I had most of my lenses with me, but only used my 55-300mm zoom. My workflow started in the usual manner:
- Check battery, memory card, focus mode, matrix metering
- Decide ISO (200 - overcast lighting)
- Check exposure compensation set to 0 for trial shot
- Switch to aperture priority with a wide aperture
- Shoot, check blinkies, adjust exposure
In total I ended up with 188 photos taken; this is not too many by my standards! I didn't edit as I went along - I am long-sighted so I don't use glasses to look through the viewfinder, but then I can't see the display very well. I find it much easier to edit at home on the computer.
The first stage in processing, was to scan through the images to narrow down the choices that I would use based primarily on visual impact and at least one clear image:
Free-range deer - 1 photo - not used
Moose - 6 to choose from - definitely
Penguins - 3 to choose from - maybe
Wallabies - 13 to choose from - definitely
Mara - 20 to choose from - definitely
Outdoor Rhino - 1 photo - not used
Young Mara - 7 to choose from - maybe - quality not good although very very cute
Indoor Rhino - 37 pictures - maybe
Outdoor Hippo - 9 - definitely
Indoor young Hippo - 1- not used
Flamingos - 67 to choose from - definitely (at the time I thought they were blurred - but mostly they weren't!)
Elephant - 18 pictures - may be
People - 1 picture - bonus opportunity street photography - definitely used
1 picture of a sign - not used
The next stage was to work through each group, selecting the picture to be processed in ViewNX2. In some cases, this involved attempting the processing to see what worked before making the choice, in others it was obvious. One thing I had to bear in mind throughout, was not to crop too tightly, as these pictures would be printed and mounted. I did not do any work in Elements for these - I did not need to do anything "arty" - I wanted the pictures to be close to the originals.
People
The first picture I edited, was the bonus street photography shot. This required very little work, only cropping to square format (to eliminate an expanse of pavement), sharpening and a tiny bit of contrast.
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| Whipsnade Zoo |
Moose
The clear winner was this shot, being the one with the most clarity and sufficient room round the edges for mounting:
To edit the photo, I straightened it slightly, cropped to square format (this one will be tight in the mount), converted to mono, increased contrast slightly and sharpened by 50%.
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| Moose |
With this image, I started processing (cropped to square and changed to mono), but quickly decided against using it - it was not a good portrait and enlarged it was slightly blurred.
Wallaby
The wallabies were a difficult choice; the light wasn't great at the time of shooting. In the end, the picture with the strongest contrast against the background was a side portrait. I liked the strong profile and thought this would work well in mono.
In processing, I cropped to square, brought the exposure back to zero (from half under), added contrast and sharpened by 50%.
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| Wallaby |
As above, the best image was the a side profile, and again, fortunately, a slight catch light in the eye.
In processing, I cropped to square, brought the exposure back to zero (from half under), added contrast and sharpened by 50%.
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| Mara |
The difficulty I had with this choice is that although the animal is very cute, none of them have great composition or a clutter free view or a view of their faces. This is the best shot, but the ears are too close to the top and would be cut off in the mounting. I decided to leave this out of the final choice.
Rhino
Difficult photography, the rhinos would not keep still! There was a lot of commotion, mostly over who had the best clump of fresh hay; so there was a lot of rhino growling and horn bashing to contend with. Also, being quite three-dimensional animals, it was hard to use a wide aperture without parts of it (i.e. the horn pointing forwards) being out of focus, and the lighting was quite dim, so I couldn't use a narrower aperture. I didn't want to increase ISO because my camera is quite noisy after ISO 250. What I really wanted was to capture an abstract of an eye, with lots of wrinkles and a bit of horn. Unfortunately I didn't get what I wanted and so abandoned this as a choice.
Hippo
The hippos were a lot more sedate, and equally wrinkly, and with less protrusions to deal with! And because they were wet, this hadn't some sheen to the image. Sticking with the abstract eye idea above, I chose this image to process, as this had the sharpest eye (it's not perfect..)
In processing, I cropped to square, converted to mono, added contrast and 50% sharpness. Unfortunately, I don't think I can use this image: the eye isn't clear enough :( But good facebook profile pic as a thumbnail!! Maybe....)
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| Hippo |
67 in total...(images not birds)....because at the time I was convinced they were blurred, but in fact they were mostly ok. It was very windy and flamingos also move a lot. I was trying a slow shutter speed so as to minimise water ripples so it was quite hard to get a clear image. Although the colours are stunning, what I was looking for was outline or shape, with their long legs and bendy necks. This was a really hard choice as the colours were so amazing I couldn't ignore them. On conversion to mono, the shape didn't stand out so well, which I wasn't expecting. In the end I decided to use one flamingo for the black and white panel I was preparing and to use another as a separate entry in the nature section. The first picture below is the panel picture, which I selected because of the clear outline of the neck:
In processing, I cropped to square, converted to mono, added quite a lot of contrast and sharpened by 50%.
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| Flamingo |
And the picture that I am going to enter separately in the nature category is this one (sharpened 50% and a tiny amount of contrast):
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| Preening |
Elephants
I didn't use any of my elephant pictures; although I had one of a cute baby, there were taken from too far away and there was not enough contrast with the background, which in this case was other elephants.
Final choice
So in total, I had four b&w portraits for my panel to add to the three I already had:
If it turns out that that is one too many, the Moose will have to be excluded :( as this is a bit cluttered with the background.
And I also had a street photography image for the Street Photography prize (to add to my other entries):
- Whipsnade Zoo
- Preening
