Astro Visual Photography

Walking around the botanical gardens one day in 2008 I had the opportunity to shoot many of Eastern Water Dragons that call the place home.

Eastern Water Dragon

OBJECTIVE:

Although these lizards were in a botanical garden setting, I wanted to get a shot that did not make that obvious.

COMPOSITION:

The choices were huge. It was warm and there were lizards everywhere if you looked for them. Many were simply sunning on the paths, others on logs or under bushes and trees. In the Japanese Gardens section I sure this one above. By walking around him and zooming in a little I was able to place foliage between him and myself to create some depth.

SETUP & SETTINGS:

1/200th – f5.0 – ISO 400. 180mm focal length. No filters on the lens. Hand held. No Flash.
The ISO of 400 was needed as the day was overcast and the scene darker than it appears here. By using a higher ISO I could use a fill flash, to make sure his face was well lit, without creating harsh flash shadows.

POST PROCESSING:

Sharpening and curves/levels to increase contrast. Then, using layer masking, I applied a selective sharpening technique to make sure that eye was sharp as possible.

END RESULT:

I think this photo has turned out much as I wanted. The low f-stop combined with the 180mm focal length has created a narrow depth of field which gives some feeling of depth to the photo. The foliage between myself and lizard boy there, along with the low angle, helps to give the impression he is in his natural environment and not sitting on a strip manicured grass.

I’d never been to a rodeo before (or since at time of writing) but figured it might be something different to experience. It was. Lots of action to shoot. One of the events was Barrel Racing and after taking many shots I decided to get a bit more specific.

Barrel Racing on Horse Back

OBJECTIVE:

To show the strength of the horse and that strength in action.

COMPOSITION:

As the horses make the turns they must slow up abruptly, and then accelerate away again. The sand flying caught my attention and I chose to try to catch that. This turned out to be quite difficult as the barrel was quite close to me so framing the horse as I wanted was a tough job.
I wanted to show the horses legs and chest muscles if I could and I don’t mind saying that it took plenty of shots to get one I was happy with.

SETUP & SETTINGS:

1/3200th – f5 – ISO 640. 100mm focal length. No filters on the lens. Hand held. No Flash. Overcast day.
I would have liked to use a flash for fill, but no one else was, and there were plenty of cameras around. I figured it must disturb the horses so I decided I better be polite and shoot without it.

POST PROCESSING:

Slight sharpening, and minimal curves/levels to increase contrast.

END RESULT:

The final composition isn’t exactly what I’d hoped this time. I’d rather have the horse a bit further down the frame but I can live with it. The 1/3200th shutter stopped the action well enough and the sand helped to hide any noise the high ISO might have introduced.

These colourful parrots called Rainbow Lorikeets are regular visitors to our area. I dug in a couple of logs in my backyard and sprinkled some wild bird seeds around and every once in a while, one will come down feed.

Rainbow Lorikeet

OBJECTIVE:

My objective was to show the lorikeet on the log and try to not have the nearby fence interfere with the main subjects.

COMPOSITION:

I wanted to show the bird clearly but also make it clear what he was standing on as well. Being that the log and the bird are taller than they are wider I went for the portrait orientation. The good old Rule of Thirds was well and truly tossed out the window here. I will use Rule of Thirds but only when the composition doesn’t simply strike me naturally.

SETUP & SETTINGS:

1/640th – f10 – ISO 500. 400mm focal length. No filters on the lens. Tripod. Flash. Early morning light which was low and creating shadows.
I used the flash here as wanted to lighten up the shadows and get the birds face as bright as possible.

POST PROCESSING:

Sharpening, curves/levels to increase contrast, cropped to create the composition as I couldn’t get in close enough to create it in camera.

END RESULT:

My external flash did a good job of filling in the shadows over that distance. This was necessary because the early sun was really creating strong dark areas. Shooting and cropping in portrait orientation allowed me show the lorikeet up on his ‘throne’ and even include a shoot of grass seeds that have sprouted up from seed the birds have missed.
The long zoom (focal length) of 400mm did a good job of blurring the fence even though I used an f-stop that creates a reasonable amount of depth of field.
The shadows still remain enough so I haven’t lost too much texture to the flash, and weren’t lessened to the extent where the early light lost it’s impact.

Composing wildlife can be challenging. Wildlife don’t often want their photos taken Quite often we are forced to shoot in the general direction and hope for the best. But now and then a creature, such as this little lizard, is happy to have a few moments in the spotlight.

Rainforest Skink

OBJECTIVE:

I was in the rain-forest and simply looking for anything that caught my eye, and this little guy did. He was just coming out of his hole on the top side of a large, fallen tree. He saw me and froze. But, millimeter by millimeter, he slowly crept further out, showing more and more of his body. I decided right then that I needed to get this shot before he was right out to try to show his home habitat.

COMPOSITION:

I chose to take a fairly close up shot of the skink as I wanted to show his features as best as I could. As he was moving, albeit millimeter by millimeter, I thought leaving some active space in front of him would help to give the feel that he was headed in that direction. Hence the area in front of his head with little in it. Active space is an area in your photo that usually devoid of any major elements in order to help your main subject in some way. It might be clear track in front of a race car to show where it’s headed for instance.

SETUP & SETTINGS:

1/400th – f5.6 – ISO 400. 310mm focal length. No filters on the lens. Handheld. Centre weighted metering. On Camera Ext Flash.
I dialed back the flash here to give just enough light to light up the subject.

The darkness in the rain-forest made it necessary to bump up the ISO if I was going to hand hold a shot at a focal length of 310mm. I wanted the shutter speed up as fast as possible so I settled with 1/400 at f5.6. I figured the close up shot didn’t need too much depth of field and getting a sharp photo was more important to me.

POST PROCESSING:

Sharpening was the only adjustment.

END RESULT:

I’m happy with the result. We can see the features of the lizard quite clearly and the moss that surrounds his home. We can see that his back end is still in the hole. The wide aperture of f5.6 and the long focal length have created enough blur in the background so as not to be distracting.

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