Sg Tua revisited

An interesting crab spider

This is a very handsome weevil


Close-up of a stick insect

Sg Tua in Hulu Yam, Selangor, is a place that fascinated me right from the beginning.Some of the largest jumping spider specie are found here and they are thriving.Nothing excites me more than discovering spiders and this is a fertile hunting ground for
any insect photographer.Last Saturday, I rigged up a trip with my regular macro photography kakis T.S. Ching and
newcomer Omar who had equipped himself with a Canon EF100mm F2.8L IS macro lens.This was Omar's second outing with the group.We've hooked up with Master Kurt and Master Caveman on the trail and as usual, the first
few hours of the day was rather boring.Things started to pick up by noon and to my surprise, there were some interesting find by
my enthusiastic friends.We photographed a really handsome weevil and my find of the day, was a jumping spider
with prey.

The luxury of time

At the hill yesterday

A cute jumper

Close-up of a fly

Time is a luxury that I don't have.To manage it, I have to work ahead and plan every second, minute and hour.And in photography, the credo 'practise makes perfect' is like a religion.I managed to get some time off yesterday to head out to Bukit Gasing and practised my
close-up shots.Lucky for me, the weather was good enough to yield some bugs as my main subjects.Right now, I am still struggling to get a decent focus and exposure with higher magnification
shots and at the same time, improvise my close-up flash diffusion techniques.It became clear to me that if you have a narrow focusing band, the only way to get things in
perspective is a pair of steady hands and the eye for details.With insects, this is a challenge. Nevertheless, there's still plenty of room for improvements and with time as a factor, all is
not lost.