Workshop Participant Photos

White’s Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D5200, Nikon 105mm Micro VR lens
ISO 100, f18 @ 1/60 sec

 

Today’s blog post is featuring the work of Barb Marszalek. Barb was one of the participants on the recently concluded Frogs of the World Photographic Workshop. To create these photos Barb was using her hand-held Nikon D5200 with a Nikon 105mm Micro VR Lens. Since the Nikon D5200 has an APS-C size sensor the 105mm Micro lens becomes the 35mm equivalent of a 157mm lens. Barb’s Nikon Speedlight was fitted with my custom-made tracing paper flash diffuser. I will feature this ridiculously inexpensive but extremely effective, do-it-yourself- flash diffuser in a future blog post. Barb did a great job capturing the White’s Tree Frog a-top of the brilliant red Bromeliad blossom as well as the Vietnamese Moss Frog – a true master of camouflage – on a large, flat piece of lichen and moss covered tree bark. Also you can anticipate the action of the Red-eyed Tree frog  as it is poised to leap from it’s perch on the pink bromeliad blossom. In the final image of the female Fire Belly Toad, which was photographed on a small lichen covered branch resting in the home-made mini-pond that I set-up for each of these workshops, Barb framed the composition quite nicely ensuring that the water extended across the entire bottom edge of the frame.

Congrats on the beautiful images Barb!!!

Vietnamese Moss Frog
Nikon D5200, Nikon 105mm Micro VR Lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog
Nikon D5200, Nikon 105mm Micro VR Lens
ISO 100, f18 @ 1/60 sec

 

Fire Belly Toad – captive
Nikon D5200, Nikon 105mm Micro VR Lens
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec

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Frogs, Frogs, & More Frogs, & A Salamander Too!

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec

 

The recently concluded Frogs of the World Photographic Workshop was a great success with the amphibians being very co-operative. The workshop participants came away with a stunning selection of imagery, of which I will share with you in a soon to be published blog post. A beautiful selection of tropical plants was sourced out to maintain natural looking set-ups to mimic what would we would find in the native habitats of each species we were photographing. This past workshop featured a couple of new additions as well – Dendrobates auratus dart frog and a Fire Salamander! Here are a few of the images I created in between assisting the workshop participants with their compositions and off camera flash techniques.

I will be hosting the next workshop in January and will likely mix it up a bit with some amphibians and a couple of very colorful, non-poisonous snakes!!! Please send me an email at info@andrewmclachlan.ca to be added to the “early-bird sign-up list” and you to can be creating stunning images of these incredibly beautiful and colorful critters without slogging through the swamp!

Do remember to click on each of the images to see the larger, sharper version.

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Fire Salamander – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Fire Belly Toad – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Dendrobates auratus – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

White’s Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Vietnamese Moss Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Dendrobates auratus – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
Nikon SB400 on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket
ISO 100, f16 @ 1/60 sec.

 

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Red-eyed Tree Frog Steals the Show

Red-eyed Tree Frog on Bromeliad Blossom
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100
f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

Saturday March 5th was the day of my first ever captive frog photography workshop. I will be announcing a second workshop in the coming weeks. Do contact me if interested to have your name added to the short list. We had three participants for this inaugural workshop and after some initial instruction on the use of a macro flash bracket and flash positioning they were off and running, creating fabulous images. I will share some of their images here on the blog once they are able to process and send me some low-res image files. Without a doubt, the ever-popular Red-eyed Tree Frogs stole the show. Tree frogs have a way of doing that with their fabulous expressions and long-gangly legs making for great poses. Here are a few images that I created in between assisting the workshop participants. I also created a mini-pond for some aquatic set-ups with the Tomato Frog and Budgett’s Frog and a large piece of lichen covered tree bark was used to compliment the Vietnamese Moss Frog’s superior camouflaged coloration. A BIG thanks also to the amazing staff at Reptilia Zoo for all their superb assistance during the entire workshop. Since the workshop also included the cost of admission to the zoo, we were able to spend several hours photographing some of the highly venomous and lethal snakes in their enclosures, such as the Black Mamba and King Cobra. Stay tuned for those images in a future blog post.

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog on Bromeliad Blossom
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 1 , f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Red-eyed Tree Frog on Bromeliad Blossom
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 1 , f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Budgett’s Frog Emerging From the Water
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 1 , f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Tomato Frog on Rock in Mini-pond
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 1 , f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Vietnamese Moss Frog on Lichen Covered Tree Bark
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 1 , f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Vietnamese Moss Frog on Lichen Covered Tree Bark
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 1 , f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

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Frogs, Frogs, & More Frogs

Red-Eyed Tree Frog walking along branch- captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Flash Bracket

I often receive kind words from the folks that follow my Instagram feed (@mclachlanwild), Facebook page, and here on the blog regarding my frog photography. It is these kind words that keep me inspired to keep creating and trying out new ideas with my frog imagery. About a week and a half ago I booked a controlled photo shoot with various, captive, tropical frog species.  This photo shoot was planned for two main reasons with the first being to add some very cool frogs to my image library, and secondly to see if such a set-up could work for frog photography workshops. I am pleased to announce that I will indeed be organizing frog workshops, under controlled conditions, with several captive frog species. Please do stay tuned as I will announce the details soon. This blog post is just a taste of the kind of imagery that will be created during the workshops. I created no less than 500 images during the session and still have numerous images to optimize. While I do enjoy wading through wetlands and laying in the muck to capture the various frogs of the Great Lakes Region, it is a nice change of pace to create imagery of these beautiful tropical frogs species under controlled conditions whereby you will stay clean, warm, and dry 🙂 Please feel free to shoot me an email at info@andrewmclachlan.ca if you are interested in this upcoming workshop and I will be sure to add you to the contact list.

The frogs species that I photograph during this controlled shoot were:

• Red-Eyed Tree Frog – endemic to Costa Rica
• Budgett’s Frog (also known as Paraguay Horned Frog) – South America
• White’s Tree Frog – endemic to Australia
• Vietnamese Moss Frog – endemic to Vietnam
• Tomato Frog – endemic to Madagascar

My favorite frogs to photograph during this controlled shoot were the highly aquatic Budgett’s Frog, which is a voracious predator quite capable of devouring prey as large as mice, and secondly the Vietnamese Moss Frog. Moss Frogs have amazing coloration and skin textures, which allow them to blend into their native habitat along river banks in Vietnam.

Here is a selection of the various species that were photographed during this session. Each of these species will most likely be featured in the first workshop. Also note that each of these images was created using a handheld rig with a small Nikon SB400 Speedlight (now discontinued) on a Wimberely F-2 Macro Bracket

Please do remember to click on each of the images to view the sharper, larger version 🙂

Budgett’s Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Vietnamese Moss Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberely F-2 Macro Bracket

 

White’s Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Tomato Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Budgett’s Frog on land – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Macro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberley F-2 Macro Bracket

 

Vietnamese Moss Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberely Macro Bracket

 

Vietnamese Moss Frog abstract – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberely F-2 Macro Bracket

 

White’s Tree Frog – captive
Nikon D800, Nikon 105mm Micro Lens
ISO 100, f22 @ 1/60 sec
Nikon SB400 Speedlight on a Wimberely F-2 Macro Bracket

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