I have been feeling under the weather for several days now. It has been limiting what I feel like doing and keeping me out of the water. Yesterday I had to get out of the house so I drove over and walked around the Honolulu Zoo with the camera. Here is the result. I will add some technical details on the shots for a change of pace.
Indian Elephants
1/180, f/5.6, ISO 3200
Zoos are always ambivalent experiences, seeing wild animals confined and often neurotic. Elephants in particular don't do very well in confinement. I was happy to note that the Honolulu Zoo is planning a much larger enclosure for their Indian Elephants. It is something. These two were being quite playful with each other.
Peacock Tail
1/180, f/4.0, ISO 250
I opened the aperture wide for a small depth of field (I only wanted one "eye" in sharp focus) and added some vignetting in photoshop.
Cheetah
1/250, f/4.0 ISO 640
A wide aperture was chosen to throw the background out of focus to isolate the subject. In wildlife photography, as with people, you want to be sure the eyes are in sharp focus.
Sumatran Tiger
1/250, f/4.0 ISO 2200
I was shooting with a Nikon D3 and a 200-400VR f/4 zoom lens on a monopod. You have to shoot the tigers through a chain link fence so I kept the aperture wide open at f/4.0 to blur the fence as much as possible. It still softens the shot so I had to crank up contrast in Photoshop to give it some pop.
Sumatran Tiger
1/250, f/4, ISO 2800
Here you see the fence. The D3 has amazing high ISO quality which allows to shoot in Auto ISO mode. You set the maximum ISO (I used 3200, on most cameras ISO 3200 would be a noisy junky mess, with the D3 the images are clean) and the minumum shutter speed (1/250). I shoot in Aperture Priority so I can control depth of field. Here I swtiched to manual focus because the autofocus wanted to focus on the fence.
Meerkat
1/180. f/4, ISO 3200
Cute little bugger huh?
Chimpanzee
1/125, f/5.6, ISO 3200
I was shooting through glass which softened the image and affected the color balance. I adjusted color balance and really stepped up the contrast in photoshop to regain some pop to the image. In this case I also used a bit of contrast increase using an add-on called Topaz Adjust. Can you doubt our close genetic relationship to these creatures when you look at this photo?
Chimpanzee
1/90, f/4.8, ISO 3200
Similar adjustments to the shot above but more liberal use of Topaz Adjust to bring out the texture in the skin.
Parent to child "look at the monkeys" I mutter to myself "apes not monkeys"
Zebra Abstract
1/250, f/8, ISO 200
Converted to black & white in Photoshop.
Zebra
1/750, F/4.0, ISO 200
Once again a wide open aperture to keep the background out of focus.
Komodo Dragon Porn
1/350, f/8.0, ISO 200
Shameless reptilian public display of affection. This shot suffers a bit from being shot through glass. Being brightly front lit my settings were not a big issue. I used f/8 for the wider depth of field because they were pretty close to me. Also lenses are at their sharpest in the middle of the aperture range so it is best to use f/8 if you have no other creative reasons driving your decision.
Black & White Ruffed Lemur
1/350, f/5.6, ISO 2800. I had increased the minimum shutter speed while shooting the white handed gibbons swinging around and had not changed back for this more static image.
Parent to child "look at the monkeys!" I mutter to myself... "lemurs not monkeys"
Rusti the Orangutan
1/90, f/4.0, ISO 3200.
With the possible exception of the Sumatran Tigers Rusti is the most impressive animal at the Honolulu Zoo. I visited the enclosure he shares with Violet, a much smaller female, but they were never in position for a good photo. On my last visit Rusti moved over and pressed his face against the glass. This is not a great shot, taken through dirty glass but it is the best I got of this amazing animal.
Parent to child "look at the monkey" Jeeze.
Indian Elephants
1/250, f/5.6, ISO 3200
I bumped up the minimum shutter speed to 1/500 because they were very active and opened the aperture to f/5.6 for a little more depth of field for the big animals. It was late afternoon and there was not much light. Here the camera dropped the shutter speed below my minimum setting because there was not enough light at the max ISO of 3200. Not a problem with this shot.
Ellies
1/125, f/5.6 ISO 3200 They were very cute nuzzling and wrestling with each other and there was a woman next to me gushing "aren't they lovely!" which I thought was just great.
Indian Elephant
1/500, f/5.6, ISO 560
I got a beam of late afternoon light through the trees for this shot.
Indian Elephant
1/500, f/5.6 ISO 900
I hope you have enjoyed this sick day photographic trip to the zoo. Please feel free to treat this as a community diary and as always, be good humans.
Oh yeah... if you have a problem I refer you to the Complaint Department: