Spring Peeper

[Andrew McLachlan]

As the temperatures have cooled off considerably over the last several days the only frogs singing here are the Spring Peepers. I created this one last weekend while in Ontario's Parry Sound region. Lots of flash generated highlights were evicted from the frog's skin with clone stamp tool and small quick masks while working on the image enlarged to around 600%.

Look forward to comments.

Nikon D800
Nikon 105mm micro lens
ISO 100
f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket and a small mini-mag flashlight attached to the flash with elastics for night-time focusing.

128841

[Norm Dulak]

Nice capture here of a most interesting critter. The background, perch, subject, composition, color and sharpness are all super. And your use of flash and the cleanup after it worked very well. Well done!

[Allen Sparks]

Hi Andrew, great use of flash and nice catch of the frog croaking. I think this is very well done. -- Allen

[Mitch Haimov]

Excellent work as usual, Andrew!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Andrew. This little guy looks ready to explode! Great pose and good job removing the flash-generated spectral highlights. Interesting how the vocal sac becomes so stretched out that we can almost see through it. This is very nicely done!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks very much everybody, much appreciated.

[Jonathan Ashton]

A super shot, excellent lighting and I like the composition. DOF is good, hindsight is a terrific attribute but I would suggest if the occasion were to repeat itself try a few shots at differing magnification, I see you went for f22 but if you had been a little further back the rear foot would have been in focus.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Thanks very much Jonathan, much appreciated. I do have a great number of variations of this fella and some where he does not fill the frame quite as much, will look to see if I have better focus on the hind foot. The rear foot being out of focus does bug me a bit and I should have assumed a slightly lower perspective, but my body was already contorted enough to squeeze in through the branches that I was having muscle cramps in my back...Yikes...must be old age creeping in :S3:

[Bob Miller]

HI Andrew...You certainly did a super job with this image. I am loving the sharpness of your subject contrasted to the beautiful oof background. Well done!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Much thanks Bob!