So I don't know if I've mentioned it here before or not, but for a couple years, I owned my own pet store. I previously had been an avid aquarium hobbyist, keeping multiple fish tanks and terrariums with different species of lizards, newts, and my particular favorite - frogs. While owning the store, I had access to a lot more species of frogs, and I managed to secure some Vietnamese Mossy Frogs (Theloderma corticale).

Unfortunately, I've recently lost one of these frogs. After growing the frogs out from very young froglets (yes, that's a term!), I figured out I only had males. Each night, they call and call to no avail. And every once in a while, they decide to try mating anyway, and quite often result in drowning one of the frogs. It really is extremely unfortunate, and I wish I could get my hands on some female frogs, but after discussing it repeatedly with probably the top breeder - Patrick Nabors - it seems captive breeding produces more males than females, and thus females are pretty hard to come by.

Anyway - they're quite good photo subjects:

Technical Data: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, Tamron 180mm f/3.5 Di SP LD 1:1 Macro, 1/20 sec at f/3.5. ISO 400. No post production.

Why This Photo: I don't remember exactly why I took this photo, I was either messing around with the macro lens, or just taking photos for the sake of taking photos.

What Works: The focus is tack sharp right on the frog's eyes - revealing a good look at the beautiful irises. It also does a good job of capturing the texture of the skin on these masters of camouflage.

What Doesn't Work: The depth of field is a bit too shallow. The fact that the background is blurred is nice, but it probably would be better if the nose of the frog was in focus as well. The catch-light in the eyes of the frog are nice, but the fact that you can plainly see that they are two fluorescent lights is kind of distracting.

What do you think? These are cool frogs, and recently, I purchased another photo book to add to my collection. This one is called Frogs: And Other Amphibians (though I got mine much cheaper at Half Price Books) by Paul Starosta (apparently his whole site is in French, so good luck).

The new book has me thinking about getting more frogs, but for now, I figured I'd share some photos of the ones I have.

- Bill

PS: I made another kayaking video this weekend too. Enjoy...