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Behind the Lapse – Milky Way Rising in Pulau Mawar

August 14, 2022 In Behind The Scenes No Comment

Hi everyone, in this post, I would like to share about my recent timelapse work called – Milky Way rising in Pulau Mawar, Mersing in Johor. It was captured back in April 2021 when I was on assignment to create content with the newly release Sony lens, the 14mm f/1.8 G Master.

So I decided to take it for a spin to Pulau Mawar in Mersing, Johor. This spot is really a good place to do stargazing in Peninsular Malaysia. The sky here is often clear and you can see thousands of stars and even the Milky Way can be seen with naked eyes. You can check out my photos from this place HERE.

Anyway, back to the timelapse story. I took the timelapse with Sony a7R4 paired with the Sony 14mm f/1.8 G Master lens. The settings I used are as below:

Shooting mode: Manual
Shooting interval: 11 secs
ISO: 2500
Aperture: f/1.8
Shutter Speed: 10 sec.
Total shots: 360

Shooting milky way timelapse is time-consuming where you have to use a slower shutter speed for each shot. Usually, to get 5-10 seconds of a clip, you have to shoot for a minimum of 2 hours depending on the shutter speed you use. This is the benefit of shooting with an f/1.8 lens like this Sony 14mm f/1.8 where you can shoot at an aperture of f/1.8, and use a not-so-long shutter speed in the range of 10-15 sec.

So here is the final timelapse, processed using LRTimelapse and Adobe Lightroom Classic. Hope you like it and thank you for dropping by.

Landscape Photography in Rompin, Pahang (Vlog)

October 9, 2021 In Landscape Photography Video No Comment

Shooting sunrise and landscape photography in a small village called Rompin in Pahang, Malaysia. It’s about 4 hours drive from Kuala Lumpur.

Cherating Landscape Photography (Vlog)

September 26, 2021 In Video No Comment

Enjoying sunset and landscape photography in Cherating, Pahang, Malaysia.

My Favourite Lens for Landscape Photography

March 14, 2021 In Video No Comment

My favorite lens for landscape photography.

A Trip to Tumpak Sewu Waterfalls

December 22, 2018 In Landscape Photography No Comment

So I stumbled upon this majestic waterfalls while I was surfing the internet called Tumpak Sewu, located in Lumajang Indonesia. I was blown away with it and I knew I had to take a trip up there. After a short research, I packed my camera and ended up on a plane with a friend heading towards Surabaya.

The trip commences from 8th – 12th September 2018. We took a Lion Air flight JT164 from Kuala Lumpur International Airport and around 2 hours later, we arrived at Juanda International Airport which is the third busiest airport in Indonesia. We were greeted by our driver and then took off straight to Lumajang which is a 6 hours drive from Surabaya. A tip worthy to take note – best to arrive Surabaya in the evening if you plan to head directly towards Lumajang due to lesser traffic in the night and you can sleep during the long drive. We arrive at our accommodation around 1 am and after a quick unpacking, we retired the night. For your information, there is no resort or hotel in the area due to the location is not developed with tourism just yet. We slept in the local villagers’ place (paid).

Tumpak Sewu Entrance

The next morning, we tried to enter the waterfall as earliest as we can. I’m not sure about the exact price but the entrance ticket shall cost you around IDR 10k /pax. From the entrance, the descend started right away. The trekking path is quite an exhausting one because it was very steep.

For most of the trails, you will be walking on a small-narrow bamboo staircase and sometimes you need to pass some slippery wet stones and crossing several small rivers along the way. You need to be very careful and ensure that you have proper trekking sandals or shoes for your own safety. Depending on your speed, the descent would take around 30-45 minutes and perhaps it will be doubled when you ascend.

Once you reached the base, it is another few hundred meters and you will reach the majestic falls. These greenies complex really worth the effort going down!

Unfortunately, the condition wasn’t that good. The lighting was uneven while we were there to shoot. The sun is already too high but not high enough to light the whole area causing part of the area to be underexposed. I guess this is a good reason for me to back again in future.

After spending almost 2 hours at Tumpak Sewu, we started our ascent and it took us almost an hour to reach the car park. We returned to our accommodation where our host had prepared a nice lunch for us. We then doze off for a couple of hours before proceeding to our next waterfall which is Air Terjun Kabut Pelangi. By this time, me and Faisal are having a crucial muscle cramp on both of our legs. It’s another descend to get to the Kabut Pelangi waterfall and this time the distance felt farther. Anyhow, we made it to fall. The 100m+ Kabut Pelangi is an incredible sight. The force it generates when it hits the pool below is incredible and this is definitely not a place you want to go swimming!

Air Terjun Kabut Pelangi

Ladakh in Timelapse Motion (4K)

February 18, 2018 In Timelapse Travel 2 Comments

A timelapse compilation taken during my trip to Ladakh, Land of The High Passes on August 2017. Definitely a majestic place high in the mountains!

Sony Alpha Super Workshop 2016

October 30, 2016 In Event No Comment

Hi guys! So Sony Malaysia’s biggest annual photography workshop, Alpha Super Workshop is coming up next week on the 5th and 6th of November 2016. I’ll be speaking about ‘Inspiring Landscapes of Lofoten & Iceland’ on the last day of the workshop.

If you interested to join, more details on the event page: http://bit.ly/AlphaSuperWorkshop2016. Look forward to seeing you guys there!

alpha-super-workshop-poster

Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park

April 23, 2016 In Landscape Photography 4 Comments

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.

Misty Morning in Cemoro Lawang

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. 🙂

Experience 2015 – Sony A7RII, RX100IV & RX10II

August 16, 2015 In Event 2 Comments

Hi everyone! It’s been a busy month for me. Having a back to back event on last few weekends is really fun and the same time, tiring. Today, I just came back from another event with Sony Malaysia, Experience 2015 which is an exclusive digital imaging event made for consumer to experience the power of α7RII, RX100 IV & RX10 II in various shooting scenarios.

It feels great to be one of the key speaker to share my experience with the Sony A7rII among with few other great photographers and videographer by the names of Nick Ng, Alexis Fam and Baron Abas.

The event started with a lovely speech by Managing Director of Sony Malaysia, Mr. Satoshi Hatano and followed by product presentation by Mr. Kah Kit, also from Sony Malaysia. Then it continues with Alpha Pro Photographers sharing (my session) their hands-on experience with A7RII. Photo below is behind the scene of the A7RII at work in Sabah, Malaysia.

BTS of A7RII at work

I hope everyone had great time today and thanks for coming! Also, a special shout-out to my fellow landscape enthusiast, thank you so much for your continuos support towards my landscape photography. You guys rawk! 🙂

Enjoy the photos!

How important it is to clean your photograph?

February 26, 2015 In Behind The Scenes 2 Comments

Hi everyone! On this post I’m going to share how important it is to clean up your photo to make it look more neat and professional.

As a landscape photographer, I often visit a place that have a beautiful views. But sometimes, the place is filled with dirty things like thrash, even your friends tripod leg. Lol! 😛

So, there are few ways you can removed these unwanted things. First you can do so during the shoot itself, but then you will get your hands dirty. Obviously you do not wish to get infected with bacteria by touching dirty things out there. Second option is you can removed it in Photoshop like I did, using the ‘Content-Aware’ tool. It’s easy to use but you have to do it gently and with patience otherwise you will get a bad result.

Here is the result for my ‘cleaning stage’. It looks more clean and neat right?! Happy trying guys!

Don’t forget to follow my Instagram for more behind the scenes of my landscape photography adventure!

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