Sahyadrica

The nights are getting louder in the Northern Hemisphere. Whether it is near a wetland or in the trees, there is a choir of clicks and croaks and ribbits all around. As these little chorus singers try to impress their counterparts, there are large, armoured, slithering creatures lurking in the waters or under the leaf litter, silently looking for their future partner. It is summer and the hearts of the cold-blooded are getting warmer in search of love. Welcome to the world of amphibians and reptiles. Common Indian Tree Frog Exif : 1/800sec F8.0 ISO80 at 11.60mm We naturalists admire these warm nights as much as we love the daylight. Not for any other reason, but to walk miles in search of these love-ridden animals of the dark – the amphibians, as well as their distant relatives – reptiles, to study, photograph, or just admire them. Let’s focus on how to photograph them in the middle of a day or dark rainy nights using a point-and-shoot camera. I have been focusing on how t...

Every bird watcher, amateur or expert, carries two key items while out birding – a binocular and a notepad. Without these, you cannot see a bird nor record it. If you do see a bird that you can’t identify without the aid of binoculars, it becomes hard to identify it later without noting the details on a paper. These were the primary tools used in the past by most famous birders, and are still the precious possession of any bird watcher. Nowadays, a new age of bird watchers is emerging; one that not only uses their eyes to sight a bird, but also a digital eye to capture it. This is the age of bird watchers with rather sophisticated tools – cameras. And just like cameras, bird watching has become more and more popular amongst people. However, when it comes to research, a camera is still a secondary option over the primary binoculars and notepads. This is rather debatable, as someone might consider camera to be more reliable when it comes to providing a proof for the existence of a bird...

Whenever I visit any natural area, I always observe the insects that call it home. My fascination with insects grew out of my passion for butterflies. Every naturalist shares such a beginning. It is often one organism that catches the eye, and that one organism becomes the inspiration to learn about many others. As I began photographing butterflies, I was introduced to a macro-world full of wonderful creatures that I could easily observe and photograph wherever I went. And the more time I spent with them, the more I realized how complex their role in an ecosystem is. While biologists collect samples in the field to study these insects more closely, some also prefer to photograph their subjects in the wild, and although a photograph may not serve the purpose of precise identification, it is a tool to document behavioural observations that may not be seen in a glass jar. In this article, I will talk about photographing insects and spiders using a point-and-shoot camera. A point-and-s...

It all started on a trek when I saw a butterfly flaunting false eyes on its wings. I began the quest of identifying it, and discovered many more intriguing ones. Very soon, butterflies became a passion. As a kid I used to chase butterflies to capture them by hands – overlooking their splendor over sheer joy, but then I developed a hobby of capturing them through lens. This was the beginning of excursions to nearby forests, as me and my friends tried to find and identify butterflies by stalking them cautiously with a field guide in hand. Sony H7 focusing on a Skipper, photograph courtesy Rajiv Lingayat Our fascination for butterflies has come a long way. From the medieval poets and artists to naturalists – all have shared a profound passion for butterflies. It was these pioneers who not only described the butterflies right from their wing venation to the length of the proboscis, but also meticulously sketched every detail of the butterflies they observed. Recently, Vladimir Noboko...

It has been a long journey with my ever handy point-and-shoot camera. Not just in the number of days or places visited, but in number of pictures taken as well. It has been bruised and tortured in extreme climes – from the hot, humid forests of Western Ghats to the freezing cold of southern Ontario. It has been dropped on solid ground, splashed by river and rain, and been subjected to blowing sand. One day the lens cap fell into a waist-deep swamp, and after spending an hour looking for it, I had to forfeit. Albeit of all these unfortunate accidents, it is a great companion on adventures. My camera is one brilliant Sony DSC H7 that now wears a yellow plastic bottle cap as a lens cover. And I am glad I still own it! It will be its fourth anniversary this year, and to commemorate that, I have decided to write articles on subjects I photographed using this camera. Wanderer’s Eye has always focused on the photographs, but never on how they were taken, this is another reason why I am writ...