My 1st Diamond

[cfcRebel]

back. Yupe, 1st time i got that close to a wild diamondback rattlesnake. I think (s)he is beautiful.

C/C is welcome.

[Wayne Wood]

so how close is that close , you are right though they are beautiful nice shots Rebel

[Spirit]

I hope that was zoomed!! YIKES! Don't get dead, dude.

Great find!

[cfcRebel]

Thanks y'all!
I remember i had to move to the minimum focus distance of my lens, and that's about 4.5 ft. :D
Its tail did not rattle though (friendly sign?).

[dancad]

Wow...that second picture is something else.

[Leorooster]

Great shots! Love the close up. Very sharp. 4.5' is pretty darn close; it could have made a strike from that distance:confused: :confused:

[LazyPhotographer]

Nice shots... of something we're intrigued by. But dude, you could have been killed. Next time, pick him up so he can't bite you. Geesh. ;-)

Only kidding!! Be careful, will you?!! Remember Rocky and his gator? We don't hear much from him anymore. Hmm...

[cfcRebel]

Thanks for the kind words dancad, Leo and Lazy. :)

Nice shots... of something we're intrigued by. But dude, you could have been killed. Next time, pick him up so he can't bite you. Geesh.

Only kidding!! Be careful, will you?!! Remember Rocky and his gator? We don't hear much from him anymore. Hmm... Thanks Lazy! Now i got goosebumps. :shock:
I think Rocky was doing alright. ;) Someone posted Rocky's thread on dpreview forum not too long ago.

[Stephen Stephen]

Wonderful close-up and great camoflage

[PhotosGuy]

Nice shots!

[cfcRebel]

Thanks for looking Stephen, Frank.
:)

Here's another shot from a safer angle.

[Spirit]

Remember Rocky and his gator? We don't hear much from him anymore. Hmm...

I wasn't going to say anything for fear of sounding looney tunes, but I've been wondering where Rocky was for MONTHS now. He had one hell of a photographic eye. He's missed by me!!

(to the tune of "Shane") Come back Rocky! COME BAAAACK!

Seriously, does anyone know why he doesn't post here anyone? If anyone still hears from him, it would be awesome if he could come back and say hi. :)

(SORRY! I don't mean to hijack the thread... As you were now!)

[Scottes]

If you do this again, can I have your gear?
:-)


Nice shots, but kinda scary.

[cfcRebel]

Thanks Scott.
Who still wants a 300D nowadays? :D

[tupe]

Great captures, CFC. Um, there are shots that can take your breath away, but this kind might not give it back later. Be careful out there!

[cfcRebel]

Thanks tupe. I sure will. :)

[Blackburnian]

Nice Shots, Nice camo!

The only snake bite I ever had came in a shooter glass full of tacquila! Still Deadly!

[loebas]

A trilling photo !!!. you must have had chickenskin!. Be carefull

[cfcRebel]

Thanks for looking Blackburnian, loebas. I appreciate the advice.
:)

[tommykjensen]

I wasn't going to say anything for fear of sounding looney tunes, but I've been wondering where Rocky was for MONTHS now. He had one hell of a photographic eye. He's missed by me!!

(to the tune of "Shane") Come back Rocky! COME BAAAACK!

Seriously, does anyone know why he doesn't post here anyone? If anyone still hears from him, it would be awesome if he could come back and say hi. :)

(SORRY! I don't mean to hijack the thread... As you were now!)

Don't knwo why Rocky don't post here anymore but he is active on dpreview so the Gator Clyde did NOT eat him ;)


Great shots of something I would never have the nerve to take a photo of. I think the photos would come out severely blurred even if shutter speed was set to 1/8000 http://photo.klein-jensen.dk/smilies/scared.gif

[cfcRebel]

Great shots of something I would never have the nerve to take a photo of. I think the photos would come out severely blurred even if shutter speed was set to 1/8000 http://photo.klein-jensen.dk/smilies/scared.gifLOL! :lol: Thanks Tommy. I'll make sure my next lens has IS.

[Spirit]

Don't knwo why Rocky don't post here anymore but he is active on dpreview so the Gator Clyde did NOT eat him ;)

PHEW! He was one of my favorites around here. Thanks for the update!

[tommykjensen]

PHEW! He was one of my favorites around here. Thanks for the update!

I posted a msg to him on DP so hopefully he will be back soon.

[tommykjensen]

PHEW! He was one of my favorites around here. Thanks for the update!

I got following response from Rocky:

I quit going there because of the way it has changed to the way you have to show your images. Tell everyone over there that I'm still kickin, and Clyde hasn't got me yet. Haha! Nice to hear from you. Glad you liked the shot.

Not quite sure what he means.

[Spirit]

Does he post under "Rocky" there too? I can't find him! Thanks for the update!

[tommykjensen]

Does he post under "Rocky" there too? I can't find him! Thanks for the update!

He posts under "Rocky II"

[Spirit]

BAH! I can't find him (no Rocky-anything in the members list and searches are coming back with no results).

Thanks for the information though, TJ. Glad he's doing well. PM me please if you can link me to something over there... I feel not so good about hijacking this thread.

(edit) D-OH! I was looking in the "dp" forums, not "dpreview" forums. hahaaa!

And now, back to your regular scheduled programing. :D

[chemicalbro]

ooof cfc you need to be more careful ...as leo said that snake could have made a strike from 4 feet away.... NO PROBLEM...... although if it did tag you, they more than likely have anti-venom in your local hospital , lets hope it doesn't come to that tho... as you said it wasn't rattling, the thing is with diamondbacks is they only rattle as a last resort (it blows their camouflage otherwise)

its cool getting such good and clear shots , but not worth getting killed in the process....

have you ever seen that austin stevens guy on discovery.... he;'s always nearly getting tagged by snakes as he photographs them and he's a snake EXPERT........ apparently the noise of the shutter is enough to make them strike.....

the good thing about diamondbacks tho is that they are usually very reluctant to strike.....
i got this from a website of a guy studying them

"Recently I performed a crude experiment to test how complacent the eastern diamondback is. I purposely stepped twice on a rattler coiled under a clump of muhley grass. When I tried to capture it, I was shocked to discover that under my other foot my weight had been bearing down on a second snake coiled under an adjacent muhley grass clump! During the episode, neither rattler moved nor rattled.

I believe there are two reasons why the eastern diamondback is reticent. First, the tendency to lie still and not rattle assists the rattlesnake in remaining camouflaged. Second, in the open pine forests of its native habitat, there are no places to escape from large predators. Rattling, which may have evolved to keep Pleistocene mammals from trampling rattlesnakes, became a distinct liability for eastern diamondbacks when people came on the scene. Native Americans would have been attracted to any rattling snake as an easy source of food, and eastern diamondback remains have been found in ancient Indian middens."

WHAT ever you do don't try and photograph a black mamba := (those can move faster than you can run) native to Africa tho so don't see you finding any (phew)

[tommykjensen]

have you ever seen that austin stevens guy on discovery.... he;'s always nearly getting tagged by snakes as he photographs them and he's a snake EXPERT........ apparently the noise of the shutter is enough to make them strike.....


Yeah I have seen him and its scary how the snakes strike at the camera and the lens is almost always covered in venom. I have also seen the program about the Loma Linda hospital that treats snake bite victims. Its kind of scary to see the result of snake bites.

Theres also the other big guy that rides a motorcycle, I can't remember his name. In one program one of his colleagues also got bitten by a snake and he was in critical condition as far as I recall.

[thomascanty]

Nice shots. I've been seeing quite a few of these this year. Never when I have a camera handy, though.

[Dragonslayer]

Fee, nice shots of the Rattler here and you had enough working distance here as snakes like this can only strike out 1/3rd to 1/2 their body length and when they are coiled up not when they are laid out lenght wise as this one is. Caution is always a great thing to keep in mind when shooting these the bite is dangerous and will cause severe damage to tissues, muscle and nerves and without treatment you could die. If this snake was 6 foot long it could not have reach more then 3 foot on a strike and that would be from a coiled up or bunched up position. Now where was the Bigma at?

[sorashell]

Beautiful pictures! I have a feeling this one just had a meal and was sunning itself and too busy digesting to get all riled up. It actually says alot about you as a person, that you could walk up and take the shots like that. They're really good at interpreting fear/aggression and react alot more strongly to someone if they're freaked out.