Depth of Field

Yes, finally I bought the SLR and I hope it keeps my photography interest for at least next few months :-). I didn't do much research on buying the SLR. I was already biased to Canon, so I bought Canon T1i. Things that attracted me in this model are that it has 1080p HD recording, lens are cheaper than Nikon, and got it in a deal in Amazon :-).

My first experiment with my new camera is to feel the "Depth of field". Below photos give you a fair idea of what is Depth of Field.

Auto Mode

Shallow Depth of Field - Sharp Foreground and blurred background - Aperture Priority (Av) mode, Manual Focus, Av - f/5.6

Wider Depth of Field - sharp foreground & background - Aperture Priority (Av) mode, Manual Focus, Av - f/36

I used below items for this experiment.

1. Canon T1i with 18-55mm lens

2. Tripod

3. Laptop

4. Paper clips

I fit the camera to the tripod and adjusted the hight to the height of my table. I used tripod to avoid shake and to capture the same frame with different camera settings so that I can feel the difference of the camera settings. Connected my camera to my laptop for remote controlling the camera. I did this to see how it works :-), and also to avoid any shake in pressing the shutter button.

I set the dial to Auto mode and focussed the objects by moving over the mouse to the shutter button in the EOS utility. Once its focused, clicked the shutter button in the EOS utility. This results in the first photo. You can see that it automatically focused the clip at the far end and blurred the other two clips.

Now, I changed mode to Av and set the Av to F/5.6 and used manual focus to focus the nearest clip. This resulted in the second photo. You can see that the nearest clip is focused and other two clips are blurred. This is called as "Shallow Depth of Field". This is used to highlight only the object that we focus and blurs the background.

Now, I just changed the Av to F/36 and left every other settings as previous one. This results in the third photo. You can see that the picture is sharp almost till the farthest clip, The Depth of field is wider than previous photo.

I was so excited to see the results and thought for a second that I have become the professional photographer :-), though its a long way to go.

So, if we want to focus only the foreground object and blur the background then we need to set narrow aperture. Whereas if we want both the foreground and background to be sharp then we need to set a wide aperture.

To learn more about Depth of field you can refer to http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm.

Does an Entrepreneur Need an MBA?

Article from Harvard business review http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/11/does_an_enterpreneur_need_an_m.html

I started my career as an entrepreneur at twenty-four years old, right out of college. I ultimately built and sold a $250 million global scrap metal company, an experience I wrote about in my book Starting from Scrap. HBR wrote about my experiences in the December issue.

After my book came out, I visited several U.S. business schools and met with MBA students to talk about my experiences launching a company in emerging markets. Many of the students who came to hear me speak were aspiring entrepreneurs in the process of getting MBAs. Many of them asked similar questions: "You didn't get an MBA, nor did many other successful entrepreneurs, so if I want to start my own company, is business school a worthwhile experience? Is it worth paying all this tuition — or will my degree just be a resume-builder?"

I once had a conversation about this topic with Dr. John Yang, the dean of the Beijing International MBA program at Beijing University. Here's what he had to say: "In my opinion, entrepreneurship is a matter of the heart, and education is a matter of the brain. It is difficult to teach a heart."

I share his perspective. By definition, an entrepreneur is one who takes risk. It's an attitude and an appetite, one which may be hardwired into one's personality. Education can influence one's attitude toward risk: for instance, understanding the principle of diversification or the long-term returns of equities versus bonds may make an investor more willing to create a "riskier" stock portfolio. But ultimately, can you teach someone to really enjoy taking risks? I don't think you can.

When I think about the value of an MBA for aspiring entrepreneurs, I see a parallel with the military. Countries spend billions of dollars training soldiers so they'll be ready for combat — they're taught to fire rifles and operate in simulated high-pressure situations. But that training only goes so far. A Marine colonel once told me that he never knows how a soldier will respond — whether he'll hide in his foxhole, run in the other direction, or stand and fight as he's been trained #8212; until the bullets start flying. How someone reacts in times of great stress relies largely in instincts and the makeup of his or her personality — and training only takes you so far.

The same is true with entrepreneurship. Understanding strategy, finance and marketing can be very helpful. But it's also important to possess self-confidence, a need for independence, energy and passion, curiosity, and an ability to communicate ideas. If you don't have these natural assets, you'll struggle as an entrepreneur.

I'm lucky, because those are personal attributes that I have. I don't have an MBA, but I've picked up many of the business skills I needed during more than 15 years running a company. (My grandfather referred to me as having an MBA from the School of Hard Knocks, whose official colors are black and blue — an expensive education that makes Harvard Business School appear inexpensive by comparison). Many of the lessons I learned from those tough and painful experiences I might have learned in an MBA program — and if I'd learned them earlier, my company might have been even more successful.

As the HBR article makes clear, if I'd understood the use and importance of financial and inventory controls, I could have prevented millions of dollars in fraud. Perhaps studying cases about companies that had grown too fast and lost control of both their finances and the quality of their products would have encouraged me to expand at a more sober pace. We wasted years trying to re-organize after over-expanding and perhaps missed countless opportunities in the process. I could have saved or made a lot more money had I taken some courses in business law or venture capital financing. (We ended up getting strong armed by our investors, and they got away with it due to our early-stage naiveté.) I also would have benefited if I'd known more about human resources and the need for well-designed compensation and incentive systems. These are just a few of the tools you can get in business school — and they're all tools I wished I'd had.

So I believe MBA programs do give future entrepreneurs valuable tools to help them mitigate risk and increase the probabilities of success. But even with those tools, only you know whether or not you have the heart to execute on the opportunities we all recognize to launch a compelling new business. That is when the real bullets start flying.

Stephen Greer is a senior advisor at Oaktree Capital and author of Starting from Scrap.

My day out on WI-35 state road

Its Saturday 2 PM, I had something planned to do in home but being in the home for all day on weekends somehow makes me feel that I wasted my day. Though I watch movies, youtube videos, chat with friends & update FB :-), I get a feeling that i haven't done anything interesting on that day. So decided to go out somewhere. I started my car without knowing my final destination. I just hit the state road WI-35 and kept on driving.

Just on my way I decided to go to "Goose Island", a state park in La crosse, which I heard about, but haven't been there before. I drove about 7 miles in the state road WI-35 and destination arrived on the right side. I drove around the picnic shelters, campground areas and enjoyed the river & shore. Then I parked my car and walked into the kayak rental, thinking that let me do the kayaking for next 2-3 hours and return home, unfortunately they didn't rent the kayaks today as water level is more than 6 feet high. What to do next??? Again I started the car without knowing my destination. Once I hit the WI-35 road, I thought of driving further south in WI-35 to see what else is there.

The drive was scenic, Mississippi river is flowing on the right side and bluffs on the left side. Whenever I see the board "Scenic Overlook" I stop the car to see the scenic view. One such view came on my left side. I had to drive over a steep bluff. The view was beautiful.

View of river Mississippi from a bluff on WS-35

The bluff had picnic tables and small hiking trails too. I did hiking for very short time and returned to the car and started driving in WS-35 further south.

Trail head in the bluff on WS-35

The next scenic view came and its the "Lock and Dam No. 8". I haven't heard about this lock systems for river navigations. Who knows? I might have read about it in school/college, I don't remember now. I read about the locks & how it works in one of the near by boards. Its impressive to see how man customized the rivers for his navigation needs. The Mississippi river has 27 locks and the one I went is the no. 8. After spending sometime in that place, I started my car and drove again further south in the WI-35 state road.

Mississippi's Lock & Dam system

The next spot is the "Blackhawk park". This' again a park similar to the Goose Island park. I drove around the campgrounds & small ponds, and enjoyed the scenic views & gravel road.

view of Mississippi & gravel road in the BlackHawk park

The road to campgrounds

One of the ponds in the Blackhawk park

After this park I drove further south in US-35, couldn't find any scenic spots for few miles and it was already five in the evening, so I drove back to home and reached my place at 5.30. Its interesting, that I enjoyed the drive and explored new places though I started with no plans. I bet, life is also gonna be interesting like today even if I don't have any future plans but just able to appreciate the present :-)