Wasp

I took this shot at home, where this lone wasp was building a nest or trying to salvage it. This shot is the only reasonably sharp one out of quite a few I shot handheld. It's slightly cropped on top -- I wrestled with a variety of framing options (cutting more off the left, or more off the right) but I eventually left it mostly uncropped and this is the result. Any suggestions? Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Chimping

I saw this Buddhist monk using a digital camera and I just HAD to take his picture! In case you're wondering what the title for this post means, click on the Wiki on Chimping. I thought this shot was pretty whimsical from a number of perspectives. :) Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Umbrella...ella...ella

Okay I'll never look at another umbrella again without that silly song playing in my head. This shot was taken at a very strange structure in Putrajaya. I'm not sure what it is (it actually looks like a missile silo complete with missile) but it seems to be some kind of monument of the major events in Malaysia since its inception. Nikon D200, AF-S VR Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6.
This is what the whole silo looks like

Adam's apple

In case you're wondering, this shot was taken at the Floria garden exhibition in Putrajaya recently. The exhibition is a sort of garden decoration contest -- however, the few shots I did take of the entire display were not that impressive, so I opted to go for more macro shots. The warm toned and dim fluorescent lighting in the halls were not great for available light photography, so I had to resort to using my SB-600 flash in wireless mode. Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Framing the flower

Yes, it's back to flowers again. I suppose I keep coming back to flower and bug shots because they've always fascinated me. It sounds easy to take a good macro shot but in fact it requires a lot of technical skill -- for example, framing is very important and you really have to consider every element that appears in your shot; then there's depth-of-field (DOF) -- in this case I played around with my DOF preview button on my camera till I got just the right amount of out-of-focus in the background while keeping the foreground flower as clear as possible. A macro lens helps too and focus is quite critical at these short distances. Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8

Silly cute dog

My silly little dog likes to hide under the cushions. :) He looks so foxy don't you think? If you look closely you'll notice that the noise levels are pretty high in this shot -- I was only using ISO320, but the shot came out grossly underexposed because the flash didn't recycle in time to get a full burst. There was a lot of tweaking in Nikon Capture NX to get it to an acceptable level. Nikon D200, AF-S VR Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6

Shadow play

Shot on assignment at a hotel recently. I found this shot a little whimsical as the speaker's shadow seems to be, from this position at least, more animated than he is. And it looks like the shadow is pointing at him. Nikon D200, AF-S VR Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6

A hint of copper

To those 3-4 people who actually visit this blog, my apologies for not updating in a while -- have just been busy with work and stuff. Anyway, this shot is of a beetle that came into my garden one day -- I picked him up, put him on a flower and started shooting away. After I was done I put him back. I was quite fascinated by the bright green and copper colour of the underside, and took loads of photos but in the end, I just couldn't get a good enough angle that really made a good composition. This is the best I could come up with. As usual, the camera was set up on a tripod, with remote flash enabled and an aperture of f/16 for a bit more depth-of-field. Nikon D200, AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8