Photographing snakes

D.P.

D.P.

D.P.

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
32,662
I often encounter snakes on my travels but they typically slither away too fast for any photo opportunities.

More recently I have been seeing some black rat snakes fairly frequently (including juveniles in the garden) but getting anything reasonable from the camera has proved impossible. They are too fast and well camouflaged, and hard to get close to.

However I was at a park recently resting on a boardwalk when I spotted this guy:
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Gorgeous pearlescent scales.

Thing is with snakes they are really long, a 2:1 aspect ratio works better:

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Even better the snake had spotted a young pond turtle:

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There is a very slight softness to the head because this is the precise millisecond the snake started to strike. Sadly no striking photo, the turtle got away
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Shot with a D800 and 70-200mm f/2.8 VR.
 
^^^ Very cool eyes!
But I'm not going to get that close to a wild snake. :eek:

Next on my list is a rattle snake.
 
D.P. said:
^^^ Very cool eyes!
But I'm not going to get that close to a wild snake. :eek:

Next on my list is a rattle snake.
Click to expand...

Thanks DP, you can actually see my wife in the eye reflection :) Sammy's not wild he's as domestic as a python gets. Was playing with extension tubes just to find out how bloody hard it's to take pictures at that distance, shallow DOF, fixed focus on the floor with a moving snake. Burnt a few calories though :)
 
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