Gorillas at woodland park

[djacobox372]

This is my first photo post on this forum. Here's some gorrila photos I took at the zoo this spring. Let me know what you think:

 

[JohnMF]

fascinating animals...

thanks for sharing these djacob

 

[K_Pugh]

Love the first two! Colours are good and nice strong blacks.

Think i'll need to take a trip to Edinburgh Zoo soon, you made me want to!

 

[Kazoo]

Nice composition on #1, makes me wonder what the gorilla was looking at. The way you shot this keeps drawing me back to the eyes, nice job.

 

[djacobox372]

fascinating animals...

thanks for sharing these djacob

I agree.... it's almost impossible to take a bad photo of a gorilla; their soul shines through like no other animal I've ever photographed.

 

[250Gimp]

Nice shots!

The last one is a bit soft though.

 

[Overread38 1]

There is a little bit of softness hiding in these shots - all barring number 2 which is really sharp. I think you might get away using the unsharpen mask to try and correct it in the others (even if you can't "correct" the main version websized you should be able to get it to work)
Composition wise these are 4 fantastic shots! Each one is well composed and is drawing the viewers eye to the right parts with few distractions (though I would be tempted to crop a little off the left of shot 3, just a little bit too much of nothing).
I am guessing that these were hand held shots - with such good composition I would really consider tripod shooting (yes using a tripod in a zoo) if you can - that would certainly help get that extra sharpness
I must say number 1 reminds me of the (overdone a little now) artistic pose of a caveman holding his spear - you have managed to capture almost the exact same post with a gorrila - its not a branch its a spear he is holding now
Great shots and hope to see more

 

[PuppY_K1ck3R]

Wow real nice man thx for showing us

 

[JimmyO]

Very nice!
After sorting through your exif data im guessing these were taken with a d200 with a 70-200mm f/2.8? If so these are very sharp for using only 1/50 SS. Were you using a tripod/monopod or VR?

 

[darkpbstar]

how did you get so close? are those taken through glass? thanks

 

[rppnj]

Beautiful photos. You captured the dignity of these wonderful creatures. How sad that in the future, they may only survive in zoos.

 

[djacobox372]

There is a little bit of softness hiding in these shots - all barring number 2 which is really sharp. I think you might get away using the unsharpen mask to try and correct it in the others (even if you can't "correct" the main version websized you should be able to get it to work)
Composition wise these are 4 fantastic shots! Each one is well composed and is drawing the viewers eye to the right parts with few distractions (though I would be tempted to crop a little off the left of shot 3, just a little bit too much of nothing).
I am guessing that these were hand held shots - with such good composition I would really consider tripod shooting (yes using a tripod in a zoo) if you can - that would certainly help get that extra sharpness
I must say number 1 reminds me of the (overdone a little now) artistic pose of a caveman holding his spear - you have managed to capture almost the exact same post with a gorrila - its not a branch its a spear he is holding now
Great shots and hope to see more

Thanks for the observations!

The first shot was taken at 1600 iso it was really noisy, the softness comes from the noise correction in noise-ninja--I think I over did it.

The first three were taken through glass with also detracts from the sharpness.

The last shot was a bit akward and, like the others, handheld--I took about 20 photos hoping to get a sharp one... I failed. This is the best I got.

 

[djacobox372]

Very nice!
After sorting through your exif data im guessing these were taken with a d200 with a 70-200mm f/2.8? If so these are very sharp for using only 1/50 SS. Were you using a tripod/monopod or VR?

All handheld with a non-vr lens, all turned out pretty sharp except the last one. Also the first shot was taken with my d70 with a 1600 iso, with heavy use of noise-ninja.

One thing I like about shooting digital is that I can shoot 10-frame bursts to help ensure a sharp photo, whereas with film I'd have to use a tripod or a faster, grainer film speed.