Pulau Lang Tengah is an island sandwiched between the more popular Redang and Perhentian islands, approximately 20+ km from Merang Jetty, which itself is roughly half an hour’s drive from Kuala Terengganu.
Our trip was organized and led by DM/Instructor/UW Photographer extraordinaire Edvin Eng, who was also the first DM Terence and I dived with back in 2004, a whopping 7 years ago.
and Derek is now a certified diver, by Edvin the man
Edvin is always one of my favorite dive leaders, the dude is a joker on ground, but serious and attentive underwater. He also has an eye in spotting weird and wonderful creatures underwater, which is good. However, the very same guy also always poison us in underwater photography equipments, which might or might not be a good thing.
the resort at Lang Tengah, with Derek and Terence camwhoring
The main purpose of the trip was actually to get Derek certified as a PADI Open Water diver, for those of you who are interested to get into this hobby, Edvin is as good as any instructor you can get, you can find him at oceanxplorer.com.my
disco colored anemone, true story
We left at around 1 am from KL on Thursday night and arrived at Kuala Terengganu in the morning just in time for a breakfast of roast duck noodle before hopping on the transfer boat at Merang jetty.
We did a shore dive right after lunch, at the same time Derek was getting his exams. The shore dive at Lang Tengah wasn’t anything to shout about, visibility was close to 10 meter, there were corals, giant clams, and the various fishes, including clown fish, of course.
some sort of anemone?
giant clam, good for 100 plates of char kueh teow
We went on a boat dive after tea time, and there were much more to see here. Plenty of coral banded shrimps, red shrimps, moray eel, scorpion fish, and more.
banded coral shrimp
red shrimp among the corals
a pretty small and shy moral eel hiding in its hole
can you spot the fish?
We were dead tired from previous night’s driving and the 2 dives, and everyone headed to bed and pretty much passed out before 10 pm.
For the last three dives on second day, I had the luxury of using the combination of INON UWL 100 and the DOME unit with my S90 (in Ikelite housing and lit by Sea & Sea YS-01).
Since there are already quite a few photos in this post, I’ll delay the second batch on the next post. By the way, Selamat Hari Raya to all my Muslim friends, and to everyone else, Happy Merdeka!
I’m a pretty enthusiastic photography hobbyist, and a little bit in videography too.
I’m one of the earliest adopters in digital photography, with my very first digital camera a 3.2 megapixel Kodak model that runs on 4 AA battery with 32mb internal memory, then a Canon Powershot G3, Canon 400D DLSR, Canon S90 compact camera, and the Olympus E-PL1. Haze and I also have a couple GoPro HERO HD super compact camcorders.
The last toy I have to play with (at least for a couple weeks anyway) is the new Sony SLT-A33L A-mount camera. A 14.2 Megapixel SLR system that with 18-55 kit lens.
Calling this camera SLR might be slightly misleading though, for it is has a pretty nifty trick tucked in its sleeves - the SLT, or Single Lens Translucent mirror Technology.
Traditional SLR usually comes with a prism and has a mirror that needs to be flipped up whenever a picture is to be taken, while some 4/3 systems such as the E-PL1 do away with the mirror and hardware autofocus to have a reduce the size of the camera (while also using a smaller sensor).
In the latest SLT lineup from Sony, a translucent mirror is placed just before the sensor, reflecting 30% light to the hardware autofocus system and 70% to the sensor. This achieve several things:
The camera feels solid and well constructed, I particularly like the flip down (and turn-around) 3″ LCD screen, it’s crystal clear with 921.6k pixel resolution and makes it not only easy for some of you to camwhore, but very handy when it comes to taking photos or videos in crowded area or when you want to get that macro shot close to ground level.
Anyway, here’s the brief spec (full specs here)
That’s some serious specs for something with a suggested retail price of RM 2,399 including a kit lens.
Here’re some shots:
I set the camera to P mode, disabled flash, and with Auto-ISO, snap, and got the above picture. The Sony Steady Shot came into play and is really a bless, I could have never taken a photo at 1/15s shutter speed so effortlessly.
With the full suite of SLR capabilities including aperture priority, shutter speed priority, and full manual mode, you can do quite a lot with this camera. The above picture is taken at 1/15s with aperture priority at ISO1600.
This picture of Cendawan the Bengal cat is shot at 1/100s in ISO 3200, I set the camera to full auto mode. A slow camera can only take blur pictures of an awake cat, or sharp pictures of sleeping cat.
A video to amuse you, Cendawan the Bengal cat playing fetch, shot in Full HD
I also took the STL-A33 along to Hong Kong (more posts on that soon), this photo is taken we had dinner at a road side “tai pai tong”. Shot at ISO 3200, f/5.6, 1/320s. The food was very good by the way!
Fireworks aren’t the easiest scene to capture, but this camera does a very good job by just setting to Auto with no flash.
Finally, a shot taken at the busiest spot in Hong Kong – Mongkok. Notice the poster of SLT-A55 and SLT-A33 on display?
note: all photos shown above are straight out of the camera, resized, with no additional edits.
My recent diving trip to Tenggol island marked the 3rd time I attempted underwater photography. This post is more on some of the better photos I took with the limited equipments I currently operate while breathing compressed air – Canon S90 with Ikelite Underwater casing.
Paradise with beach, crystal clear water, and sun, right here in Malaysia
Looking through the photos make me want to have underwater strobes and a couple Inon wet lenses so much. It’s a wish that can be answered by a few dozens RM 100 bills I can’t really afford to part with at this moment.
There’s always a delicate balance on splitting the limited amount of dough between gears and diving itself. Oh well, soon, soon…
Anyway, here are some of the better photos that serves a good summary from the 3 day trip.
nemo in anemone
Nemo, the artist formally known as clown fish, is quite abundant at coral reefs around Tenggol.
In one instance, Haze was talking to our dive master Charlie and used the word “nemo” before correcting herself and address it as “clown fish”. Charlie had to tell her that nobody uses clown fish anymore, not even the .. ahem.. older generations. Pixar is really that influential.
blue spotted stingray
Ikan bakar never looked so pretty. I found this blue spotted stingray (the colors are gone when you .. bakar them :S) hidden under some corals, these bottom dwellers usually like to hide under boulders, which makes this quite an opportunistic capture. I like how the blue spots turned out.
Haze, KY, Dave, and Rich
First pic was when we just arrived, the second on one of our normal boat dives with me and my full set of gears, and the last one just before the night dive on second day.
By the way I think that was the only pair of jeans on the whole island.
this crab is probably quite yummy on dinner plate
A lot of crustaceans come out to play and prey at night, Rich spotted this fancy crab amongst the rock and I was able to snap a pretty decent photo with the built in flash. I so wanted to have this on the dinner table, but alas, Tenggol is a marine park.
spiny lobster, even more yums!
Also known as rock lobster, this decapod would probably taste even better than the crab mentioned above! This thing was huge, at least 2 feet in length. But then looking through sea water amplifies your vision by around 30%.. emm..
the 5 sisters of Tenggol
This is one of the five sisters of Tenggol. They are five Vietnamese ship wrecks laying at the bottom peacefully at over 30 meters depth, there’s another wreck on slightly shallower water in the middle of the lagoon too.
We went to the wrecks every morning for 3 days straight. The slightly murky water, low light condition, and the quietness of being underwater gives this site a pretty ghastly feel. One can only imagine what went through the refugees’ minds from the moment the board the boat with all their belongings to feel the war torn country to the point when they reached Tenggol and had to sink their boat to make sure they weren’t gonna be towed out and left alone drifting in open sea.
A wide angle converter would do me good at this site.
look ma, a green turtle!
This was the only green turtle spotted over 8 dives. A shy little one about 2 feet in length.
Turtles aren’t very common in this part of the world anymore, this probably has something to do with the fact that they’re still selling turtle eggs at Kota Bharu and Kuala Terengganu, with the authority turning a blind eye on the grotesque abuse on animal conservation effort in this country. It’s just sad.
Giant barracuda, smile!
Schools of juvenile barracudas are pretty common at Tenggol, but the big ones less so. This was one of the two giant barracudas we spotted during the last dive. They’re some 3 feet across and can look downright scary, this photo doesn’t do justice to the awesomeness of this fish though.
look at the stars, look how they shine for you
Other than going underwater and enjoying the beach, the other thing that I absolutely love about being on an island is the stars. They are absolutely brilliant at night, thousands and thousands of stars when the sky is clear.
We were just chilling on the beach, under the star, and sipping some whisky at night. It was awesome, I want to be back there now!
Nudibranch is a type of shell-less mollusk (octopus is a mollusk too!) that dots the ocean, typically hanging at the rock wall, coral, or bottom of the sea. Also known as sea slugs, these creatures are pretty tiny, typically not larger than your pinky.
Nudis come in a huge variety of shapes and colors, but they usually have a recognizable head with a pair of antennas, and an naked gill like organ at the rear that looks almost like a flower. The colors act as a deterrence and/or camouflage, some nudis can somehow “move” venoms from their prey to the outer part of their body to make themselves toxic to their potential predators. Fascinating stuff.
Tenggol island was partly made famous by the abundance of nudibranchs, and in my last trip (31st April to 2nd May) and over 8 dives, I’ve spotted at least 11 different types of nudis at dive sites around the main and surrounding islands.
The photos below are taken with my Canon S90, either with the miserable built in flash that’s half blocked by the underwater housing, or with natural light. Color temperatures are corrected, as with a bit of contrast adjustments.
I am dreaming a set of underwater strobes, but those toys are pricey….
Phyllidia varicosa
Also referred to as the scrambled egg nudi, this one’s pretty big in size, almost 3-4 inches in length. I don’t know who came up with the name, but if you serve my scrambled egg in this color, I’m probably gonna reject it.
Flabellina exoptata
From the puplish base, white tips and the blue rings, this looks like a flabellina exoptata but I could be wrong.
black nembrotha something?
It took me better part of an hour to find out the name for this nudi, no luck. Anyone know?
Atagema intecta
Again, atagema intecta might not be the correct species name for this black nudi with tiny brown spots all over. With 3000 or so species of nudibranchs it’s quite a drag to find the correct name sometimes.
Chromodoris coi
The white and grey nudi with black outline’s just lovely.
Phyllidia coelestis
The first time I spotted this lovely blue and black nudi with yellow spikes and tentacles.
Chromodoris magnifica
This one’s also called the stripped pajama nudi, not hard to see why. But does anyone seriously still have pajamas of this yellow, white, and black color scheme?
1. Phyllidia pustulosa 2. Nembrotha kubaryana
3. Pteraeolidia ianthina 4. Hypselodoris bullocki
These few are the more common ones around Tenggol, with Pteraeolidia especially plentiful. In the last dive I could spot at least a dozen of them within 10 meters in diameter.
One very nifty feature of Olympus PEN E-PL1 that I reviewed just a while back is this ART filter function. Basically with this function, you completely remove the need for Photoshop at least 95% of the time. All the sample photos shown are straight out of the camera without any post processing. Efficiency!
the art filter function on Olympus PEN E-PL1
Let me explain!
Switch the dial to ART mode on the camera, and immediately you are presented with the screen that looks like the above. Using the up/down button, choose the desire ART filter, click OK, and start shooting like normal. The photos will turn out dramatically different from the usual way.
100% Arabica – sepia filter
There are six different art filters to choose from. The above was shot using the Sepia filter to give it a bit of a rustic look.
making a living – pin hole filter
One of my favorites would be the pin hole filter. Some might view the on-purpose vignetting a cheap way to make photos looking artistic. To me, if it looks good, why not? I love it.
Pulau Tenggol, 2010
Here’s another pin hole effect, on the left is without filter, and on the right you can clearly see the dramatic effect.
The plus point is that you can set the camera to record both original jpeg as well as jpeg with art filter at the same time. Of course, there’s always the RAW + jpeg format too if you want to retain even greater control.
toy city – diorama filter
The diorama filter effect is kinda cute, taking from an elevated vantage point, you can make the scenery looking as if it’s a scaled model, very cool.
daily commute – grainy film
I kinda like the grainy film filter too. I tend to shoot quite a lot of street photos (when I’m not shooting food, that is), and the B&W shots it generates works pretty well. Very usable.
after dive relaxation at Tenggol
The smaller size is a huge advantage when doing street photography, unlike a huge SLR, this isn’t as imposing and people tend to not notice it as much. Not to mention the lighter camera won’t strain your arms nearly as much.
jaclyn - soft focus
I have a feeling that the soft focus filter will be girls’ best friend. Not that Jaclyn isn’t a hot chick, but the filter just make post processing completely irrelevant in this case. Nice kan? 
There’s also the pop art filter that makes colors really stand out, think balloon party.
pop art filter with lord of the rings!
Lacking a chance to attend any party lately, here’s a demonstration of the pop art filter effects with Lord of the Rings midget figures. You can see the amplified color saturation in this filter to make bright colors stand out more.
Here’s four different types of art filter and their amazing effects in a nice little collage to sum it up! Pretty cool isn’t it?
Oh! and these function works on VIDEO mode too! Check out this little video demo that I made while at Tenggol island.
There’s a slow motion effect with PIN hole, and a fast forward effect on Diorama filter when you apply them on video mode. The others will be running at normal speed, makes for pretty cool video, no?
I absolutely love this function, put post processing to bare minimum, saves time, and be artistic!
If you’re thinking of getting this baby, do also check out the Evolve contest for a chance to win an Olympus PEN E-PL1! The contest runs until end of April, 2010. Check out evolvewitholympus.com.my for more!
this post is brought to you by the awesomesauce Olympus Pen E-PL1
