Some people say that lightning doesn’t strike twice.

Well, some people are wrong.

Quite possibly my second favorite animal that I had the pleasure of photographing this summer was the box turtle seen in these photographs.¹

This time, the turtle was younger, more orange, and more skittish.

I was out strolling with my parents to the cul-de-sac and back. Towards the rear, someone spotted an unusual shape in the distance.

I took a look at it through my camera, and yep, it was a box turtle.

He wasn’t the most receptive to photography, but he didn’t shy away from me either, in part because I was able to keep my distance.

He may have looked a bit askance at me when I was more head on…

And, once my folks and I moved on, he moved on too.

About this lens

I was using the Olympus 75-300 II lens for Micro Four Thirds, a relatively light-weight telephoto with quite a long focal length (equivalent to 600mm on a full-frame camera.) When the lens is at 75mm, it’s roughly the size of a soda can.

It does have a learning curve and can be unforgiving. It’s an older design, with a slower aperture than anything at a similar focal length (but then, of course, that’s why it was a good price.) It lacks any optical stabilization, other than the in-body stabilization offered by the GX85.

The long and short of this, is that I get better results when I use the shortest shutter speed possible, and it is good when the subject is relatively still, like this turtle was. That gives me the opportunity to retake a duff shot, as I hone my skill using this thing. :)

¹ Second, of course, to the majestic turkey vulture.