Strikeout...

Hey, remember last week when I decided to try and capture a snake strike? I apparently can't learn my lesson because I tried it again today... As the title of the post suggests, no luck. On the positive side, no bloggers were injured in the making of today's post.

So, I did have some shots of the strike, but they were bad. I did, however get some nice shots while I was setting up the lights:



All in all not a good day, and after yesterday's picture, a pretty uninspiring shot. They can't all be winners.

Ugh...

Today was not a good day for shooting. In early, worked late, we had my daughter's kindergarten orientation/introduction day tonight, and I am working on an outage at work that runs from midnight to five AM. So, you get snake pics:





Sorry for the uninspired photo day, tomorrow promises to be brutal as well.

A tale of two pictures.

Day 60 started off with an idea for a shot that never happened. I don't know why but I wanted a technical challenge, and I thought I would try and capture something high-speed. What's faster than a snake striking? I have snakes! An idea!

I setup up the lighting, did some test shots, figured out how to kill reflections from the glass, dialed in the focus, got my exposure sorted out, and got everything ready. I was planning to crop out any food items for those somewhat squeamish about such things, and no, I never feed live prey to my reptiles.

What is it that they say about the best laid plans? I dropped the rat, tried to grab it again with my tongs, and had my hand promptly ripped open by a five foot long python.

So no high-speed reptile shot. You get a flower instead:



I decided to take the opportunity to play around with the flower, so I cranked the lights, picked a light coloured flower and tried to blow the hell out of the highlights and see what I got. I like the effect, and all in all, the day could have been worse.

Although my hand does hurt.

Let's compare!

Here we are on day 17 of my Project 365, and I thought we would do a quick comparison.

Here is a shot I took on September 3rd of my Jungle Carpet Python, Zoot:



Looking at this picture now, I decided to try a similar shot, but using the tools and techniques that I've picked up in the four and a half months since I took it. Here is the result from today:



Better white balance and colour, better lighting, and better composition (to my mind). Essentially, I think I've improved on pretty much any point you choose to compare.

I'd also like to add: Zoot is awesome. I luvs her!

She speaks with a forked tongue.

Day 5 of the Prject 365, and here I am again. I hope I can keep this up!

Today's photo plans started with a walk-around at lunch time. That had to be canceled when my workload simply wouldn't allow it. No trouble, plenty of time, right?

Plan two was to camp out at the bird feeder in our backyard after work. Twenty minutes in the snow later, and that plan was scrapped. Not one bird came out, and the shots of the empty feeder were rather lackluster at best. Well, I can always shoot in the house tonight, right?

Plan three, my reef aquarium! Lots of colourful fish, corals, etc... In the midst of adjusting the lighting, I blew the GFCI outlet and spent the rest of my spare moments before putting my daughter in the tub, trying to get the rather critical life support systems in the tank running again.

So, we get another macro shot today. I like shooting the macros, the textures are often interesting, and there are always nice colours, but shooting on the white background does tend to make rather clinical pictures. Having said that, I'll take any shot that I can get today!



This is Rio, my Brazilian Rainbow Boa. She's a beautiful snake and I'm rather proud of getting this shot off at all, as snakes are not fond of sitting on white nylon fabric with two flashes going off and no cover around. Getting the tongue out on the shot is a mini coup also, with a 1/200th second exposure, and the speed with which they flick and retract the tongue, it's pretty lucky. I'm happy with the exposure and depth of field as well.

These shots are also being done in manual mode now as well, with manual settings on the flash. It's one more step in my technical education, juggling the exposure triangle of ISO/aperture/shutter speed along with one variable flash and a fixed supplementary light.

This shot was taken at ISO 200, 1/200th shutter, f/7.1 with the 580EX II on manual at 1/8th power on-camera with the Stofen Omnibounce, and the Cameron 36 W/S optical slave firing opposite and above the camera, using a reflecting umbrella. I can't believe that I know what all that means!

Manitoba Reptile Breeder Expo

Today I visited the Manitoba Reptile Breeder Expo, both for a photographic opportunity and to peruse some new additions to my collection. The expo usually has twenty or so exhibitors with a variety of snakes, amphibians, lizards, tarantulas and the like, so there are good opportunities to browse and shoot.

My wife and the kids came as well, so I didn't have much time with the camera, unfortunately. I did get two shots that were decent however.



This is a clutch of young Bearded Dragons. I regret not noting down the name of the breeder, so I'm not sure who these cuties belong to. My daughter loves Beardies so when you get a pile of a dozen or so all clambering over each other, she thinks it's just about the coolest thing ever.



This is a variety of Ball Python called a Bumblebee, owned by Geckoland Reptiles here in Winnipeg. A Bumblebee is a combination of two other morphs, the Spider Ball Python and the Pastel Ball Python. They have been bred in North America since early this decade, and their white, yellow and black colouration is striking.

Since my last posting, I've looked at the 'wife-on-maternity' financial situation and I'm no longer sure I'll be buying a flash or photobox kit. Thinking it through, those photobox kits might be convenient, but is it really worth $300+ for a couple of 75 watt lights and a box of white fabric?

I think my next plan in a DIY photobox so that I can do some more 'art' photography and take better pictures of my animals.

That's the plan at least.

More of the menagerie!

We have a lot of animals in our house. At the moment, the whole zoo consists of:

- One Parrot
- Three Snakes
- Two Rabbits
- Four Aquariums (two freshwater and two marine)

So far, the Parrot is the easiest subject to shoot, as her curious nature lends itself well to composition. The aquariums present a challenge, just shooting through glass, and the snakes don't really like to pose.

Having said that, this is how we learn, right?

Tonight I got my largest snake out. Her name is Zoot, and she is a year-and-a-half old Jungle Carpet Python. These snakes are known for their fantastic yellow/beige on black patterning, and Zoot is no exception. I tried a macro of her head, and despite some attempts at ambient lighting, I still needed the flash. An off-camera flash would have been quite a bit nicer here, but unfortunately, I don't have one... yet.



I finally captured this after about two or three dozen attempts. It's fairly heavily cropped, but I'm happy with the sharpness and the colour saturation.

I used the 50mm f/1.8 again, with the 12mm extension tube. Settings were:

- ISO 200
- f/2.5
- .1 sec exposure
- Flash fired

Comments and criticism are, of course, welcome!