Toads
by Arthur Tiutenko
Common (European) Toads in a forest
This is an image from a series of herp-in-habitat photographs I am currently working on. I am using not a fisheye lens but a 18 mm wide-angle lens which doesn't pop the subject in foreground as a fisheye would do but this is just what I want to achieve. Since the minimal working distance of this lens is 30 cm (about 12 inches) the animals appear quite small in the frame so that the surroundings have to play an important part in the composition.
I am very curious about your reaction that I need to know to continue this project.
Technical details: EOS 5D Mk II with Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 3.5/18 ZE, ISO 100, f/16, 1/160s, 2 x macro flashes (one with a diffusor), little post-processing (curve, saturation, sharpening for publishing), minimal crop (about 5%).
Comments
3 commentsI'm a little torn on this shot. I quite like the extreme depth-of-field, and especially how ALL the leaf litter is in focus. But...while I totally appreciate what James is saying about the light drawing attention to the subjects, at the same time the minute I looked at the image my first thought was "artificial lighting" (i.e., technical issues dominated my first impressions rather than creative and/or compositional issues). I'm a fan of well-executed "animal-in-habitat" shots but to me the more interesting thing here is the toads in the leaf litter (and I'm not sure how much the darker background - including both the trees and sky - really adds to my impression of the shot). Just one person's opinion - I'm quite sure others would feel differently than I do.
Cheers...thanks for sharing this...
Brad
(The background with trees and the sky is to play the same part here as in a photo of large animals such as deer or bear where the distant objects are normally also visible. Usually I use a fisheye lens in such cases which exaggerates the perspective and makes the small animal look huge. I don't want this effect here and I also attempt to prevent distortion as much a possible which is so enormous in the shots with a fisheye. Certainly, as often with macro and close-up photos, I am using artificial light source (flashes). In such conditions it is the only possibility to make the foreground lighter than the background. This is recognizable in this shot - I understand what you mean, Brad. I had been trying different lighting but putting the animals in the light appeared to be the only way to draw the attention to them (as James has noticed). Otherwise they would be lost on the busy background (leaves, mud, etc.), and the image would lack perspective and look like a snapshot.)