Friendly Neighborhood Alligator

Here’s a shot taken with my Pentax ZX-30 loaded with Fujifilm’s Velvia 100. It was pretty dark in the swamp but I was able to brace the camera on a fence post thus stabilizing it for the slow shutter speed (1/15) necessary to get the properly exposed photo with the 70 to 300 zoom (zoomed in to 300mm) wide open at f5.8. It’s amazing how you can get great photos with extremely slow shutter speeds if you just take the time to brace your camera or better yet, use a tripod (mine was not with me this time).

Here is another photo taken with the same set up but zoomed out to only about 90mm and the lens wide open to about f4.5.

My guess is that I was probably about 50’ to 60’ away behind a hurricane fence taking these pictures. I was able to put the lens through the hole in the square mesh of the fence and wrap a couple fingers around a nearby post for extra stability.

A high res film scan would yield better resolution and the Velvia color balance is a little too warm for my taste but overall I’m very happy with the results.