Glad you liked the pics!

The frogs are actually housed in a fairly small wood and

glass enclosure. I'll see if I can find a picture of it and will

post it if I do. The light is good and bad - depending on where

the creatures are at the time. Only lighting is from the sun and

weather conditions play a part in the brightness too.

If I can find that pic of the enclosure I'll post it and call it "reptile

enclosure" or something like that.

Dale.

Were these taken in the evening or is it the bushes and trees blocking the light?

Bcz the lighting in the first shot is good but as i go through the coming shots after that..

I feel like a little more light would make them perfect (just my personal opinion and sorry if i m wrong)

Took note of your test and will try it out and check

back with you re: results. Probably do the test tomorrow.

Oksana - agree with Mandrake - please go back to single space!

Back to the tripod issue - I think you can probably save some $$$

by ordering online or checking out sales. You guys in the U.S.A. generally

get better deals than we do up here in Canada and it's something we

have grown to accept (not your fault...it's ours!)

Anyways - I have a lot to do today so I'm outa here and will let you know

how the test turns out.

Dale.

For a fun test, now that you have the pod.... try this.

With the tripod try manual focusing in live view at full magnification and no VR.

If at maximum focal length on a zoom back off just a hair and shoot at your aperture sweet spot.  (I like anywhere between f/8 and f/11.)

Use a cable release or the 2 second timer.

Manual mode works best for all of this... at least for me.  It's very easy to bracket exposure with shutter speed adjustments.

You will love the sharpness.

Oksana.... This spacing really, really is annoying. Out with the new, in with the old!

The little blue guy was only about an inch long

and very active. No tripod used on these shots.

I got a Manfrotto 290 ball head. $179 + tax, so that

was a pretty good deal. It's really easy to use and

quite light so I know I'm going to get a lot of 

use out of it. I didn't go for the 3 way ball head (got the

2 way for now) as it saved some $$$. Easy upgrade to the

3 way later if I decide to do that. May not though because the

2 way is really flexible and probably all I'll need for quite a while.

I trust the guys at the camera store and they suggested the Manfrotto

as a great tripod to start with and one that should last quite a while (hopefully).

Good luck if you get a new one!

What was you choice with the tripod and did you get ball or pan head?

I'm still thinking about a new one.

Thanks - glad you liked the pics.

I'm going to see about calibrating my lenses

now that I have a tripod. Will be watching the

video put out by Oksana re: front/back focus to

see if any adjustments are necessary. 

Here are some small toxic frogs and a non toxic butterfly.