Trip to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

posted on 11:55 AM on Monday 14 May 2018

Since I had a day off for my birthday, I decided to go to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to have a good walk and take the opportunity to take some photos. The walk up the slope was horrible, I am so out of shape, I thought that I would die :-( But up the slope I did and was rewarded with some nice pictures of insects. Shooting the insects with one hand holding the camera and the other the flash was not really that bad. Especially since the flash allowed for really fast shutter speeds (1/250), I could hand hold the camera for the shots. Auto-focus was actually useable and probably more accurate than my manual focused shots. There was a bit of hunting but if I can focus on something contrasting nearby and then the bug, it was not too bad.

Besides the insects, I saw a troop of monkeys. There were mothers with the little ones clinging on.

One insect deserves a special mention as it appears to have mastered the art of irritating photographers. Each time I had a focus lock and between the time the shot actually firing off and me pressing down on the shutter release, the bug will fly away. So all I got was a sharp picture of a leaf. This must have happened dozens of times or more. There was just no way for me to catch the guy. Somehow it manages to read the situation and fly off just after the shutter was depressed. Of the dozens of shots, I got just one to show for the effort (and a blurry one at that).