photoartflightAmerican Alligators At Ding Darling NWR
This is a series of images featuring American Alligators from a previous visit to the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. Because Alligators are long and thin, it seemed to make sense to photograph them with some panoramas! This way you also limit a lot of empty water areas on top & bottom of the image making your subject alligator more the focus of your image. All images were taken with a Canon 400mm DO lens with a Canon 7D. The featured image is made from 4 images to fit all of the Alligator in the finished panorama. You also have to photograph your series of images quickly because your subject is actually swimming along as you are photographing them. So by photographing the series quickly it helps to minimize the slight difference in the overlapping images.
Head Shot, 1 image, 400mm, Canon 7D
3/4 Alligator Image, 400mm, Canon 7D (Single Image)
2 Image Panorama, 400mm, Canon 7D
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I absolutely love the four-shot panorama, Reed. I have never seen an alligator in person and never really think of them as long and thin, but that first show really shows the sinuous quality of the alligator wonderfully.
Thanks Mike! That was one of the biggest & longest ones I saw there. They are really quite wide, but a lot of the sides were under the water so it looks a lot thinner then it really was. When you are close they really have “creepy” eyes also!
I wish their eyes weren’t so creepy, lol!
Yes! Their eyes are very creepy! Plus sort of Adds to their dangerous evil presence!
Cool shots, Reed, those eyes don’t leave their sight on you, do they?! 😉
Yes! They are interesting to photograph, but sometimes it makes you feel a little uneasy!
That’s a great shot of the eye in number three. Not a good place for a swim, I think.
Thanks Steve! I try hard to resist Jumping in! So far I have succeeded the temptation to go in!
I wonder if, like wrestling, there are alligator bucking croc riders. 🙂
In this country, there probably are some crazy enough to try!