Macro shoot at Lower Peirce Trail 17 Nov 2015

Testing new simple lighting setup on the MT-24EX.

Alone at 12 midnight in the Lower Peirce Trail sure reminds me of the good ol' army days.

Somehow, there was no fear, despite all the weird noises the secondary jungle was making.

The only fear was of the weather.
Because rain will definitely put a stop to my late night outing with the critters.

Click on each picture to see the close up of their eyes

Slideshow of photos taken at Lower Peirce on 17 Nov 2015

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Jumping Spider Lazing on Curry Leaf Plant 25 April 2012

As an avid insect macro photographer, I also try my best to be a botanist at home.

I have accumulated more than 10 potted plants outside my house, along the common corridor and it proved to be quite useful when trying to look for insect subjects to shoot without having to travel into any forest.

Before I left the house for dinner last night, I was watering the plants. I noticed a relatively big jumping spider hopping away as it sensed the drizzle from my watering can onto the curry leaf plant that it was perching on. I was hoping that when I return after dinner, it would still be there.

When I did reach home, it was waiting for me on one of the outermost leaf of the curry leaf plant.

Without much delay, I set up my flash brackets and gave it several portraiture shots.

----- See the rest of the photos here -----

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Lower Peirce Reservoir Macro Night Shoot

Long Horn Beetle

Caterpillar with face of a baboon

Moth

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Spider enjoying Curry 12 Aug 2011

If the spider is ok with the curry, then anyone whom cannot stand the smell of curry are probably worse than a minuscule Jumping Spider.

This jumping spider was seen outside my house, making its home on the leaves of my potted curry plant...

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Studio Shoot for Jumping Spider outside House

Found this 8 legged critter sniffing up my curry plant outside my flat.

Wasted no time in getting a blue styrofoam as background and setting up my flash diffuser.

It was also great time to test my newly purchased Kenko 2x Teleconverter for Canon DSLR bodies.

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This is FarBird

A Self Portrait to remind of 2nd April 2011.

I'd probably give this a title as "Exasperation"

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Another Fly 28 March 2011

Was outside my home when I noticed this fly on my potted plants (yet again).

Not sure if its the same fly but I quickly went in and assembled my 100mm macro lens and flash and proceeded to take the following shots.

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Lower Peirce Night Macro 26 March 2011

Too eager to try out my modifications to the existing DIY Macro Flash Diffuser kit, I asked my buddy if he wanna try out night macro. 2 hours after the exchange of SMS'es, we arrived at Casuarina Road near Lower Peirce Reservoir just past midnight.

We were between the edge of the reservoir and the undergrowth. Both myself and Alex scouted for bugs along the shrubs surrounding the edge of the forest.

Armed with several torchlights, we assisted each other to shine torches at the insects while the other photographer takes the time to focus and snap, It was time-consuming but fruitful. The insects are more abundant at night and they were less difficult to spot as the darkness provided them the camouflage needed.

There were of course some weird 6/8 legged creatures, which we'd otherwse not have seen, usually.

If anyone is interested in knowing my lighting setup, do join us for our next macro shoot. Usually Friday late nights after 11pm.

A nice fat red grasshopper

This species of spider was quite commonly found at our location

Spider & Supper

Centipede

Very weird insect. Could be a newly hatched grasshopper despite its size

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Macro DIY Flash Diffuser from Kingfisher

I was not too happy with the lighting effects of my current DIY flash diffuser/reflector and went googling on the web for better ones.


Came across this blog site that has a good example..

May try to replicate it using stuff at home.


http://kingfisherphotography.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-macro-rig.html

The expected results are as follows

Pics courtesy from King Fisher Blog

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Glam Shoot for Mrs Neo 18 March 2011

Mrs Neo just returned from a formal dinner organized by her company and she was dressed to the 9s!

Took the opportunity to snap a few portraiture poses of her before she retired for the night.

She loves the portraits very much.

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Compound Eyes 24 Feb 2011

I caught it resting on the leaf of one of my potted plants outside my house at 2am in the morning.

This common housefly was quite docile and allowed me to take many shots with flash.

That was until it realized of the intruder to its peaceful rest and turned around to face me.

That momentary confrontation allowed me to take a final portrait shot of its compound eyes before it dismissed me as a nuisance and flew into the night.

Turn around and confronted the intruder before it flew away

Some sharpening was applied via GIMP and using the "unsharp mask" filter to enhance the details of the compound eyes.

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Admiralty Park Macro Shoot 22 Feb 2011

Buddy Alex Neo texted me "Good weather and clear sky today!" in the morning.

So I took half day leave and we went to shoot some insects at Admiralty Park.

Here are some better macro shots of the insects we found.

Compound eyes!

White Spider that resembles a crab. Very small eyes!

Favourite Macro Bug, stays still and poses for long periods of time.

This bug looks almost like a fish!

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