Akron Zoo...need C&C before printing

[Walczak Photo]

Hey Folks!
Alrighty, with everything going on around my house over the last couple of months I haven't really had time to do much shooting at all so I took yesterday off and headed out to the Akron Zoo! Not only have I been dying to get out and give the new Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 a really good workout, but the Akron Zoo has a new jellyfish exhibit that just opened this last year!

Anyways, it was just a terribly day outside weather-wise yesterday...cold, snowy and utterly perfect for zoo photography! LOL!!! The whole day I only saw 10 other zoo patrons there...I had pretty much had all of the animals all to myself. Since I have family coming over next week for the holiday, I going to get a batch of prints done and I'd like to get a few from this most recent batch of images in there as well. I still have -lots- of images to process...more than will be done by the holiday, but here's a few of what I feel are the best (or at least cutest) shots of the day. All shot were taken with my 40D and my Tamron 70-200mm (except where stated otherwise by the EXIF data...I did use my nifty fifty on a couple of jelly shots but I can't remember which at the moment). Please read the EXIF data for any other relivant details...for a few of these I was shooting at higher ISOs (1600-3200). All shots were poked, proded and beaten into submission in Photoshop.

Lemme know if there's anything I've missed before I run these to the printers!


#1
http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/5716/img3053bnq7.jpg


#2
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1221/img3141aom5.jpg


#3
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5539/img3199ur4.jpg


#4
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5629/img3090kk1.jpg

I had to do quite a bit of clean up on this one as the flash was really reflective on his fur (not to mention the dirty window I shot this thru!). Could probably use more work, but it's just a really cute pose so I'm going to print it anyways.


#5
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/140/img3235ps7.jpg


Also had to do a lot of cleanup on this one too from the noise and I'm sure it could use some more work as well. This was one of the shots taken at ISO 3200...I do have some "cleaner" shots taken at ISO 1600, but I like the composition on this shot. I actually shot A LOT of images of the jellies yesterday and when I have some time I'll probably post a bunch together in a separate thread but again this one is going in for prints this weekend to show the family.



Alrighty...lemme know if there's anything I missed other that what I've already mentioned!

Peace,
Jim

[TheHoff]

#2 is hilarious!! It looks like a school portrait with the painted background and the hand-on-the-knee pose.

[jessicainvt]

#2 is hilarious!! It looks like a school portrait with the painted background and the hand-on-the-knee pose.

LOL...I was thinking the same thing!

My favorites are #1 and #2

[Titus213]

One of the best groups of shots I've seen in a long while. And I agree, #2 is a riot.

[0ozma]

Love #3. All of them are great.

[Walczak Photo]

I'm grateful and very flattered for the kind words here...I really am, but enough pats on the back already! LOL!!! I need to know if there's anything that needs to be fixed in these shots before I take them in for prints other than the noise in the Jellys and the highlights on the Tamrarin. Please folks...feel free to be brutal :D.

Peace,
Jim

[SwingBopper]

That's a great zoo series. #2 Cracked me up too. My first thought was a Simeon Mona Lisa. #3 Is kind of special too - you can just about tell what's on her mind - LUNCH time! Great time for a long lens. I can't think of any fixing needed in any of these shots. Great work!

[TheHoff]

I'm grateful and very flattered for the kind words here...I really am, but enough pats on the back already! LOL!!! I need to know if there's anything that needs to be fixed in these shots before I take them in for prints other than the noise in the Jellys and the highlights on the Tamrarin. Please folks...feel free to be brutal

Jim, they are quite well done; I think that is why you're not getting many criticisms. They look well balanced on my screen overall.

I don't particularly care for #4 due to the lighting but it is a good shot and pose otherwise. With #5, there are a few small things -- is there any room on the left to open up the crop just a bit so the tentacle is not right on the edge of the frame? And I would consider cloning out the bits in the upper right that aren't apparently attached to anything.

[1shot4u]

No need to go any further...I say print

[JuiceBox]

I agree, these shots are fantastic. I was also thinking the same thing about number two, it's great lol. The only thing I can nitpick about is that I wish you had a little more DOF. The way some of the shots are now, most of the animal is in focus except for a foot here, or a tail tip there; just a personal preference thing. Great shots!

[midnitejam]

Ditto the consensous. I couldn't agree more. A professional group of photos.

Wonder if you would share your techniques and types of gear?

[Walczak Photo]

Wonder if you would share your techniques and types of gear?


Well, the gear I'm using is pretty straight forward. Until this last year most of my stuff has been "bottom shelf" so to speak...I was using a Rebel XT with a variety of sub-$100 lenses (mostly Tamron) and before that I was shooting with a Sony H-1 and an Olympus C-4000. I had grown up with an old Canon FTb 35mm (which I still own) and mostly Sigma lenses. This last year I moved up to a 40D because I really needed something with better low light/high ISO capabilities (but couldn't afford the 5D) and then in August I got the new Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8. I also shoot with a variety of flashes (although none were used on these images) with my most used being a Metz Mecablitz 30 BCT4. I also have a couple of low cost studio cans too for portrait work.

In regards to shooting technique, I'm very simple and straight forward here. Because so much of what I do is "critters" (either in the wild or captive) I basically shoot in Aperture Priority almost exclusively (depending on shooting conditions) and pretty much pay just enough attention to the camera to make sure I keep my shutter speeds up! LOL!!! Quite seriously...most of the time I'm simply watching the animal thru the view finder just "waiting for the moment". When I am shooting at places such as zoo's, etc., I will often spend up to an hour or more just working one animal or group of animals (as apposed to running around trying to shoot every animal in the zoo in one day). I would also add to this that a lot of times I will also just stand there and watch the animals...observe and get to know my subject(s) as it were. Just as with shooting in the wild, you have a much better chance of getting good shots if you actually know a bit about the creatures habits and such. Also, I don't try to get the framing or exposure or anything else "just perfect"...again because I'm shooting critters, if I spend that much time fuddling about with the camera chances are I've already missed the shot.

That said, I do check my images on the camera quite frequently to make sure that they are indeed coming out in focus and at a ball park exposure, etc.. To me this is the single greatest advantage of shooting digital over film...in the old days you had to wait for the film to come back from the lab to see if and how badly you screwed something up and by that point you were no longer at the shooting location. With digital, if you've messed something up you can get a fair idea of what and then fix it on the spot while you're shooting! "Oppss...shutter speed was too slow...forgot to bump up my ISO...", LOL!

I would also add that when I'm working with animals, I tend to be a bit shameless. I make funny faces, do little "dances" and I've even been known to use a little red LED light (NOT a laser pointer) or even a "squeeky toy" to get the animals attention. In shot #4 above of the Golden Lion Tamrarin for example, he was facinated with my Pepsi cup, so I just set it down on the ledge next to the window and he came over to "investigate". Here's a wider shot of what was really going on there....


http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/9881/img3087pk7.jpg



In this case, once he started checking out my cola cup, I just focused in on him and waited for him to look at me. In other words, that wonderful look on his face in the first shot up there is simply saying "Please sir...may I have some more?", LOL!!!

Now I will also admit that some of it is just pure dumb luck as well. In the case of the Lemur shot above that everyone seems to like...when I walked in, she was just sitting there like that. There were a couple of staff members in the habitat area changing some light bulbs and the Lemur was just sitting there watching them. Then when I walked up with the camera, of course she looked at me a couple of times too! In this case, I just kept snapping away and got a bunch of really good shots of her...I just really liked this shot personally. In a situation such as this where you maybe visit your local zoo once every other summer or so with the wife and kids, chances are you're not going to encounter too many opportunities for shots like this, but because I go to the zoos -a lot- and because I tend to go during "off peak hours" where there's not a lot of other people there and because I will hang around and watch the animals instead of zipping off to the next display, I tend to get better shots as a general rule :D.

Now processing...as I've said before and elsewhere, what I lack as a photographer, I make up for as a graphic artist. My goal when I'm shooting pictures isn't to get things "absolutely perfect" at the camera, it's to get a great pose and reasonable composition that I can work with later in pp. I'm really a "ball park" shooter...I just try to get the images "close enough to work with". When I'm processing my images, I will usually start with noise reduction (depending on what ISO I was shooting at) and then I will add layers for levels, saturation and contrast with some basic/rough adjustments to give me an idea of what the image can look like. After that I will usually crop the image...as most of the time I print as 8x10's any more, that's become my standard crop format but if I -KNOW- I'm going to be using the image for something else (5x7 prints for folks at the local dog park for instance) then I will crop appropriately or leave the image uncropped until I go to print it later. I do like to crop right away though as if I have to do any extensive editing, it's easier if I don't have to edit the stuff that's coming off the image anyways. After that I will start making any needed "adjustments" to the image/composition itself. This can involve anything from "spot removal" to background swaps, fake DOF, etc., etc., etc.. The process usually involves a number of tools and techniques from simple cloning and/or healing to multiple layers with various adjustments. It can be quite tedious but I do what I feel needs to be done to make the image look it's best. Please remember I do approach all of this from the ethics of an "artist". Once those types of adjustments are made, I will start sharpening the image. Again here I let the image dictate exactly what I do...it can range from one or two basic layers of USM to multiple layers with various degrees of selective sharpening (such as adding extra sharpening to the eyes for example). I will also use the "High Pass" filter as an extra sharpening tool...I create an extra layer of whatever is being sharpened, apply the High Pass filter with a setting anywhere between 1 and 5 (depending on what's needed) and then apply that layer as an Overlay. The nice thing about this is that it sharpens well and adds some nice "pop" without adding artifacts the way USM does. If a given image needs even more sharpening, then I will also break out the ol' Focus Magic for yet another layer of sharpening.

Now I would add that I will usually "mix" my sharpening layers again using the opacity/fill. Each sharpening layer is created from where I finished the other editing...in other words, I don't add USM to a layer that I've already done USM on and then add Focus Magic to that and then add High Pass to that. I'll create a layer (usually a composite of the previous editing) as a "base" if you will, then I will create another layer from that and do some basic USM. After that I will create another layer from the base, move it above the USM layer and add some more sharpening to that layer and then back off the opacity/fill so that some degree of both layers are showing thru. If you haven't gathered by now, some of my images can have A LOT of layers...sometimes as many as 10 to 15 or more (and yes, the file sizes do get rather huge! LOL!).

After I've finished the sharpening, then I will start doing other "tweaks"...color, saturation, etc from the layers that I added earlier. As these are seperate layers they don't really add artifacts when you adjust them after sharpening. I've also been known to mess with overlays and such as well....I'll comp the image back together from the various layers then make a new layer from the comp and apply it as a "Multiplied" over-lay after which I will selectively erase parts of the images (with the eraser set to around 20-30) and then I'll back off the opacity and fill a bit. This is also where I would add a viginette as well again adjusting the layers opacity/fill to suit the image.

Interestingly enough, I don't use the curves very often. I do most of my color adjustments via Saturation or the other color correction tools in Photoshop. Same goes for contrast or any of the other areas where most folks use curves really. I guess it's just one of those Photoshop things....a dozen different ways to do the same exact thing! LOL!

Wheeew! I'm sure that seems like a lot...and sometimes it is. The thing to remember is that I aproach each and every single image as an "individual piece of art". Sometimes simple adjustments are quite enough but more often than not as I've said many times, snapping the shutter is really just the first step of the process for me. I do as little or as much as I feel any given image needs.

Alrighty, thanks to all for the great comments...I'm heading up to the printers tonight to drop off the film...err...mp3 player so I should have the images back tomorrow. I hope someone finds my little tutorial,"A day in the photographic life of Jim Walczak" to be useful! LOL!

Peace,
Jim

[JuiceBox]

I will definitely be coming back to this thread more than I thought. There were a lot of great ideas in that post that I had never thought of before.