Capturing Hussain-Sagar

 On 27/11/2011 i boarded the flight to vizag from hyderabad with Mom and Dad.  The flight took off at 7:30 PM one hour late than the actual time. It was night as it has to be. I was excited since the cities lights would be a fantastic view from the top. At 7:33 PM i spotted Hussain Sagar in the distance. It was a Dark blot in the middle of an ocean of lights. Immediately i trained my camera on Hussain Sagar as a hunter would his rifle on his prey. In a few seconds the wing of the flight blocked my line of sight. I used this time to plan how i would capture the spectacle. A photographer will understand the technical difficulties involved in capturing it.

First thing i did was to choose the max ISO speed and max aperture of my cam, 1600 and 3.4 respectively. Now came the bigger problem, shutter speed. What speed should i choose?? If i choose a high shutter speed the pic will be sharp but very dim. If i choose a low shutter speed the pic will be bright but blurred. How ?? How?? How?? I did it , i managed to capture Hussain Sagar in its all stink glory. . .   :P

The first pic i shot was at a ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/20 , aperture 3.4 . Here it is

ISO 1600, shutter speed 1/20 , aperture 3.4

The second pic i choose a smaller shutter speed of 1.6 seconds. I knew it would be blurred and bright still i took it.

ISO 1600, shutter speed 1.6 sec , aperture 3.4

Mera Solution :
At this point i lost hope and thought its impossible to capture the beauty of hussain sagar from a great height. I was watching it and then it suddenly struck me that since the aircraft is still gaining height i might have a chance indeed.

As the aircraft rises the ground doesnt seeem to move much slowly.

 For example : When driving a car in a vast open space like a highway 100kmph seems like nothing , but if you travel at 20 kmph in a congested gully it seems like 100kmph. Thats the way we perceive. When the reference is large and far away we cannot perceive speed and distances. This is true. If you try to estimate distances and speeds with reference to massive objects like mountains you will most probably fail to estimate.

So i waited for a few seconds for the aircraft to rise higher and give me a chance to capture hussain sagar bright and sharp ! My only worry was whether the aircraft would reach the required altitude before hussain sagar passes away . It didnt. After approximately 45 seconds i managed to capture hussain sagar bright and sharp.

shutter speed 1/5

PS :  The first picture is not the actual one.I posted another dark pic i clicked in that journey. I deleted all the  failed attempts.
PSS: That journey is the most terrible journey in my life. There was a thunderstorm in vizag. The pilot attempted to land 6 times. The plane was shuddering and vibrating like a hand kerchief in a wind tunnel experimental setup. The flight was sent back to hyderabad owing to bad weather conditions in vizag.

Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Atheism, Evolution

I was born a Hindu. Im Indian. Recently i signed up in twitter and there i met a lot of diverse people. I met forensic scientists, physicists, psychologists, journalists, political science students, priests, evolutionary biologists, Atheists, Christians, Muslims  and who not. It was like a flood of knowledge. Normally i wouldn't have met these people but twitter helped me. So being an atheist i saw the reactions from people of all religions.

The Hindu :
Most of my friends are Hindus. They never refute the theory evolution nor any other scientific theory. They accept both evolution and the concept of God. They never debate about the two at the same time. They never seem to be troubled by Atheists. I cant generalize but this is true for my circle.

The Christian :
Most Christians i met are from Twitter. I think most of the Christians refute the theory of evolution. I haven't seen someone who believes in both. They see Atheism as a huge folly and try their level best to convince the atheist that god exists. They question how you can be moral without believing in god i.e they believe that any human being will murder, rape, steal if he doesnt fear gods punishment. They believe that morality comes out of fear of God.

The Muslim :
Same as above but im not sure about their stand on morality and belief.

Why is this so ??  Why doesnt the Hindu refute the theory of evolution ? How can he believe both at the same time ?? I think a Hindi Evolutionary biologist would preach that humans evolved from apes but she/he would not refute god. They never speak of both at the same time. So when i thought of this i came to the conclusion that this is because there are not many absolutes in Hinduism. For example : The Bible says Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation , Even the Quran says the same thing. Whereas Hinduism doesnt preach anything like that.

God means everything in the average Christians, Muslims life. Everything they do, every though is influenced by God and the teachings of the religious books. I think the concept of God plays a major role in the Christianity and Islam than in Hinduism. Hindus are influenced more by their culture than God(Of course Hinduism too vast to generalize) probably because the Gita(holy book of Hindus) is not read by everyone. The Gita is just too big to be read by the common man. If the Gita was smaller all Hindus might have read it and Hinduism might have been much "definable".
This is how i interpreted it. I might be absolutely wrong of course.

What do you say ?? Comment your opinion