself and everyone else. This may change from person to person and faith to faith but it more or less points down to the same basic principle.

And as always a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand pictures so I’m embedding a clip from the tamil movie ‘Devar Magan’ in which Kamal and Sivaji discuss the points I mentioned above. It is subtitled for those who dont know Tamil.

For those who are simply too busy to watch the full clip for 5 minutes, here is a brief summary. The video is an interaction between Sivaji and Kamal. Sivaji is Kamal’s father and the leader of their village. Kamal has been educated in a foreign country and after have witnessed a bloody massacre in the village, wishes to leave the place for better lands. Sivaji, in all his wisdom, explains to Kamal, that being an educated youth, it is Kamals’ duty to induce change in the society and running away leaving the problems behind is simply cowardice. It is his duty to do so, and the rewards will be reaped by society, his children and future generations to come. Kamal retorts saying that it’s going to take centuries to do that and he would probably die before that. But Sivaji cleverly replies saying that nobody can stop him from dying but if he dies after having a lived a life helpful to everyone, there is pride in that death.

And thats pretty much the core of the scene, apart from the few extra bits here and there. It enforces my previous claim of doing one’s duty with a more powerful reason behind it. A reason that the world will remember you after you’ve gone.

Pride. Honour. Virtue. Principle. Things that have been forgotten by many today but still remain essential to living a better life.

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Last night, I had the privilege of being one of the few students ever in the history of the University to have gone on the roof of the library. I was up there to take a photo of a formation of people holding glowsticks and standing to form a ‘60′ to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. It was an unique experience and I have to say I did enjoy it. I have posted one photo below and you can a couple of others here.

We had the famous Government Department Christmas Party last night which was great fun as always. We won the quiz last year and were determined to continue our winning streak this year as well but missed out in the end by just one point!

If you are wondering about the complete irrelevancy of the title of this post, fear not, it was not designed to be understood by everyone.

And Wordpress have released their newest released, Wordpress 2.7 Coltrane which I have just installed. I loved it immediately, its a refreshing change from the old look of Wodpress and it does improve productivity too. A highly recommended upgrade to all Wordpress users, get it here!

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Even though I suggested in my previous post that I was going insane, I am pleased to inform you that I’ve come back to the world of sanity after a brief tryst with the dark side.

Christmas Dinners have started and like last year, the first Christmas dinner of this year was at the Gliding Club and it was a wonderful dinner indeed. The food was delicious as always, and I was quite stuffed by the end of the lovely three course meal. We did go Gliding all morning and although it was quite cold, the visibility was great and we did some really good flights. It was nice to see all the familiar faces again and as with tradition, we retired to the bar at the end of day and spent a good amount of time talking about things all around the world while we were merrily drunk. We spent the night there and I must say that I had one of the most well rested sleep in a long time. It was a great day out and did a good job to kick me out of the boring routine and show me that there is another exciting world there after all. We came back to campus next day morning, back to the usual life, back to a 2500 word essay due today morning which I successfully finished by midnight.

We’ve got more dinners, parties and socials coming up this week, all of which I’m looking forward to. It should be a good celebration before going back home for winter.

Amazon recently launched their DRM-Free MP3 Downloads for the United Kingdom which I totally approve of. Its a great alternative to iTunes and will also help in the fight against piracy. I was sorely tempted to buy some music just to try it out but financial restraints held me back. I did end up buying an Audio CD which was not available in the Downloads section and it was quite a bargain as well so there was no reason not to get it.

The CD was something I had been wanting to get for a long time now, it was ‘Pride: The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play U2‘ and it came in the mail a couple of days ago. It is a beautiful mix of both of my favourite genres of music, classical and U2. (Yes, U2 is a genre for me!) I’ve been listening to it for most of yesterday and today and I cannot get enough of it.

I’ve also realized that I love getting handwritten letters, it has a certain personal touch and charm to it that technology can never replicate. I received one from my father last week and it felt really good to read that familiar handwriting of his. Another letter was surprisingly from the seller for the CD from Amazon who was kind enough to include a personal message along with the receipt. I’ve made sure that I left a 5/5 seller rating for him.

I got my hands on Lightroom 2.1 last week. It does have some nice features but since I havent done serious editing with it yet, I still need to get used to it. It also seems to run faster but then again, I think thats because I ran CCleaner which is pretty darn amazing software to get rid of all unnecessary things from your PC. It saved me 10Gig I dont know from where, but it did.

This week’s schedule looks a lot more relaxed than the past weeks which is a nice transition before I go home and do absolutely nothing for 3 weeks.

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As I’ve mentioned before, my father always said that confusion is the beginning of clarity, and time and again, his words have been proven right. However, I’m not sure if they apply to a different situation, in this case, a situation of insanity.

Is insanity the beginning of sanity? Or is it just an end in itself? Only time will tell, or atleast I hope it will.

The first signs of insanity that I encountered was talking to myself. I first caught myself talking to myself about a week ago when I was walking back home in the rain at around 2 in the morning after finishing work. Work in this sense is taking photographs at the university nightclub. It felt surprisingly good to talk to someone who knew me best – me! I must admit that I’ve done it a couple of more times but only because it does a good job to sort out things that have been on my mind and nagging me. It definitely is something awkward and not something everyone does but I guess everyone has their own queer side.

Another sign, which would probably come across to the common person as insanity but its something I personally think very highly of – Anti Piracy. After having been hit hard by the credit crunch, I thought I should probably temporarily relax my anti piracy beliefs to download some music since I couldnt afford to buy any. But I just couldnt do it. Not because my internet was slow, not because I couldnt find it, not because piratebay was down, but simply because I could not get myself to click the download button. I just find it morally wrong, not to pay someone for the work they’ve done. Sure, you’re going to say that there are lots of people out there who will pay for it so if one person downloads it, it isnt going to affect them much. But if everyone thinks like that, it obviously will lead to everyone downloading and noone buying. So I decided I’ll buy the music once I get some money and till then, I’ll have the lovely YouTube to aid me in listening to my favourite songs.

And I hope people enjoyed my previous post, my first  work of literature, a poem titled ‘If – 2.0′. It was a result of frustration and annoyance with things around me and the poem, like talking to myself, did a good job of clearing matters from my mind. After seeing the positive feedback I got on Facebook, I may possibly write again sometime soon if I feel like it.

The events which happened at Mumbai have been truly tragic and did unseat me from usual routine. My heart goes out to everyone whose family has been affected by this horrific incident and I sincerely hope that nothing like this ever happens again in a beautiful country like India or any other country for that matter. You can view some photographs which have captured the event in its entirety here.

Life has been going on and on, whether I liked it or not. I’ve been pretty busy over the past week, maybe a bit too busy and need to relax my schedule slightly to accommodate academics. Finance is not the best thing I’d like to write about now, so lets just say that I’m another victim of the Credit Crunch. And thats it for now, might possibly post something more this week about my ‘wonderful’ life.

Currently Listening to – Nee Partha from Hey Ram

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‘The cat is dead’ said Max Woodger as John McCain lost out on the presidency of the United States of America in the 2008 Elections last Tuesday. Barack Obama was successfully elected as the first black president beating McCain by a large margin.

The night after the elections was bonfire night in England, to celebrate the thwarting Guy Fawkes’ plot of blowing up the Parliament in 1605. I went along with a few friends to the Colchester Castle to watch some fireworks. Even though it was supposed to start at 6PM, we waited for about an hour in the cold drizzle before it finally started at 7PM. I have to say it was quite impressive, maybe not worth the wait, but was still quite good. As you can expect, I did take my camera and tripod along and managed to get some pretty nice shots. I’ve posted my personal favourite below. You can see the rest of the photos here.

Being the photographer for the Students Union, I went for about 3 nights last week to take photos. Friday night was really good fun but the others were just alright. After that, I realized that it had been quite a while since I took photos just for myself without the pressure of work so I went for a nice long walk around campus just taking photos of building and places at my own leisure and it felt really good to do that. I’ve posted the photos which I took during the walk on Flickr and you can take a look at them here. The last few photos from the album are the most recent ones.

And on Sunday, we went to the Colchester Zoo which has to be the best zoo I’ve ever visited. Of course, since the other zoo that I remember visiting is Nehru Zoo, one can assume that a zoo doesnt really have to be that impressive to be better than that but trust me, the Colchester Zoo is something to be seen. It is huge and the fact that we spent almost 15minutes taking photos of each animal didnt help. After about 5 hours, we realized that we had only covered about 50% of the Zoo and had to rush through the rest but we still didnt see everything. Another trip to the Zoo is pending and you can see the photos from the trip here. More photos will be uploaded to the set soon.

I’ve been listening to a varied genre of songs recently, a few worth mentioning are ‘Paper Planes by M.I.A‘, ‘Rush Rush by Debbie Harry‘, ‘Everything is borrowed by The Streets‘, ‘Bilqis by Rabbi Shergill‘ and ‘Chariots of Fire by Vangelis‘.

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Continuing my monthly series of photographs, here is the second post showcasing my favourite landscape photographs. You can see the first post of the series here.

Glorious Illumination, Copyright of Timothy Wolcott.

Rightfully titled ‘Glorious Illumination’ by landscape photographer Timothy Wolcott, this spectacular photograph taken in Antarctica has inspired me to visit Antarctica atleast once in my lifetime. The exotic and unique location of this photograph, the amazing use of negative space, the graceful fusion of water and ice and the abundance of my favourite color, blue, makes this one my most favourite landscape shots of all time.

Morning Tree, Copyright of Richard Smith.

Taken in Keswick, England, this beautiful photo of dawn is what I imagine Paradise to be. A stretch of lush green grass with a river flowing next to it, and topped off with a view of mountains and peaks. This photo just feels so serene and peaceful,and along with the tree in the foreground, nothing seems wrong.

Beacon Rock, Copyright of Luke Olsen

As a long time fan of dusk and night shots, this photography instantly appealed to me by being a combination of sunset and lights.  The near perfect composition leading the eye to the red light on the left is beautiful. The low angle on the shot and the seemingly universal depth-of-field was the result of the Canon 24mm TS-E f/3.5 L which is a tilt shift lens. They require a decent amount of knowledge to master and once you know how to use it well, you can create masterpieces like this one.

On Top of the Divide, Copyright of David Gong.

The blending of motion and stillness in this shot of the moon and some rocks is simply breathtaking. It was shot on a film camera (Nikon F100) with a 15mm fisheye lens to give the bulging wide angle effect to the photo. The movement of the clouds has been captured with a long exposure of 180 seconds and an aperture of f/5.6. Its photos like these that made me fall in love with night photography.

Heading Home, Copyright of Aditya Mopur.

Simplicity is the name of the game and this photograph does wonders to portray it. The use of the rule of thirds, and the muted colours convey a sense of peace and serenity. And the title of ‘Heading Home’ depicting an Indian boatman gives one a sense of nostalgia and sentiment for the motherland.

Night Sky in the Outback, Copyright of Jeff Nyveen.

Having attempted to shoot Star Trails twice, I know how tough its too get a good shot. This particular photo has a ridiculously long exposure time of 4 hours. Normal digital cameras would probably die if they were set up for a 4 hour long exposure and hence, this was taken with a film camera. The inclusion of the dark trees definitely adds to the photograph which would’ve otherwise been a bit bland. The random colors of the stars also adds to the already colorful pinkish-orange sky.

If you have any landscape photographs that you wish to share, please do post them in the comments.

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I’m going to kick off this post with some very sad news, one of the best violin players in India, Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, passed away yesterday night due to a cardiac arrest. He was 75 years old and had been awarded a Padma Shri title. His classic style of music will be sorely missed. You can watch his work here.

I also have some good news, my last photo of the 365 Day Project, ‘Day 366‘ had appeared on the frontpage of Flickr Explore. It feels really nice to have the final photo of the project become popular, it give me the satisfaction that I’ve achieved a lot with the project. I’ve taken a screenshot of this memorable event which you can see below. My thanks to everyone who viewed, commented and favorited the photo.

Day 366 on Flickr Explore

And as I mentioned earlier, Sony has announced their newest dSLR, the A900 with a full frame sensor and a whopping resolution of 24 Megapixels and thus winning the megapixel race among dSLRs. It also features a 2.5-4 stop internal image stabilization feature, a 100% viewfinder and dual BIONZ processors. It has a bust rate of 5fps which might seem a bit low but then again, you’ll probably used such a highres camera only in studio situations which wont require high burst rates. The ISO range is decent, ranging from 100-6400. And the fact that it only costs $3,000 makes it a clear winner.

Sony has also announced two new lenses to accompany the A900. The first is a 16-35mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss priced at $1,800 and the second is a 70-400mm f/4-5.6 costing $1,500. Both of them will ship in Jan 2009 and seem very impressive indeed.

This is obviously a problem for Canon who seems to be slightly going down in the market due to lack of innovation. It has everyone eagerly awaiting for the new 5D for which they have released a teaser saying “Destined Evolution’ which has only increased expectations. But the real problem here is not the A900 but since Sony manufactures the sensors for Nikon, there is a good chance that a D3x will be announced sporting a 24MP sensor and 25600 ISO which would make any loyal Canonian cry. But only time will tell so lets wait and see.

Apple has also announced the new generation of iPod Nanos. They dont have any spectacular improvements function wise but look better with a curved slim body and lot of fancy colors. Take a look at it here.

If you are Bulgarian, you should probably hang your head in shame since Slovakia beat Bulgaria in women’s ice hockey with a final score of 82-0. Read all about it here.

And thats all for now folks, but keep your eyes peeled for some wallpapers soon!

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Quite surprisingly, the world’s richest person today, Warren Buffet with an estimated worth of $62 Billion,  drives a relatively simple car, the 2006 Cadillac DTS which is sold for something in the region of $50,000. Admittedly, it is expensive for the common man but for a person with enough money to buy more than million Cadillacs, it does seem a bit thrifty. Interestingly, his previous car, a 2001 Lincoln Town Car Signature Series, once again costing around $50,000 had a number plate which read ‘THRIFTY’.

Buffet's Lincoln with the signature number plate.

Infact, a number of billionaires drive quite simple cars. I guess when you’ve become that rich, you cant really be bothered to drive the fanciest and most expensive cars but would be happy with something that is simple and comfortable.

There are several examples of such billionaires including, Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, worth 31$ Billion, who drives a 15 year old 1993 Volvo 240GL. The vehicle apprently reflects his style rather than this wealth. Jim Walton, son of the Sam Walton, founder of the Fortune 500 topping company Wal-Mart, drives a 2002 Dodge Dakota. And the list goes on with Sergey Brin who drives Toyota Prius, Steve Ballmer who drives a 1998 Lincoln Continental, so on and so forth.

Bill Gates who remained the richest man on earth for 13 consecutive years  and is currently worth $58 BIllion, drives a 1988 Porsche 959 Coupe of which only 230 were ever manufactured. However, the emissions of 959 were doubtful and it a federal law passed by President Bill Clinton to allow to the car to be street legal.  But enough of these, lets move on to the cars with the power, pride and costing a hell a lot of money.

The most expensive car money can buy today is the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 with a list price of approximately 1.5 Million Dollars. The car is handcrafted in France and about 130 have been produced since its introduction in 2005. With a top speed of 407kmph (253mph), the car can accelerate from 0-100kmph (62mph) in 2.5 seconds making it the fastest acceleration speed of any production car in history. The mechanics of the Veyron are very interesting and those who wish to give it a read can do so here.

The Bugatti Veyron

And for those people who are wondering if it is even possible to handle such amount of power, it probably isnt always possible as shown by Ajay Soni who smashed the car after losing control of it near his $6 Million home in Surrey, England. And to add to the pain, the car was not owned by the driver but by his brother, Businessman Kumar Soni who must have lost his mind at the sight of the wreck. You can see pictures and more details of the crash here.

But if you want the fastest car in the world, the car for you is the SSC Ultimate Aero TT which has a top speed of 413 kmph (257 mph) and is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the fastest production car in the world. Very few have been sold to date even though it is less than half the price of the Veyron.

However, some Billionaires prefer comfort to speed like Mukesh Ambani who spent a million dollars (including 120% Indian import duty) on his Maybach 62. Mukesh Ambani is the 5th richest man in the world with a net worth of $43 Billion. The Maybach may not have the raw power of the Veyron but it is more luxurious than the average person’s house, with fully reclining rear seats, automatic closing doors, Bose Surround Sound Speaker System, Dual Control Air Suspension, an air conditioner capable of cooling it to 15 degrees below the outside temperature and a lot more. You can also include the option of a panoramic translucent electroluminescent sunroof for another $12,000. A more detailed description of the features can be found here.

The luxurious Maybach 62

And just in case, you like luxury and speed, you can opt for the Brabus tuned version of the Maybach which increases its top speed to 300kmph and can accelerate 0-100kmph in 4.9 seconds making it the the fastest super-luxury motorcar in the world.

But sometimes the most expensive isnt expensive enough. New Yorker James Glickenhaus had Ferrari custom build a car for him and tailor made to his body dimensions so that it would be a perfect fit for him. And the cost of this customisation? A mere $4 Million. The car was customized over the chassis of an Enzo Ferrari by Pininfarina.

The classic Rolls Royce is always a favourite as shown by Donald Trump who is only worth $3 Billion and owns a 2007 Model of the Rolls Royce Phantom. Gambling Billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, worth $28 Billion owns a 1991 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur which probably isnt the most flashy car but as we’ve seen above, they richest of the crowd prefer to keep a low profile.

Rolls Royce Phantom

Okay, so you’ve bought your fancy car but dont know where to push it to its limits? Fear not, for there is a 4 mile track at the Monticello Motor Club only 90 minutes away from Manhattan which is there to serve the purpose for you to drive as you please. The entry fee? $125,000 with a yearly membership fee of $7,500.  The exclusive private club includes members such as Jerry Seinfeld, and James Glickenhaus along with his $4 Million Ferrari.

And there you have it, the most expensive and fastest cars in the world all waiting to be bought by you and me. Personally, I’d be quite happy with a Pagani Zonda C12F.

What cars would you buy if you were a billionaire? Would you splurge your money on the best or save it up and buy a simple car? Please leave your valued comments.

Sources – Forbes Autos, The Super Cars and Wikipedia.

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