Travel Snapshot – Pigeons in Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur

Another snapshot in Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This time the Muruga Statue is not in the leading role. It’s the pigeons instead. There are too many pigeons gather at the courtyard in front of the caves and the statue, especially in the morning, when I was there testing out my new travel gear Nikon D7000.

Travel photos are not necessary limited to those landmarks or heritage buildings. They could be something else in the “supporting role”: birds, people, trees, animals, signboards or whatsoever belongs to that place only. One good example is the pigeons and Lord Muruga statue in Batu Caves. They seemed irrelevant to each other but without which, Batu Caves would be far less attractive! Pigeons or doves are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and have short slender bills with a fleshy cere. The most variety of pigeon could be found in the Indomalaya and Australasia ecozones.

Photo taken with Nikon D7000 coupled with Nikkor 18-105mm f3.5-56. ED VR / Shutter Speed: 1/100s / Aperture: f5.6 / Focus distance: 105mm / ISO100 / AWB1, A1 / Standard Picture Control, sharpened to +6.

Images captured by the kit lens Nikkor 18-105mm is very sharp at telephoto end of its zoom range, even when the aperture is wide open. Apart from sharpness, it also exhibits smooth and nice Bokeh with acceptable shallow depth of field. Look at the above photo. Click to see the same in full resolution if you want to pixel peek. Of course, it could never come close with other fast lens such as the Nikkor 35mm f1.8 which has only inch-deep DOF if it is wide open. Overall, this lens is good enough for general travel photo taking purposes. The only problem I found is wignetting at corners (darker at 4 corners).

So what are you waiting for? Go out and snap! 🙂 – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog.

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.