Tiny Brown Frog
Nov, 2016Views
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Contest Finalist in Low Vantage Point Photo Contest
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GBloniarz
February 24, 2017
Very interesting shot!! Curiosity prompts the question as to how you achieved clarity on foreground veg, lack of clarity on the nose, and then clarity on the eyes???
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wild-west
June 05, 2017
If you noticed I talked about having a ring light. I have a whole big write up on this photo. Check it out when you can.
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wild-west
April 17, 2017
Thanks everyone! Using a 100mm macro lens I went for the eyes as the most important. Because of the sunlight it allowed me to achieve a unique
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
Cuyabeno, Sucumbios, Ecuador. On the equator in the Amazon Rainforest.Time
I am a sunrise kind of guy and getting good angled warm light is just the best. Working in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador right on the equator I really valued early mornings. The biggest challenge though was finding anywhere you could actually park the boat and get out on dry land. This day my team and I finally found a great place but you could not count on this same place tomorrow because of rising tides. You definitely want to maximize the time you do find little pieces of land to work on. Early mornings before sunrise is when we hopped into our boat. At about a hour after shooting the sunrise I was settling in on getting shots of this little guy.Lighting
This little frog was tiny...he could actually sit on the tip of your finger. Lighting was critical because of the rainforest canopy and I'm a pretty big fan of ring lights so I had just bought one and it was delivered just in time for my trip. It's extremely light, runs on double AA batteries had a dimmer and filter rings for diffusion and color temperature. If you look very closely on his upper left eye (camera right) you can actually see the ring light. Normally if you're shooting beauty shots of people you want the ring light to fit over the lens therefore eliminating any shadows on someone's face. In this case I wanted the light to emulate sunlight from one side. It worked perfectly.Equipment
This shot was created with ring light, a Canon 5D, no tripod (because you had to move fast...this little guy wasn't going to just put for any length of time) and that was pretty much it.Inspiration
In the macro world...the littlest things can turn out to be incredible. I was incredibly happy when I found this spot because it had these little street lamp little plants and such delicate tiny mossy fern-like grass sections. It really works that the frog is bigger than the plants. In the Amazon everything is double and triple normal sizes so I certainly did not want that.Editing
I was really right on the money in the camera for this one but I love going into photoshop and making it that much better. Having a good separation between browns and greens was really important and Photoshop helped me get that look.In my camera bag
I absolutely love my Canon 5D mark ii and my Tokina 100mm macro lens as well as my Tokina 16-28mm and my super light Canon 75-300mm. A ring light is extremely helpful in many situations and packs easily. I'm also a guy who sees to much to shoot in any one spot so I've got to have multiple cameras going. I have a GoPro Hero 3 Black and a GoPro Hero 5 Black. I usually put my GoPros on time-lapse on just about anything and everything. Rounding out the bag are plenty of media cards, plenty of batteries for everything, filters and mounting tools for the GoPros including a gekkopod. I also separately carry two other tripods and if I'm on a big job I can normally get bigger lenses, more filters, more cameras.Feedback
The macro world is anything but easy. It's really best to have a team behind you. You need someone wrangling the reptile, you need someone on a light source and in my case I needed a boat driver who actually helped in whatever else I needed. Start your day early. Prepare the night before with batteries all charged, cards downloaded and then reformatted. Do not forget your flex-fil and I like the soft-gold and white one...(medium size). All the best!
