Lizzie’s new coat!

[Dennis]

Hello,

Our (wild) Eastern Water Dragon turned up again this morning; we call her Lizzie! She lives somewhere underneath our house and recently went walkabout as we hadn’t seen her for a few days.

Anyhow, she resurfaced this morning wearing a brand new coat, having shed her old, dull skin. She’s still wary of us – if we get closer than 4-5 metres she runs for cover although she does accept the occasional red seedless grape dropped from the lounge room window.

Canon 40D, 70-200 F4 L, 1/250 at F5.6, ISO 400, all set manually due to the dull early morning light, shadows and bright background “fooling” the exposure meter, but not me!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers

Dennis

[erick (Eric)]

Very elegant attire, Miss Lizzie. Sharp as, Dennis

[lacad01 (Adam)]

Wow, she's a beauty! Nicely captured with great detail

[Ric]

Great pictures Dennis, lovely detail.

They remind me of 60's Saturday matinee for kids, they always popped up in the dinosaur movies.

[RB (Andrew)]

Wonderful.

Very sharp detail Dennis but the "Bokeh" quality of the background is magnificent, especially in the 2nd one.

[h0ughy (David)]

wow like the 2nd one as well - very sharp and pleasing to the eye, the detail is phenominal!

[AlexN]

They are beautiful just after a shed.. My two bearded dragon's shed during this last week too.. Sporting their Sunday best

Just as an aside, I think Lizzie is a he.. The reason for this is the dark area around the eye and ear with the yellow border around it.. If lizzie in the next month or so starts to show a red patch under the mouth and on the chest area, that would be a dead give away! However I doubt that he will care much if you still call him a her! They tend not to care anyway.. My biggest beardie (Bubbles) is a female, however I have always called bubbles a He... She may grow up with a complex, but its doubtful!

Great shots Dennis, As Houghy said, phenomenal detail! They make fantastic photographic subjects in their fresh coats with their lovely poses!

[Dennis]

Thank you Eric, Adam, Ric, Andrew, David and Alex for those nice comments!

Lizzie is a very accommodating subject and the Canon 70-200 F4L is a screamer of a lens and these factors help make it an enjoyable pastime in grabbing a portrait or two whenever she’s around. However, there are times when sloppy technique produces poor quality photos so its good to get some sharp ones that validates the top image quality of the Canon lens.

Thanks for the explanation about his/her sex Alex; we have seen a slight flush of red on Lizzie’s chest and the yellows are usually quite strong, especially after shedding her winter coat. Nice to hear the news about your boy and girl too!

Ric – yep, Saturday morning matinees were a favourite of mine and the movie 1,000,000 years BC was just tops; maybe Raquel had something to do with that!

Cheers

Dennis

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by RB

Wonderful.

Very sharp detail Dennis but the "Bokeh" quality of the background is magnificent, especially in the 2nd one.

Agreed.

Dave

[Dennis]

I’ve taken quite a few photos of Lizzie from the lounge window and they look well, quite ordinary – just a lizard in grass! When Lizzie lounges on the BBQ wall it give me an opportunity to shoot from lower down, giving a less cluttered background. I’ve also noticed she is less jumpy when I’m lower down, my low position appearing less threatening to her.

One further challenge is that when Lizzie is at “home’, she usually comes out from underneath the house quite early in the morning with that part of the house still in shadow, so the lighting can be a bit tricky. Sigh, so much to learn about this art of photography; I thought that just owning an “L” lens would take care of it all for me!

Cheers

Dennis