Life goes on....

I started my calling as a seminary teacher on 7th July 2009. I thought waking up at 4.15am every weekday is a tough deal for me, but surprisingly, it was not so bad after all....It was terrible in the beginning, i tried to get my body to get used to wake up early by doing so a week earlier before my calling start...and i was glad that I did that. For the first two days, i could only wake up the mind, but my body didnt want to get out of bed at all....now, it is okay...i could even wake up early in weekends!

something that i have never been able to achieve in my annual resolution for years "go to bed early and wake up early" using my own strength & resolution - but with the calling and the blessing, i finally able to tick off as "yes, i am doing it now.."

Another of my resolution is to do regular exercise. Well, hopefully, after I leave my company, I will have more time to do birding, and that would be considered "exercise". That would be a fun exercise! ha ha...

A shot of a sunbird in Singapore Botanical Garden with a group of photography students. I was invited to attend along although I have not signed up for the class. I was grateful for the opportunity. I was also very excited because the teacher gave me a grade of "A" for this shot (on the condition that I did some more post-processing) but nevertheless, i was excited. This was shot with D300 camera with a 300mmf4 lens.

Yesterday, I went for my morning photography walk again in Chinese Garden. I met a colleague there which I have never chat with in the office, but yesterday, we had a nice chit chat on camera equipment. Later, I saw another man with long lens, and I greeted him to ask him how his day was. This was followed by another interesting chat on bird photography - but most interesting was, because I chatted him up, he was able to tell me of places where he has seen birds in the Garden. He told me of a resident stork-billed kingfisher nearby. He told me of some less friendly photographers there too. With this additional information, I make my way to the place where the stork-billed KF was sighted. And truly, it was there. I take a few shots of the bird, and saw that a group of photographers have also gathered opposite the small brook and waiting to shoot the bird. I inched closer to the bird and it flew off to another perch. I wanted to inch closer again, but the photographers gave me warning not to get close. Later the bird flew again to a further away from their side of perch, over to my side...And again, I wanted to go closer to the bird (you cant shoot if the bird is too far away!), and i could hear shouts from the other photographers saying "tell her dont go near to the bird". So I stopped in my tracks and just relax...No point shooting from so far away anyway. One guy crossed the brook and came over to me and I greeted him and we chit chat....He apologised for the behavior of the person who shouted at me....what surprised me that as I am being friendly and chit chat with him (these are a group of elderly senior man who were now interested in bird photography), he too started sharing with me things he knew about this bird...its behavior and the time that it would showed up. Another guy came over, and the first guy asked this guy to show his pictures. He took out a clear folder and there were plenty of bird pictures there. Many pictures were birds with fish in their beak. That was what these guys were going after. I complimented the pictures, telling him how good it was...(some were really good)...and soon, he was telling me where I could find these birds - some were eagles even.... Wow...these tips are valuable! ha ha.

They were interested at my camera setup (probably curiosity is what started them to approach me anyway as I was carrying my full 500mm setup, whilst they were handholding 300mm and 400mm...). Soon the place we were standing was rather hot as the sun was right over our heads, and the men tell me to go over to their little island across the brook where it was shady (and where the bird appeared more often). Inside me, I was amazed - by just being friendly and not offended by their initial objection to my presence, I am now even invited to their circle and again they told me of the things that they have observed and shot.....It is just amazing to me. I couldnt find out all these things by myself. I was glad that I spoke to all the three group of people that I met yesterday - speaking to people is new & uncomfortable to me, i dont like to speak much or draw attention..........but i am finding it is quite fun too to speak with people of same interest & I could learn lots! I will try to greet people more often, rather than shying away.

I didnt get a good shot of the stork-billed Kingfisher, but I have had a great day and experience learnt. So, overall, it was a great day for me.

Stork-billed King fisher (above) & Yellow-vented bulbul (below)

Catch up time....

Lallang grass at the fringe of paddy field...shot while waiting for birds to appear...

Oh dear...time moves so fast......What have i been busy about lately? Plenty!! Let me start from the earliest that I could recall.....

End of May - My employer issued me the letter of retrenchment, making it official. My last day with BP is 31 August 2009. Though I have known this fact for quite many months, I still felt "sad" & "down" on the day that I had to sign the letter.... Anyway, sister Brown said it is normal to feel that way after being with BP for 9 years...so I am fine again. Now, I am looking forward to my retirement...ha ha. I signed up for a job placement program (paid by BP) and I was shocked at how some are being retrenched - he worked for a bank - he was called into a meeting room one day, he was handed a letter and was asked to pack immediately and leave the office premise! my gosh...how prepared one could be in this situation??? I am counting my blessings....

In that sense, I am grateful that I can go to the Manila temple on 26 May 2009 for some quiet time, and also to take some photos....A new publisher has approached me for some temple photos for their new temple book - hopefully, one or two will be chosen again....

I have kept myself more than 100% busy on my bird photography - to the extent I think I am now addicted to the bird npss forum...oh dear!! I had spent much time on computer, either to learn of a photo processing software, or learn new photography techniques etc....there are just too many things to learn and I want to learn them all at once...instead of the wiser counsel of line by line..... I hope to start a business in bird photography tours...I dont know how I can do it, but that is my dream........

Two pictures of birds to share - white throated kingfisher from spore botanical garden, and a Scaly-breasted Munia shot outside my home in Malaysia.

So, what do you think Heavenly Father's answer to my addiction? He gave me a new calling, sent through his servants. I have this impression that I should let my stake presidency know that I am leaving Singapore soon, so that they have the time to consider new people to replace my calling with the singles. I somehow added my bishop in the email. To cut story short, my bishop believed the email is his answer to his prayer for a name to a calling....I was called to the stake presidency office...i am waiting to hear the word "you are now released......." instead, i heard the word "we would like to extend a call to you....." That woke me up! ha ha...

Who wants to take a guess what my additional calling is? It is very very engaging that now my time is more balanced btw church and bird photography.....hee hee...

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.