I haven't really tried macros since
I moved from the S5Is to the D90. This was an ideal trip to learn a few things. I had gotten a Raynox DCR 150 for about 35 pounds. It is a poor man's macro and when attached to the 70-300, it gives a magnification of 2:1 to 1:2 depending on the zoom used. Did carry the 150-500 as well but that was never even taken out of the bag.
Was supposed to be a trip with Sandeep, Arun and me but when Arun dropped out, Hemant flew over from Mumbai at a notice of half an hour. Funny thing is he got to Majestic for the bus before we did. We had a cottage booked over at the
Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (
ARRS). At 1000 bucks a person including food, it was comfy. Walked from the bus stand to the station in some really heavy rain with considerable luggage as autos were not really available. After we were refreshed, the first trek through the river was unexpected. I ended up with my 18-105 and cam fogged up, while Sandeep's cam just refused to start up. Needless to say rain and river dips don't agree with electronics. Managed to dry the cam but was left with the 70-300 and macro to shoot for the remaining 2 days.
Thanks to Gerry, we managed quite a few shots of a pit viper, and we did find a couple of vine snakes, the second one considerably smaller and quite easy to agitate. Ben, who was researching frogs, managed to spot a variety of interesting frogs, caecilians and insects (a foot long stick insect and a whip scorpion were the pick of the day). Managed to experiment quite a bit with the raynox and Joshua also lent me his 60mm macro to try out which also provided me with a perspective. Lessons learnt from the trip: I need an external flash, the nikon on-board flash is much better than the canon one but it is of almost no use while shooting macros.
Did get plenty of reasonable shots whenever the camera defogged, especially of the malabar flying frog but with the pit viper, was mostly restricted due to the camera fogging. My observations on the raynox vs dedicated macro,
the image quality may not be spectacular on the raynox but it is pretty good however usability is severely restricted due to limitations on the focusing distances (maximum). One advantage though was the adjustable magnification on the 70-300 which gave me quite a varied perspectives.
The butterfly shot on the blog is using the 60 mm macro with a vivitar external flash, the rest are using 70-300 with or without the raynox dcr-150 and the stream shot was the last shot I took with the 18-105 on that trip.
Remaining pics on picasa at a better resolution
The Kabini river area of Rajiv Gandhi national park is something I had always wanted to visit for quite sometime. We got from Ooty to Kabini, late in the afternoon. After a lunch and a bit of relaxing, we started off on a safari. After a few peacocks, CSE, langurs and mongoose, a leopard decided to cross our path just in front of us. There had been reports of tiger sightings around but we saw just a few elephants (some of the tuskers in Kabini have huge tusks and the herds are large) gaur, boar and deer.
The next day morning safari was just as fun, along with the usual we also managed to see a spot bellied eagle owl. Again on information from other jeeps we tried to spot a tiger but kept missing it by a few minutes. Other birds included a pair of mating rollers, loads of white bellied woodpeckers (couple of them courting) and a few other woodpeckers. The evening safari gave us more of the same with nothing new. Going back to the roosting spot of the owl, we did not find it after that morning. In between the 2 safaris, we managed a few macros of spiders and my new underwater cam helped in some frog shots. Also saw a coppersmith barbet and managed to shoot it in the lodge. It is one of those birds that I have seen a lot earlier but always wanted a photo.
The final day morning safari, after driving around a bit we saw a couple of peacocks dancing and after missing views of the tiger by just minutes twice, we found it was visible from a point but it was far off and sleeping. As we all strained our eyes and binoculars to get a glimpse, the drivers joked around raising false alarms saying it was getting up. After a few of those, while everyone ignored those alarms, one of the drivers kept repeating it. As we turned to where he pointed we saw another tiger out in the open which none of us had noticed as we were so focused on the first one. They must have been a mating pair said someone. Although far off we were just happy to see one. It was more a case of the "The driver who cried tiger" rather than "The boy who cried wolf". Also saw two packs of wild dogs on the same safari.
The last safari which was an additionally paid one was also without any carnivores but we saw a couple of tuskers not fully grown in a mock fight. Also saw a pair of malabar trogon, mating oriental magpie robins, paradise flycatchers and a blue faced malkoha along with the other. Spent some more time trying to shoot frogs in the river at noon but the waters were not as still as the previous day and not many clouds in the sky so gave that up.
