Animalistics

Taking macros from animals is always a challenge, especially when they're still alive.
With 100mm focal length you hardly can get near enough. Even with effective 150mm you have to move slowly and need much patience. This frog was very patient...

There are plenty macros of critters around, this one is slightly different with the colorful background.

Catching this bizarre meeting was not intended at all. The spider was very well hidden underneath the blossom.

Taking images from insects is a different art. Most of them won't sit around until you had taken your photo. You'll need some distance and a big focal length to get reasonable resolutions. In this range there is nearly no depth of field (~1-2mm) and you probably need a speedlight for sharp results.
This dragonfly was not yet ready to fly, so I could take a couple of nice images without a rush.

Another nice example for an extreme contrast shot which brings even modern camera sensors to their limits.

Sometime I've tried to capture one of these quick birds, but 300mm focal length is still a little less.
This image is a crop of about a quarter from the original image.

This shot only gets an interesting touch from the focus setting and some color spots in the background.

A lot of patience was needed to get this shot this way. Neither the bird nor the waves were very cooperative.

No, this is no montage. A lucky combination of illumination, background and angle of view created this szene without any intervention.

No words, just cold.

This shy bird could only be photographed using an excessive focal length of about 1200mm with the camera mounted on a reflector telescope.

I'm pretty sure this one deserved that break.

Are you also tired of cows-in-front-of-blue-sky-photographs? In this case a polarizing filter uncovered some clouds not visible otherwise.

Ever tried to take a picture of a flying butterfly? This one took more than one try.

I'm not quite shure how I disturbed this teen snow owl, but using a decent focal length even a fine fence can't stop from taking photos.