Yellow Poison Dart Frog, originally uploaded by andyskelton-a Blog a day http://andrewskelton.net.
Dart frog… point… dart… oh well,I guess it wasn’t that funny. If ever there was an image I’ve been trying to capture for a long long time. If you’ve ever tried to photograph frogs in zoos, you’ll know exactly what I mean, how difficult it is. Surrounded by foliage, in dimly lit environments, camera shake is the enemy of such shots.
Luckily with the high ISO capability of the 1D4, things are made easier, but it’s still a trial trying to get good sharp images. In the absence of a tripod or monopod, the trick is to try and brace yourself on what ever is around as well as keeping arms tight into your body. These actions can certainly help reduce camera shake but there is one other trick that helps… holding your breath! It’s amazing, when using large apertures such as f2.8 to increase light levels, how when breathing the plane of focus can shift so dramatically. In some cases this can make for a very different shot, and I’ll be posting some images that exemplify this in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!
The golden poison dart frog, for such a diminutive creature, is actually one of the most poisoness animals on the planet and has enough venom to kill ten fully grown people. Interestingly, captive bred specimens that do not have access to their native food sources are not able to produce any toxins, which must be a relief to the zoo keepers or any of the frogs that have bitten themselves!
Andrew Skelton: 
Bitten themselves?! 🙂
By: jessiethought on 26/04/2011
at 9:07 pm
it was another poor attempt at humour – about a poisoness frog biting itself and accidentally poisoning itself! I said it was a poor attempt at humour.
By: Andrew Skelton on 27/04/2011
at 1:57 pm