Orange-Bellied Flowerpecker

14th September 2013, Kemensah , Selangor

Species: Orange-Bellied Flowerpecker Local Name: Sepah Puteri Dada Oren Scientific Name: Dicaeum trigonostigma Equipment: Nikon 1 V2 + Nikkor 80-400 AFS-VR Testing the new Nikon 80-400 AFS-VR lens ( courtesy of Ari  at   http://arinaturephotography.blogspot.com/ ). Verdict: Fantastic lens. Shooting fast moving birds just became that much  easier. These photos were shot handheld at a Focal Length of 1080mm (35mm equivalent) (Photos courtesy of Mohd Zakir Hassan)

Aaaaargh Missed!

5th March 2011, Bukit Tinggi, Pahang.

Usually what gets posted are the  images of  a frozen moment in time  which one feels is worth sharing. Have you ever wondered about the ‘moments of magic’ that you missed while shooting that couldn’t get posted simply  because the images are only in your head and not on your  disk?  The Aaaar..ghs, the Oh Nos,  the flicking of a finger, these are the common reactions of the missed moments. And in more severe cases, the pulling out of one’s hair,  banging one’s head against a hard object like a tree trunk or a boulder that you’re using as a hide, sound familiar?; or  hyperventilating and looking in the bag for a  sphygmomanometer ! Of course luck has a lot to do with the final outcome but it’s a constant reminder that you never ever  let your guard down when you’re out there or you could be doing one  or all of those things mentioned. This is an example of one such  moment, caught by my brother Mohd Rosman Hassan while WE were shooting TOGETHER at Bukit Tinggi. ( Photos used with permission). Silver Breasted Broadbills     And I came home with this beautiful piece of stick!  And in case you’re wondering…..I DIDN’T DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS….. I’M COOOOL .

Collared Kingfishers

20th January 2011,  Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan

These are two different birds. The first photo was taken at Cape Rochado with the D7000 + 300mm f4  on tripod (RAW) The second bird was shot at Pantai Cahaya Negeri  (Telok Kemang)  during low tide using D90+ 70-300mm VR handheld (jpeg)

Non-Intrusive Photography: Nesting Pin Striped Tit Babblers

20th January 2011,  Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan

For the first time I feel that I have the necessary gear to engage in  more non-flash  photography. The situation   demanded exactly this kind of technique when I stumbled upon a pair of Pin Striped Tit Babblers happily ferrying dry leaves every 1 minute, to build their  nest. It was about 4ft off the ground, slotted in between several dried palm fronds. Lighting along the trail was poor. Upping the ISO to 1250 I managed to obtain some fairly decent shutter speeds of around  1/40-1/80s. I was hardly 20 ft away from the nest but somehow they didn’t show any sign that they had noticed my presence. The D7000 has a QUIET MODE setting on the dial that allows you to reduce the ‘clicking’ sound of the shutter, I think this helped tremendously. I was happy with the outcome, and the birds…………….they simply carried on with what they were doing, uninterrupted.

How Tight can You Go: Nikon D7000

2nd January 2011, Kemensah , Selangor

After having the D7000 for about a month and testing it in the jungle condition, I found that I’ve had to adjust my configuration slightly in order to accommodate the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of this new Nikon body. My previous setup had been a D90 with the 300mm f/4 coupled with a Nikon 1.4x teleconverter. This turned my f/4 into an f/5.6 lens. I found that the D7000, 300mm & 1.4x TC  combo would not deliver  pictures with the level of sharpness that I have been used to from the trusted D90. I tried experimenting the D7000 with just the 300mm glass (TC removed). The resulting photos showed such sharpness and clarity which I wasn’t expecting of a subject in a far distance. Just a sample from my last outing, this Drongo Cuckoo was approximately 70 ft away.   Original Photo My usual crop                                   An extremely tight crop!  The image quality is still more than acceptable.   Another thing about this  simple setup is that I’m now shooting with  a faster lens (f/4) which is good  for thicker jungle condition. I would recommend this lightweight combination to anyone interested in bird photography and do not want to  be spending  a bomb on long lenses.

Running-in the AFS 300: It’s not a Meserati

17th  December 2009, Taman Melawati OP, Selangor

My Nikkor 80-400mm VR lens has been in and out of the workshop several times (It’s  still in the workshop waiting for a spare part to arrive). I’ve tried using the lens on several outings after it  crashed to the ground and the IQ hasn’t been the same. It has been very frustrating ever since. After much labouring over  the lens I’ve decided to go for a replacement. No, It’s not my dream lens ,the 500mm f/4 but something much shorter. I’ve finally gone for a Nikkor AFS 300mm f/4 prime after reading  lots of excellent reviews  on this lens and how it maintains the image quality even with a 1.4X-1.7X Teleconverter attached. The other consideration was the budget: your pocket need not be very deep for this  baby. This afternoon I took the new lens for  a short  first outing before the start of the  Malaysia/ Vietnam football final ( yay…. we won after 20 yrs, congratulations boys).  My 1.4x Kenko teleconverter which hasn’t seen action for a very very long time was also put to the test.

Exif data: ISO 400,  420mm f/7.1  1/320s  , mounted on a Nikon D90 on tripod. The 3oomm f/4 + 1.4X combo means it is now a 420mm f5.6 lens with fully functional autofocus.   I think the photos speak for themselves. The Little Herons were kind enough to pose as  test models.

It’s One of Those Days

It’s almost like the Lone Ranger without  Silver , Rambo without guns, or Ronaldo without his boots. Thats how I feel  now without my 400mm lens! Last Saturday, the tripod toppled over and I was told after sending in for repairs that the Autofocus mechanism had broken, sigh. Fortunately it fell on soft ground which had quite thick grass, the camera body is still OK. The same day  Ilyas’s flashgun dropped off from the hotshoe while walking out from Kemensah. Apparently the plastic holding the screws had given way. Another big sighhhhhhh. Well, pretty much out of commission this week. Anyway, here’s something I dug up from the old album

Testing 1 ,2 ,3, Testing!

29 August 2009, Kemensah, Selangor

I haven’t been doing any birding over this Puasa month but the itch to press the shutter release button is constantly there. So I have been doing some testing with the Nikon D90/ Nikkor 80-400mm VR f4.5-5.6, in the backyard to see their limits and explore new opportunities they offer. I set myself a new objective being ‘to shoot  primarily with the available natural light’ so yesterday  Ilyas and I went to Kemensah , the spot where we shot the Rufous Collared Kingfisher to do an hour of  actual field tests. Things couldn’t have been much better;  gloomy and overcast sky,  and it started to drizzle when we were preparing the equipment, just the right condition to test for a probable worst case scenario! I shot these in Aperture priority and overode the  given shutter speed to about 1/160s by pushing down the EV to about -2, f7.1, ISO800. Noise was a  problem. This lens has an attitude that it will not deliver a sharp image below 1/125s and  at f5.6.

The camera was setup such that it was able to capture the shots without the aid of a flashgun   but I actually  used a flash, set to almost the minimum with diffuser dome fitted to give some sparkle to the eyes. I checked that there were no difference in the level of exposure even with the flash.    Spectacled  Bulbul and a mouthful of berries The birds were certainly cooperating today- a good thing since we didn’t have much time and energy. I find that the results were more than satisfactory. The colour/ tones of the birds were more natural and the details of the eyes ( no silver/red eye)  turned out better.   A backlit Black-Headed Bulbul at about 40ft. Conclusion: I will definitely be trying  more of this.The outcome would have been better in good weather. Things you have to do to squeeze every single ounce  of performance from  this lens which I don’t think those with longer and faster lenses need to bother. Maybe one of these days I will wake up to find a Nikkor 500mm f4 on my door step!