African Rainbow Lizard

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:38 am

Well, my wife and my camera arrived safely back from Africa Monday. Jazmin (my wife) took around 600 pictures and I have to admit that most of them are very beautiful. She did a great job of capturing Africas`people & wildlife (Kenya). She did take some insect and reptile pictures which I will pass along to the forum. The insect pictures were not really macro macro, like the army ants..The Masai guides were shouting at her not to get to close so she didn`t

. These two shots are of a lizard she came across that was in a hollow log. It must have just shed its` skin, which is the best time to catch a reptiles scale colors. You can still see some dead skin on its left front leg and hind leg. It also looks like it lost the part of its tail at one time and has grown a shorter one back.
http://www.junglephotos.com/africa/afan ... zard.shtml

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:42 am

Sure is a colorful guy there Doug. Can't say as I have ever seen one before and it appears to be aptly named, thanks.

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:02 am

Nice news. We all worried about your camera.

Nice photos Jazmin and thanks for bring it back in one piece!

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:23 am

I was hoping that something would happen to the camera (after she took all the Africa photos), than I would have had an excuss to buy the Canon 350D I want next.

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:48 am

beetleman wrote: I was hoping that something would happen to the camera (after she took all the Africa photos), than I would have had an excuss to buy the Canon 350D I want next.

Hmmmm...

You should sent banana to some monkey at appropriate time to fix it.

Adrian · Post by **Adrian** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:15 am

that is one cool looking lizzard

, i love my 350d!

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:18 pm

I want a 350D real bad...oooops, I dropped my camera babe

, now I have to buy a new one

. Go ahead Honey, I know how you love your camera, take the money and buy another one

"THEN I WAKE UP"

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:59 pm

beetleman wrote:I want a 350D real bad...oooops, I dropped my camera babe , now I have to buy a new one . Go ahead Honey, I know how you love your camera, take the money and buy another one "THEN I WAKE UP"

Something to fuel your dreams: Canon EOS 400D / Digital Rebel XTi is on horizon.

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:25 am

Thank you very much Nikola...I was hoping they would come out with a new one before I bought the 350D. Usually you buy the camera and than they come out with the new one

10MP...Love it

salden · Post by **salden** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:42 am

That is pretty. Look at those colors. Now this is a great find. I would have taken at least 2 gigs of photos of this guy.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 4:13 am

Doug

Why not solve your problem by making your wife a magnanimous gift of the camera. Obviously she then cannot object to you having to buy a new one to replace it!

DaveW

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:18 am

That sounds like a good plan Dave. The only problem is, she does not like this camera. She says it is too slow in focusing, flash is not strong enough (I agree), takes too long time between pictures (she hates the 2 second display of the picture, which I leave on all the time

). When I tell her I want a new camera she always says "Is it faster" and I say "Yes". She is all for a new camera, it is me that is holding back. You just can`t get the camera, you need all the cool stuff that goes with it to take these beautiful pictures (which cost more than the camera

). It`s a big chunk of money to lay out. So I am just going slow for now (That 400D looks really "SWEET")

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 7:05 am

Doug

As I was 65 in April I bought myself a Nikon D200 and 60mm micro nikkor to change to digital as a "non retirement present" to myself after using a Nikon F2 and 55mm micro nikkor for 30+ years. Being self-employed in the building trade nobody else would buy me a retirement present, let alone a non-retirement one! The only way I could justify a £1000 body only camera was telling myself the other had lasted 30+ years, plus I then sold it for more than I paid for it as a "classic camera", so this one should last me out!

Now I really need to retire to have time to use it! Whatever you buy it is sure to be out of date next week because cameras have really ceased to be cameras anymore, they are just computers with lenses on them and suffer the same redundancy cycle computers now do.

You could always buy secondhand or "last years" model after it's big price drop when the new version comes out. After all the Canon 30D is very little different to the 20D. Prices on new 20D's will drop considerably now it has been superceded and no doubt you could pick up a mint, much better specified secondhand 20D for what you will pay for a 350D new?

An ideal site to compare camera specifications side by side is:-

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sidebyside.asp

DaveW

Mike B in OKlahoma · Post by **Mike B in OKlahoma** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:00 pm

Awesome photo, congrats on making it to Africa and doing some shooting!

Do post those army ant shots, I want to see those very much. I've always wanted to photograph that myself. Might make it to see the ones in Central America, but I doubt I'll ever go to tropical Africa.

By the way, the Rebel XTi (also known as 400D) is out and available at Best Buy and maybe Circuit City stores in the US. Not yet available from B&H and the big camera stores. I wanted a backup for my canon 1Ds and needed it before I travel to Europe next month, so went ahead and bought one, even though it cost more than will be at B&H and stuff. So far, I like the camera very much as a general camera, but the viewfinder is awful--it will be tough to manual focus in macro. Tom Webster had the predecessor Rebel XT, and greatly disliked the camera. If you do a search you'll find some blistering comments from him. The XTi has many of the same traits, though some improvements such as slightly better autofocus, anti dust (probably good, but unproven) and a bigger LCD screen on back. The extra two megapixels are okay, but aren't that big a deal, and some feel they may be a negative at high ISO.

I like the XTi as a backup, but for macro use I suspect you'd be happier with a 20D or 30D....Viewfinder is better, and that is critical for manual focus!

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:22 pm

Like Mike, I agree nobody should get too hung up on Megapixel numbers. My Nikon D200 has 10 Megapixels, but Nikon D50 owners with 6 Megapixels on our Nikon site (PlanetNikon) turn out some superb pictures that are almost impossible to tell at normal enlargement from the more Megapixeled models, plus having lower pixel density (larger pixel sites) on the sensor suffer less from noise at higher ISO numbers.

I was considering swopping from Nikon to Canon when I changed the camera, and the Canon 20D was what I had my eye on. But I learnt the 30D was soon to replace it and everybody expected it to rival the Nikon D200 in features and Megapixels. There was acute disapointment in the Canon camp when the 30D proved to be only virtually a cosmetic upgrade of the 20D at a greater cost. I therefore decided to spring the extra cost and stick with Nikon and bought a D200.

The Canon 20D is a great camera, the 30D is not much different, and both are I feel more suited to your requirements than a 350D. The problem is always justifying the extra cost, unless you buy secondhand. Of course there are dangers buying secondhand but most equipment is cared for by careful amateurs anyway. They sell it because they must be seen with the latest model. You can usually tell from the state of the camera if it has been "thrashed" and is "professional" looking.

I am not sure, but I believe you can also now tell on digital cameras what use it has had from the EXIF data because I was told there is a line for "actuations" showing how many times the shutter has been used, but am a little unsure on this?

You can compare all the features of the above Canons side by side on the camera comparison site I listed above.

DaveW