pimp my nest

The camera goes *bling*

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

bee my honey

So the wait turned out to be an hour long, because they had to make a few trips to get everyone up the hill. Rummaging around the bushes, I found a rather large bee humping a flower collecting nectar for the longest time. After half an hour of (failed) macros, the bee was amazingly still there!

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Lichen 2

Close up of another lichen on the same signboard.

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Lichen 1

This taken on my company trip to Gunung Irau. While waiting for the others to arrive, I spent my time taking pictures in the small waiting area. The surroundings were so moist that lichens have grown on a traffic signboard.

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Banana lama

Close up macro of b-a-n-a-n-a-s!

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Wasp up?

Yup, this is the same bug that Kit shot. Sneaky l'il fella, this one. It kept darting back and forth the wire fence while we both tried to get a good shot of it. I got fed up at the end and blasted flash at it with a high(low?) aperture which ended up with a reasonable shot, and called it a day :P

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Midnight sun

The time honoured cliched shot of one of the KLCC towers. Since I was unable to eliminate the street lamp hanging overhead, I decided to include it in the shot.

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

stream of consciousness

So Derrick had a photography assignment to shoot landscapes, and with some room left for a couple more shots, we set out on a last minute night photography excursion, which brought us from PJ all the way to KLCC.

This one was taken at the UM Hospital flyover. We had to squat down and squeeze our camera lens through the narrow grilles in order to take our shots. I liked how this one turned out, especially with Megatron's face next to the Gerbang

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

The have and the have-not

The monkeys seem to be used to being constantly fed. Visitors generally bring bananas or sugarcanes, sold outside the caves, and amuse themselves watching the monkeys eat. Not so amusing when they start snatching plastic bags, purses and garlands (happened in front of me). Well at least it's still better than the Kami Mata Temple in India.

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Monkey do!

Instant gratification. Yum!

Lighting is a major problem in the Batu Caves, and the only option is to shoot at ISO 1600 at low shutter speeds. I think it's time that I invest in a flash gun *drools*


Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Monkey see...

Examining the spoils of the day.

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

回眸一笑

Followed Kit and Brigitte for a photo outing some time last month. Since I've been here before, I was looking for something new to shoot, and all I could see was monkeys. Well, people and monkeys. But I didn't feel like taking pictures of gaggling Chinese aunties that day (if you catch me in that mood, kill me), and I've explored Hinduism on other occasions, so monkeys it was.


Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Breaking character

If anyone has been following this blog, you'll have noticed the extreme lack of activity. I blame this on procrastination, and the fact that I've switched from Windows XP to Vista. (Warning, rant ahead)

<rant>
Nikon Capture NX, which is what I use to convert RAW files to JPEG and also *coughs* perform my limited repertoire of image manipulation, on its own installs fine on Vista, however you will need to install .NET Framework 1.1 first, because Microsoft smartly decided to exclude 1.1 from Vista. Hell.

After weeks of hair-pulling and visits to Aaron Stebner's blog, I finally found the cure. Nevermind that it took me so long to find the link, what I really wanna know is:

• why can't MS bloody fix the framework install if there are so many known issues, or include 1.1 as part of Vista, and
• whether there's a need for NX to be tied down to the 1.1 Framework. Out of the 20 odd dll files, less than half contain CLR code, out of which, all are GUI-related or wrappers to unmanaged code. Surely it can't be that hard to uncouple the dependency on 1.1??
  

</rant>
Anyway, now that things have been fixed, expect to have a few more updates over the next couple of weeks, work permitting, of course =)

Ethereal

A long overdue picture, shot on a tripod in a hurry at the Lumut pier, with only a couple more minutes before the ferry left. I was on a very brief trip back to Pangkor for the Cheng Beng/Qing Ming Festival, and waiting for the first ferry to arrive was the only quiet moment I had during the entire trip (that, and waiting since 2am for the friggin pier to open at 7am)

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Golden mean

In my attempt to take an interesting shot of this orchid, I came up with this one. At first I liked it because of the vast space on the left, another look made me realise that it roughly conforms to the golden mean (although I didn't properly measure).

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Pitcher this

Don't let the picture fool you, this pitcher was only roughly 1 inch in size. It was very annoying when trying to take this picture, as it was swaying away merrily in the breeze. It only occurred to me to hold the damn thing when I saw Kit taking a picture of the same plant. I was like... "duh" =p

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

I see your blue colours

Another macro shot, this time with my built-in TTL flash. The subject is still a chrysanthemum, although of a different species. I've been seeing blue chrysanthemums for many years now, and it's only a few years ago that I found out the blue colour comes from artificial dye, rather than its natural colour.

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Awesome blossom

What attracted me immediately to this Chrysanthemum, was not its beauty, but the fact that I saw it all over the place in Curse Of The Golden Flower. This is also marks my first attempt at flash macro photography since I bought a second-hand 60mm macro lens. Kit was kind enough to lend and hold his wireless flash unit for this picture =)

Nikon D70s, AF Micro Nikkor 60mm

Tools of the trade

There was a floral bazaar thingy in Putrajaya yesterday, so Kit, Derrick and I decided to check it out and hopefully take some nice pictures. We ended up spending one whole hour just driving around looking for the venue, and another half an hour walking in the HOT midday sun towards the venue. Why they don't have clearer signage and shaded walkways in Putrajaya baffles me.

This was taken at what looked like a weekend market, somewhere along the wild floral bazaar chase.

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Shelter

Taken at the Rantai art event (16-17 Dec 06).

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR

Reflection

The reflection pool in front of the Hindu temple in Muktinath. The overall scenery was nice, as it was autumn and the garden reminded me of a Japanese garden.

This is also the last picture in my Nepal series, even though there are still lots more pictures where this came from, it's time to move on.

Nikon D70s, AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm DX ED VR