For people like Adrian Silas Tay, bringing his camera along, setting foot into the wild together with an avid group of wildlife photographers—is a complete privilege and perhaps, one of the hobbies he looks forward to the most on the weekends.
The nature lover started his hobby with a humble EOS 50D back in 2009 for general photography use. But this hobby has now evolved into a full-on pursuit of capturing the myriad of birds in their glorious, colourful feathers as best as he can.
Today, the Canon EOS R6 with the EF300m f/2.8L IS USM and Canon Extender EF 2X III is currently the favourite set-up for this avid birdwatcher and contributor to the Singapore Birds Project—which, is a comprehensive information bank with a growing number of birds that has been successfully documented.
We wanted to learn from Adrian, about what it takes to be a bird photographer in a hotspot for migratory birds such as Singapore. Here, he says, hundreds of species of birds can be sighted during their active migration period, so having knowledge of the birds is a must, and patience is a virtue, he adds. We had an inkling that his patience is also one of the traits that make Adrian excel at working with children of special needs in his day job too.
Adrian tells us that shooting outdoors is always a risky venture, especially for his camera equipment. In fact, he wasn’t shy at all to divulge that he has already dropped his camera several times in his birdwatching pursuits. “I’m not the most careful person when it comes to handling cameras I must say, but thankfully, I’m a CPS member.”
CPS Silver-tier Members enjoy 30% discount on service as well as 5% discount on parts and a 1-time free sensor cleaning.
He remembers sending in his camera for checking after it had suffered a rather hard knock and got his camera back in less than 4 days—a quick turnaround time he says, and very crucial for the time-sensitive bird photographers during active migration season. In a separate incident where his camera’s internal circuit board had to be replaced with new parts shipped from Japan, the repair was completed within only 10 days.
We asked Adrian to share his thoughts about the relevance of CPS with regards to the Canon camera users in his birdwatching clique: “I’m surprised that only about 20% of the Canon users I know, are currently CPS members. They could easily qualify to be CPS members, I mean, with just a quick glance at their camera gear, it’s pretty obvious. For them to be missing out on the free perks and benefits of CPS, is actually quite regrettable.” he adds.
“Any words of advice for the Canon photographers out there who’ve yet to sign up for CPS?” We asked.
Adrian’s encouragement and rallying call:
“CPS is such a good deal. I’d say, just do yourself a favour by signing up for CPS for free. You can get it done quite fast online actually, all you need to do is to register your equipment, their serial numbers and that’s pretty much about it.”
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