Phoebe and Frankie

The Columbus Zoo announced August 26 that the baby Asian elephant's name is Frankie (YouTube). On August 18 I found him and his mom, Phoebe, carefully playing in water.

Frankie is there.

Phoebe kept Frankie very close.

Phoebe loves to keep herself protected from the sun. (There's good flipbook action here 😃)

Gecko Project

I decided to use my hammer (macro lens) to take a series of pictures of a reptile (because I can get close) that I would then put together into one large, fantastic, detailed, in-focus, close-up, magnified image. A gecko was in a great pose, so I started shooting. Here's what I got in the end:

Malagasy leaf-tailed gecko (Columbus Zoo)

I learned a few things.

1. I can't just butt rectangular sections of photos against each other. I need pieces from here and pieces from there. (Most seams are a little obvious, but there are two that are pretty much invisible.)
2. I have to have a final image in mind so that I can cover the entire area. Even though no part of the gecko is in the bottom-right corner, I need pictures of that area to form a complete image.
3. I have to have good focus on everything. The bulk of the "tree trunk" is in focus, but not all of it. The depth-of-field is so shallow that I probably needed a picture of the foot in focus and another picture of the same spot but with the trunk behind the foot in focus.
4. I have to control exposure. Every time I pointed the camera at a different spot, the camera's autoexposure calculated something different, yielding, for example, the background in different shades of green.
5. I should use a tripod. That would allow longer exposures with a smaller aperture (greater depth of field) and would provide a platform for systematically pointing the camera around the area.
   

I tried to apply these lessons to my next gecko expedition and have started to make a composite image. The gecko was plastered against the tree trunk, so the pose is boring.

1. Taking irregularly-shaped pieces of one photo and putting them into a composite image is a pain.
2. I took a zillion pictures but still missed some empty space.
3. I still had out-of-focus spots among the zillions of pictures.
4. I used the camera's manual mode to set the exposure, using advice from the camera's light meter, and then left it alone. No sweat.
5. Using a tripod is easy.

I had some success in Toledo with a chameleon using only two pictures. For one thing, the animal was sort of in one plane, which is to say there wasn't a lot of depth. For another, the entire animal was in the frame so all I had to do was focus, take a shot, refocus, and take another shot. With the geckos, I pointed the camera all around.

Jackson's chameleon (Toledo Zoo)

Here are the two photos:

head, torso, back leg

tail, torso, front leg and foot

Why am I doing this? Making a composite image of the chameleon is reasonable, but the gecko job is maybe a bit much. I'm learning to use the lens and to make manual exposures, and it's fun when I'm not frustrated.

Columbus July 31

I was heading toward boredom with the Columbus Zoo, but I think that's because I've been going around noon. On my most recent trip I arrived at 8:00 and was rewarded.

This is Brian, a greater one-horned rhinoceros

This is a sloth bear, which someone on Instagram called a "lips bear." I had not heard that name, but the bear is also known as a "labiated bear" because of its long bottom lip.

Two sloth bears were outside, one male and one female. They apparently don't get along and there was some grunting at one another. I don't know which is which in these photos.

A Pallis' cat, of which I'd finally gotten a decent picture in May, was running around its enclosure, going so far as to come to the glass.

The baby Asian elephant's mom, Phoebe, spent quite some time throwing dirt on herself before she began eating from the net above her.

Phoebe's boy played with his ball. He's about age seven weeks. His name, Frankie, was announced August 26.

A blue-and-yellow macaw. I think it was trying to move to the wooden structure to the left but gave up. In my limited experience, zoo parrots would much rather climb than hop or fly to go somewhere. They use their beaks to hang on, but the tree branch is fake so it probably could not get a good grip. Or the bird was just stretching its leg.