Fraser's Hill trip

Pic - Flowers along the Jelai Waterfall trail

1st May 2009 - 4th May 2009

I went with the Nature Photography Society of Singapore (NPSS) on a 4 days 3 nights trip to Fraser's Hill in Pahang, Malaysia. We set out at 4.30am from Spore which meant that I had to wake up at 3.45am! And for 3 consecutive mornings, i automatically woke up at that time too. ha ha.

Pic - The group, after a sumptuous dinner at Singapore House (courtesy of Han).

It was a wonderful trip and I met many fun and nice people with the same interest ie photography. It must be common everywhere for Canon users will tease the Nikon users and vice versa on who has the better equipment. There were many quite funny moments too - just camera-talk jokes.

Sharing a few of the bird photos taken during the trip. On Sunday, I decided not to go out with the group - however, I have to admit that it was real tempting as I watched others photographed the birds that come to the resort's feeder from the balcony of my room. In this kind of situation, I am glad I have my Book of Mormon with me. 

Pic - Family of Large Niltava (Male, Female & Juvenile)

Many Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush visited the feeding station. One particular bird, we were laughing at it because instead of eating the mealy worms, it collected them from the ground - should any of the worms dropped from its beak, it will pick the worm up again, balancing the rest still on its beak...funny antics - its final count was 7 worms before it flew away.

Pic - Chestnut-capped Laughing Thrush

Pic - Silver-eared Mesia 

Last but not least, a mammal - this is a Malayan flying lemur (colugo). It stood frozen there (could you see the mozzies biting him??) and I shot almost a hundred shots within the space of one hour - it has two choices for defense - not moving in hope that we would not spot him or to scoot up the tree! I was glad it chose the former and stay put for me to photograph it.

I had fun on this trip - it has been a long while since I went on a bird outing.

My AF Focus is cured!

I have been moaning about my many out-of-focus shots with my 500mm lens. I was clueless why the photos are mostly Out Of Focus (OOF) - I have already eliminated those culprits such as AF mode, AF type, subject motion ( I took shots of a big rock & still turned out OOF !) , camera shake ( there were spots in the picture that were in focus), so what else have I not done?

As I studied my OOF shots last night, I saw "AF Finetune = 0" as part of the EXIF. I surfed the internet and finally struck gold. The search brouught many links which described my problem. What will we do without internet??

http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikon_d300_users/discuss/72157603567131829

http://photomatter.com/Reviews/NikonD300b.html

http://www.focustestchart.com/chart.html

Rather than following their steps to do the AF finetuning, I sent all my lens to Nikon service center today since they are still under warranty.

D300 has a function that you can finetune the AF from -20 to 0 to +20. With my 500mm plus TC1.4x, the finetune figure turned up to +17.

Tested my lens today - AF works MUCH better now ..i might still tweaked it a bit as I do more field tests. Some of my photos today of the White breasted waterhen in Singapore Botanical Garden - eco-lake (luckily she turned up..otherwise, I dont have any subject to test my lens...ha ha).

I liked the way she turned her head to look at me...that made this picture sweet.

I wished I had lower my camera so that I could take it at eye level...it would it make a more powerful shot.

cutie one again....

the eye was so sharp, i am impressed, but sad to realise that the beak is not in focus due to motion i think..so, this shot should rank as trash.... :-(

Camera setup

This is my camera setup taken with my phone camera (ha ha)..(I have since, added an additional battery pack to the bottom of the camera body)....I am also crocheting a brown cover to cover up the yellow foams (i think these yellow foams scare birds away.....)

This morning, I was in Japanese Garden to take some bird photos. I was alone. A guy came and approached me. He asked "Are you a professional?" "No" I replied. "Then why do you use such big lens?" he continued to ask. I was dumbstruck not knowing what to answer....ha ha.

Here's a link on top ten annoying things to say to wildlife photographer...it is funny!

http://www.paulburwell.com/blog/2009/03/top-ten-annoying-things-to-say-to-wildlife-photographer/

Crimson Sunbird at Mandai Orchid Garden Spore

10th April 2009 (Good Friday)

It was a public holiday in Singapore. I made my own way to this Garden again...(one thing that is not fun venturing out on your own was that there is no one to watch your equipment should you have a need to go for emergency :-D. )

I spent the whole afternoon there, until it was too dark to take any photos and mozzies started getting hungry. Total shutter released - more than 400 count, sb900 automatically shutdown due to overheating, camera hanged due to full buffer memory.........reached home, looked at the results...less than the number of my fingers were sharp...... ...and none of the shots with the bird looking at me even ! But I was consoled by the people in the npss forum - it is already a very good result if one can have one good photo per month . .. ha ha. Enjoy......everyone said I have improved compared to my first posting....yippee.......wish weekend comes earlier......

Little spiderhunter

With comments received from the forum, I re-processed the picture and here is the final outcome.

Nature Photographic Society of Singapore

Today I posted my first thread of photos in an online forum. I also learnt that I need to do photo/post processing in order to make the photos nicer (just like ladies putting on make-up before they step out to public places...ha ha ha).

http://npss.org.sg/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1395

They have some very nice and helpful people there that are willing to share what they have learnt, and oh boy, I have lots to learn.

Shot of a little spiderhunter, with post processing.........saturation and USM (50,5,5,).

Today I also learnt that Adobe Creative Suite Web Premium (which include Photoshop CS4) is selling at S$99 as student edition. Normal price is S$999........Should I buy???? Of course! Although some said it will be under utilised... :-(...Next question Mac version or PC? ..oh boy oh boy.....choices make me dizzy....ha ha

Finally, I am birding again........

I took half day leave on Thursday, 2nd April 2009, as I could not wait any longer to test my new lens. I made arrangement with a person I met in a bird photography forum so that I could learn from him......

When he (rey) saw me, he was surprised to see that I am a lady. I use a "nickname" in the forum. He asked me why I bought this huge lens (500mm) instead of a 300mm...I said it was the advice of those in the forum. I had initially decided on a 300mm but someone replied that it was not enough for bird photography, and said I should get at least 400mm....I got the 500mm.. :-). Rey said that the advices were given on the assumption that I am a MALE. I guess he was right...the weight of the lens (almost 4 kg), the tripod and head (another 1kg +), and camera + flash + etc (almost 1kg)....nearly killed me that day...we walked quite deep into the forest to look for kingfisher....we didnt see any! ha ha. It is still a good day for me to go on a field trip with him. And luckily he checked my setup - I didnt fasten in the tripod head tight enough.....I just cant imagine if my lens dropped on the ground..........oh dear dear me... Needless to say, my shoulder ached for 3 days and I am almost certain it was bruised!

I did a bit of DIY on my tripod - bought a sponge from Daiso $2 shop and strapped it onto my tripod legs where they rested on my shoulder....it worked...it really felt so much better now. But it is real ugly....need to think how to DIY it better....might end up buying the real stuff, maybe.

So, on Saturday, I contacted another person from the forum who agreed to take me out bird photographing. This time, I thought he was a lady (from his name...French has a way of naming a guy name in a lady's spelling...ha ha). Anyway, I again had great fun photographing birds....one thing I need to note though....photographers go without lunch on field trips! Luckily I had brought some chocolates....Next time, I will pack some sandwiches.

Ok....still a beginner in bird photography...need to adjust / fine tune the settings...but I was just so excited and started triggering the shutter release the moment I see a bird that I forgot all the rules of nature photography...Well, I guess I will learn as I go out more....

A Collared Kingfisher - this was heavily cropped as the birds were far across the lake...too far to have good quality image...


This is a spiderhunter - I think we spent more than 2 hours sitting and waiting for it to turn up...it came regularly, but only stayed for a few seconds before it flew off again....but each time it came, I would jump to my camera setup and just fire the shutter away......ho ho ho....

The spiderhunter again...this time, she posed nicely for me...

I am still not pleased with my output as most of my other pictures didnt achieve the sharpness that this lens could deliver....and, practice makes perfect....I believe!