Green crested lizard

A difficult session today, mostly because of mistakes on my part. I shot a whole herd of shots of two psych butterflies fluttering about the blue bloom, the same that I blipped the blue banded bee from. Unfortunately I rotated the EV dial the wrong way and over exposed by one stop instead of under exposing. I discovered the mistake after about fifty shots and managed a few more, but only one image was half decent.

Because I have blipped an in flight psyche then anything that is going to make it to blip has to be a bit special. The action is so fast and furious that it is all down to luck, playing the numbers game and today was not the day, no big deal.

Next, I found a blue jumping spider. Because of their small size, these too are very difficult to obtain a good image and once again I was looking for something special, being a repeat. While I was chasing the spider around, there was a loud crash and a huge disturbance in the bush next to me, a bit like a house brick dropping into the bush. This was particularly disturbing as this was the exact location of the double snake blip a couple of weeks ago!

I scanned the ground around me for legless lizards but all was clear. Next I scanned the bush and nothing. Then, just like one of those picture puzzles, that you have to stare at for ages before you can see the hidden image, the green crested lizard appeared in the bush in front of me!

I took about thirty shots before checking the preview, then realized that the slight shadows were exaggerated on the images and fill in flash was required. But these lizards have supreme confidence in their camouflage and I was able to collect another set.

I took an embarrassing number of mosquito shots, with no result. Starting to question the focus accuracy, may be time for another test, as most, but not all of the shots were focused short by a couple of millimeters. It could still be technique and the leaf was moving slightly in a breeze.

I tried for more carpenter bee shots, but didn't nail anything there, so the clear winner for the blip shot was the lizard. More concentration is the plan for tomorrow.

Dave