London Zoo visit

[davidb]

Iggy and myself took a trip to London Zoo on Thursday (23rd Nov). The weather forecast looked good for the day and it was arranged at short notice.

We arrived at about 10:30ish. We started with the gorillas (who weren't very active and difficult to photograph in their den). Then African Safari (a bird enclosure which is accessible) before visiting Tiger Territory. We both spent a good while here using a lot of "film". The tigers are always active during feeding time which provided opportunities to get shots of them.

After the tigers we used the tunnel under the road to reach the "Africa" areas. We visited the Snowdon Aviary and the lemurs before entering the Clore Rainforest exhibit. This building houses tamarins and monkeys from South America and in the basement is the night-time exhibit which is very difficult to photograph due to the lack of light. Iggy managed to get some shots but I've still to see the results.

After the Rainforest we visited the otters which are close by and the meerkats (although it was probably too cold for them as none were in view) before returning through the tunnel and visiting the Butterfly House. It was hot and humid inside which fogged up our lenses. Iggy managed to take some shots. We left the Zoo at about 15:30.

I've uploaded some images to my Flickr account at

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44566609@ ... 844316019/

[Mike Farley]

Nice set of shots and you have managed to capture your subjects in natural looking surroundings. Sounds like an enjoyable day out.

[Iggy]

Hi David,
Thank you for facilitating my visit to London Zoo for a really wonderful day on a sunny but cold autumn day.
Really had a great time.
Decided to work with my light weight Panasonic FZ1000 24-400mm fixed lens yet again rather than the heavy Canon 70D with the 24-105mm & 70-300 mm lens as I wanted to get in close on all the animals, small & large, without tiring myself out with heavy equipment.
I did get a few half decent shots all taken without flash, shown below in the order that they were taken that need more Photoshopping.
Best wishes,
Iggy

[Iggy]

Three more images.
Iggy

[davidb]

Nice Bushbaby in such difficult conditions. I'm glad your lens became accustomed to the hot and humid conditions in the Butterfly House - you managed an excellent shot of the Tree Nymph.

Looking forward to the next trip.

[Iggy]

Thanks David, for the comments and the outing.
Its a pleasant enough image, but a judge would say its only another butterfly.
Iggy

[Iggy]

Here is another take of that tiger.
Iggy

Ready to pounce.jpg (391.38 KiB) Viewed 3905 times

[Mike Farley]

Here is another take of that tiger.

Decent shot, but it looks oversharpened to me.

[Iggy]

It took a little time to figure out where the best position to photograph the tigers would be. There was just a fleeting window of opportunity to capture the images in that location and I only managed to get some 6. Next time it might be easier, assuming that tigers are creatures of habit.

Mike said:
it looks oversharpened to me

This tiger image is well over worked which is most obvious on the grass.
Not so obvious on the tiger perhaps?
I will start again and hope to have a softer grass background and around.
Does that mean that I have to use masks that I have not previously used or some other method?
Suggestions are most welcome.

Otherwise, its back to Photoshop YouTubes
Iggy


PS: I haven't downloaded the recently purchased LightRoom 6 CD.

[Mike Farley]

Not so obvious on the tiger perhaps?

Actually, I thought that was a tad overwrought as well.

I will start again and hope to have a softer grass background and around.
Does that mean that I have to use masks that I have not previously used or some other method?
Suggestions are most welcome.

Possibly you will need to start using masks to emphasise the areas you want to be sharp. In this instance the details need to be brought out in the tiger, not the grass. Remember that print and screen need different types of sharpening and it needs to be applied last as it is destructive and irreversible. Due to the higher density of dots per inch (DPI) in a print compared to pixels per inch (PPI) on a monitor, a print will take a lot more sharpening.

Here are some suggested starting points for different types of sharpening, plucked from one of my presentations:

• Amount – 150%, Radius 1, Threshold 0 (de facto standard for prints)
• Amount – 150%, Radius 1, Threshold 10 (prints featuring flowers, pets, people)
• Amount – 65%, Radius 4, Threshold 3 (Maximum - useful for images where focus is not quite accurate)
• Amount – 20%, Radius 50, Threshold 0 (Pops a B&W image)
• Amount – 200%, Radius 0.3, Threshold 0 (Web)

You could also try high pass sharpening.

Finally, there is an inbuilt sharpening algorithm in Lightroom which works very well. Simply tell it what you are sharpening for, how much you want and it does the rest. I have not specifically sharpened an image in years, except in demonstrations. The great thing about using Lightroom is that it is not necessary to have different versions of an image depending on how it is sharpened (or separate layers with different sharpen settings). There is simply a master file which is the basis for any images output. It is something many people do not realise but is a powerful feature once the penny drops.