This is what a photo of that octopus looks like without an achromatic lens. I have to dump it to black and white to get the colours to work as they should.
Tag Archives: Akron Zoo – Akron
Viper Moray Eel
“You’ve got something in your nose.”
Spot Prawn
The important thing to remember about evolution is that nothing is moving along any sort of master plan. Evolutions just sort of steps in and tweaks stuff until it’s good enough for survival. Then it tells the critter “go eat something and have sex”.
Many evolved features make more sense when you keep this mind.
Lookdown
My approach to photographing fish in aquariums is to use a lens that can be placed directly on the glass, then use a flash to direct light at the fish. This keeps the focal plane parallel to the air/glass and glass/water boundaries, so you don’t get odd refraction ruining the shot. It also blocks extraneous light from bouncing off either of those boundaries and into the lens, where it could cause glare that also ruins the shot.
However, if the fish is really shiny, even this approach doesn’t give you a great shot as it can easily be over- and under-exposed in the same image. I typically aim for under-exposure in this situation as, while not as accurate as I’d like, it does create a rather striking image.
White Stork
This is the same stork that brings the babies in all those European fairy tales.
He sure is tired.
Ring Tailed Lemur
Lemur suddenly realizing that this blog is full of interesting commentary intermixed with alternative facts.
Porcupine Puffer Fish
It’s not a trick of the light. Their eyes really do look like that.
I have no idea why.
Cave Dwelling Rat Snak
Thinking about getting one of these to put in my basement ceiling.
Plumose Anemone
There. Now you know what an anemone mouth looks like. You don’t have to learn anything else today.
Giant Pacific Octopus
It turns out that one of the lenses I picked up at the National Camera sale last summer is achromatic. This means that, unlike most of my aquarium shots, I can use it to shoot through curved glass and not get weird colour effects.
So here’s an octopus for you.
Black and White Ruffed Lemur
Yep. It’s Monday.
Purple Mouth Moray Eel
“Hey! Did you ever think that maybe Sean Spicer is just writing (and presenting) political fanfic?”
Fruit Bat
Bats are disappointed to learn that published march numbers only include humans.
Duck
Duck pondering the idea that, if you give the top level of government to a bunch of billionaires and the first thing they do is take away people’s health care, using job lock-in to prevent them from exploring entrepreneurial opportunities, that maybe that alone is proof that trickle down economics doesn’t work.
Atlantic Triton Snail Eggs
These are Atlantic triton snail eggs. There’s no joke here because snail eggs are just cool. Look at the cool snail eggs.
Sea Apple
This is the mouth on the “apple”.
Sea Apple
Once upon a time, a naturalist saw these and thought “apples”.
I like to imagine early naturalists as people who’d wander around testing random stuff to see if it was edible and, as a result, were constantly tripping as they named things.
Krill
I went to the Akron Zoo today to see their reef exhibit before it closed. As many of you know, I love shooting seahorses. However, they were all hanging out at the bottom of the aquarium and I couldn’t get a good angle. Luckily, their food was free swimming and well in range.
This is a krill (or something krill-like). This little guy is about three millimeters long and about half a millimeter wide. It is capable of moving in three dimensions just slightly faster than autofocus allows. I took this shot, free hand, with the help of a single solitary flash.
This may be the most challenging normal* photo I’ve ever taken … so even though I’m not caught up on processing, I’m posting this one early to brag.
* The non-normal photos I took in Nicaragua are more challenging, and that is why the photos have paused. I need to finish those suckers.