Pentax Macro Outing: AMK Town Garden West

Our Pentax August 2010 outing was a macro shootout at the Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West. Never had the opportunity to visit this park which is situated on a hillock. Like all our group outings, there were plenty of friendly chatter and catching-up with one another. Here's a group shot of the eager macro shooters and I'm happy to say the Pentax community here in Singapore is growing and probably one of the most close knit group of photo enthusiasts around. Maybe everyone's cheery because we all just came out of MacDonald's, our designated meeting place just a few meters away!



As it was a full macro outing, everybody had their own version of gear, from macro lenses to extension tubes to flash units and flash diffusers to light up their subjects. This was a shoot where everyone was carefully spending more time looking for the well camouflaged tiny insects and spiders than merely wandering all over the place. A lot of careful plodding and stalking to look out for our subjects while trying hard not to step on angry ants was the order of the day.





For me this park is a small oasis that offers plenty of macro opportunities in an urban context. I had plenty of misses and I definitely need to look into improving my macro lighting setup. Controlling the quantity of light and diffusing it well to improve the quality of it is a challenge in any macro shooting but get it right and the subject will look beyond the ordinary.





BTW all shots were taken with the K-7 and the DFA 100mm f/2.8 Macro WR. For me it was a nice reminder that macro shooting is an exercise both in perseverance and technical perfection. Time to go shoot some more...