Lizard - A perspective!

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Ashwini Kumar Bhat
Lizard - A perspective!
It was couple of weeks ago when I had made a quick tour to my native and walking in the areca nut plantation with the lens that love the most - 50mm f/1.8 on my camera body. I sometime force myself to use only 50mm and try to look the world around only through that. If I were having any other lens with me, I will get tempted and hence I would not carry any other lens on certain occasions. It was one such day and I had decided to spend around 30 min in the plantation looking for some opportunity.

A pair of lizard got stuck for my hunt and decided to start experimenting on them. Lizards are quite bold and allow you to go a bit closer than other creatures. But as I was on 50mm, I needed some extra intimacy with the guy to get something fruitful. as and when I was moving a step closer the guy was hinting that he would go back to the top! After couple of steps and around 10 min, I reduced the distance to around 10ft between me and him. Then, decided to test my old trick - stretching the hand with the camera to the full and looking through the viewfinder (where you get very very little view) to see if the eye is focused and if yes, click some frames and slowly pull back my hand. This trick seems to work with this guy, but the challenge was to get the focus right on the eye. As I was approaching in an angle, many a times the focus was there at the tip of his mouth and the eye was going OOF.

Then struck another idea - how about taking an image in the bottom up fashion! Sounded interesting! The challenge here was the exposure! the sky was bright and the subject is pretty dark and this time there was absolutely no way that I can see through the viewfinder! With the built-in flash there are only very few controls available and you cant bounce the light as well. Still decided to use the flash as just fill light, just to lit its underparts against the bright bg. The problem with the AF engine is that, in the condition of the high contrast, it ends to focus on the farther subject. Most of the time it was focusing to infinity! Being not an AF-S (silent), the focusing makes bit sound, which was of concern. Then after around eight to ten tries , tilting the wrist in such a way that the AF focuses on the nearer subject, and when the distance meter on the lens read that it has focused on the closer subject, I just stared clicking. After couple of frames, adjusted my hand a little and again clicked couple of frames.

The one that you are seeing here was the very first frame and I got only two successful frames out of six.

I was always wondering why the distance meter on the lens would come to any kind of help! Rest of the reasons I still dont know clearly, but at least for the purposes like this it would help immensely!

Sirsi, India,
May 09
D300, 50mm f/1.8, f/8, 1/250, ISO 400, built-in flash as a fill


Your thoughts would help me in improving further.
Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:36 am
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Ashwini Kumar Bhat
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My scribblings | My Portfolio


Ashwini Kumar Bhat  Joined CNP On 24 Apr 2008    Total Image posts 542    -   Total Image Comments 842    -   Image Post to Comment Ratio 1:2    -   Image Comment Density 43     -     Total Forum Posts 164

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Commentby Pramod Viswanath on Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:38 am

Superb perspective. I simply loved this way you have seen this scene, Ashwini. This image carries an instant impact with it and the Agama looking straight adds a lot to the image. Is the inclusion of second tree that we see on the TLC intentional?

How about making a A HUGE print as large as your room ceiling and sticking it up there? ;-)

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Pramod Viswanath
Frames from wild | My Blog
Our only limitation is imagination !



» Last edited by Pramod Viswanath on Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:40 am; edited 1 time in total

Commentby Pramod Viswanath on Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:31 am

I was also thinking as to how it would have looked if you made the same image with 50mm fish eye lens! :biggrin:

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Pramod Viswanath
Frames from wild | My Blog
Our only limitation is imagination !

Commentby Sriharsha Ganjam on Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:35 pm

You have out done the equipment buddy! I just loved the image and also immensely enjoyed reading the writeup. I have no words of praise for this masterpiece at the moment, as I am still speechless looking at this. I will surely keep coming back to this a lot of times.



» Last edited by Sriharsha Ganjam on Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

Commentby Ashwini Kumar Bhat on Fri Jun 05, 2009 2:05 pm

Thanks Pramod and Harsha!
Pramod, my intention was to have the second tree full. As this is a full frame image I have to get satisfies with as it is. Cropping a very few pixels from the top also would do I guess. Thanks for pointing that out. :)

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Cheers,
Ashwini Kumar Bhat
---------------------------
My scribblings | My Portfolio

Commentby Vijay Mohan Raj on Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:15 pm

Amazing perspective here, I wish there was some more fill flash here. Nicely seen here

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A creative mind is a restless soul...

Commentby Praveen P Mohandas on Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:45 am

excellent perspective here....

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www.naturebypraveen.com

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