Snakes!!!

My friend Amy Fennell owns this very beautiful snake., it is a Red-tailed Boa (boa constrictor). Amy will be co-hosting an upcoming photography workshop with me on June the 27Th, 2009. The location will be the Mountsberg Conservation Area.

(just click on the pic to see the larger size, and use your back button to return to this very exciting story!) Amy will have 5 species there for us to photograph, and there will be a 2 hour instructional program before these amazing creatures hit the stage.

We may also have 2 more special guests, with some other interesting species... more news on these additions when the workshop starts!! the complete info for the workshop is here....

http://www.rayswildlife.com/Snakes.html

For this shot, I used the Nikkor 200-400 lens, taken from about 7 feet, shutter fired at 1/160 sec. at F4 with an ISO setting of 250. I use the Nikon D300 body., which has a 1.5 crop factor on the sensor, so the effective 35mm focal length is 600mm. I used a mono-pod for support., and sorta wish I had lugged the tripod to this set up. I would have tried F8 at a much lower shutter speed, for more depth of field. This means, by stopping down to F8, I would have more of the snake in focus from the tip of its nose through the middle of its neck.

The tripod would have allowed me to shoot with the aperture at F8 and a lower shutter speed, 1/80. I would probably gone down to 1/20 and a much tighter aperture., leaving even more depth of field. the one thing I strongly suggest to any photographer ... when you out in situations like this.. Experiment! charge your angle, ISO, set up, aperture, and always watch for different backgrounds.

I do have an email list for workshops.. please send me a quick note, and you are welcome to join in... ray@raymondbarlow.com

More images of the snakes on my slide show here!

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Comments are welcome too!