Nikon

All posts tagged Nikon

Dreaming of Zanzibar – Tanzania and Kilimanjaro

Posted by Nesh on March 18, 2014

Posted in: life, myself, photography, Tanzania, travel. Tagged: Alle falde del Kilimanjaro, Arusha, border, D5000, Dar Es Salaam, Digital Photography, East Africa, Kenia, Kilimanjaro, landscapes, Masai, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, travels. Leave a Comment

This post is the second in a set of publications which will describe the last trip I did in East Africa, back in August, leading me to Zanzibar and back again. Read the first post here.
After a good nights sleep, I was ready to catch the bus to Dar Es Salaam.
The bus leaves every day at 6.45am and arrives at around 8pm, quite a long journey.
The beginning of the trip wasn’t too exciting, the view was very similar and rather dull, I took this time to sleep a bit more (I am not a morning person).
After the short nap, I woke up to a very different landscape: dry lands with light brown hills. The land of the Masai.
Not long after, we had to get off the bus as we had reached the border Kenya-Tanzania (I find border checkpoints in East Africa very unsettling, so I searched for a picture to give you an idea: border checkpoint in Namanga). After all the paperwork has been completed, we returned to the bus heading to Arusha.
Arusha, capital of the Arusha region, is a mandatory stop for hikers, mainly for being very close to the Arusha National Park, the Mt. Meru Forest Reserve and, more importantly, to the Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park, home of the famous Mt. Kilimanjaro.

The Mt. Kilimanjaro

A Lyon!

Posted by Nesh on September 8, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography. Tagged: blog, city tour, France, French language, gallo-romain, International student, Lyon, Natural, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, traboule, travels. Leave a Comment

Hello everyone,
after few weeks of being here and getting to know the people and the places, I finally settled in Lyon and now I forced myself to update the blog. Even if I have been rather busy lately, that shouldn’t be a reason for me to stop posting.
So, the first will be from the city tour the University has planned for the foreign students in the French language course.

Vue sur Lyon

Experimenting with the Full Moon

Posted by Nesh on August 6, 2013

Posted in: myself, photography. Tagged: Astronomy, Digital Photography, Full moon, Moon, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, Solar System, stacking. Leave a Comment

The other weekend, during a full moon, I tried several approaches to get the best of our dreamy satellite.
I got suggested several techniques, but stacking was the most interesting one.
Stacking is a technique used for improving the quality/detail of an object, usually during night time (due to the low light conditions); used for instance with stars, galaxies and, of course, the moon.
It requires taking a certain amount of pictures, I used 50 for the full moon, and stacking them together using a specific software. I used Lynkeos, as I am currently on OS X, but RegiStax is often quoted as being among the best freeware for such purpose.

Full moon shot using double exposure.

Although taking over 100 pictures, with different settings and exposure, the result I got wasn’t exactly what I wanted/expected, so I just ended up using a double exposure. Essentially taking a picture for the foreground (the clouds, in this case) and one picture for the moon and then stacking them together. This fixes the issue related to the fact that the time required to get a correct exposure of the moon is different (lower) than the one required for the foreground.

/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Chimp Tracking

Posted by Nesh on August 6, 2013

Posted in: myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, ape, chimp, chimpanzee, Digital Photography, monkey, Murchison Falls National Park, Nature, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, travels, uganda, wildlife. Leave a Comment

Sleepy faces. Slow movements. Few words. A common scene from an early morning. A nice breakfast put us all back on our feet, ready for chimp tracking.
For the tracking, we had to go into the thick forest, moving slowly and staying together in a group. This is necessary in order to not be considered a threat by the chimpanzees; scattering around would give them a feeling of being surrounded, frightening them.

It took us a good hour (or so) before we could see a chimp. Until then we could hear them calling each other (chimps have a sort of language; there are up to 30-40 sounds used for indicating different actions, i.e. food, anger, danger…).
The first one, was a rather sleepy one; he stayed most of the time laid down on a large branch and chilling under the sunlight, turning around at times.
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Murchison Falls – On top of the falls!

Posted by Nesh on August 5, 2013

Posted in: myself. Tagged: africa, digital, Karuma, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nature, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Nile, Photography, uganda, waterfall. 1 comment

After an exhausting climb under the hot African sun, our group made it to the top. Welcomed by both the incredible view and the fresh shower created by the water crashing into the rocks.

It was amazing, and the feeling to be finally arrived and to be in front of these marvellous falls in Uganda was priceless. Few months ago most of us wouldn’t even have remotely thought about the possibility of being in Africa and now, here we were, speechless in front of yet another spectacle of nature.
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Murchison Falls – Lunch break on the Nile

Posted by Nesh on July 25, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, bush pigs, kampala, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Nile, safari, uganda, wildlife. 2 comments

And as you can understand from the pattern I use in the titles, the game drive ended without us being able to see any lion.
Our guides also went to get a ranger for tracking the felines, but luck wasn’t on our side this time. Once we got to the place where they were supposed to be staying, we just found lonely bushes and grass, without any sort of cat.
After an hour, we just gave up as it was time to catch the ferry which would bring us to the other side of the river Nile for lunch.

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Murchison Falls – Game Drive – Elephants

Posted by Nesh on July 25, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, Elephants, game, game drive, kampala, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Nile, Park, Photography, safari, savannah, travels, uganda, wildlife. Leave a Comment

Today I will publish 2 posts as tomorrow I will leave for my Rwanda-Burundi trip and I will not be able to publish anything for few days.
I can say we have been both lucky and unlucky; lucky because we managed to see some elephants, unlucky because they were quite far from us. I know it is not much of a big deal, but other tourists had the chance to see them really close to them.

Due to them being far, I couldn’t grasp much of their behaviour; but I am pretty sure I will see them again some time soon!

/Nesh

Murchison Falls – Game Drive – Giraffes

Posted by Nesh on July 24, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, digital, drive, game drive, Giraffe, giraffes, kampala, Karuma, Murchison Falls, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, safari, savannah, uganda, waterfalls, wildlife. Leave a Comment

I must say I was quite surprised when I first saw a giraffe in real life. Of course, I knew they were very tall, I read it gazillion of times and saw loads of pictures, but being just few meters away made a huge difference. Even the smallest one, a baby giraffe, was tall compared to us (or our van).

We saw them in 2 occasions and got to take pictures both from afar and very close-by. Although they tended to not get too close to us, they seemed to be very interested in us; especially the baby giraffe, which literally stood on the road in front of us, just facing us.
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Murchison Falls – Game Drive – Beginning of the safari and Water Buffalos

Posted by Nesh on July 23, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, buffalos, kampala, Karuma, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Nile, Photography, safari, savannah, uganda, water buffalos. Leave a Comment

After a well-deserved rest at the lodge, our group woke up at 6am for the game drive. Our group was split in 2 safari vans (with a very large sunroof) and we moved around the park.

The drive, more or less 3 hours long, had very exciting moments, such as seeing giraffes and buffalos from very close, and other much more quiet ones, where we would just drive on the dusty road in search of some new animal.

We got extremely close to a herd of buffalos, they didn’t seem to much bothered by us taking pictures or the vans themselves. They mainly stood there looking at us with our cameras.
/Nesh

Murchison Falls Safari – Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary

Posted by Nesh on July 22, 2013

Posted in: life, myself, photography, travel, Uganda. Tagged: africa, kampala, Murchison Falls, Murchison Falls National Park, Nikon, Nikon D5000, Photography, safari, sanctuary, uganda, White rhinoceros, wildlife, Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Leave a Comment

Here we go!
Last week has been quite of a pain in terms of connectivity. I had little connection and I could not post/upload anything; so I need to catch up!
Two weekends ago, some friends and I went to a tour at Murchison Falls; it was a 3-day tour departing from Kampala, passing by the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary and then heading to the Murchison Falls national park for a game drive and, on the last day, for chimpanzee tracking.
I probably don’t even need to tell that this was by far the most amazing trip I have ever done! It was incredibly well-planned and our group was great (our whole group was composed by several groups merging together); we had so much fun together!

Our trip started in Kampala at 8am and our first stop was the Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, on the way to Murchison Falls. It is the only place where it is possible to see white rhinos in Uganda.
It is a very quiet and well-kept place. It is even possible to ‘adopt’ a rhino and name it as you wish (for a donation); so there were rhinos with quite interesting and funny names (one was named Obama, as its mom was Kenyan and the father from US).
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Nesh around The World

Pieces of life