Putrajaya Balloon Fiesta 2012

The weather at Putrajaya this morning was fair and nice. Good time to ‘up’ few hot air balloons.

The number of balloons was 20+. I am still glad that at least we have a small balloon festival in Malaysia.

Many visitors miss the Darth Varder and Doraemon. This year, we have cake and kiwi bird.

Christine and I arrived before 7am. We came late as we didn’t want to queue for the tethered balloon ride (we tried that last year).

Before 7:20am, only crews and media were allowed to enter into the square. We were lucky to meet the Olympus PEN Lover group.

I met other photography enthusiast friends. I agreed with what CC Chan said. It becomes harder to improve on the photography year after year on the same subject. Many enthusiasts like me may ended up the similar shots we took last year.

The photographer crowd was similar in size, but I did notice the camera were reducing in size. Many photographers have adopted the more compact mirror-less digital camera, and lesser of them carrying the menacing super zoom lens.

The best part of the Putrajaya Balloon Fiesta was watching the team preparing the balloon for the morning flight. The other highlight will be this evening light show to see the hot air balloons light show.

It was fun walking among the balloon setup, and see the preparation work at close proximity.

For new visitor, please note that the guard would not allow you to enter without a SLR or decent looking camera. I guessed the intention was to minimize accidents by reducing the ‘hungry’ photographers.

If you come after 8am, most of the balloon already flew far far away.

Then the only thing left to see will be the ‘non-flying’ tethered balloons, or to see the soap bubbles.

I have dinner tonight and may not have the chance to see the light show this evening at Putrajaya. See you again in 2013.