A Prawning BDay Celebration for Marcus & Joe

After driving about half the country (via CTE, PIE, TPE) towards the EAST, we reached Pasir Ris but tats where we started our amazing race to find the prawn farm... it's nicely hidden along Farmway3 with its entrance kept 80% in the dark, save for a small wooden board with hand drawn "Fishing" nailed atop : P

The place is quite cool, with 3 major ponds - Fishing, Prawning & Catch/Release.

Surprisingly no mozzies... and the place is relatively clean. Prices very reasonable and the beer is cheap! At S$3.00 per can!

The place is opened 24hrs and it gets more crowded into the night.

Our group's first catch was by our prawning couple - Jessie & Wade! They have such good prawning LUCK! I think they got a total of about 6 prawns thru the nite!

On the other side of lady luck is our Joe & Annette... luckless.

And they finally got a catch each at the end of the nite! Jus see how happy they were!

The others? They all have a prawn each to their name : )

What's the hardest part in prawning? i think its not about whether did you land a catch... personally i feel is the emotional obstacle that you have to overcome in cooking the live prawns you caught.

Skewing the prawns and placing them on top of the fire while their legs are still kicking is a rather unpleasant experience to many.

Our dear top prawner and rugged Jessie (Jus look at how she's gripping the prawn..!!) didn't stomach even a single prawn : P

I did... simply becos i don't want them to be sacrificed for nothing and be wasted... and they are deliciously good : )

Shooting Notes & Details:
Camera Body: Canon 40D
Lens: EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
Mode: Av
Flash: Canon 580EXII
Diffuser: Gary Fong Universal Cloud
Mode: ETTL

The diffuser dome garnered a lot of curious looks and friends even suggested using it as a saucer... haha. Don't really matter to me becos i want the best for my pics... how my equipment looks is secondary.

This is my first time using the flash + diffuser in such a poor lighting scenario. I had to bump up the ISO to 1600 which i don't like. I like my ISO to be below 400 for my 40D as noise is prevalent when viewed at 100%.

Even at 1600 and at the widest aperture of f4, my shutter can only manage a 1/13 ~ 1/50 sec which i find is rather slow and prone to camera shake. Maybe i should explore the other f/2.8 Canon lenses... hmmm...

The diffuser works great! Skin tones and backgrounds are captured nicely without those ugly flash-out looks : ) Will keep exploring & experimenting with this interesting diffuser.