Photographing gorillas in Uganda

Hi, I'm travelling to Uganda to trek Mountain gorillas, and wonder what
kind of suggestions I can get for my D70 settings. I have used SLR
with film exculsively in past safaris and this is my first trip with
the digital Nikon. Are there recommendations for setting for pictures
of dark subjects (black gorillas obviously) in covered muted jungle
overhang?

Thanks,
Ed

"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi, I'm travelling to Uganda to trek Mountain gorillas, and wonder what
kind of suggestions I can get for my D70 settings. I have used SLR
with film exculsively in past safaris and this is my first trip with
the digital Nikon. Are there recommendations for setting for pictures
of dark subjects (black gorillas obviously) in covered muted jungle
overhang?
Pay careful attention to the histogram.
Jim

"Ed" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi, I'm travelling to Uganda to trek Mountain gorillas, and wonder what
kind of suggestions I can get for my D70 settings. I have used SLR
with film exculsively in past safaris and this is my first trip with
the digital Nikon. Are there recommendations for setting for pictures
of dark subjects (black gorillas obviously) in covered muted jungle
overhang?

Thanks,
Ed

Find a nice middle-toned green plant in light similar what the gorilla is
under, and spot meter off of this.
Note the settings made by the camera while in aperture mode or shutter speed
mode.
You can then be reasonably assured that your dark gorilla will be properly
rendered--at least within a range that can be adequately adjusted for later.

Typical green grass makes for a good middle tone starting point.
Once you note the settings...or more specifically...the exposure value, you
can then adjust apertures and speeds accordingly.

Or... As long as you're photographing under similar light, you can also
switch to manual exposure mode and dial in a similar value. This too will
get you good exposure. You'll have to play around with shutter speed and
aperture, depending on the action/blur/depth of field you want, but you'lll
want to keep a similar exposure value.

Also... (alternative technique)
After you've got a reading for a middle tone, now meter off of the gorilla
under similar light, and see the difference between the two readings. This
will indicate to you how much to expose UNDER what teh camera wants to
expose at when metering off of the gorilla alone.

Example: If your green grass (middle tone) reading says f4 at 1/100th, and
the gorilla meter says f4 at 1/50th, you'll know that the gorilla is fooling
your camera's meter by one stop (your camera thinks the scene is under-lit,
and so will over-expose). So... You can dial in exposure compensation of
"-1" for shots where the gorilla is used to meter off of (since the camera
will attempt to turn the near-black gorilla into a middle grey tone without
your assistance). Once you've done this, you'lll be able to spot meter off
of the simiarly lit portions of the gorilla...so long as you've got teh -1
exposure compensation dialed in (or whatever the discrepancy turns out to be
between the dark-tone and properly metered middle tone), and so long as
you're not taking a reading with your spot meter on his sun-reflected nose,
or silver back, or whatever they've got that is out of the ordinary
reflectance-wise.

Make sense?

On 4 May 2005 16:10:27 -0700, in rec.photo.digital , "Ed"
in
. com wrote:

Hi, I'm travelling to Uganda to trek Mountain gorillas, and wonder what
kind of suggestions I can get for my D70 settings. I have used SLR
with film exculsively in past safaris and this is my first trip with
the digital Nikon. Are there recommendations for setting for pictures
of dark subjects (black gorillas obviously) in covered muted jungle
overhang?

You probably will need an assistant to help you with this. I just
happen to be available at that time.

;-)


--
Matt Silberstein

All in all, if I could be any animal, I would want to be
a duck or a goose. They can fly, walk, and swim. Plus,
there there is a certain satisfaction knowing that at the
end of your life you will taste good with an orange sauce
or, in the case of a goose, a chestnut stuffing.

Is there a way to program your camera to take 3 shots for each
trigger? Then you could program for a stop above, one
stop below the current setting. You get the idea.
(Bring two cameras! Sounds like a neat trip. I curious,
is someone in the group armed?)

Ed wrote:
Hi, I'm travelling to Uganda to trek Mountain gorillas, and wonder
what
kind of suggestions I can get for my D70 settings. I have used SLR
with film exculsively in past safaris and this is my first trip with
the digital Nikon. Are there recommendations for setting for pictures
of dark subjects (black gorillas obviously) in covered muted jungle
overhang?

Thanks,
Ed