Dusky Pygmy Rattlesnake

Gorgeous little bugger! I love the coloration. Where is he laying? Looks like he's on a welcome mat or something - that'll keep pesky salesmen away!

Bill, he's on a tree stump. :)

very nice pile of snake , I think you been to close because F/11 should be plenty........

VERY pretty snake! Nice catch!
What is the minimum focus range of this lens? You may have been too close, as Verdon suggested.
Also, most lenses are not perfectly sharp at the far ends of the range (either end) . Try to pull back from 250 to 230-240 or so as a max. That could be it, too.
Sandy

A beautiful but scary looking snake Barbara. I understand your 'focus issue' but honestly to me that is no issue at all. The most important part (the head) is in focus and the plane of focus is not super thin. From a shooting angle like this with a telephoto lens it will be near impossible to get the entire body of the snake in focus. I like the dark BG and the snake being well lit. This helps the image a lot. I do find the textures of the tree stump a bit distracting, mainly because it is not clear what exactly it is the snake is lying on. Also the BLC that overlaps the snake's body is a bit unfortunate. If you had moved a bit to the right that may have been prevented.

Very cool subject Barbara. I echo Vincent's comments, so won't repeat. I also like the colors and detail you managed. Nice work!

Neat subject, Barbara! I like this. The one processing tweak I would suggest is to darken the bright horizontal line coming in from the right, to make it less of an eye distraction. You have the important eye and color pattern in your focal plane, so I don't find depth of field to be such an issue. Yes it would have been nice to get the rattle and tail as well and other than what has already been mentioned, you have to remember that telephoto has shallow depth...so a solution is to get closer and use a shorter focal length!

Beautiful snake Barbara! Regarding your focus issue - I agree with Lon's comment, get closer and use a shorter focal length (yikes!).

Wonderful shot, Barbara. This is a typical foraging location for pigmy rattlesnakes, so I have no problems with the substrate at all. Snake in habitat. FYI, this is a young of the year pigmy, probably born within the last month. In Florida, almost all pigmies are born (not hatched - live birth) in July, August or September. They only have the bright yellow tail for the first year of life or so, then it darkens to gray like the rest of the body. They hold it aloft and twitch it, attracting frogs and lizards, their primary prey as youngsters, who mistake it for a small worm or caterpillar. The behavior is called caudal luring and is common among pit vipers. Young cottonmouths do the same thing.

Cute buggers aren't they? Well done here. I like the low angle and the side view as it shows the pretty coloration on the head and eyes quite well. All other comments have already been said but I'd like to echo the max focal length comment from Sandy as I've seen the same thing with my 100-400...it can be a bit hit or miss at 400mm but is usually spot on at 350mm or so. Still a very nice shot!

That's a very pretty snake. About the focussing issues: You haven't said how far you were away from the snake. If you take the distance as 70 inches, you would have only a dof of about slightly less than an inch, which is why the body is less focussed. At 48 inches, the dof is less than 1/2 inch! (These calculations are made using the specs you have given, viz. f11, Canon camera, and 250 mm lens.) If, however, you had used the lens at 100 mm, and set to f22, you would have got about 5 and half inches of dof, and would have been able to nail the entire body and head in sharp focus.

Nice shot of an interesting subject. The colors and pose are very attractive. DOF is always a challenge and long focal lengths exacerbate that. I have a couple of suggestions; If your camera has a DOF preview button learn to make it a habit to check the dof before you shoot. In this particular case, going to f/16 or f/22 might have gotten everything sharp, but you might not be able to hand hold, so be ready to increase the ISO as needed.

A beautiful subject! Very good color and sharpness. The DOF is also okay - f/16 might have been better but I am not sure because a narrower aperture in this case could put more of the background in focus too. The BG here is just fine.

A beautiful subject! Very good color and sharpness. The DOF is also okay - f/16 might have been better but I am not sure because a narrower aperture in this case could put more of the background in focus too. The BG here is just fine.