Butterfly hill

Located not far from the NPark's Ubin-HSBC Volunteer Hub is a small hill with lots of plants.
These plants attract different species of butterfly to that hill.
It was my first time shoot butterfly.
I must say that it is not easy to capture them as they hardly stay still.
Furthermore almost all the butterflies will fly away once I get near them.

I was kind of nice chasing after them but soon, I gave up.
I did manage to capture a few of them.

Parantica agleoides agleoides
Dark Glassy Tiger

Lampides boeticus
Pea Blue / Long-tailed Blue

Butterflies are definitely much more difficult to identify the species.
The same family can look so similar, with only one small detail difference to mark a different species.

Shooting butterfly is a new experience for me.

Pei Yan


*Edit: updated with the correct ID of the butterfly.

Mangrove Dwarf @ Chek Jawa

Yay...
I've added another dragonfly shot to my collection.
That makes it 8 true dragonfly species I have out of the many found in Singapore.

Raphismia bispina
Mangrove Dwarf (female)
Uncommon

My friend tells us that the male species is blue and it's too far away from the boardwalk to shoot.


Pei Yan

P.Ubin, Land of Robbers

Don't be alarmed.
P.Ubin is a safe place.

I was referring to the robber fly.
We really saw a lot of robber fly until we lost count of them.
We saw them in all sizes. From tiny ones to big ones.
Every where we turn, we are sure to find a robber fly.

This is how a robber fly looks like.

General public usually call the different species of fly, fly.

This is not just any ordinary fly, this is a robber fly.

Pei Yan

Oriental Pied Hornbills @ Chek Jawa

I heard them, I saw them.
It's the oriental pied hornbills.
I was that Chek Jawa with my photography friends at about 9am plus.
The hornbills were very active today as compared to my other visits to Chek Jawa.

We heard them as we were walking in to Chek Jawa.
Accompanying the sound of the hornbills was a woodpecker pecking at a tree branch right above our shooting location.
I didn't get a picture of it thought. It was covered by some tree ferns.
I saw them flying around at the start of the boardwalk and again at the coconut tree at House No. 1.

Later in the afternoon, I saw another pair at the butterfly hill, not far from the HSBC volunteer's house.

Taken at Butterfly Hill

A pair of hornbills

For some reason, I feel quite excited whenever I see hornbills or talk about their man-made nesting box at Chek Jawa.

I think that hornbills are great birds.

Pei Yan

Sunrise @ Ubin (part 2)

After a great sunrise and island walkabout session at Ubin on Monday, my friends and I are back again today for another round of shooting.
Today's session focuses on sunrise and macro.

The light wasn't as great as Monday's but I got to try my new set of filters.
I also enjoyed the cooling waters and waves hitting as high as my thighs as I placed my setup in the sea.
The light rain did not stop us from shooting.
We carried on despite having rain drops all over our equipment and filters.

It's kind of addictive shooting sunrise and sunsets.
However school is starting soon...

Pei Yan

Discover the entire movie of your friend

This is so fun...

Video.

Pei Yan :)

Ubin sunrise

Today is another crazy sun chasing session.
This time it is in the east.
Woke up at 4.30am, ate breakfast at the market before cabbing down to meet the rest at 6am.
We were lucky that the boat had 2 other passengers, so we paid less.


The rocks there were really beautiful.
It was a pity that I didn't bring extra shoes, otherwise I would very much want to go into the sea to shoot.
My images were not good but the process and experience was fun.

I guessed you know where I went to...

PeiYan

MBS sunset

I missed this morning's sunrise session with my gang.
But... I made it up with sunset with a few of them this evening.
Thanks to someone who announced it on our forum thread.

Today is my second time chasing the sun.
Gonna get some filters soon.

btw....
Did I mention that we saw a fire incident at MBS museum building, and then a car accident at night... :S

Peiyan

Macro @ Venus Loop

I am back at Venus Drive again for another round of macro session with my friends.
This time round is a day macro session.
Our destination is further in on the left track from where we usually shoot.
Here are some of the images from the trip:

Blue-spotted Flatwing, uncommon

Treehugger

Telephone Sylvan (Male)

Copper-cheeked Frog

Blue-sided Satinwing (Male), uncommon

It was a great day with lots of subjects to shoot and not forgetting a few bashing and getting stuck in mud.
This is my first time getting quite dirty, but not wet.
The water in the stream was so nice and cool.

I want to go back there again someday.

Pei Yan

Sunrise at Upper Peirce Reservoir

For the first time since I took up photography, I actually woke up at 4.30am to catch sunrise with my friends.
We drove down to Upper Peirce Reservoir, walked through dark steep slope before reaching our destination.



The light wasn't very good but I did capture a few streaks of red in the sky.

Catch the sun,
Pei Yan

Macro @ Punggol

It's the school holiday period.
I get more time to go on outings with my friends.
This morning, we went to punggol. One of my friends was looking for a specific species of dragonfly.
The sun was up and shining brightly on us. It was really hot.


There wasn't much subjects to shoot.
The dragonflies were swift in their flight.
The only catch I got was this.

Spine-tufted Skimmer (Male)

There were a few spiders to shoot, but I'm afraid of spiders so I just looked at them.
Amongst the few spiders, one of them is the Singapore Tarantula.
It's really small and gives a nasty bite.

The rest of my images can be found here.

Pei Yan

IR: Infra red hits SAC

This is how SAC looks like in infra red.



Somehow, I feel images did not turn out as expected.
Feels a bit off focus???

Pei Yan

Strictly Pancakes

We usually associate pancakes with breakfast, served with butter and maple syrup or fresh fruits and cream.
Tuck along the same row of shophouses where the italian restuarants, pubs and board games cafe sits at Selegie Road is this unique cafe called Strictly Pancakes.
Strictly pancakes serves pancakes as a main course with meat, vegetables or seafood.
The combination sounds weird - "will my stomach reject it?"


All side pancakes and main course comes with maple syrup and a choice of butter - salted, unsalted, garlic and herb or run and raisin.

Garlic and Herb butter

Rum and raisin butter

My friend and I choose to go the main course way.
We each selected a main dish to share.
I choose Beef Me Up.
My friend picked Potatoes Leeking Cheese

Beef Me Up, $14

The extre-thick pancakes were really thick. It's about the same thickness as the pancakes from Mr Bean, but bigger in circumference.
The beef patty was disappointingly dry, different from the claimed "juicy" in the menu.
The ingredients they put inside the beef makes the whole patty taste funny the more you have it. I didn't quite like the taste.
The sautéed mushrooms were totally dried up. Some slices of mushroom had a strong heat and peppery taste.
The arugula salad was nice and tasty, vinaigrette dressing with walnuts in it.

Potatoes Leeking Cheese, $12

This dish sees the idea of rosti. The pancake batter is mixed with potatoes, leeks and cheese and shaped. It looks like the japanese pancake, okonomiyaki.
As usual the sautéed mushrooms are of the same pot, so they are as dry as those in Beef Me Up.
This dish is served with sour cream, which gives the idea and presentation similar to rosti.


We also ordered fries and it came tossed with some unknown powder.
It has some burnt tasted and we guess that it's roasted curry powder or something similar.

Overall was filling but I guessed that idea of having pancakes with main course items doesn't quite fit our mind sets.
Nevertheless it was a good try on their food.

Their weekend breakfast menu looks better.

Pan-caked,
Pei Yan

IR: Infra red goes to school

On a perfect sunny noon time and a quiet school environment during school holiday, it is the best combination for IR.
You get a clean IR image with no human trails.

Back view of the school from netball court

Netball court (Morning assembly ground)

School field in black and white

Pavilion outside computer lab 3

The lovely part of infra red photography is that the long exposure produces cloudy trails.
I would love to shoot more of the school grounds next time.

Pei Yan

IR: Third Try - I'm moving on to theIR craze

The IR craze continues to city area.

The moment I stepped out of Bras Basah Station, I saw the partial grey sky.
The lighting was pretty bad. My camera refuses to do the custom white balance shot.
It keeps telling me "no good".
Luckily my previous custom white balance is still there.
Despite the overcast sky, I managed to do a few shots.

Singapore Management University

Singapore Management University

National Museum of Singapore

I shall find time and good weather to re-shoot them again.

Pei Yan

IR: Second Try

Today, I tried infra red at Orchard.
Was on my way to meet up my NIE friends for a gathering.
Thus I decided to come out earlier to try IR again with proper white balance readings.
The sky was quite cloudy today.

First stop: Istana Park

Second stop: Istana House main gate.
Today is a public holiday, so the Istana is opened to public visit.

Third stop: Walkway from Istana Park to Orchard Central


I got a better white balance reading today.
The greens are almost to the correct colour.

Pei Yan

IR: First Try

I started to have some interest in infra red photography a few years ago through infra red seminar talk.
However my interest died down soon after as the IR filter was expensive.
With the recent IR craze in my photography forum group, I decided to buy one and try it out.


It's not a difficult thing to do, and yet it is not that easy to shoot.
Once the filter is placed on the lens, you can't view the scene through the viewfinder.
Everything has be be adjusted before attaching the filter.
The shooting mode is in manual and you have to trial and error to find the correct exposure timing.
White balance needs to be customised otherwise the color will not be correct when you post-process the image.
The effect is best shot on a sunny day. It is still doable on a cloudy day but the contrast and effect may not be that great.


On my first try, I am excited to shoot more.

Basically, most of the greens will turn white in infra red photography.

Infra-red,
Pei Yan

My Macro Setup

Allow me to show you my night macro setup.

Let's start with the tripod:

The lens:


The torch:

The setup:

Happy shooting,
Pei Yan

The Lorax

Saw this video via Ria's blog.



The story is from Dr Seuss' stories.
Perhaps it is telling us something about taking care of Earth that we don't know?

Do your part to save Mother Earth.

Pei Yan

From Plamp to Plamps

On tuesday, I was on a buying spree.
First the Tamron 180mm macro from a fellow CSer, then I went to Cathay Photo to get the Wimberley Plamp.
Here it is:


On Thursday night, a fellow exposer posted on the exposer thread that someone is selling 4 plamps at a wooping price of $200.
That's $20 cheaper per piece.
Tempting me so much, I texted the seller on Friday night and I had the deal the today.
So now, I have 5 plamps:

That is really a lot of plamps to use.

Plamp-y-fied,
Pei Yan

Night Macro Session 2

Another night macro session with my macro gang.
When we got to our shooting site, we found that the grass by the sides of the path had been trimmed.
There wasn't much insects to be found on the short grass.
However all is not disappointed. We saw some other interesting creatures.

My first subject was found my Michael.
It was the glowing mushroom.

After I finish shooting it, we realised that there are plenty of it in the dense vegetation.
Michael said that these mushrooms grow on rotting wood.
I couldn't get the image of the stalk of the mushroom though.

Next I found a field frog myself.
Actually it was Michael who showed us the area of croaking frogs but... I did spot this frog myself.

This creature was so quite and still, while listening to the smaller fellas make their forested music.
Andrew found this damselfly perched on a hanging twig some distance inwards.
It is a Blue-spotted Flatwing.

Quite disappointing with this shot as I did not realise that I was shooting at iso800.
The image came out grainy when I looked at it at home.
The sad thing was this is my first record of this damsel and it is one of the two "good" image that I had. :(

My next subject was a thorny caterpillar.

My second last catch was the arrowhead flatworm.
It is a Terrestrial Flatworm or Land Planarian.

Bipalium sp.

Another great night macro with new subjects to shoot.

Pei Yan