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Cellpic Sunday – The Agama Lizard

The Agama Lizard.

October 2024

Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Our safari driver, Irving, always has a sharp eye, even for the smallest wildlife. Truthfully, though, anyone with working color vision could have easily spotted this colorful lizard. We stopped by a tree and beheld the most colorful lizard I’ve ever seen. This specimen was about a foot (0.3 m) long. Male agamas often exhibit striking colors, especially during the breeding season. They may display bright blues, reds, or yellows to attract females and intimidate rivals.

About the photo: I didn’t need my Nikon D500 with the 200-500 mm lens to capture an image so close to our vehicle. Indeed, I could have reached out and touched this little guy, though I suspect he wouldn’t have liked it. I grabbed my S23U Samsung cell phone and captured a couple of quick snapshots.

I originally processed this image shortly after returning from South Africa, but I decided to try to improve the processing for this Cellpic Sunday post. Specifically, I initially used Adobe Lightroom Classic to do basic processing. For this reprocessing, I aimed to use one of the adaptive Blur Background presets to provide a shallow depth-of-field effect to remove the background clutter from the area behind the tree. I explored the preset options after creating a square crop for the photo. Since the tree and lizard are so close, I opted for the strongest depth of field preset, and after a few moments of processing, Lightroom Classic provided a pleasing background blur in the area behind the tree. Finally, I gave the photo a slight vignette to help highlight the bright-colored subject. For a closer look in 2K HD, click the image above.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

48 comments

  1. Really bright colours! But it is so true about most drivers / guides I’ve me in Southern Africa. I remember one particular guy who used to stop the jeep somewhere in the middle of the road in Botswana. And we didn’t see anything, even after scouring the landscape with a binoculour. After a few minutes he would point out what he saw – anything from vultures high up in the sky (we saw black specs), a hyena baby crying under a shrub (we never even heard it until he pointed it out) or whatever.

    Reply

  20. Very cool lizard. Lizards are interesting anyway, even the blah beige ones we had in AZ. I have a question. You mentioned using the blur tool in Lightroom Classic. Mine doesn’t work. I’ve tried adjusting the GPU setting, and my program is up to date. It’s not syncing with One Drive, and I don’t know how to use it manually. It’s kind of grayed out. Any ideas?

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    • There was a bug in the earliest version of Lightroom that included the blur tool. Be sure you have the latest Lightroom Classic update. That also has an adaptive blur set of presets in the left panel. I’ve started using them instead of the tool in the left panel, but they do work a bit slowly.
      If you’re still having trouble and running the latest update, drop me an email. We can brainstorm some.

      Reply

  22. Amazing shot and creature, John. The striking colors remind me of the saying that Nature is “the greatest artist”.

    Reply

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