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It was late at night (or was it early in the morning? ), and I was still wide awake.

So, I decided to disturb my pet dog, Hilux for a couple of portrait session. With the 105mm VR lens, I aimed to take some close-ups of her eyes, but as you can see below, she was easily disturbed.

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The Redang Beach of Sekinchan is also a good hunting ground for larger sized hermit crab.

One must be extremely patient to wait for the hermit crab to crawl out of their protective shell in order to take a picture.

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Location: By the Lovers’ Jetty of Tanjung Sepat

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Being an enthusiast for macrophotography, I prefer my gears and setup to be relatively simple and free from clunky and heavy setup.

There is no right or wrong setup, it’s just a matter of which setup works better (or handles more comfortably)  in our own hands. Some fellow photographers fit their flashguns with diffusers and off-camera brackets, all in the quest of obtaining a more balanced lighting and exposure.

Below are a few of my relatively straightforward gears.

1. Nikon D40 + AF-S Micro Nikkor 105 mm + SB 600 + demb diffuser

2. For natural lighting, I attach the lens hood for a better and steadier handling.

3. Setup for macrophotography with natural lighting. D300 + AF-S Micro Nikkor 105 mm (with lens hood on).

4. D300 + AF-S Micro Nikkor 105 mm + SB 900 (with diffuser). The head of the flashgun is tilted all the way down.

Occasionally, I remote flash the SB 600 for additional lighting for the background. I try to avoid shooting with a dark background, except only when I want to hide a busy one.

1. A mutualistic relationship between weaver ants and mealybugs.

The mealybugs secrete excess sugar solution, which is harvested by the ants.

In return, the ants offer the mealybugs protection against predation.

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3. Water strider.

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6. A crane fly.

7. Planthopper.

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Location: Taman Rimba Kiara.

A swarm of fruit fly (Bactrocera sp.) busy “licking” the inflorescence of the Flamingo Flower plant (Anthurium sp.).

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2. Top profile.

3. Front profile.

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Another plan that we were forced to improvise. We had initially wanted to shoot sunrise at a lake near Bandar Menjalara, but somehow I slept through my alarm. By the time I had woken up (thanks to my friends who finally remembered that I was missing), there was a slight drizzle.

While I was on the way, I made a few phone calls to confirm our new rendezvous point, and my friend was unable to confirm which Kepong Train station they were currently at. Apparently, there are 2 train stations in Kepong, both within 1 km apart: Kepong Sentral railway station and Kepong Komuter station. Talk about plan gone wrong.

By then, we decided to visit the old section of Kepong for a walk-about, and ended spending most of the time shooting around an unoccupied newly built apartment and its playground.

1. A view from the ground. Just testing how perspective vanishes, focal length = 10mm.

2. Triptych of Jellyikan, testing out zybisko14‘s review unit of Blackbird, Fly.

3. Personally, it’s more of a toy than a camera.

It has such limited settings (only 1 shutter speed and 2 aperture modes) and no focusing through the viewfinder (only composition), that one is only limited to sheer fun and lucky shots.

4. Posing my own Nikon Fm2n in front of a flower scrub.

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6. Spotted a co-operative hoverfly, and decided to chase it around for more shots.

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8. Frontal shot.

9. Seeds readily to be dispersed by passing animals or winds.

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This is the sequel to my first Chinese village series, which was on Tanjung Sepat, which was commissioned by a friend of mine. This time, I roped in Zybisko14 to help us to document this small series.

1. We had a short stop at Bentong, Pahang to have our breakfast. Bentong Beef noodle.

2. Bentong is a small old town. Life passes by slowly here.

3. Arrived at Sungai Ruan. The majority of the community are farmers that own fruit orchards. This series shall be mainly of Malaysian fruits.

Old buses such as this is still a common sight in small towns and villages. Without air-condition.

4. We had arrived on the peak of durian season. Workers were busy carrying rattan buckets full of durians, especially of the Musang King variety (the most popular variety for this year).

5. A closer look.

6. We met up with our guide, and he brought us to his fruit orchard.

A flower of a dragonfruit plant (pitaya), which is actually a cactus species. Shot in the harsh afternoon sunlight.

7. Mangosteen, the queen of fruits.

8. The old lady of the fruit farm.

9. Two ants collecting nectar. Slightly out of focus. 

10. Rambutans.

11. A durian tree.

12. Piles of durians on the ground.

13. Close-up on an opened durian, revealing it’s yellow fleshy fruit.

14. An overview of the town, shot from a hill.

15. Then, we were brought to a nearby cave, Gua Singa.

Took the opportunity to shoot some macros.

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17. A spider beneath the foliage.

18. Close up on a snake………. psst, it’s already dead.

19. The rock at the entrance of the cave that resembled a lion, hence the name Gua Singa.

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21. A praying mantis.

22. Next, we visited a coconut farm, and had fresh young coconuts to quench our thirst.

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24. Shrink wrapped and ready to be sold in restaurants and markets.

25. We moved on to Jeram Besu to catch some white water rafting action, but too bad, no rafters were there on that day.

26. As can be seen here, the current is pretty strong and it’s going to be one heck of a bumpy ride.

27. I moved towards a calmer part of the river, and spotted some pond skaters.

28. I even caught a mating pair. 

29. Why must you always take my picture??? 

30. We were then introduced to an enterprising local who had set up his own rafting school to train and prepare new rafters for the challenging rapids.

31. The local “datuk”s.

Sharing some close-ups the flora and fauna of Lata Berembun.

My skill has become quite rusty due to lack of practise.

1. The biggest fly that I have seen so far. It perched tamely on the bonnet of our 4×4.

2. Cleaning and brushing its compound eyes.

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4. A millipede that curled up in defence when disturbed.

5. Waited patiently on the floor for it to uncurl, and then it left.

6. The area around the waterfall was humming with bees, most of them congregating around some charcoal of a former barbecue pit. The bees were pretty harmless unless they are disturbed. I was glad to have them instead of mosquitoes and leeches.

7. And some of these bees engaged in small fights and wrestled with each other.

The little one being pinned down seemed to have given up.

8. In a three-cornered fight.

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13. Some mosses.

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15. A huge stink bug.

It actually sprayed a jet of liquid out through its hind. Lucky that none of us was sprayed, but unfortunately I didn’t capture its spraying action.

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17. Shiny eggs on the underside of a leaf.

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19. A daddy long legs.

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21. Two weevils attempted to mate.

22. Side profile of one of the above weevil.

Lots of conservative/traditional photographers cringe at the thought of cropping their pictures. To these photographers, cropping demonstrates poor composition during picture taking, and is a poor effort to salvage a picture.

I, on the other hand, have no qualms in cropping my picture, sometimes to the extend of excessive cropping. My D40′s viewfinder does not show a 100% view, so I still have to crop to remove unwanted objects from the frame.

Cropping also enables me to magnify an object, to the extend of becoming a tool in the absence of a proper macro lens. Below are two pictures to demonstrate the capability of D40′s sensor in handling cropping, which I’m quite amazed.

1. An image that was straight out of the camera. Banana stalk fly, of Lake Gardens.

2. After curve adjustment and cropping

The result is not too bad. And I shall not remain a purist.