Category: Macro

It has been a while since I last took macro-shots of insects at the Botanical Gardens. While the rest of the northern hemisphere is having cold weather for now, we are experiencing the rainy / monsoon season which makes photography almost impossible. In fact, the skies were pouring non-stop for the most part of yesterday!

I took this picture of mating damselflies at the Botanical Gardens in 2004. I had quite soft lighting for the initial few shots I snapped. As luck would have it, the sun decided to make a strong appearance, bathing the two in warm and bright lighting. Lots of post-processing done on the original RAW file in boosting the colours and saturation… Wanted to give a Velvia-feel to the final result 🙂

I finally got my hands on a Canon EOS 20D Digital SLR after resisting the temptation to get one for the last few months. Andy Gray’s take on 20D vs 300D helped, as like Andy, I was previously a user of a Canon EOS 300D although I must say that he owns a lot more great lenses than I do! Initial impressions of the 20D has been very good, although there are some things with my 300D that I miss: Zoom Browser’s auto-renaming when transferring files from the CF card (the 20D comes with its own File Viewer Utility which is less intuitive when it comes to file transfers), CaptureOne’s support for 20D RAW files (the 3.6 update that covers the 20D has been delayed time and again), the 300D’s cheap cable release for slow shutter shots (will have to get the RS-80N3 later), and the battery grip (the BG-E2 for the 20D has had notorious reviews for problems and bad design).

Still, I had fun testing out my new toy this morning while at the Botanical Gardens. The above is just one of the test shots that I did. Taken with the 20D mated to a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO Super Macro II lens. More new shots to come in time…

Damselflies have always been good macrophotography subjects for me especially since they can be found in abundance at the Botanical Gardens in Singapore. Alas, the beautiful ponds where this insect can be easily found are undergoing upgrading works at the moment. I took this picture in March earlier this year with a newly acquired macro zoom lens. A reflector was used to provide foreground fill-in to highlight the details within the damselfly.