Color images from nature

Lovely, Christian - the dappled light and shadows..the Magnolia blossoms. Am I right that they're Magnolias? Ah, spring!

Antonio and pdh, I'm sorry I'd missed seeing yours. Love the intensity of color in your leaf patterned picture. And pdh, you already know how I've enjoyed yours.
 
Its that time of year again and the local breeding farm has a whole new batch of horse babies (Horse Babies - sounds like a song the Stones should have written years ago). I've been riding my bike past this place every year for the past 15 or so and its an annual tradition - used to take my kids to see the little horses, now I take my GH2. I shot these with the 100-300. This is not a type of photography I have any feel for - I just take snapshots for the most part. I'm not sure how I feel about this lens - its plenty powerful but the bokeh gets reallyl funky out towards the long end of the lens and I have trouble getting everything nailed down. I see photos of birds beak details at 300mm that the taker's say are handheld and they're tack sharp and I either think they're lying or I have ZERO clue how they do it. I'm happy enough when it works at all. So, here are a few from this morning, not quite all of them are the little guys:

-Ray

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Mayaguez Zoo

Visited the Mayaguez Zoo with my wife and son this afternoon. A few snaps:


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All taken with my Lumix G2 and a 135mm 3.5 Canon FD on an adapter. First time ever using an adapted lens on my G2.

Regards,

Antonio
 
Great zoo shots. They all look awesome, I really like the rhino and ducks color combo/contrast.

Visited the Mayaguez Zoo with my wife and son this afternoon. A few snaps:


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All taken with my Lumix G2 and a 135mm 3.5 Canon FD on an adapter. First time ever using an adapted lens on my G2.

Regards,

Antonio
 
Christian, I'm impressed by those snake photos.

Many thanks, BB!

I'd never get so close, but I'm a snake wimp.

Well, the Aesculapian snake belongs to the snake family Colubridae and is nonvenomous, although a bite may result in an infection and should therefore be avoided. This snake belongs to the endangered species in the part of the world where I live. Aesculapian snakes either flee before one has the chance to see them or trust in their very good camouflage. So I had very much luck when I saw this snake lying beside the trail. I could take the first picture before the snake fled and hid itself. Taking the second photograph was a little bit riskier, because Aesculapian snakes will hiss and eventually bite, if they feel cornered. So I took the second shot and moved away and the snake fled, too.

I am so happy with these shots! However, after taking them I realized that I had some less than optimal camera settings (look at the shutter speed!) and was afraid that the shots could be technically insufficient. While the first photograph is sharp but not perfectly sharp, I am very pleased with the second photograph. Fortunately, this is the better photograph.
 
Well, you've got steady nerves, as well as steady hands - the pictures prove it, Christian. Thank you for the background about the snakes, too. Good think you knew what you were doing!
 
Well, I want to warn everybody against doing light-heartedly what I did. One should really know which species a snake one wants to photograph belongs to and how far one can go. The Aesculapian snake always flees if flight is possible and can be very aggressive if it feels cornered without any possibility to flee. I knew that and acted accordingly. There are many snakes I would not get nearly as close to as I did in this case. Fortunately, in my country there are about two dangerous snakes which look completely different than the snake I photographed. It is always better to be more careful than necessary, because a bite by a venomous snake can be lethal.
 
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