Thursday, August 06, 2009

A Shiny Jet Black Snake

I caught a movement at the corner of my eye just below a rotting tree trunk as I turned to allow someone to pass. As I refocused my eyes on the object, it was quietly making a u-turn and heading away from me. It was a shiny jet black snake.
After the man passed me, I quietly waited hoping that the snake would resurface from under the tree trunk. Patience paid off again, the snake did emerge and I was able to get a couple of photos.As I suspected that it may be a cobra, I stayed well clear of the snake and made do with whatever clear windows that the undergrowth gave me to take some photos shooting with a 500 mm lens.

4 comments:

ShaoWei said...

there's a good chance you actually got a cobra!i'm guessing you wouldn't mind hunting for a king cobra next!!hope that snake wasn't near paths with major human traffic.

seeing your posts makes me wanna start taking pictures of wildlife too!for reference what camera are you using?and what lens would you say would be good for macro or long range shots you take?

Shirls said...

well this is the second cobra actually. I would love to see and photograph a wild king cobra. I've been told that there is one big individual living where i live but thus far i've not seen it. it apparently is quite agressive. Can't blame him as he must have escaped efforts to bash his head in many times. Yes, there are people here who make it a point to kill all snakes they see. That is why it took me 1 year to find a live blue malayan coral.

I own a Canon 40D, a tamron 180mm macro lens, a sigma 500mm used to photograph birds. The sigma lens was what I used to photograph the cobra.

Shawn said...

Great... Now you've got a cobra too! Let me see what snake you have not yet found...

Anyway, the sigma 500mm is a rather large lens right... it really looks good but even if I buy a lens I think 300/400 will do. That should be enough to photograph birds?

Shirls said...

Hi Shawan, actually there are many more. Top on my list now are a male n juvenile wagler's pit viper, the mangrove pit viper. kukri and the mangrove cat snake.

The sigma 500 is heavy and isn't suppose to be used freehand. You'll learn when you start shooting birds that no matter what lens you have it is never enough but there are limitations to the super long lens too. :-)