Photographing The World's Smallest Frog

Photo by Steve Winter

Look quickly at this photo and you see a frog perched on something. Look closer, and you realize: It’s a human finger. The pose startlingly reveals the incredibly tiny size of the frog, Eleutherodactylus Iberia, believed to be the smallest frog on the planet. The out-of-focus background, in the Cuchillas del Toa Biosphere Reserve in Cuba, looks almost like a painted backdrop.

National Geographic shooter Steve Winter (www.stevewinterphoto.com) had tried many conventional shots—the frog on a leaf, for example—but wasn’t satisfied with them. So he tried posing the frog on the finger of a park ranger. “He worked the situation hard for such a little frog,” laughs an assistant. “That was the last situation he tried, and it was the one that worked.”

Hoboken, NJ-based Winter exposed Fujichrome Velvia 50 for 1/200 sec at f/22 in a handheld Canon EOS-1V and 16–35mm f/2.8L Canon EF lens with an extension tube. A Lumedyne strobe with fiber optic cable lit the frog.

-- Dan Richards (From the October 2009 Issue of Popular Photography)

Comments

[jeux psp]

Nice pictures!
I believe that a good photographer has different point of view from others to observe an object. He can shoot only special features of natures things. I think Steve Winter is one of them. Thank you so much for sharing picture and your experience.