Goodbye November

Its the end of November and Christmas is coming soon :D

These are the leftover garden photos from November. There were lots more but then I was too lazy to edit them. Looks like today is just going to be one of those boring Mondays. I don't have anything to do today.

Hopefully I can exercise in the evening to regain the fitness I lost during the three week isolation due to studies and exams. I played futsal a few days after my exam which didn't turn out the way I wanted. My muscles are only just finished recovering from the ache and fatigue. Clearly I wasn't fit.

Argh! I need inspiration!

Look into my Eyes

Yuck. I'm not sure how this spider died but I hope I didn't step on it or anything. Just found it lying dead on the floor on a rainy morning.

This is the first time a spider this big appeared in my house =s

I watched "2012" the night before. It's probably the best movie that I have ever seen in a really long time. It's fantastic story which had such amazing, jaw-dropping graphics that keep you at the edge of your seat.

It rates a 10/10 for me :D

Burning out the Hornets

The DBKK responded to requests to remove/destroy/burn this huge hornet's nest that was on a hill near my house. We had to close our windows to make sure the hornets don't fly in. We even brought Chester and Happy into the house.

The whole thing took about 10-12 minutes for the whole nest to collapse into sparks and charred debris. It was pretty awesome. Some flaming debris landed next to a plastic water tank that belonged to my opposite neighbor. One of the DBKK workers quickly went and removed it before it caused any damage.

Garama River Cruise

Went to a river cruise that was arranged by Only in Borneo Tours. I've never been on a river cruise before so it was really exciting, but mainly because I had a chance to snap some photos :D

The cruise is an opportunity for people to see the long tail macaques, proboscis monkeys and the silver leaf monkey, the guides dubbed it the "David Beckham monkey" because of its natural Mohawk hair. xD

Other animals that could be seen included monitor lizards, crocodiles [very unlikely because only the really young ones linger around this river, the adults move on to another place], and eagles. Sadly it was difficult to get any kind of a closer image to the monkeys unless they were close by because I don't have a longer zoom lens and add to that the fact that silver leaf monkeys are very shy so they tend to hide further in the trees. The guides were fantastic with spotting these creatures even from far, and incredibly informative about them.

Anyways, I tried to make the most out of the disadvantage from the short focal length of the kit lens. I tried to be as creative as possible when framing the shots, and playing around with the flares. It's always during times like these that I get to learn new things in photography.

This cruise session had two boats because there were about 18 people altogether. There was another photographer in the cruise, he has a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a 1000D with a 24-105mm and a 70-200mm lens and by the looks of it, had no problems zooming into the monkeys.

There was a small village along the river belonging to a tribe which I completely forgot what it was called.

As the cruise neared nightfall, we had a chance to see some fireflies. We really didn't think we would because it looked like it was threatening to rain, but I guess we got lucky. They were like Christmas lights flickering inside the bushes :) the guide caught one and it looked like a really tiny beetle, almost like a tiny cockroach. It's very much like the 'photinus pyralis' firefly from the photurinae sub family.

It was impossible to get a sharp image with slow shutter speeds because it was close to dark and the boat was moving.

We got back to base camp after that to enjoy a delicous buffet dinner :D

Kit Lens to Macro

These shots of an Ant moving around a Mulberry Plant were taken with the Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Kit Lens. Some of you may or may not know that when you hold any SLR lens back-to-front against the camera mount, It shortens the minimum focus distance between your subject and lens. This means you can go much closer to the subject that you are trying to photograph. Unless you already have a macro lens then you really don't need to do this.

But for those who are on a tight budget and want to experiment with macro, then try this out [at your own risk]. Make sure you get the hang of using Manual control on your camera so that you don't underexpose or overexpose.

The problem with doing this is that you're going to risk dust flying into your lens and camera body [so be careful]. You also can't auto focus because obviously you're just holding it in front of the camera mount. The only way to focus onto your subject is to move the lens closer or further.

Which also brings about the need to shoot under bright light to be able to increase shutter speed to avoid blurring from your hand movements. That is why the second shot has a slight blur to it.

Another problem is aperture control. Unless you are using a lens with manual aperture control, you are stuck with the wide aperture of the lens. This means that your area of focus is incredibly thin and you have to be quick to press the shutter when the subject goes into focus.

Having said all that, the shots that you get will really be worth the try :D

With Lives to Spare

It has been long overdue for an update but I have been really busy with this semester's final exams.

Apparently, not busy enough to take pictures :p

This morning, as I was about to turn on the computer, I heard my dogs, Happy and Chester barking in a strange way, so I ran downstairs to check on them if they were attacking something or something was attacking them.

When I found them at the back of the garden, they were both inside the drain trying to attack something. I heard hisses and I thought it was a monitor lizard. When I got closer to break up the fight, I saw to my horror, a Cat was held in Chester's mouth. I yelled at him and he dropped the poor cat.

The adolescent cat moved to safety as I tried to hold the dogs back. Happy came closer to try and attack but I grabbed a fistful of her fur and shoved her back until my sister had come to chain the both of them.

I examined the cat and to my relief, there was no blood, but just mud covering the frightened cat.
It was raining the night before so the drain still had some mud that hadn't dried up. I got the camera and took a several pictures of the cat. Apparently the cat had a DIY collar that comprised of a thick string and a bell.

After I was sure that the cat was okay, I brought it out of the house compound and left it at hill nearby the immigrant houses that were higher up the hill. My sister kept watch outside to make sure the cat didn't enter the compound again and soon saw the cat going up the hill towards the houses.

The cat can count its lucky stars that I quickly came to check what was going on, otherwise it would have been a brutal mess to clean up. :s

Meanwhile, I'm trying out this new watermark I made. It's much simpler than the other one. But I think I like this one better.

Lights and Flares

Ahh, the Waterfront. There's always something to photograph there. :D

I finally got to take that rainbow flare that I always wanted in that last photo. I only discovered it by accident :p

Exams are coming soon :s so I might not have too much time to edit because I will be studying.

Trails at Dusk

This is kind of my first time attempting to take a shot like this. It is not often that I get to take these shots as I don't always have the chance to go up high buildings in the city during dusk or night time just to try something like this.

There weren't many cars driving by in the shot because the road wasn't that busy then... I had to take 7 pictures with 5 seconds per exposure and used layer masks in Adobe Photoshop to combine all those lights into one picture.

Even then I still didnt get enough light trails to make enough of an impact on the image... :(
I still like the flare from the lamp posts tho :p

Better luck next time. :p