Advance preparation did not help me from making mistake however. With a few Bali photographer friends I went up to Ubud a little too late, resulting in parking our car far away from the event. It took us almost an hour on foot, half of which trapped in thousands of crowd. A friend who brought along a tripod and a portable ladder was forced to leave both of them back in the trunk.

Quite a coincident that the event took place only a few days after arrival of my new Canon 5D replacing my old Nikon D200, so it was my first Canon project. I spent the nights before to familiarize myself with its character, menu structure, and so forth. But a little time with the camera only on my front yard did not give me a lot.

Whilst I do not have a problem with menu structure, familiarizing myself with positioning of buttons and dials were the biggest challenge. Being the second was its exposure characteristic. However, I did aware that the event would be a real challenge for the strength of Canon 5D. I couldn’t wait to see how its full frame sensor results in two extreme situations: (1) Ultra wide shoots to capture everything in one frame, which I thought combination of full frame sensor and 17-40mm L lens should excel. (2). High ISO in low light as the schedule told that the fire would be set after the sun went down.

We got to the event after parade was over, so we lost a few important rituals. All of the ceremony’s elements including bade (carriage), lembu (the bull), and nagabanda (the holly dragon) are all placed on the ground of the royal setra (cemetery). We spent the whole half day to shot different angles of those magical stuffs and human interest shots of the thousands of crown in mix of local and foreigners. My game was wide angle shots with the brilliant 17-40mm L lens, and human interest with the very cheap 75-300mm which proven to work quite well in full frame DSLR. Ken Rockwell was right when saying that among the benefit of full frame is even crappy lens produce good shots.

As the sun went down preparation for cremation started by a series of rituals, including placing the body of the deceased into the bull. The fire actually set after dark burning both bulls with bodies inside. With very limited lighting (only a few lamps available on quite a wide ground), practically the only available light was the fire itself. The actual cremation took very short giving very limited time to fight the crowd to have a chance to fire just a few shots, during which times I replaced my lens a few times. I was disappointed with the performance of my ultra fast 50mm F1.8 which theoretically should excel in low light. In fact shots taken by my 17-40mm L F4 were by far better, even I had to shoot in high ISO to compensate is smaller aperture.

The cremation ceremony will be held by The Royal Family of Ubud and therefore will take place at Puri Agung Ubud and related surrounding area. Series of rituals have been started since June 18th 2008, but the main event is taking place on July 15th 2008 between 00.12 and 21.00 Bali time. Most breath-taking moments will be between 10.00 and 18.00 when the soaring “meru” and accompanying bull statues will be taken in parade to the funeral ground for actual cremation.

Following is the complete schedule:
00:12 Nunas Toya Penembak
03.00 Pralina
05:00 Mebumi sudha/nyukat karang
10:00 Melaspas bade dan lembu
10:00 Nunas Tirta Pengentas Siwa lan Budha
12:00 Layon tedun
12:12 Manah Naga Banda
18:00 Parade to cremation field
19:00 Nganyut
21:00 Mepegat

To ease access closer to important objects it is advisable to wear simple Balinese traditional costume. It is a mega event, and therefore most probably accesses to Ubud will be closed during the event. It is advisable to arrive early.