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Operating a Digital Camera sometimes feels like controlling a spacecraft, and on top of that, thinks like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and many other technical descriptions seem very confusing, which leads to 90% of DSLR users to choose their AUTO modes and fear of ever using anything else. This is perfectly normal, but with some basic guidelines and understanding you can quickly overcome this hurdle and start shooting stunning photos. Like every hobby, it needs a bit of patience and research, but the advantage of shooting digital is that you won't have to waste any money in developing "mistaken" photos that were part of the learning experience. If you took a wrong photo, just delete it and move on For Astrophotography, you will need to select "MANUAL MODE" on the rotary dial of your camera so you can set the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO yourself. There are many misconceptions about photography, and one of them being that you need to spend thousands of dirhams to get professional looking photos, but that is simply not true. With any decent brand (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fujifilm, etc..) digital camera you will be able to take amazing photos as long as you practice and learn to understand how the camera works and how you should be using light, composition, etc.. to accentuate the end result. Our club has focused so far on night photography only, which is in some kind of way no too very difficult because you are not taking portraits of living/moving things, don't have to worry about shadows, and have enough time to experiment with your settings while your camera is mounted on a tripod. Having said that, it will need a bit of practice in setting up your camera and understanding of the different settings, and learning about the 3 main things your camera has to deal with: 1) APERTURE Aperture means how much will the lens be opened to capture the photo you will take. Just like your own eyes which will open more in a dark environment, a lens has an aperture setting that you can control to open or close the lens more in order to achieve a photo that is not over-exposed nor under-exposed. As you can see above, the lower you set your aperture value, the more light that will enter the lens, which is what we need for night photography. You will find the aperture specifications on your lens, for example a prime lens of 28mm / f1.8, or a kit lens of 50mm with f4.0. On top of that, the aperture will also control your DOF, or depth of field. Now if you like to take a nice portrait that has that beautiful blurry background, you will need to use a low aperture setting like f/1.4 or up to f/2.8. For night photography this is not an issue 2) SHUTTER SPEED Now, it is one thing to open your lens, but the second thing is to tell the camera how long the lens should remain open before closing again. The longer it will remain open, the more light that will be captured, which is what we want for night photography. While for action shots of your kids playing football you will need a very short shutter speed to avoid the picture from getting blurry, for night photography and capturing the stars you'll want to keep the shutter open for as long as possible. This will be somewhere between 15 and 30 seconds based on your lens, camera, and other factors. 3) ISO ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to light. The lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to the light. The higher the ISO number, the more sensitive it is to the light. For night photography you can increase the ISO level up to 3200 and more, depending on your camera and lens capabilities. Understanding and experimenting with these 3 above-mentioned things here will get you already on the way to make stunning photos of stars. A few other things to look into are: RAW vs JPEG JPEG is the typical compressed file format that delivers nice images for sharing, just like MP3 for music. However it creates certain limitations as well. Due to the fact the file is being compressed, it cannot be altered properly afterwards. Hence if you want to optimize your night shots afterwards in with software like Adobe Lightroom or others, you will need to shoot in RAW mode. This is the mode that creates a large file that is uncompressed and which will allow you to make a lot of changes later on. Most cameras have a setting called JPEG+RAW, this means every time you click a photo it will save a RAW file and a JPEG file on your memory card. White Balance Setting You can keep it on AUTO MODE, or experiment with different white balance presets, like Tungsten which might work better at night. If you are planning to optimize the photo in Lightroom afterwards, then the AUTO setting should be fine. https://astrobackyard.com/white-balance-astrophotography/ To get used to your camera and its different settings and functionalities, you can head over to Youtube where you'll find thousands of tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=richard+bradbury+500d LENSES Last but not least, every photo being taken is passing through a lens, and there are many different lenses on the market, from the "general use" kit lens that came with your camera, to the professional tele-lenses that have a massive zoom. We will just describe the most common lenses below: 1) Kit Lens: This is an economic lens that came with your DSLR, has a fair bit of zoom, for example 55-105mm, with a standard aperture of f/4.0. They can be used for many purposes and is a good allrounder. 2) Prime Lens: A prime lens has a fixed focal length, for example 50mm, so you cannot zoom with it. The good thing is due to the fact that these lenses do not have the magnifying components inside, they are cheap and most have very good aperture, for example a typical Canon 50mm / f1.8 lens is very cheap to get and will deliver fantastic portraits with nice blurry background (also called bokeh). You will generally find them in 28mm, 35mm, 50mm. 3) Tele-lens: These are the lenses you'll see on sport events from where professional photographers need to zoom in a lot, while keeping a stable image. These are expensive, big, heavy lenses that will have O.I.S (Optimal Image Stabilization) on board to make sure the image remains stable when zooming in that much. 4) Wide-Angle Lens: This is a lens often used in astrophotography, as it gives a very nice wide angle view on the night sky and is able to capture a lot of information. A typical wide-angle lens would be anything from 14mm to 28mm, with an aperture of f/2.8 or even lower. They are also popular amongst people who take photos in real-estate business and will make a tiny hotel pool look like a massive olympic swimming pool Finally, it is important to understand the balance and correlation between aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, as they are interconnected as you can see in below triangle: I have attached a full collection of Snap Cards, a Photography for beginners tutorial, and some specific cheat sheet for astrophotography. Good luck ! Specific settings for astrophotography (courtesy of Mikhail Lukichev): select RAW mode decrease brightness of the screen to minimum disable long exposure noise reduction disable high ISO noise reduction select manual focus mode turn on live-view zoom in the picture in the live view mode select manual shooting mode (M) disable auto ISO set ISO to 3200 set shutter speed to 15sec set aperture to minimum (f1.8 - F3.5) set manual white balance to 3200-3500K 1905255335_Snap_Cards_Full_Collection(4).pdf Photography for Beginners (3).pdf night-sky-cheat-sheet-new (2).pdf

Al Aweer to As far as we can go - Drive Report "Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colors; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.' - Khalil Gibran What I had in mind was a drive in true desert conditions: torrid and dusty, with soft, shifty and blinding sand. What we got was almost a miracle: a drive into dark clouds, under torrential rain, followed, just as quickly as it came, by a full rainbow, and beaten, wet, cakey sand. Words should leave their place to images, which I hope the better equipped members could capture with their Go Pros or mounted cameras. What I can say, climatic conditions aside, is that the main skill of the day - ridge riding - was practiced with great precision by the whole convoy, even though the uncommon terrain (wet and beaten on top, but soft and gluey just below the surface) provided an easier ground than usual when climbing, but a more reluctant surface when riding the ridges, with muddy sand quickly building under the cars, and forcing more than one exit from the crests. The main takeaway from the day, besides nature's wild beauty, hopefully was that it's possible to ride ridges without ploughing them down, driving along their curvy contours with just as much finesse as that required to tackle technical dunes, building and adapting momentum (as generated by the speed extracted from the engine, times the weight of the car), depending on the ridge length, curvature, steepness, and on the eventual exit point (weather forced or willingly chosen). I believe the experiment of alternating Intermediates with Fewbie Plus drivers gave good fruits, resulting in an overall sustained drive, during which there was never a moment of clear and present danger (in the case of this area, even more likely, due to the length and curviness of the cordons, and the omni-presence of bushes and small trees). Great support by @Craig Finlayson at CF, and @Shehab Alawadhi in SW, with @Lakshmi Narasimhan executing a clean Second Lead, and @Gaurav Soni and @Ali Abas promptly coming to assist when needed. Great job by @Pacific, @Batuhan Kulac, @Gok Krish, and @Ranjan Das. A special mention for @Probir Mukherjee, who came into the drive after a long absence from the desert, and overcame with patience and perseverance all the obstacles that the terrain, combined with his rustiness, threw at him, steadily improving his driving throughout the afternoon, all the way to executing a great self-recovery from the last ridge before exiting. Well done Probir, for persisting and getting your mojo back. At end of this eventful day, we fulfilled the goal of the drive, and went "as far as we could", driving 59 Km, in a total of 3:43 hours, of which 2:39 moving, at an average moving speed of 22 Km/h (16Km/h total average). Thank you all for joining, and see you soon again.

Its explained here bro

Thanks @Danish Mohammad Thanks @Brette and @Chaitanya D for your support and guidance

Congratulations @Chinthaka Ruwan

Please find the link to drive videos, I will finish uploading videos by tonight and tomorrow. Rain and rainbow looks beautiful!!!

DRIVE REPORT Dear Desert Wanderers, What a drive today! Our short convoy hit the sand by 5:55am after the briefing. As we entered the desert, we immediately realized it was going to be a great drive: the rain and the wind of the previous days had reshaped the dunes to a perfectly virgin status with no tracks to be seen anywhere. @Lawrence_Chehimi had a taste of the difference between Fewbie and Intermediate drives quite soon, as he got stuck for the 1st time since joining Carnity. I'll take it as a badge of honor for me, as I did with @Mario Cornejo's first stuck two weeks ago.. 😂 As we proceeded along our route we entered a technical area with some nasty pockets, one of which took @Shaaz Sha by surprise, causing a popout, which was quickly fixed after winching his X-Terra out. We then moved to a wonderful area of very long dunes, where we really enjoyed riding right along the crest for incredibly long distances. Not sure who it was, but someone couldn't refrain from shouting on the radio "That was amazing!". Indeed it was! We then had our moment of drama, when @Dodi Syahdar's beast ended stuck sliding down on a slip face with some nasty rocks at the bottom. @Dodi Syahdar was however very calm and precise and he was able to recover from the stuck in no time avoiding the rocks. As the convoy warmed up, I started to bump the level up consistently, to see the response. We did some seriously challenging stuff and everyone did really great. @varunmehndiratta was a very good 2nd lead, careful and responsive to my indications. A couple of re-attempts were required here and there on some of the most ambitious passages for the day, as was also the case for @GauravSoni and @Lawrence_Chehimi, but we didn't have any other major stucks and we could therefore have a central stint of the drive extremely fast paced as we moved north-east, recovering part of the almost 40 mins lost in the beginning of the drive between stucks and pop-out. We quickly made it to the Lisaili Mighty Dunes, which never disappoint. We had a good 20 mins time roaming around these complex and high sand formations, which, when you make it to the top, make you feel really accomplished. It was in fact in one of those moments of self-celebration that I was distracted and got my stuck for the day, beautifully crested with a fantastic view.. 😂😂 Once we left the Mighty Dunes, we started moving West, as the clock was ticking and I wanted to keep my commitment to exit not later than 8:45am. We indulged a bit more on some nice, large and fat ridges which were screaming for our tires to leave some marks, before entering the technical dunes that lead to the pylon track. The convoy was a very good one, so we crossed the technical area without any trouble, moving to the west side of the pylon track heading to our exit point at Lisaili Fort, where we reached by 8:48am: hadn't it been for a new fence that forced us to rerout for a little while, we would have been out exactly at the terget exit time. Overall we covered 48.8km in 2h 52', of which 2h 15' moving (with an average moving speed of 21.7km/h) and 37' stopped. I truly had fun and I thank the whole convoy for a beautiful drive: everyone did extremely well, as it was - at some points - quite a tough drive. A special kudos goes to @Lawrence_Chehimi, on his inaugural Intermediate drive: well done! See you soon in the sand again!

Congrats @Chinthaka Ruwan!! Well done!!!

Thanks @Ale Vallecchifor great drive and great weather.

Congrats @Chinthaka Ruwan!!

@Chinthaka Ruwan congratulations, unleash the X 😜

Thanks @Ale Vallecchifor the wonderful drive very well supported by @Gaurav Soni, @Craig Finlayson, @Shehab Alawadhi. What a day it was, blessed with pleasant weather, heavy downpour, beautiful rainbow really made the day and the drive enjoyable, pleasant and memorable one. I loved ridge riding very much, started of with little under momentum, but looking at @Ale VallecchiI was able to pick up quickly and learnt a lot. I can feel I am improving after every drive and understand my car better, still long way to go!!! What a team work in recovering, very much satisfied and thanks to entire convoy for the patience and making it a wonderful day. Have a nice week ahead, see you all soon on sands again!!!

Congratulations @Chinthaka Ruwan

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergher for the ultimate drive...couldn't have been a better way to start the day... For me was first time as a Second lead and it was real fun, trying to cope with the tracks of maestro... Size of the convoy was just perfect for the terrain and weather...we had small refusals, a couple of created vehicles and a pop out however for the terrain, all did really well... Thanks all for the lovely drive and hoping to see you all soon..

Hello everyone! I have been driving with carnity for some decent time now and I am having a blast! I was just wondering how the promotion process differs from level to level. At the moment I am a fewbie+ and wondering how many more drives I need/should complete before applying for an intermediate promotion. Also, is there any extra off-road gear one should acquire which you likely would not have had yet in the fewbie levels. Please let me know. Stay safe.

There's some cracking pics in the gallery. Thanks @GauravSoni@Mario Cornejo@Jeepie@Thomas Varghesefor capturing some great moments as well as the magnificent landscape.

WOOOW! it's most the Angela regulars!

Congrats @SP kALATH!!

@SP kALATH congratulations, well deserved for your experience and the way you drive

Hi @Emmanuel sorry won't be able to join... Got some office work Friday morning thanks. Hope to see you soon.

Thank you @Lorenzo Candelpergher and all for great lead and support .. the trip was really exciting and pump adrenalin in the morning. The long dune drives really unforgetable experience.. @Shaaz Sha thats our responsibility to help each other.. no neee to thanks.. next time might be my turn ask for help😀, look forward to meet you in other trip..

Thanks @Anish S @GauravSoni

Congrats @SP kALATH

Tip was specifically for today ...as it was me you were following ...😎😎😎 Key is to chose the right person to follow ..,😀

Thank you guys, WHAT A DRIVE..👏👏👏👏. @Lorenzo Candelpergher at the lead and a powerful convoy @varunmehndiratta, @Gaurav Soni, @Lawrence_Chehimi, @Dodi Syahdar.. , lots of side slops, very long ridge rides and few refusals and a pop out...😃😃 WOW...it was real fun guys. Thanks to @Lorenzo Candelpergher @Gaurav Soni, @Dodi Syahdar, @varunmehndiratta for ur help in fixing the pop out and winch recovery. See you soon guys. Take care and stay safe.

Thanks @Lorenzo Candelpergherfor the amazing drive, had a lot of fun today, it is one of these drives that I didn't want to end. I consider this stuck as my first real stuck in carnity, in which for the first time I had to keep on steering full left and full right until I got exhausted 😀 In one of my newbie or fewbie drives I recall i got crested while going straight up and straight down, but it was managed in no time. But this one was different and required a lot of shoveling. Thanks everybody for the help. Honestly, before we started the drive I was a bit worried, Didn't know if I'll be able to cope with a fast pace drive. But turned up not being as bumpy as I thought, so I really enjoyed every bit of it. Thanks also to @varunmehndirattaand @GauravSoni for the Tips they gave me, it is the first time I drive without taking the exact track taken by the car in front of me. It worked really well. See you soon guys on sand.

Sorry to hear the news @Thomas Varghese, hopefully it will be soon sorted out. I know how painful it can be to be grounded while your fellow off-roaders keep going. You were missed today, but I'm sure you will be there in the next mid-week drive! 😉

So far with my 5D Mark2 and Samyang 14mm i got the best results around 25 seconds shutter speed. You can use the 500 rule to determine which is your recommended shutter speed and we will have plenty time to experiment with the settings.

Make a lot of noise and get beached? (JUST JOKING GUYS)

Congratulations @SP kALATH

Thanks @Nivin @RussThanks. See you this Friday.

Thank you all. Have updated the time accordingly.

Drive Brief The stretch of desert between Al Qudra and Lisaili offers infinite possibilities for desert off-roaders, ranging from small, super-technical dunes to long range, almost endless ridges. This drive will offer a taste of all these terrains at an Intermediate level, alternating more challenging technical stints to faster and more "driven" ones, enjoying the prevailing long range dune formations. There is however a specific place, where dunes become so high and so big that they well deserve to be named the "Mighty Lisaili Dunes". A majestic conformation which will be the perfect playground for breath-taking climbs and arduous passages, combined with adrenaline-packed long slide slopes, the gran finale for this drive, which will end at Lisaili Fort. General Infos This drive is organized in full compliance with the COVID19 guidelines. We expect every member that joins this drive to go through below information and and strictly follow these guidelines in order not to jeopardize someone's health, and to ensure we can keep organizing these drives safely. MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: COVID19 Precautions 2.0 MUST READ AND TOTALLY AGREE: Ban Post TWO WAY RADIO GUIDELINES Every Off-roader brings his own radio, programmed to the frequencies described in below advice topic. We will not share spare radios or program your radio on the drive. If you need assistance in programming the radio, post a topic on the Carnity website with your questions and we will help you out. Make sure your radio is fully charged. It will be your only way of communication while driving. Before buying, please carefully read below advice so you are informed properly on which model / cost / shops... No radio = No drive. It is an essential tool and you should make sure you bring it on every drive and learn/practice how to use it. SUGGESTED READING: Carnity Two Way Radio Frequencies MUST WATCH: NEWBIE VIDEO BRIEFING Drive Details Level: Fewbie Plus (Fewbies with minimum 5 Fewbie drives completed) and Above (All Levels) When: 8 may 2021, Saturday. Meeting time: 5:30 AM (SHARP - Without any exceptions) Meeting Point: Al Qudra Pylon Track - https://goo.gl/maps/VurDujZbhkNZjGah7 Type of Car: Any proper 4x4 with front and back tow hooks and 8-10 inches of ground clearance. What to bring along: Loads of water, snacks (for yourself), smiles, face mask, rubber gloves, enthusiasm, willingness to learn and your own compressor for tire inflation. Approximate finish time: 9:30 AM End Point: Lisaili Fort Limited Spots Available: Limited to 10 cars only. RSVP will close on Thursday - 9 AM. If the RSVP is full and you wish to join, please mention your name on the drive thread to add on the waiting list. Latecomers will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Members without RSVP will be returned back - without ANY EXCEPTIONS. Please withdraw your RSVP, if you aren't joining, so your spot can be taken by others. Repeated no-show members after RSVP will have their account suspended for a month. PLEASE RSVP ON THE BELOW CALENDAR EVENT

Congratulations @SP kALATH for reaching the Fewbie Level with Carnity Offroad Club. Looking forward to seeing you growing further and helping others to learn the art of offroading in a safe environment. Please make sure your Carnity user profile is always updated with all the latest Emergency contact details. P.S. Trip lead might deny your participation if you don't have required off-road gear. Fewbie: Drives Attended (Indicative) Minimum 5 Newbie drives are required within last 3 months for Fewbie promotion. What you'll learn Basic dune and sand reading Self-recovery techniques Shoveling at right place Crawling out of difficult situations Blip Blip - Coordinate steering and gas control Advance side sloping and hill climb Basic ridge riding and criss crossing Basic control over technical dunes Slightly faster pace desert driving Ability to manage stuck/refusals with radio Learn to control and avoid fishtailing Never fight or challenge gravity Skills required Enthusiastic and positive attitude Willingness to learn and help others Presence of mind and attention to detail Car Worthiness Any 4x4 vehicle with low range gearing Suitable approach and departure angle Off-road gear required Safety flag, tire deflator, tire pressure gauge, shovel, fire extinguisher, medical kit, radio (walkie-talkie), air compressor. Drive teamwork Manage second lead and sweep positions upon request Intuitive and proactive to support Trip Lead Observe recoveries and offer help, when needed Drive Joining Join Newbie and Fewbie drives And Fewbie Plus, after 5 drives at Fewbie level only Forum participation Active participation on the forum Share drive experience + feedback Share drive pictures in the gallery Post trip report after the drive

Thank you @Roger Kfor letting us know in advance. See you in another drive! @varunmehndirattaare you still in for this drive?

Hello @Emmanuel. Unfortunately I need to cancel my drive fir this Friday. I have situations where my family needs the car for a more urgent purpose. Looks like you have some waitlisted people looking to go. Thank you

Thanks for letting me know @varunmehndirattaI'm sure we'll drive together soon

Hi there, I'm Nick, total newbie, just bought a Dodge RAM. Will go and buy the tow hooks and compressor tomorrow! any hints on where to go?!

I'm at the garage only since day before yesterday night. The metal pipe got fused with the connection in the engine block and was in no mood to budge. Finally we had to use a torch and melt the whole block housing away to release it. Now waiting for the new housing to arrive tonight and get it fixed. Thank God we noticed the small leak in that pipe or it would have grounded me perhaps in the middle of the desert and could have blown out the engine. That leak may have caused the loss in water pressure circulation and made the engine run hotter during stress which I was experiencing since 2 months during drives.

As many people don't have a remote shutter release, i would recommend using the shutter speed presets. Furthermore i think not every camera has the "B" Bulb setting. On top of that, if you exceed 30 seconds shutter speed, you will start to have some trailing effects, which is great if you want to experiment with that.

Nikon D810 with various lens and tripod. Done a bit in manual mode but nothing at night

I got Nikon D5600. Most probably I might have to go to Abu Dhabi, if so then I will have to drop, will confirm by tomorrow.

That's great equipment Ranjan, thanks for the quick feedback. We will be definitely helping you out to discover the manual mode.

@Chinthaka RuwanCongratulations!

Well done buddy!

@Hisham Masaad Thank You.

I like the idea of a small convoy 🤘

Why do I look forward to Fridays? It's days like how this Friday is shaping up that were part of the reason I found Carnity to be the environment in which my 4x4 journey is so special. It's down to this - when a drive ends up as an all levels drive and the senior, more experienced drivers, join a drive that is at a level lower than they are 'capable' of driving. Capability is one thing, community, is another. Carnity is a combination of the two words and what COVID has done is remove some of the community from our club, because we cannot gather any longer at the end of drives like we used to, nor can we debrief after a drive and get to know one another. So it's great when experienced drivers come along and make a drive all levels - for what ever reason - and share their experience with drivers just starting out their journey in the club. Just being able to follow the tracks of an experienced driver can give such confidence to a beginner or almost beginner. On a long convoy like we have this week it's easy for the first few drivers to follow the lead's tracks, but at the end12, 13 or 14 cars down the line, you're driving through sand soup or a flattened path. The advantage of having more seasoned drivers ahead is that you'll start to see the subtle changes they make to deal with churned sand, the slight alterations that they take from the original line to make the drive easier or the way that they somehow manage to maintain momentum and float above the sand. For the more experienced drivers, it's an opportunity to practice a skill, or simply sit back and relax a bit in the desert. So, let's take the benefit of having all levels in the drive. My convoy positioning will take advantage of this for sure, and let's hope that with all the experience on show we can have a truly fun and exciting drive for everyone. See you soon in the sand.

Posted some pictures in the gallery

Congratulations @Joe Biju Joseph