We’re safely back at home now, and amidst waiting for the laundry machine to clean up the first basket of laundry, I can finally do some photographic accounting.
Over the 6 days, we took a total of 2,486 shots, of which 2,261 pictures were on the Nikon D300, and the remaining 225 on the Panasonic DMC-LZ7. The actual number of exposures triggered is actually even higher than this as that’d include the pictures that are deleted on the camera body itself.
Of this lot of photos, about 440 have been posted into the Flickr photo collection for the trip. But as the days go by I’ll be rechecking through each image and most likely will remove a couple of the redundant ones.
If there was any one issue with the photographic equipment I’d been agonizing last week on what to bring to our Bali trip, it was the weight. The places we visited were varied within each day, so to be safe, I usually stuffed whatever lenses the Tamrac Adventure 7 bag could hold. Ling helped loads by helping to carry the tripod when my hands needed to be free, while at the same time also juggling her video camera and LZ7 too.:)
Of the four lenses that came along for the ride, not surprisingly the Nikon 18-55mm VR lens got the most use. I’ve got a colleague who scoffs at this lens because of its plastic-y build and mount. But unless one is in the habit of dropping them onto hard ground or similar abuse, the lens works just fine and is fully capable of amazing pictures. The Nikon 55-200mm VR I used for just two places: to take the 321 pictures at the Bali Bird Park, and about a dozen more for the Tegenungan Waterfall. This lens is amazingly sharp, as you can see from this photo here and here with minimal sharpening required in post-processing.
The two specialized lenses saw slightly less utility comparatively, but were nonetheless used for some of the macro, landscape and weather shots. Most of the 234 flower pictures taken at the Bali Botanic Gardens were on the Sigma 150mm f2.8, with Ling taking a few on her own using her Panasonic LZ8. It was a pity that the Bali Botanic Gardens was a little underwhelming in size and variety of flower species, and that was made even the less pleasing given the hefty admission fee to enter the park too. Ling noted that several of the flowers didn’t look really healthy either.
The Sigma 10-20mm lens on the other hand was used to create the Tanah Lot and Uluwatu “milky” sea pictures, similar effects for the Gitgit Waterfall series, and also for several panoramic shots of the Jati Luwih rice terraces and Gunung Kawi Royal Monument. For the interested, the pictures were taken at the lowest ISO, smallest f-stop, with a circular polarizer + three stop neutral density + graduated neutral density (occasionally) stack, with a bit of exposure compensation for a few of the shots. The D300 was mounted on the 190CXPRO3 tripod, and the shot triggered by remote with mirror-up.
As instrumental as was Ling’s help in carrying and deploying the tripod up and down as we moved from subject to subject, at several points in times I half-wished we could also have a porter, or maybe even a donkey, to help carry our equipment. Ling had a waterbottle, the Bali & Lombok guidebook and a ton of other things in her small backpack to carry too.
Still, we were blessed with passable weather for most of the spots we visited, in that apart there was just a few very light drizzles in the day and one downpour one night. What was less pleasing was that of the 6 days we were in Bali, we enjoyed only absolutely clear skies for 1 day, with the rest of the days lost in cloudy skies and even a mist in the low level clouds. Just take a look at the gray skies for the Jati Luwih and Pura Ulun Danu Bratan (I’m the little red / white dot on the left LOL) pictures here in this blog entry. *sigh*
The one clear day was Day 5 of our stay, and that was the day I needed clear skies the least: when I did the Botanic Gardens, Bird Park, and Bali Hyatt Gardens & Sanur Beach shots. Come to think of it, only the Bird Park shots were satisfactory. The Botanic Gardens as aforementioned really didn’t have very good flower subjects, and by the time we got to the Bali Hyatt Gardens in the late afternoon, we were both spaced out and just wanted to lie down somewhere and stone.
A selection of Ling’s “Behind the Scenes” photos are here too.:)
I’ll ramble on but the both of us need to get some early sleep as it’s back to work for me tomorrow morning. I’ll write another entry tomorrow about some of the other places we visited.:)
I’m pouring over the photos right now on my lunch break at work. I am so envious!
Yeah it was a great stay though not without its little hiccups. I’ll be writing a series of recollections that I’ll post up starting later tonight.:)