I never go looking for poisonous snakes in nature unless I'm well protected in a vehicle, such as on an African safari. Snakes are too fast, too dangerous, and too willing to strike if they feel in any way threatened. On foot, it would be too easy to approach a deadly snake without knowing it until it was too late. I have photographed a number of venomous snakes in captivity, like this bush viper from central Africa, and even then it scares me to death. I use a long enough telephoto so I stay outside of striking range which is usually the length of the snake's body. I shot this snake with film when I was still using a Mamiya RZ 67 camera, and my lens of choice was a 350mm telephoto. This is approximately equivalent to a 200mm lens in the 35mm digital format. The diffused light was ideal, and the fairly large lens aperture kept the background attractively out of focus.