I enjoy taking a break from chasing the birds every now and then to chase one of the few other species located on the island. This is one of the five species of Iguanas that inhabit the island, Green Iguana, and the most prevalent even though it is an invasive species. These guys, outside of park areas, are difficult to get close to and forget photographing during ideal lighting conditions. Sunrise and sunset finds these guys in the top of the tallest trees and in the mornings they don't move around much until they have warmed themselves up enough. Therefore no "golden hour" opportunities, so I wait for rainy or overcast days to go after them. In parks you just have to sit and wait in the right area, with the non-habituated ones you need to use all your fieldcraft to get close as they are as wary as any other species. This is one I crawled to within close range, he stayed around long enough I started playing with camera settings just to see some differences.
Nikon D3s, 600 f/4 @ f.18, ISO 200, 1/250
Tripod with legs splay flat on the ground with Wimberley.
I wish the stick wasn't hiding his foot, but maybe next time.
Rotated image as in the original he was facing left, curve adjustment, slight shadow/highlight adjustment and USM.
He is something very different, glad you took the time to get the photo, it is excellent. You might try cropping it to a square image - cut off as much as the bottom as possible to get rid of the sticks
What a magnificent lizard, I love the way the colours glow with an iridescence making the image look almost metallic. I barely noticed the foreground stick, the lizard's presence and autocratic pose kept my eye focussed on him.
Hi Fred,
I like your image. I would definitely increase the ISO so that by using a faster shutter speed you will end up with a sharper image. I don't believe you need to go to f18 to obtain such depth of field as you most likely would have been able to use a f8 aperture. By increasing your shutter speed, decreasing your aperture and moving to manual mode and auto ISO, your D3s will surprise you. It is a magnificent piece of equipment. If at all possible, buy Robert O'Tooles guide to Nikon Owners and the changes that will happen will be astounding.
Thanks for sharing and best wishes,
Mark.
Very nice. I like the composition but would like to see a square crop from the bottom as Laurie suggests. Good IQ and I like the very dark BG. I am wondering why you went to F 18?
Gail
Nice detail and color. I don't mind the blocked leg but agree that some off the bottom will give you a nice alternate crop. Also curious why you went with f18.
Hi Fred, nice image with excellent IQ of this interesting looking creature. The colours are amazing and nicely managed. The stick is unfortunate but as mentioned in your preamble, nature does'nt allways give you the breaks. TFS something different.
The consensus is to crop the bottom, I'll give it a try to see how the square image looks.
Several people wondered about f/18, I should have elaborated more on what I was doing. I normally shoot in manual mode at either f/8 or f/9, adjusing the ISO to get a fast SS. As I said I was playing with the camera settings, this guy stayed around for a long time and only changed his head to watch a circling Red Tail Hawk. At f/8 or f/9 I cannot get the spikes on their spine in focus. Since this guy gave me the time I started increasing the f/stop to see the difference. I was also shooting multiple ISO settings so I had different SS at each stop. This particular image was showing the spikes the way I was wanting, but I could easily choose a different version but DOF does change. Soon after this shot he saw an opportunity to move and jumped into the water. Had he not moved I would have continued to stop down the aperture to see the results. Does it make sense now?
Thanks Morkel, it's not a species that people love, but they are fascinating when one takes the time to observe them. Plus being limited on species here they are great to keep the field craft tuned up for other species when I have time to travel.