SiddharthVanchinathan.com

Hi everyone!

This is just to inform you that this blog has moved to its own domain – http://www.siddharthvanchinathan.com

Follow me on twitter here.

Sid

I love Nikon too

So finally I took the plunge into the world of SLR photography. I bought the Nikon D-60 yesterday. No fancy lens extras, only a kit 18-55 VR lens. Instead of spending a lot of money upfront buying expensive lenses, I figured that I should first learn how to use an SLR properly. I remember reading photography books at my cousin’s house in Hyderabad and being quite fascinated by the kind of photographs you could take with an SLR. So here begins my journey, and here below are some of my very first pictures taken with the Nikon. More pictures on my facebook profile.

Ergoform

Ergoform – seems pretty logical as a name for a industrial design company. I am here today for an informal interview. Looks much more like a design studio than 3 Head ever would! I see huge desktops, macs and I’m instantly impressed. It seems they have a prototyping workshop as well. So far so good. Here goes the interview.

Burnt my tongue while drinking the coffee that was offered to me there. Interview went smooth and I am very impressed by the company. The CEO offered to take me as a trainee for the time being and he said that he’s taken risks like this before (hiring someone totally inexperienced in the field of product design) and it has always paid off. So things look good now and I really want to work at this place!

Injection :(

I’m getting my 2nd MMR vaccine dose today. No I am not a baby. But NY state laws require me to have taken both doses after 1 year. The system in India is to give it after 9 months. I wonder why there is such a difference of opinion of schedules for vaccination all over the world. And what could possibly be wrong with the Indian system that it is not in accordance with the NY State standard. Yet year after year students going from India to the US for further studies are required to take most of their vaccination again. Nobody complains or does anything about it. India is equally worried about its citizens as is the rest of the world. So the process of preventing epidemics should be the same all over the world. Anyway enough about the medical systems of the world. I’m more worried about the injection right now!

Everybody loves Nikon

As you might know, or well maybe not, I have a keen interest in photography. Those who read my about page would remember that it started when I was very little. Well now I feel that after 21 long years I have enough talent and knowledge about photography that I move into the world of SLR photography. Although why I didn’t do this much earlier is even unclear to me now that I look back. Anyway back to the point.

I have been researching entry level DSLRs for a while now and I have come to a very harsh conclusion. Since this is a relatively new and untapped market for camera manufacturers, there are so many models to choose from and yet all these models have so little separating them. So reviewers on the internet distinguish them with parameters such as “feel while holding camera”, “megapixels”, etc. Why did I mention megapixels you ask? Well, truth be told, people are being made fools by the Megapixel Myth. A camera does not automatically become better if it has more pixels that can record data. Ofcourse there is a huge difference between 10 pixels and 1 million pixels but there is hardly any difference between 5 million and 12 million. Unless ofcourse you plan to cover and entire 5 story building with a print of your photograph. For normal people, who don’t print in huge massive sizes, 4-5 megapixels more than suffices.

Back to the cameras. Sony does not seem to have a cheap entry level camera, the cheapest being around Rs. 30k. Canon and Nikon do really well with the prices. Although for some reason, everyone seems to hate Canon. The reason for which I do not understand. Canon have been around long enough to make good cameras. Everybody loves Nikon. For the same reason it feels better in their hands. Anyway I have zeroed into two cameras that I think are right for me. The Canon EOS 350D and Nikon D60. Kit lenses will slip out of use very soon people say. But I think I will make do with a kit lens for a while atleast.

I maintain that no gadget should be bought without having a “feel” of it in your hands. Sadly, none of the camera retailers I know of keep open pieces for people to fiddle around with. I found luck at the most unlikely of places. E-zone, the new electronic goods shopping mall doesn’t seem to care that customers fiddle around with expensive DSLRs. The one I went to today had a Nikon D40. I took a couple of shots with it and quickly realized how easy it was to use. Sadly, they did not stock any other DSLR models. I plan to make a visit to a DSLR retailer located in the K.R. Market area soon. Until then, on the internet I can never run out of camera reviews to read.

3 Head Design

3 Head Design welcomed me with this sawed off front of a green ambassador balanced precariously on 2 nylon threads from the ceiling. Quite an entry I must say. The guys seem to be really laid back and easy going. There were three founders if I understood right. All friends from school and all exponents of the infamous IT industry of Bangalore. Bored with their 9-5 jobs, they set out to do something that they enjoyed. They offer “visual solutions” as they like to call it which basically means they do it all! Go to them for just a brochure and they’ll shoo you away. The interview went pretty well I presume because it ended with George asking me to quote how much I wanted. Heading to brigade’s to look at DSLRs now. More later!

Word-a-licious – 1

Word-a-licious is a new section where I will be posting whatever essays and articles I write. Apart from my blog posts that is!

Here’s something i wrote for the college magazine this year. Wonder whether it got published though. I was asked to write something that captured my years at Manipal.

“My four years in Manipal have been nothing short of a crazy roller coaster ride. From late night screaming in 5th block, to playing Command and Conquer on LAN in 7th block, talking about life in MIT is never complete without talking about life in MIT Hostels. The experience of living in MIT Hostels is one that you will remember and cherish for the rest of your life. In first year, when you are a freshie, the first few days in hostel are spent in introducing yourself to others and attending intro sessions in random rooms. It takes a while to find your set of friends and as I discovered, I found the perfect gang only at the end of the first year. At the end of the first year, there is a crazy rush to find the best rooms to move into in 2nd year, and for us that was 7th Block. Life in 7th block was great fun. Time was spent setting up LANs, ultra late night BC sessions, and gaming that would pass the hours very fast. Waking up in the morning would be quite difficult, and as a result, most of us would miss the first few classes of the day, everyday.

Being in E&C, attendance was never an issue. Proxy groups would operate throughout the benches, silently and swiftly giving proxy attendance to their friends who couldn’t make it to class. People would take turns coming to class. In class, most of my time was spent in the 2nd last and last benches with my friends. If the teacher was worth listening to, I would take notes and pay a lot of attention in class. If he was not, then time would be spent playing cows n bulls or some other fun activity that would not involve anything academic. Class hours were also used efficiently by those in E&C to copy assignments and complete lab journals.

After class hours or during free hours, the rest of Manipal would be explored in order to satiate our hungry stomachs. From MR to Vikram’s, Basil to Prax, there was not one restaurant in Manipal that wasn’t explored. Prax Burgers was the staple diet of everybody during exams and during all those lazy days when going out was not an option. God Bless Prax!

Now I am at the end of my 4 years in Manipal and I cannot begin to comprehend how life will change. Now responsibilities are more and I cannot live as carefree a life as I have lived in Manipal. I can hope and wish that my time at Manipal never ends but time waits for nobody and life moves on. I will miss all the crazy parties during placement season where there would almost be a party thrown by someone or the other every weekend. I will miss the back bencher’s association of E&C Section B where every class was not just a lecture but much much more. Of all that I miss, I will miss living in Manipal, where I have learnt that life is about having fun and as long as that is there, life’s always worth living.”

Blogging on the go

This post was written while testing the new wordpress iphone app. This app is cool and it allows me to blog while not at my computer. Not that I am a jet setting travelling hot shot. But well it’s cool nonetheless. More later!

My Design Portfolio

This is a collection of all my design work from 2004 to 2008 while I was doing my engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal. Have a look!

My Portfolio

Hello world!

Hello World!! Now my existence on the blogosphere has been acknowledged!!! YAY!!