Sungai Congkak Revisit !

That was my 2nd time I stepped into this forest reserved area. I was there on November 2007 where I did a swim suit model shot with a friend of mine. This time, I joined the Sony Sungai Congkak outing that was held on 30th August 2008. It was a nice outing, and I am honoured to meet in person with Stockie, a well known nature photographer. His works are such of breath taking. He is active in all local photography forum, and had gained his highly respect reputation through his breath taking pictures.

The nature sifu, Stockie (right) scouting for nice scene

This round, we were separated into 5 groups, where each group will be lead by an experienced photographer. The teacher provided their valuable experience and knowledge about nature photography, as well as the technical skill on how to capture the stream flow aka Dragon Beard.

f/16, 1 sec, ISO 100, 16mm

Well, without any ND or CPL filters, small aperture with long shutter speed and low light condition would create the Dragon Beard effect. We used f/16 for the sharpness, and the exposure vary from 1 sec to 2 sec depends on the lighting condition.

Some Alphanatics member in action !

I have seen quite a number of great pictures with rocks. I always like the harmony bond between the rocks and water. And also I would like to break a rule of photography : plan my scene. Hence, for this pic, I actually placed the stone my self to make an interesting subject.

f/16, 1 sec, ISO 100, 50mm

Well, it turned out not what what I wanted. Somehow, it doesn't bring out the "feeling" I wanted. Quote from Stockie:"Spend some time watching the scene. You should get the feel, and your picture will have the feel you are experiencing."

Ok, after some walk around, finally, I got some "feel", and took some Dragon Beard pictures....

f/16, 1.6sec, ISO 100, 16mm with pop up flash.

Flash was used for the above picture to bring out some texture detail of the rock in the foreground. However, the ambient light was too strong and caused the background a bit that over exposed. I have to get into the middle stream of water, crossing the slippery rock to get that picture. Without my knowledge, I actually cut my leg palm. But it's just a small wound, no big deal.

f/16, 1.6sec, ISO 100, 16mm.

I even put my shoe as the foreground subject to make the scene more interesting, but somehow my wet shoe had blended into the green algae rock... I should have pop a flash on it....

Anyway, Sungai Congkak is not all about stream. It has quite a number of natural fauna in this forest reserved. We found this nice looking wild mushroom growing on a trunk of the falling tree.

Too bad I have no macro lens. What I could do was to zoom my lens to the max for the 1:4 magnification factor. I was thinking, what happen if I pop a flash from below? This is what I got:

Crop pic.

It turns out to something like an alien buildings on an alien planet !! Cool !

At the end of the outing, we were asked to submit the 3 best pictures we took during the photography session. The theme was Dragon Beard, the greenery and a miscellaneous (oh dear, I always can't spell this word properly. Thanks to the spelling add-on from Firefox ! haha) photos. Here are my submitted pics:

#1 The Unknown Flower


#2 Tranquillity


#3 Untitled
(My Winning Pic !)

Yes, I won the photo competition. The #3 is my winning pic, and I shot that with an off camera flash from camera left. I got a Alpha DSLR pouch which fits pretty well for my A700! I wanted this pouch for a long time, and now it has become my 3 carrying case "collection". haha :D

Anyway, we had good outing and we had good food with satay. But the only thing I want to complaint is : why no chair for us to sit one ? haha

Photo sharing session in progress.

Finally, we have a group photo for all participant who attended this outing.

For more photos on the Sungai Congkak outing, please click here.