While visiting the Brookfield Zoo, I captured some photographs of the blue poison frogs. One challenge with taking pictures of the frogs is that they are housed behind very thick glass.

Having thick glass positioned between the camera and the subject certainly doesn't help the image quality! But, there are some things that can be done to create an acceptable photograph:

1. Press the lens (in this case the Nikon 105VR) directly against the glass. This is one of the rare times that I remove the lens hood to allow the lens to get closer to the glass.
2. Don't tilt the lens. Getting the face of the lens parallel to the glass reduces the amount of glass between the subject and the lens.
3. Select a portion of the glass that is mostly free of smudges and scratches.
4. Using a tripod is almost impossible for these shots, so I activate the vibration reduction (VR) feature on the lens.
5. Not only is the lighting in these exhibits quite low, but the lamps create some very unusual color casts which can be challenging to correct in Photoshop. Therefore, I light the scene with a flash unit (e.g, Nikon SB-800). The flash is positioned off-camera to reduce the chance of creating reflections on the glass. I hold the flash unit well off to the side of the lens. Directional lighting can also bring more depth to the image. And, the flash provides light that looks much like daylight--which helps keep the colors looking natural.

Blue frog