Narrowband.org

My First Time…

Posted by narrowband - 17/11/07 at 11:11:02 pm

It’s been a hell of a week. I haven’t been getting enough rest, and there are some events coming up next weekend. It’s kinda stressful to even think about them. Anyway, that’s next week. This morning, for the first time ever, I took my baby out to the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) in Kepong.

Being an absolute n00b, I found the outing pretty exciting. All that was needed was an EF 50mm macro lens – something which Yiming lent me. There were also a couple of extension tubes (awesome!). Believe me, ‘addictive’ is an understatement. It was intoxicating!

Someone should have warned me that outdoor photography can be quite physically demanding. Sometimes you need to burn additional calories just to get that one perfect shot. Understandably, it wasn’t easy. After about half an hour, moving the camera back and forth at awkward angles proved to be quite a challenge.

It’s not exactly easy to shoot bugs. They move around quite a bit and you gotta be quick to shoot when they stop moving. The tricky (and a little frustrating, sometimes) part is to get the perfect focus. And I sometimes take yonks to get it.

Lighting was another issue. Shooting with the pros kinda made my pop-up flash look a little out of place. Haha. Three extension tubes (giving god-knows-how-many-times magnification) proved to be too much for my poor baby. The flash was blocked by the long barrels. One of the extensions had to be removed to correct the problem.

I got a lot of ants and spiders. They were all over the place, so it’s only natural that I get a little more excited when coming across something a bit more unusual. Like seeing two wachamacallits having sex. Well, it looked like they were getting it on.

I wonder if they were annoyed by all the camera flashes during such an intimate moment. Haha. Pardon me for not scoring an A1 in my Biology, but I really don’t know if this is how insects make out. I only know one of them was still holding on to its food.

Assuming that that’s really its food, I must say it’s pretty good at multi-tasking. Either that or it’s really lazy to go search again. In any case, that sight was pretty interesting. We found a couple of more unusual orgasnisms.

This spider jumped onto Yiming’s lens when we got too close. It’s pretty cool because its head has got several black dots that look like eyeballs. I managed to take one more shot before we returned the spider to its home – some leaf from which it bounced off.

Hairy spidey eh? Check out its little ‘hands’. It’s got 8 legs plus 2 ‘hands’, and they’re all super hairy. Don’t underestimate those transparent-looking legs. For its size, I’d say it can move around very quickly.

This shot was taken underneath some leaf, and I remember I did some kinda Yoga pose to take it. Before you ask, no, I don’t go for Yoga classes. There’s nothing great about this shot, except that I managed to focus on the subject’s eyes after the 7th try. Something like that. And my legs started to tremble. We left FRIM at about noon, just shortly before it rained!

P/s: Note that all the photos published in this entry can be viewed in full-size by clicking on them. I want to acknowledge Yiming for lending me his macro lens, and sharing some good tips. That guy’s camera set-up for this morning weighed almost 2kg! (Check out his work. Chunted tahap dewa…) It was also a pleasure to meet two other shutterbugs, Kurt and Min. I’ve been poisoned alright.

Related Entries:

• Bee Movie and Some Other Scribblings
• Travelogue: Singapore in Photos
• VMY2007: Happy 50th Birthday Malaysia!
• VMY2007: Malaysia International Fireworks Competition
• VMY2007: Taman Pertanian Malaysia
• The Day I Bought a Ferrari F430
• How to Create Mini Polaroids in Photoshop
• How to Resize Multiple Photos in Photoshop
• VMY2007: Taman Negara
• VMY2007: The Eye on Malaysia
• How to Create a CSS Photo Gallery

38 Comments »

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1. *drools* i also want dlsr …. ahhhh.

   love the pictures !

   Comment by satkuru — November 18, 2007 #

2. wahahhaa i saw a couple pictures first before you posted, i feel so privileged! btw, the pictures are awesome! :D

   Comment by Julee — November 18, 2007 #

3. your baby still young sudah masuk hutan ar?! tsk tsk…bad papa! kakakaka

   anyway this post is really like a documentary on animal planet! and the song that was going in my head now is;

   spiderman, spiderman…hahaha xD

   Comment by pinksterz — November 18, 2007 #

4. Wow.

   The photos look amazing.

   Is a macro lens at the top of your must have list now?

   Comment by Steve Robbo — November 18, 2007 #

5. Nice and awesome photo shots. I wanted to get a macro lens since few months back but haven’t do so yet.

   Comment by Chen — November 18, 2007 #

6. Wow! all your shots are awesome!

   I have goose bump when i see spider and all the colorful insert… it’s poison :-> Anyway, i’m typical city boy … and rainforest is not my cup of tea. I got stress out…

   Comment by TZ — November 18, 2007 #

7. looks good! i like macro shots, they are pretty.

   Comment by xin — November 18, 2007 #

8. ahh, playing with your new toy, i see! :D and yes, camera macro shots are amazing… you jsut get to see so many things that you usually can’t with the naked eye! :)

   Comment by conancat — November 18, 2007 #

9. Congrats for acquiring a BIG baby! Hahaha
   That’s the beauty of DLSR eh. All the buggy photos are very interesting. ;)

   Comment by Che-Cheh — November 18, 2007 #

10. wah wah wah…
    time to have another photoblog liao! :D

    Comment by angel — November 18, 2007 #

11. wow , those macro shots look great.

    but if i stumble upon your blog randomly, i’d think you have some insect fetish or something

    Comment by Jason Phoon — November 18, 2007 #

12. I am sooooooo jelus of your baby right now. I must get myself a DSLR and soon!

    And if I thought your shots were good previously, I’d say they’re even better now!

    Comment by rinnah — November 18, 2007 #

13. wow… looks like you are going down the macro road… i kind of like macro too but macro on insects… sometimes i find it er… disturbing… if you know what i mean… hope i can venture into dslr too someday…

    Comment by chowhofun — November 18, 2007 #

14. Amazing shots bro! The beauty of macro lens… If only the lens were way cheaper hahahaa…

    Comment by voch — November 19, 2007 #

15. Dave,

    Really nice to look at the insects so close and clear. Hope to see more amazing photos from you again.

    Comment by elainecch — November 19, 2007 #

16. Hey you baby really good le.. the insects are so tiny and you can take the pictures so CLEAR !!! You must be very “sayang” your baby lol..

    Comment by keeyit — November 19, 2007 #

17. look what you just did, you “encouraged” him to get one. soon he’s going to walk around with that big cam. hmph

    btw, fantastic pics, noob it seems. :P

    Comment by lingster — November 19, 2007 #

18. i had my pre-wedding shots there… didnt know that place was so … populated…

    Comment by zewt — November 19, 2007 #

19. When I first saw the picture, I was wondering how the hell did that kit lens take such macro picture only to find out you borrowed a macro lens.

    Ha.

    Comment by Jason — November 20, 2007 #

20. the “eyeballs” on the “body” of the spider.. IS indeed it’s eyeballs.. remember that spiders do have 8 eyes on them..

    Comment by khek — November 20, 2007 #

21. Yo awesome little baby, all the shot is very nice and perfect shot taken by you.

    Comment by Darren — November 20, 2007 #

22. You’re hitting magnification of 1.4x which is .4 more than a normal 1:1 macro lens.

    Looks like the pictures turn out pretty well :p

    Comment by Yiming — November 20, 2007 #

23. Wow~! Pls dun blame it on my nature, but tat bug mating pic kinda make me looking at it the longest out of all, wat kinda position is tat?! don’t remember my bio teacher teaching me tat either.. but then, multitasking.. hahaha!! Keep up the great shots bro~!

    Comment by Jian — November 20, 2007 #

24. Those are great shots. I have been doing macro shots with my normal Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX9. Need to get myself a nice SLR with inter-changeable lenses.

    Comment by Adam — November 20, 2007 #

25. Sat – It’s about time…! Hehehe.

    Julee – Yea you got the exclusive sneak peeks. Haha! You always get one lar *Grins*

    Pinksterz – Eh ya la! Anak dara dah bawak masuk semak. Sumore kena cobwebs weh… Memang one helluvan outdoor-sy camera hehe.

    Ei come on, surely this one’s better than animal planet? Bwahahaha :p

    Thank you, Steve… although there’s plenty of room for improvement, for sure. Not at the top, yet… I’m in no hurry to get a new lens now. Can’t be splurging my funds on photography all the time, hehe…

    Chen – They’re addictive neh… you sure you wanna get one? Haha. But you’ll love it to bits!

    TZ – I grew up in the city too mate! But once a while I do go ‘back’ to nature, hahaha… In the city *is* where I’d get all stressed out!

    Xin – They are, indeed! :D

    Conancat – Ya must play mah. I everyday also must play play with it abit one. You’re right, the macro + magnifying lens really let you see things we can’t normally see, even if they’re all around us, all the time.

    Che-cheh – You know, your comment didn’t pass my spam-filter because of your bolded word ‘big’ :p Hahahaha! Yes, time for you to get one too? *winks*

    Angel – I can’t fully handle this one blog, what more a second blog!! No thx ;p

    Jason Phoon – Thanks. Insect fetish lol… How is that possible. That sounds so salah lol!!!

    Rinnah – I look forward to you purchasing yours! Thank you Rinnah you’re being way too kind *blushes*

    Hoomun – Haha I’m not going down any ‘road’ per se, but the macro ‘road’ is pretty interesting nonetheless! Macro on bugs are challenging because they are moving targets. Macro on plants (flowers) are beautiful too but unfortunately I wasn’t in a nursery! There was hardly a petal to be found!

    Vic – Yea it’s an expensive hobby so I’m being careful in deciding what ‘add-on’ I should get next!

    Hui – I hope to be able to capture even closer next time (and larger)… but can you help me find all the weird weird insects for me to shoot? Hehehee……

    Keeyit – The lens and the baby, they make a good partnership la… hehehe… Yes of course I sayang it until ‘loong’ (burnt -__-”)!

    Lingster – Ooops… I didn’t mean to!!! *cough cough*. Hey now, what’s wrong with walking around with a big cam, ah? Ahhh?? ;p

    Noob under the guidance of a pro == overcomes challenges more easily haha!

    Zewt – Oh, yes it was populated indeed. All sorts of miniature creatures lurking under your buttocks also you didn’t know eh!

    Jason – Yes ;)

    Khek – Spiders have 8 eyes?!?!? Ok I suck at this so I don’t know. But really, I don’t remember hearing that before. I only know spiders must have eight legs…. Now now now, were you kidding me or what???

    Darren – Of course lah I put up the ‘better’ shots only… I have tonnes of other ‘misses’ compared to these ‘hits’! ;p It’s not *that* easy to capture a perfect, sharply-focused shot… I needed alotta tries!

    Yiming – What would the magnification be had I used the third extension tube? Bet they’d look like bugzilla in pictures ;p

    Jian – That position, bro, is what we call the ‘siamese-twin position’ or the ‘conjoined’ position. No please don’t try this at home. I don’t think human beings are capable of executing such a delicate pose unless your ‘anatomy’ appears to have grown a lil out of (ordinary) place……

    Dude my teacher never taught me *ANY* position!! What the heck!! Which school did you go to??! Oh the one by the Federal Highway right? *Grinssss*

    Adam – You’re having one *capable* camera (those who know me would know I’m a fan of Lumixes’). If you want large magnifications then a DSLR would be the second best thing besides a microscope… :D

    Thank you for dropping by, everyone!

    Comment by narrowband — November 20, 2007 #

26. Photography is addictive :)

    Comment by sbanboy — November 21, 2007 #

27. Wow… Macro lens is nice. I will get 1 macro lens after I get my dream telephoto lens – 70-200 f/2.8 IS. :)

    Comment by Jayce — November 21, 2007 #

28. Those pictures took my breath away! They are gorgeous! You could submit them to National Geographic! :D

    Comment by Giddy Tiger — November 21, 2007 #

29. oops, 3 stacked together = 1.4x

    2 of those probably you’re doing 0.9:1 to 1:1 magnification :P

    Comment by Yiming — November 21, 2007 #

30. *faints*

    Deng: “T-oooo guh-oooood. Ka-kahn taaayk kiiit..”

    *faints again*

    Comment by Deng — November 23, 2007 #

31. wow..insect mania!!! i never like insect btw, your photos gives me the creep!

    Comment by eunice — November 23, 2007 #

32. you sure like insects hor

    Comment by wuching — November 23, 2007 #

33. Sbanboy – Indeed, it is. I need something addictive to ‘fuel’ my life… hehehe…

    Jay – I hope to get a telephoto as well, but not so soon. IT will be in my shopping list. I saw one (on the ‘net) with army-coated colour, super cool.

    Giddy Tiger – Haha… I’m just starting out… I hope to be able to take away *more* people’s beath in the future… with more magnified, clear and vivid shots! ;D

    Yiming – Man I gotta learn how these calculations go in photography ;p

    Deng – Eh, you doing an ‘Optimus Prime’ or whut? Cuz I can’t seem to decipher that :p Haha… Thank you Deng :)

    Eunice – I had fun taking them… in the forest… in the bushes… :p Tell you the truth, I don’t really like them either… Hahahhaha!

    Wuching – No, not really ;)

    Comment by narrowband — November 25, 2007 #

34. dave!!!..u’re getting me crazy to own one..wanted it so badly but i think its too expensive to keep it as a hobby…

    Comment by stephaniemeiyu — November 28, 2007 #

35. I am driving you crazy? ;p I wish I had half of that ability! It’s not cheap, indeed. Money alone cannot fuel this hobby. Passion, interests and the satisfaction that you get when taking photos… are equally important :D

    Comment by narrowband — December 1, 2007 #

36. *grins from ear to ear*

    HAHAHAHAH i am so happyyyy

    dum di dumm…
    waiting for the battery to charge…6 hours to go

    Comment by Chiaw Yin — December 2, 2007 #

37. nice pics… it makes me wanna get slr even more.. too bad i ran out of cash =P

    Comment by gary — December 5, 2007 #

38. siapa nak ber kenalan dengan saya?

    Comment by BMW — February 26, 2008 #

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