Went out last night as it was the first really warm rain of the spring to look for Salamanders.
We found both Jefferson's and Spotted along with numerous wood froogs and spring peepers crossing a country road to reach a vernal pool where the activity was really high
This is a Yellow Spotted Salamander photographed under a translucent tent with four flashes
Nikon D3
105 micro vr
ISO 400
f16
1/125th
Last edited by john crookes; 01-04-2009 at 12:02 PM.
Very nice John, I really like the image. The expression, details and sharpness are great.
To me the lighting looks strongly side lit from the right, maybe the "tent" wasnt centered?
You are very lucky, We used to see Salamanders in So Cal (and frogs) all the time. I havent seen any in years! I really think they are all gone since there is almost no areas left unpaved except for a few natural areas. We never had spotted in so Cal though, what a great species!!!!
We are planning another trip to the vernal pool for Saturday
and I will try and Remember to take a couple of photos of the setup that i use and will post them.
Basically it is a table top light tent that is sold for product shots that we modify for outside photography by removing the background and floor so it can sit on top of whatever elements you have outside
I then use two sb-800's as my main lights and two sb-r200's as fill
they are all controlled with the su-800 comander on my d3 and the sb-800's are on group a with the fills on group b
you try and get you ratios before you start photographing your subjets and it helps if you have a friend with you to wrangle the critters as one photographs and then you switch positions and wrangle for the other person
this allows the photographer to concentrate on the task
Yep, a frog wrangler definitely helps! Sounds like a neat setup and looks like good results. A really striking image of a neat salamander! Thanks for sharing.
Continuing from where i left off here is a picture from Saturday night which turned out to be a dry night even though the forecast was for rain " Murphy's Law "
anyways the picture shows the tent set up over some natural material with the two SB-800's on the side with additional difusion material to soften the light and two SB-R200's set up on bars to direct a small amount of light downwards
Two diffusion reflectors set up in front of the tent to bounce a bit of light back into the subjet and under
Last edited by john crookes; 01-04-2009 at 12:02 PM.