So this photograph was interesting.  That is the taking of it was interesting.  If by interesting you mean waiting for days to get a cottonmouth on your glass only to blow it by not having a fast enough shutter speed.

There is a place near where I live called Francis Beidler Forest.   It’s a wonderful place tucked away into the middle of South Carolina, run by the Audubon Society, consisting of a mile-long boardwalk (or something like that – cue lots of google’d facts about this place).  Well, the boardwalk covers lots of brackish water, swamp, pine forest, etc.  Lots of snakes.  And lots of cottonmouths.

Well, I like to wander forests looking for snakes.  And because I grew up on a river in the Mississippi Delta, I have a fondness for cottonmouths.  From a distance of course. (I sat a foot from one for a few minutes when I was 9 but that’s another story)  I had heard great things about Francis Beidler Forst and how many snakes and cottonmouths were there.  “Oh you can’t go and not see a cottonmouth.”  (yeah, right)

So I rented a 300mm f/4 IS lens and borrowed a 1.4x teleconverter from a friend and off I went to Francis Beidler.  I arrive at 9am.  First one there.  Boardwalk to myself.  Slowly I walk (if you can call it walking) down the boardwalk, taking shots of ibis and egrets and herons, among other things.  Then, with tripod in hand, I spot a snake in the water below.  I instantly knew it was a cottomouth.  Looked young-ish (it was very colorful).  My body became rigid.  I calmed myself and setup the tripod for the best shot I could take from the boardwalk.  I fired off a few shots, adjusting the exposure compensation down a bit (I shoot aperture priority most of the time), thinking the dark water would affect the exposure.

I guess he saw me and wanting nothing to do with me or my camera, he left, cleverly hiding in the middle of some fallen trees, remnants of hurricane Hugo.

I get home and check the shots on the screen.   The photos were blurry.   I looked at the shutter speed: 1/5 second.  What?  Are you kidding me?  Am I kidding myself?  What is my ISO?  250.  That’s right, 250.  Here I am, at 9am in the middle of a forest, dense tree cover, no matter how bright it is outside (and it isn’t that bright at 9am) there is such a tree canopy that the light is never crazy bright.  It is crazy contrasty because of the trees, but never overall bright.  And what did I have my ISO set to? 250.  1600? No.  800?  Nope.  Even 640 or 400?  Oh, no.  250.  Now, I have a Canon 1D Mark III.  It can handle 800 ISO fairly well, even in lower light.  800 ISO would have given me 1/15 second.  Not great, but better.  Remember I’m using a tripod so it’s mainly subject movement causing me issues (which is actually something else I didn’t think about).

What else did I do wrong?  I was shooting at f/9.  I’m sure I was thinking, “I want to make sure everything is sharp and I’m shooting down into the water, not much DOF so let’s use the sweet spot.”  Mistake.  I should have been wide open on that 300L lens.  With the 1.4x that would have been f/5.6.  That would have given me 1/40 second.  The snake was pretty still when I took the photo above.  I think 1/40 second could have been sharp.

So instead of shooting at f/9 (which may have been there from shooting a plant or something earlier) at ISO 250, I should have been at f/5.6 at ISO 800, which should have given me 1/40 instead of 1/5.

Awesome, huh?   The spider is nice though.