Holy dip in Manchow Soup!

Most of us must have read 'Chicken Soup for the Soul' .. but this is about 'Manchow for Pixar's Glasses'

Some of you know how Pixar took a Chashni Bath last Sunday!

Well basically we were in Dharamshala and decided to go Paragliding before taking a pit-stop at Baijnath's famous Prachin Shiv Mandir built by Pandavas ..

So it was Shivratri the very next day and the preparations were in full swing. We couldn't resist the temptation of having pakoras and jalebis there. While my 'oh-so-in-a-hurry' friends devoured on the snacks, I was busy clicking hills that surrounded us.

Right before they decided they leave me there and move on, I jumped in the car and exercised my right on the lip-smacking food, stored in a rumble of newspapers used as the bowl. While I honestly loved the crispy pakoras and juicy jalebis, I failed to realize how the chasni found its way out of shanty and drop and drop gave Pixar a royale bath! :(

Not before it had spread to my jeans and t-shirt too, awakening struck and I dictated immediate stopping of the vehicle in the centre of the market road!

I went berserk finding a bottle of mineral water but howsoever funny city Baijnath is, I couldn't fetch one with atleast 6 confectioneries. Another 10 mins of torment!! arrgh..

Anyway, I found water and using my handkerchief wiped Pixie inside out. After a thorough scrutiny which lasted over 30mins, I was convinced that no damage has been done! Yay! ^_^

But well.. before I could forget this incident, came up the 'Soupy Fiasco'

So the other day, I was enjoying a plate of steamed Momos and Manchow Soup at the Big Chef when out of habit, I pulled up Pixar and ordered to put the glass to work!

Well Momos are not liquid, so I could click this without blinking an eyelash:

But I wanted to single out the soup bowl too and when I did that, I wanted to click the steam coming out of it too. Too much of anything is bad, eh?

I blew into the soup to generate extra steam, resting the Pixar adjacent to the bowl.

But nothing happened.

I blew harder.. But again, nothing!

Arrghh.. I pull a deep breadth and go for it full force.

Well, to this day me and Kaustabh have a difference of opinion over what happened next!

I still maintain that a US drone dropped a bomb in my soup which splashed its contents all over the place, including the innocent and helpless, Pixar!

Nonetheless, we had some serious cleaning to do again! *sigh*

Eventually, I bought the CleaningPro25 cleaning kit for DSLRs the same day! Something I'd have not done had this not happened!

Now I can proudly say .. Agar daag lagne se kuch acha hota hai, toh daag ache hain ^_^

The big story!

After much deliberations the Nikon D5100 comes home!

The Pixar aka Pixies!

So what was the intricacy all about? 

Was it about the money? No, it certainly wasn't! 

Permission? Nopes, were arranged well in advance! 

Confused which one to get? Yes, precisely!

Although the D5100 was a beloved choice since the day I decided to upgrade to a DSLR, recent floods in Thailand condensed the market supply of all Nikon products and the neonate was not available anywhere! Thus, attention swayed towards Canon 600D!

Nikon D5100 (left) Canon 600D (right)

The Canon 600D (or T3i) is a wonderful device, packed with some gratifying features and has been tested and approved by professional photographers. But what won for D5100 is its overall multimedia capabilities like in-camera HDR, selective colour photography et ol. However Canon is in no way an inferior device and for people who are serious about photography might just pick 600D over its Nikon counterpart. Its basically a heart over mind matter; mind says Canon, heart says Nikon! :)

That's Sarcasm in its purest form! 

Nonetheless, my heart overpowered my mind, my patience and my limited savings and I eventually fell for my Pixie (yeah, that's what we are gonna call him :D). Ordered one in the last week of January and voila, its here! :) 

The camera feels good in hand, is easy to operate and comes up with surprisingly candid photos even in Auto mode. The D5100 came with a standard 18-55 mm Nikkor lens, which will be put to work for a couple of months before buying additional lenses. Expect some more dump here in the coming weeks! :)