Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you took

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BillMcGighan
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Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you took

Post by BillMcGighan »

Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures where you yourself worked the camera.

The spirit of this theme is to show your best and your worst attempts at taking herp pictures. This can be a real test of your self confidence, since terribly embarrassing bad pics will sweeten the pot. Maybe we should even vote on best and worst of the first!

If no one minds I’d like to open this one to captive animals also, like a shot at the zoo.



General guidelines:
. One post per day.
. No more than 3 pics per post.
. Pics can be of great or poor quality, as long as they communicate the theme.
. Pics can be from any time in your library.
. If you like, paint a picture with any interesting short story that includes the themeand enhances your pics.


Theme 5 will follow next week on Saturday evening, unless contribution momentum slows to a crawl, then we’ll start it sooner.



Theme lineup for first group of themes:

Theme 5 Strange thing seen while herping (e.g. warning signs, oddball herps, uncommonly seen/rare things or herps, maybe just bizarre things seen on a herping outing.)
Theme 6 Camouflage (2 photos per post) If possible, a pic to demonstrate camouflaged animal, and a second where the animal can clearly be scene.
Theme 7 Photo bombs (human or otherwise) that get into the frame as you are taking the picture. These would include inadvertent herps that you didn't realize were there when you took the picture.
Theme 8 Dealing with the public, either a lesson or a lecture to a group of non-herpers, LE encounters, etc. The common thread here being a herper in an interaction with non-herper
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BillMcGighan
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by BillMcGighan »

Looks like a bit of a slow start to this one. Come on captainjack0000, you suggested this one! :)




I'll break the ice with my first herping video. In truth, this was about 1963 or 1964.
Electricity wasn't invented yet, so we had to watch TV by candle light.


It was taken by a wind-up, 8mm, fixed lens, Kodak movie camera, which couldn't do sound. (This was even before super8 film, whatever that was.)


The "in situ" part:
I took the camera out to my front yard to test shooting in sunlight and in shade; it actually had an adjustment for that which I assumed was an F-stop.
My little sister said she saw a garter snake near her sand pile; they were common where we lived; Garter Snakes, not sand piles.

I crept over and saw it, basking on the sand pile, not far from a rock wall.


The "contrived" part:
I grabbed some "night Crawlers", left over from a fishing trip, and tossed them, one at a time, near the snake. These large worms are candy to garter snakes!
Voila!





Think, if this Garter was alive, it would be over 50 years old! :oops: :roll:
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JakeScott
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by JakeScott »

Bill, I'm pretty sure this was footage from Roger Patterson before he recorded Sasquatch. Nice try though.

I don't have as ancient photos as Bill displayed because I simply wasn't even a glimmer in anyone's eye, yet. I do have a lot of photos from the 90's on film that I'd love to share, but those are sitting in a drawer and aren't pixelated yet. I do have some point and shoots from the early 2000's a well, but I'm unaware where those all went...sooooooo, here's one from a mere 7.5 years ago. I did little, to no, post editing. I did add a watermark that I placed in a strange place.

ImageStoreria victa by Jake M. Scott, on Flickr

Don't know that this is my "best" photo, but it shows a bit of improvement, if only slightly.

ImageAmbystoma tigrinum by Jake M. Scott, on Flickr

-Jake
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mtratcliffe
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by mtratcliffe »

Here are a few photos from me before I really got into herping.

Below is a Northern Watersnake I found devouring a fish back in 2010 at a park in DE.

ImageDSC00172 by zeonicweapon, on Flickr

Next up in a Five-Lined Skink I found while hiking in the Catoctin Mts in 2008. I'm actually fairly impressed with the quality of this one despite being at least 10 feet away and with a crap camera.

ImageDSC00941 - Five-lined skink by zeonicweapon, on Flickr

Finally, here is a blurry Squirrel Treefrog I found when I first moved to FL in the Summer of 2013. I can't remember if the light is from my headlamp or from the camera flash, but I've produced better photos at night iwth the same camera since then.This is about the time my passion for herping started to develop.

ImageDSCN0829 - Squirrel Tree Frog by zeonicweapon, on Flickr
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Noah M
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Noah M »

Here is one of my first from February of 2006. This is probably the first pic I ever took during a dedicated herp trip.

It was taken on a Canon G2 - one of the first in the Canon G series. It was a whopping 4 megapixel camera, and it had the tilt swivel screen - one of the features I loved most on it.

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Here is another from March of 2006
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I think things have improved for me a bit.

Here is a more recent image of a salamander, using a different Canon camera.
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Stohlgren
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Stohlgren »

I'm going to contrast early vs. recent shots of the same species. Starting off with the copperhead.

Here is probably one my first shots of a copperhead using my first camera back in '07. A Sony p&S, likely shot on auto. ISO was 1000, which this camera clearly didn't handle well. Not to mention a whole lot of other problems. (I ended up figuring out how to use this camera pretty well before making the jump to an SLR, but I still wasn't much on composition in my early days.)
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And a couple more recent shots with an SLR. This first one a posed photo:
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And an in situ shot:
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Noah M
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Noah M »

Looks like a bit of a slow start to this one. Come on captainjack0000, you suggested this one!
I requested this because I'm impressed with many folks pictures and I wanted reassurance that their early work was not as good as their current work. You know, give hope to a younger generation that indeed their photos will not always be out of focus and that over time their skills and quality can improve.

I think that my current work is an improvement over older work, but I don't think of any of my photographs as impressive so I didn't want to post too many "then and now" sets.
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Stohlgren
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Stohlgren »

Here's a few tigers.

An eastern from Missouri back in 2008. I remember being happy with this shot at the time, and while not outright terrible, it leaves a lot to be desired.
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Another eastern. Even nowadays I don't always get shots I'm happy with. During a breeding migration early in 2013 in southern Georgia, I was forced to take some quick voucher shots using just a single flash on the hot shoe due to some heavy rain.
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A gravid female barred tiger from southern Kansas in 2014, in situ. Good lighting and a little thought in terms of composition and depth of field make all the difference here. Even the dirt here helps tell the story, as this pretty lady just emerged from underground to seek out a breeding pond.
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Stohlgren
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Stohlgren »

Man, this topic is slow. Are people afraid to show off their crappy shots?

A timber from 2008 that I remember being very happy with at the time, despite the very harsh lighting. Now, not so much.
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And a couple of shots from 2013 that I am much happier with.
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Jason B
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Jason B »

I'll play...these were all shot with a Kodak Easyshare 5mp in northwestern Wyoming, 2002:

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Sceloporus graciosus graciosus

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Ambystoma tigrinum melanostictum

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Crotalus viridis viridis

-Jb
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Berkeley Boone
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Berkeley Boone »

Stohlgren wrote:Man, this topic is slow. Are people afraid to show off their crappy shots?
Ha ha! I was thinking the same thing. I've got a couple that I would like to contribute, but they are prints- and I'll have to scan them over first. I just haven't had time. Hopefully I will get a little time over the weekend to see if I can scan something to contribute!

--Berkeley
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Noah M
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Noah M »

Here are a couple more from southern IL from 2006 with my old Canon G2.

The technique was literally point the camera towards the animal and depress the shutter button several times hoping for the best.

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Rich in Reptiles
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Rich in Reptiles »

Berkeley Boone wrote:
Stohlgren wrote:Man, this topic is slow. Are people afraid to show off their crappy shots?
I've got a couple that I would like to contribute, but they are prints- and I'll have to scan them over first.
Same story for me. I have to (try to) find my first photo, but it's somewhere in the attic :lol: .
-Bethany
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mtratcliffe
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by mtratcliffe »

We need more blurry, out-of-focus photos. I would be really happy to have taken most of the 'bad' photos that have been shared so far!

Maybe for my next herping outing I'll just borrow my wife's camera!
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BillMcGighan
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by BillMcGighan »

DOF has always been a challenge for me, but a few years ago, I trashed all sorts of old shots taken at high speed with a low Fstop number; result =d head in focus - all else out.


It was easy in the dark ages with cheap point and shoots, like Kodak Instamatics. Most shots were junk, but you just accepted it:


1967 San Diego Zoo Galápagos exhibit with an Instamatic.


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2011 same enclosure:


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By the time I caught my first Eastern Rat Snake in 1971, Gulf Hammock variation, the subspecies, had been eliminated. To show one of the reasons, I took this pic with an Instamatic of two animals captured 100' apart, and within 4 miles of the type specimen location:


Image
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Stohlgren
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Stohlgren »

captainjack0000 wrote:The technique was literally point the camera towards the animal and depress the shutter button several times hoping for the best.
Haha. Been there. Just plop it on a rock or leaf and take 100 shots hoping a few are in focus.

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Nowadays I strive for something a little more aesthetically pleasing.

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And I try not to just stick with just field guide style shots.

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eminart
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by eminart »

I've been a herp fan since I was a kid in the 80's, but I really didn't start photographing them until sometime in the last decade or so.

Although I still can't compare to many of the photographers here, I'd like to think I've gotten better. Here's a photo from my early photography years of some anoles that had come out to bask on a chilly winter day. At the time, I must have thought this one was good enough to keep.

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BillMcGighan
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by BillMcGighan »

As always, you folks are great.


I found one of those narrow DOF pics; a young Spiny-Tailed Iguana in Mexico, 1987.
Even with the narrow DOF, I still missed getting the animal in focus! :roll: :roll:


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Josh Young
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Josh Young »

One of the first photos I've ever taken, from my parents old Kodak P&S of a diamondback found in my friends yard in 2005.

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Then shortly after was given my own camera of my own, a Sony bridge P&S camera.

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In 2008 I bought my first DSLR, a Nikon D80, and this was one of my first shots of it that I can find.

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I've since bought a Nikon D7000, and now shoot with a Nikon D7100.
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Aneides Aeneus
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Aneides Aeneus »

I believe someone asked for really bad photos, so I'll contribute one. This is not my first ever photo, but it is certainly one of my worst. I think water got into the lens or something.

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Eastern hognose snake.

And here is a much better photo (although still not on par with most of the photos on this forum) of a hognose I took with the exact same camera this year:
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-Ananth.
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noah k.
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by noah k. »

Not my first herp photo, but the oldest on my flickr and one of my first on a dslr.

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Three years later almost to the date.

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PrimitiveTim
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by PrimitiveTim »

Wayyy back in 08 when I first started photoing.

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Barry R
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Re: Theme 4 - First/early herp related pictures that you too

Post by Barry R »

I had a short stay in OK a few years ago, and I had an opportunity to meet and herp with
some great folks from Oklahoma City. One of them knew of an old house where some
new residents made it a hibernacula....

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Image004 by Paleosuchus, on Flickr

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Image003 by Paleosuchus, on Flickr

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Image012 by Paleosuchus, on Flickr

These were my first wild WDB and it will always be one of my most memorable herp experiences
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