Orangutan on Borneo
The Semenggoh Wildlife Refuge was absolutely worth it. It did cost us $7CAD for a taxi ride (30 minutes) from Kuching’s center to the small haven where 22 apes live a quiet life. Be aware of the weird opening schedule: it opens at 09:00 and closes at 10:00, then re-open at 14:00 and stays open until 16:00. We arrived at 09:30 and by the time we got on the trail to see the orangutan, it was 09:52. I had 8 minutes to unleash the fury of my Nikon Df with the 600mm f/4 VR Nano crystal and shoot.
Shooting a long lens with the Df was easy. I shot most of the time in full manual, that is, set the ISO speed to a certain setting, aperture set a F/4 and shutter between 1/500 to 1/1000.
The 600mm is so sharp, scary. The autofocus is snappy and works as expected.
In full daylight, I was found to be shooting between 3200 and 10 000ISO because of the heavy rainforest canopy. I was trying to keep my speed between 1/500 and 1/2000 to avoid motion blur. The 600mm f/4 VR Nano crystal has an incredible stabilizer.
That’s all there’s to say about it. Best lens, best camera, best combo ever.