House Geckos – Up Close and Personal

Visit any warm country and you are likely to see geckos on the walls of buildings (inside and out).  On a recent visit to Antigua I spent quite a bit of time observing and photographing the geckos primarily when they were on plants rather than walls.  Most of the time it was with a 200m-400mm zoom with a 1.4 extender (560mm) and a 25mm extension tube to allow me to focus with the geckos just over a metre away and filling the lens.  By remaining at this distance it seemed that the lens did not disturb them and with patience I was able to get some images that were slightly different to the normal gecko on the wall shot.

I was particularly pleased with the image at the top of this page because of the form of the gecko in the composition which is almost mirroring the form of the piece of wood it is resting on.

All the images were taken with Canon 5DSLR camera and the couple on the bamboo were shot using a 200m prime lens at f2.0.  All others were with the zoom and extension tube.  Click on any image to view a larger version.

The next five images have been rotated through 180 degrees to make it easier on the eye to follow the sequence.  In reality both geckos with facing downwards on the branch as they got up close and personal.  With a fairly slow exposure the rapid head movements made by the male in the fourth image are accentuated.  The two geckos were in quite a diml lit area due to foliage and unfortunately for me at the same time the sequence was taking place the humidity was changing so my lens was slowly fogging up which has caused some colour distortion in post.  However I have included the images (which I wish were technically better) because I was pleased that my patience to get the two geckos together had paid off.