Thomas Varghese

@Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader congrats for a well deserved promotion.

Thank you for this recognition. Hope to keep up the trust given to me @Frederic you have trained us. Hope to keep up your name. Congrats to u too @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader

@Chaitanya D until you told us this is your 1st lead for a drive we never knew it. The drive was very nice. The route you chose was excellent. It was just like @Frederic or @Rahimdad or @Gaurav leading us. @Ale Vallecchi was little different as it was more technical as he wanted to teach us where we went wrong by pointing out the mistakes and correctional methods. All the drives with carnity were tutorials in desert driving and I already started to feel the difference in my approach, tactics, throttle control and self recovery when having refusals or stucks in desert driving.

I noticed it now that sand has been flying from the back tires but the shutter speed the camera selected didn't create any motion blur. If that was the effect you wanted you should have gone to shutter priority and reduced the shutter speed to 1/ 30 or less. @Pranjal Varsani very lucky to have met you in Carnity and God willing learn much more about photography from you. @Frederic didn't specify what was the goal of the shot. I only saw the blue over cast on the SUV and the back ground and foreground. I thought he was commenting about overall exposure.

@Pranjal Varsani thanks for your comments. I'm not a professional photographer. I only have some equipment and play with them as a hobby whenever I get time. In @Frederic's picture I think his whole idea was to take the SUV with the background and foreground properly exposed which is impossible as there is bright sunlight and dark shadows. In evaluative metering mode the camera assess the entire scene and fixes the shutter speed which it thinks its correct for a proper exposure. If any other metering mode like spot metering or center weighted average with the focus on the SUV the camera adjusts the shutter speed as per the reflected light from the car and then the back ground gets blown out and we cannot recover the details whatever we do. Shutter priority is not the option here as its not an action shot but rather a stationary car. My thoughts are he wanted to picturize the car along with the surroundings and all the other settings are correct including evaluative meter mode. Unfortunately this is the best we can get in this circumstance and all the adjustments has to be done in a photo processing software to balance the light and colors. As mentioned earlier I'm not into professional photography and I just shared my thoughts and experiences with the entry level cameras and lenses I have. DSLR and in that matter all photographic equipments have limitations and you can only work around them to match our amazing eyes God gave us to an extent.

In this case if you use any other metering mode than evaluative it will blow out either the high lights or shadows and all details in that area will be lost.

@Frederic even though its every photographer's wish to nail it correctly every time it doesn't work that way in real life. The camera metering system is not that perfect for exposures. I can see there is plenty of sunlight and plenty of shadows and the poor camera averaged it as its programmed to do.

@Frederic don't worry about the exposure. Its in aperture priority I shoot 90% of the time and the camera nails it most of the time. Sometimes it doesn't nail if the exposure of the surroundings are little harsh. If it doesn't still don't worry. Everything can be corrected in a good RAW processing software. I use Adobe Lightroom even though I would love to do the same in Adobe Photoshop. If you can share the RAW file I can edit and give you back in half an hour.

Its not because we don't enjoy Newbie drives anymore but anxious to be in the next level adventure to learn more and get the experience. The 6 drives I had with Carnity has proven the worth of my XTERRA which I only heard in stories and very much interested to see how far the car can be pushed to its safe limits. I was thrilled at the way @Rahimdad demonstrated to all of us in my XTERRA when he recovered it from a bowl like a walk in the park. From that time I'm waiting patiently to complete the mandatory 5 drives and apply for a promotion to qualify for the Fewbie drives. I hope it will be approved soon so that I can join @Ale Vallecchi's all day drive on 15th Friday. same here @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader. Not sure the request has gone through even though I have done all what the web page did. @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader we completed 6 drives with today morning drive with @Ale Vallecchi & @Jeepie at Al Faqaa.

@Chaitanya D already applied for promotion to Fewbie and waiting for the approval. 😀

Is there any restriction on the maximum number or size of pictures a member can upload?

It was such a wonderful drive. A very good experience combined with beautiful sceneries and wild life of UAE. Special thanks for @Ale Vallecchi and @Jeepie for supporting us for this nice experience. Terrain was challenging but everybody did well. Thoroughly enjoyed the whole drive. Looking forward for future drives with Carnity.

Its only 500 kb

I'm trying to upload pictures but unfortunately for so many days i can't as uploads are failing.

What a wonderful afternoon desert drive. @Chaitanya D. Special thanks to @AlexPol, @Anish S & @Mahmoud Hamzawy for the support as 2nd lead, center forward and sweep respectively. @rajeshkumar rathod you did wonderful today after your 1t drive as an absolute newbie in the morning. I wish I could be this flawless during our initial days of joining the club. It was a pleasure driving with @frederic demolder & @Dodi Syahdar two new friends I made today. Seeing the way @Danish Mohammad & @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader driving today who actually joined with me for my absolute newbie drive I'm impressed by the way the senior team members have imparted the knowledge of offroading to us. Put a smile on my face when I saw them negotiating the dunes without any hiccups and self recovering from tight situations. WOW. If this is what just a few newbie drives makes us how to learn to negotiate the desert hurdles I just awe what the fewbie drives will do to us. As this was my 5th drive with Carnity I have applied for a promotion to be a fewbie the moment I hit my computer and pray the team will grant me the opportunity to be a fewbie and grant my wish to join the future fewbie drives in my learning process. Please pray for me that my wish will be granted soon. Again I thank everybody or the wonderful evening along with my wife who enjoyed the entire drive episode and the spectacular views of the desert. Hope to meet you all very soon for another drive.

Getting ready for the adventure. Will leave in half an hour. Flag, Walkie Talkie, Shovel, Deflator, Compressor, tools, fluids all are packed and is ready in the boot for an adventurous afternoon with my wife. See you all guys in the sand soon.

@Ale Vallecchi I'm grateful you gave me a chance and I'm in.

@Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader not 1 drive but 2 - God willing for the 9th morning also. Right now off to Bruce Lee mall to shop for my air compressor as the 1st one bought from Amazon for 65 AED is having coughing, sneezing and looks like about to breathe its last.

@Paul Zeitoun I hope now you understand the line - One for all and all for one. I really miss the opportunity to drive with @Rahimdad but love to explore under @Chaitanya D too. As we are all here and bitten by the desert there are plenty of opportunities to drive together. @Abdul Rahman Abdul Kader I am right next after you in the waitlist

I was not very sure if she will wake up or not and join me. I was prepared to go alone if she doesn't. Her eyes already popped out when I explained the roller coaster like drive and gave me a look if I'm in my senses to attempt all this at 53 years of age. She made a comment after sometime what do I think of myself at this age when it should have been our kids who should have been doing it and we enjoying it as a passenger. She gave me hug later and said you haven't changed a bit from your teenage days doing all the stunts.

@Chaitanya D I have joined your drive leaving the morning drive with @Rahimdad as others on the waitlist can get a chance. Kindly confirm so that I'm sure that I'm included in the list and neither here nor there.

I have seen the spirit of cooperation in the drives and why not cooperate so that another desertnaut gets a chance when I'm not bound by timings whether its morning or afternoon. @Rahimdad you can delete me from the volunteer list as I have already joined @Chaitanya D's afternoon drive. The timing suits me well as my wife who just landed after an 11 month break in India will be joining me and I know for sure she will appreciate me for not waking her up at 3 o clock in the morning to join the drive. Hopefully we will have a honeymoon in the desert at night.