Western Ribbon Snake

[D. Robert Franz]

Photographed this western ribbon snake hunting tadpoles in duckweed covered pond during the 08 ICF Pro Tour from my permanant blind.

Camera Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Shutter speed: 1/800 sec
Aperture: 10
Exposure mode: Av
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Multi-segment
ISO: 800
Focal length: 1200mm

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I remember your fine images from that contest. I like the low angle. The eye contact is nice. A lower aperture may have helped blurring the body part behind the head. Overall, a nice image. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Harshad Barve]

Super image on all counts
TFS

[D. Robert Franz]

. A lower aperture may have helped blurring the body part behind the head. Overall, a nice image. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

Thanks for the kind words Saby... Notice I was using a 600mmF4 with the 2X.. I usually try to stop down a bit with this combination for sharpness. I like 1 full stop but here I just went 2/3 stop to maintain as much shutter speed as possible and still get better optical quality..

[David Smith]

Great image... Like the HA and the sharpness of the image. The tongue sticking out just adds to the overall appeal of the image..

Dave

[Todd Frost]

Nice image Dale. Love the look coming out of the duckweed. In an ideal world a little separation between head and body would be nice but you can't always get subjects cooperation:). Well done, I would be happy with this in my files. TFS
Todd

[thijs broekkamp]

Nice! Real cool how the tong came out and you see a part of his body in the background!

I spot some high iso effects (i don't know how it's called in english, the parts you get when the iso go higher)

[Marc Mol]

Great use of DOF here Dale, nice lighting, eye contact and tongue out, all good.
A little NR on BG would further enhance. There's nothing like a good prime to accept TC's well, this really proves that point.
TFS

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Thanks for the kind words Saby... Notice I was using a 600mmF4 with the 2X.. I usually try to stop down a bit with this combination for sharpness. I like 1 full stop but here I just went 2/3 stop to maintain as much shutter speed as possible and still get better optical quality..

Dale,
I missed noticing the 2x. Opening up 2/3 stops is not going to blur the background much. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Stu Bowie]

Good use of DOF, and I like the bright red tongue. If this was mine, I would run some NR on the BG.

[Austin Thomas]

Very nice Dale,

You captured the moment very well. Agree that NR would improve the BKGR.

tfs

Austin

[D. Robert Franz]

I'm getting comments about noise in this image.. It was shot at 800 ISO on my mk3 which should be fine. I looked at the original at 100% and really can't see any noise.. Am I blind? Here is a 100% crop. Are we seeing jpeg artifacts? Raw image looks OK to me. Color blotches are from the duckweed in the BG??

[Steve Canuel]

Noise looks more pronounced in the OP than it does in the 100% crop above. To my eye it looks mostly like yellowish spots made to stand out from jpg compression (and from a very close up view). And more noticeable on the OOF bottom strip than the area above the snake. Not really all that bad in my opinion.

[D. Robert Franz]

To my eye it looks mostly like yellowish spots made to stand out from jpg compression (and from a very close up view). And more noticeable on the OOF bottom strip than the area above the snake. Not really all that bad in my opinion.

And thats my point, I think the noise people think they're seeing is really just OOF yellowsish and light spots in the duckweed....

[Nate Chappell]

Love the red tongue and the low angle here Dale.:cool: