Two sides to life in a Zoo

I took these two shots to show the two sides (happiness and sadness) of the life of animanls in the Zoo. The first conveys a happy feeling of the Orang-utan as it plays. I attempted to use the wooden poles to frame the scene. I was also trying to capture a sense of movement without getting too much blur, while the second conveys a feeling of sadness from the Orang-utan.

Both of these shots were taken hand held as there were too many people for me to use a tripod, I was also shooting through perspex from a distance.

Any comments on how to improve these would be appreciated.

Photo 1
Exif Data
Exposure: 1/200 sec at f/4.0
Metering Mode: Pattern
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 70mm
Camera/Lense: Canon 350D 70-300mm Lense

Photo 2
Exif Data
Exposure: 1/320 sec at f/5.0
Metering Mode: Pattern
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 190mm
Camera/Lense: Canon 350D 70-300mm Lense

Nigel,

The first image seems a little cluttered. In instances where the background is well defined, I try and use it compliment the subject. e.g. look for contrast and shape to draw the eye into the main focal point.

Also when photographing animals, I try to engage the subject's eyes, it makes a big difference to the overall dynamics of the image. I know its difficult to achieve but eye's whether staring at you or glancing off frame really underpin the emotional content.

The second image is much better, one starts to get a sense of emotion from the animals posture, although a glimpse of the eyes would again help convey the emotion.

Feel free to browse my primate gallery, I tend to crop quite tight and use wide apertures, but in almost every instance get eye contact.

I hope you find this critique useful.

John,
Thank you for your advice. I will have a look at your Primate Gallery. I have some shots where the animals eyes are visible but they look a little to blured due to the motion I was attempting to capture.

Again Thank you.
Nige

Hi Nigel,

Folk who take photos of mushrooms and the like, often do a bit of gardening with a pair of scissors, to remove the clutter. I think you'd get problems with a chain saw in the apes compound ;-). However, if you crop the first severely, and then in your image editing software you could possibly blur the background, or remove it completely. Then crop the second 'sad' image, and place the first to the right of the second so he (or is it she - too much hair to tell...;-) is looking at its sadder self, then a story may unfold. Now you exercise your imagination for a suitable image in the centre.

wrt the camera, etc. I had the 75-300 lens on a 20D. I was never happy with it. it gives very muddy pictures, like the kit lens. The best, cheap lens you can get, is the little 50mm 1.8. - only costs about £70.00 iirc. It will obviously not get in close like the zoom, but it will be useful for other stuff.

The straw on the grass is distracting too, although that could be a set of images in itself.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,
Thank you for looking at these and for taking the time to pass on your advice. I will see what changes I can make in the limited software that I have. Also thank you for the information on the lenses.

Hi Nigel,

Not withstanding the value of the previous comments, I have a somewhat different take.

I see see making of an actual picture from what you see in the zoo, a multipart labor where, at each stage, decisions, choices and forethought can make things easier or harder for you later on in the process.

Obviously you want to emphasize the animal.

If you don't have the cash/experience to rent or buy a longer lens with a wider aperture to isolate the animal, then as I have said previously, wider, sharp framing is a good start.

You can, however, alter your position to control somewhat that which is included and excluded and their relationships, that is composition. You are stuck with the lighting in most cases.

Now when you get home you see this image on your screen, you no longer can move around to alter what is in your frame.

What you can do is to selectively sharpen the animal and blur and darken the background. You can selctively alter ther distribution of tonalities or saturation. Just make sure you know how to use the feather tool to blend different selections seemlessly. Remeber to work in layers.

You might find it helpful sometimes to look at a B&W version.

However, all the time, you MUST be satisfying your own esthetics.

So it's tough getting people to like what you do. First like it yourself by bringing out what you have in the picture so that really impresses you.

The first picture does, IMHO, benefit from work in Photoshop.

I cannot declare this is what you must do only that this is what you might look at. You are not creating an image for me or anyone else here but first and foremost to engage, satisfy and thrill you only.

Now that first image can be considered in many ways, I feel that to me it IS cluttered, but someone else may be in rapture. My opinion is just my opinion, not a measure, necessarily of importance.

I have spent time with that picture and feel that it has inherent worth in that it does show the compromizes we have made in imprisoning these creatures for our own delight.

There's potential for all sorts of version of the image. They may not make the National Gallery for sure, but certainlty, the image can be post-processed to have more impact.

I'd say that if you chose to work with this image more, would be worthwhile to you. Working with one image at a time provides training to your esthetic rulers in your brain so that when you next frame a shot, the framing will be better informed by your needs.

Asher

One can add focus and try to bring out the truth of the captivity. Well, that's at least my intent.



Asher

Many thanks Asher. I like the work that you have done on this and appreciate your guidance. This has given me something to think about and work on.

Hi Nigel,

Some critical comments. Some would call this criticism.

Nigel Morton said:

Any comments on how to improve these would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

You asked for it. <smile>

Nigel Morton said:

Photo 1
Exif Data
Exposure: 1/200 sec at f/4.0
Metering Mode: Pattern
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 70mm
Camera/Lense: Canon 350D 70-300mm Lense

Click to expand...

I like the energy of the beast's motion and its shape within the frame. Critically though I have 2 issues.

1) The subject suffers from motion blur. I would suggest using at least ISO 400 if not ISO 800 on a cloudy day to help stop motion. This is partly a matter of taste (if you want motion blur or not). ISO 800 on the XT/350D is iffy for quality, but is often usable if a bit noisy. ISO 1600 looks fine if you can accept a noisy print.

2) The subject is out of focus. Critical focus appears to be a meter or four behind the main subject which can be noted via the fact the log behind the head is sharper than the one by the feet. The links in the chains holding the tires are also acceptably sharp. This decreases the background blur and increases the number of distractions from the main subject.

Nigel Morton said:

Photo 2
Exif Data
Exposure: 1/320 sec at f/5.0
Metering Mode: Pattern
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 190mm
Camera/Lense: Canon 350D 70-300mm Lense

Click to expand...

Focus seems right here and the composition is simple in clean. Aesthetically the composition feels unbalanced to my eyes as I would like the subject further to the right in the frame to balance the composition with its body language.

Both images could benefit from some digital sharpening. But this is such a subjective area that what is right or wrong must be your choice (my taste is always changing). Again, faster shutter speeds could help here. If you have Photoshop, then I would suggest trying Filter->Sharpen->Smart Sharpen with an amount of 120% and a radius of 0.5 as a starting place (this is part of how I checked where critical focus is).

Stepping back to gear I note the longest focal length you used was 190 mm. With the first shot you could have stepped back 20 meters (if you could) and removed many background distractions using a longer focal length (you capture less background area using a longer focal length for the same framing). This will also let you try other things without spending money. Remember that your lens goes from f/4 at 70 mm to f/5.6 at 300 mm which yields a 3 X zoom with only the loss of a single stop of light so shooting at longer focal lengths may yield a more desirable DoF.

some thoughts,

Sean

Sean,
Thank you for your advice on these captures. I will try your sugestions the next time I am out and about.