gmaster
I went back to my hometown in Alor Setar, Kedah during the final few days of 2018 to visit my parents. The weather was astonishingly hot during the day and it rained almost every evening. On the last day of 2018, it rained, as usual, that evening. But it stopped around 7.10pm and I was about to go out to collect takeaway food for our dinner when I saw the skies are starting to explode with colors. I ran back inside and grab nothing but my camera, the Sony A7R Mark III camera with FE 16-35mm F/2.8 G Master lens. Then I quickly drove off into a small road behind my parent’s place which leads to this small river stream that is surrounded with paddy field. By the time I reached at one corner which has enough space to park my car, the sky was already on fire!
Thanks to Sony IBIS (In-body Image Stabilization), I managed to get tack-sharp images handheld, even in low lighting conditions. What a really useful feature to have!
A puddle of water is always handy when it comes to photography, especially when the skies is burning like this! A nicely timed shot when this motorbike passing through as I went on low to get the reflection. Anyway, thanks for taking your time to read until this and if you did, much appreciated! Until my next post then, wassalam..
Hi everyone! I hope its not too late to wish Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir & Batin to those who celebrating Aidilfitri and I would like to apologize because it’s been a while since my last entry. I really want to write something, just couldn’t find time to do it, I guess.
So last week I went back to my hometown in northern side of Malaysia for Hari Raya. The last time I went back was during Christmas break last year. Can you believe that?! Too busy with work, travelling here and there. But its good to be back!
I went back a few days ahead of Aidilfitri. I have some free time to wander around and I plan to shoot the Milky Way before. The timing was just right as the moon phase just shifted to the new moon making the sky is dark enough to see the milky way. The idea was to shoot it somewhere around “Ladang Tebu Chuping” which was located in Perlis as the location have a very minimal light pollution making it suitable to do astrophotography.
The journey from Alor Setar is around 1 hour of driving. I went there with a friend and upon arriving to the location we saw the sky was partially covered with clouds but there was some stars still visible. We drove further into the darkness and until one point, we can see the milky way with our naked eyes…
The Lightsaber | Sony A7R Mark II + FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS
The Sony A7R Mark II shoots the Milky Way just fine despite some review saying this camera would not be able to do so. Below is before & after image taken with FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM lens. I increased the shadow part to 100% and as you can see the image quality is unaffected.
Below is few more photos from the night. We did not stay long as the Milky Way gets higher and higher making it difficult to shoot with good foreground. After all, the following day is still “puasa” so we had to go back to have our “sahur”. ☺️
Panoramic of 7 vertical shots to capture the full length of the Milky Way. | Sony A7R Mark II + FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS
The Galactic centre of Milky Way | Sony A7R Mark II + FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS
Milky Way above the Tree | Sony A7R Mark II + FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS
Today, over 5 billion people live under vanished light polluted urban skies where the Milky Way is no longer visble. Night sky becomes a forgotten part of nature, an essential element of our environment which is disappearing.
The Milky Way is still visible in Malaysia, you just have to find a secluded area which have very minimal light pollution or easier words, a very dark area.
Timing is also important so you have to check what phase the moon is currently in. If it’s in the first quarter (half-moon) or brighter, chances are you will not be able to see the Milky Way with a naked eyes because there will be too much moonlight outshining the stars.
That’s it for this entry. I hope you’ll find this entry is somewhat useful. Feel free to share and spread the love of nature photography. ☺️
A short trip of 4 days and 3 nights to Bromo Tengger Semeru National park, particularly to photograph the majestic Mount Bromo, an active volcano in the part of Tengger massif, East Java, Indonesia. It was an unplanned trip, a quick chat with Azmi, a friend of mine, then we realized there is an airfare promotion to this location. But we realized that we had to sacrifice the milky way due to full-moon period. Hey, that’s a reason to go back again yeah? 🙂
23/3 – Wednesday evening : Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2). Meeting up with the team. From left, Azmi, Jemang, Pak Zahar & yours truly.
While waiting for the departure, a close look of the FE 24-70 f/2.8 G-Master paired with Sony A7SM2. Ain’t she a beauty? 🙂
24/4 – Thursday morning : Our flight delayed for over an hour so we arrived in Surabaya airport around 1am. We met Pak Irsam, our local guide for this trip. It was then a long 4-5 hours drive from Surabaya city to Bromo Tengger Semeru National park. Our eyes couldn’t take it anymore so everyone fell asleep except for Pak Irsam himself because he got to drive.
A few hours later, we arrived to the national park just at around sunrise. We missed the blue hour but we were greeted with beautiful sea of clouds! Here’s my Sony A7RM2 and the FE 24-70 f2/.8 GM in action. The other camera was running on timelapse of the volcano mountains.
We wrapped our shooting at this first location with a group-photo-selfie and a cup of teh halia (ginger tea).
The remaining of sunrise colours that morning. The blanket of clouds partially covering Cemoro Lawang. Cemoro Lawang is a very small hamlet north-east of Mount Bromo (East Java), Indonesia with the altitude of 2,217 meters above sea level.This hamlet is a part of Ngadisari Village, Sukapura in the Probolinggo Regency.
Frame-grab from my timelapse sequence. Absolutely magnificent view when the stormy clouds came into the scene.
Our next location is the crater of Mt. Bromo. To be honest, I didn’t expect a horse ride which was arranged by Pak Irsam. It’s around 1 km distance from the car park up to the crater so a horse ride definitely ease the journey. Photo below is a courtesy from Pak Zahar’s camera. 🙂
Anyway, I thought the horse ride would take us all the way up to the crater, but I was wrong. The ride stops at the stairways then we had to climb it ourself and it was a pretty steep climb. Had to stop few times to catch some breath!
Here’s the stairways and abam Jemang at one of the many pit-stop we had to make before reaching the peak.
The crater of Mt. Bromo and its constantly belches white sulfurous smoke.
A quick selfie with Jemang and Azmi. Too bad Pak Zahar didn’t make it to the top because he could not stand the heavy sulfur smoke.
24/3 – Thursday morning : Our second day starts as early as 2.00am. Our next location is Penanjakan 1, which happens to be the most famous viewpoint in the national park. It’s located approximately about 1 hour drive but its not your ordinary drive. It was a really bumpy drive even on a 4×4 vehicle. Not recommended for those who suffers back-pain etc. We reached Penanjakan 1 around 3.00am and the parking area is already looks like a night market. The place is filled with lots of tourist!
So after got dropped by our driver, we then hike up to the viewpoint which located around 500 meters from the parking area. Pak Irsam showed us where to set our tripod and luckily the front seat is not yet taken. We then setup all our gears and waited patiently for the sunrise. It gets pretty cold sometimes but thanks to down jacket and a neck-warmer, I’m all covered.
Here’s a photo taken around 3.30am. As you can see, the light trails down in the caldera is from all the 4×4 vehicle, transporting tourist from Ngadisari village to Penanjakan 1. Better be early to grab the front seat!
After few hours waiting and shivering in the cold weather, the sun is about to rise. Here’s a panorama of the blue hour taken with Sony A7RM2 + FE 24-70 f/2.8 GM lens. Click on the photo to view in large.
When I saw the blue hour, I thought to myself, this could be a pretty amazing sunrise and as the sun progressed higher, the mesmerizing colours starts to appear. We, landscape photographers express this moment as “the magic hour”. Check out behind the scenes photo below taken with Sony A5100.
As you can see, the sun rose slightly to left of Mt. Bromo. But the strong colours did reflects all the way to the volcano hence the final result below. I present to you….”When Earth Meets Sky” a panoramic image generated from 8 vertical shots taken with Sony A7RM2 + FE 24-70 f/2.8 GM lens. I just had to take panos because I wanted to capture everything for this shot. Final resolution for this pano is 12,600px wide!
My other camera, Sony A7SM2 was running on timelapse mode and managed to capture the beautiful sunrise display changing rapidly. We waited for quite sometimes and I when I was about to pack all my gears, I saw this view of “The Great Mountain” of Mahameru standing tall behind Mt. Bromo.
Our next destination is to the Savannah Field. The place is actually a field of grass surrounded by the hills and is also one of the attraction when visiting the national park. But we encounter some problem when we are on our way to the location. It rained the night before so the track road gets a bit wet and muddy. Our 4×4 driver gets a bit clever and thought he could get through the muddy road. But in the end, he got us all stucked!
We had to abandoned our 4×4 and wait for another truck to pass by to get help. Turns out there were few other trucks that got stucked too.
After that, we continue our journey to Savannah Field. Its just a short drive to reach there. But we did not go all the way in as Pak Irsam took us to one of the best viewpoint (I guess) available in the park. It looks a little bit like the famous Dolomites in Italy. Except there is no huge mountains in the background. But I guess I can call this as Asia’s Dolomites…
And of course, a compulsory group shot. Credit goes to our guide, Pak Irsam. 🙂
After spending a few hours in the field, we head back to our hotel, Cemara Indah for breakfast and rest. The best thing about our hotel is, the view itself is facing Mt. Bromo. We had our sunset shooting just from the hotel lookout point. Here’s my camera running on timelapse mode.
Jemang and Pak Zahar admiring our hotel view. Azmi is out of the frame as he was standing slightly to the left of this photo. I guess he gets the best composition, or same.
This session wrapped our short visit to Mt. Bromo. The next day before checking out, we went out in the morning for quick shoot in Ngadisari Village. But, nothing much to share so I just skipped that. 🙂
Thank Sony Malaysia for the opportunity to shoot with the new FE 24-70 f/2.8 G-Master lens on this trip. The new lens has successfully kept my ultra wide angle in the bag most of the time. 🙂
I hope everyone enjoy this post and hopefully it will inspire you to get out and shoot. Feel free to share and spread the love for landscape photography!
Until my next post, assalamualaikum wr wbt. 🙂
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