Just for Bret: real wildlife

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:50:28 GMT, wrote:

I am sure this can be improved in the future. Is this just some types of
sensors, the way they pick up light, or some other factor?

Digital sensors behave like reversal films (hard clipping in the
highlights), and most people are used to shooting with negative stock,
which is much more tolerant of overexposure. What we perceive as
"flatness" is the resultant lack of highlight detail, and overall loss
of contrast.


Thank you. That was very helpful.

DD wrote:

This past weekend I stayed at a private game reserve here in Kwa-Zulu
Natal and of course a bag full of Nikons came with.

I have a new respect for nature photographers, because this is a very
difficult field to get good shots in. Unfortunately most of mine suck,
but I thought I would share these few with you anyway.

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Rhino_1.jpg


Rhinos are one of the few animals you can get decent shots of at the
North Carolina Zoo here in Asheboro. The enclosure looks very much like
the what you have in your second shot, although it's smaller, so that
when they're out, you're fairly close.

The rhinos move about the enclosure, so with patience you can get some
shots pretty much like what you have there. Any good tele from about
100mm up works well there. With a 500mm, on 35mm film, you get a really
tight crop for a head-shot. A 70 - 200 is a great lens for rhinos at the
NC zoo.

The elephants are nearby, and have the same type of natural enclosure.
It's mainly a ditch with thorny plants on the edges with an electric
fence wire along the inside edge. But they're very hard to get anything
that doesn't look like elephants IN A ZOO.

Mainly because it's hard to get good shots that don't include the cement
pond that provides their water and/or the electric fence wire that tells
them where their boundary is. The zoo announced they're going to enlarge
the elephant enclosure and add more elephants which might improve the
opportunities.

The gazelles & other deer-like African animals have a very large
enclosure, but there's not many of them in there, so it's hard to get
any kind of a good shot.

The rhino photo could have been great if he had gotten real close and used
flash!

--
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
(visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com)
freebridge design group

"Scott W" wrote in message
oups.com...
DD wrote:
This past weekend I stayed at a private game reserve here in Kwa-Zulu
Natal and of course a bag full of Nikons came with.

I have a new respect for nature photographers, because this is a very
difficult field to get good shots in. Unfortunately most of mine suck,
but I thought I would share these few with you anyway.

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Rhino_1.jpg

There we were driving along the rutted path and lying under a fig tree
right next to the road were these two white rhino. The park keeper told
me prior to me venturing out on the reserve that they were pretty
docile, but that I shouldn't get too close. I think I got too close!

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Rhino_2.jpg

As I tried to inch my way around them they got up and started snorting
abuse at me. You don't want a rhino sized hole in your Ford, so I backed
away and took a different route around them.

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Buck_1.jpg

These are some or other type of buck (I'm no expert). It's about as
close as I could get before they began to run away down the hill.

These were taken with the D70 and 70-200mm f/2.8 VR.

This is a half-assed attempt at landscape photography.

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Vista.jpg

I lost the highlights but managed to keep the detail in the foreground.
Again, D70 but with the 18-70mm DX. I think I have much better film
shots (waiting to be processed) that I took with the F100 and 17-35mm
f/2.8. Will be dropping them off at the lab this am.

The biggest problem with this type of photography is getting to the
animals at the right time of day. At the time these were taken it was
about 11am (except for the landscape one) and the sun was high and
sharp. We came across a group of giraffe who were grazing in amongst
some flat-top trees, but I couldn't get a decent shot under the
conditions.

Maybe next time I'll go on my own and leave the wife and kids at home.
Hey Bret, you keen on some adventure???

Not at all bad given the conditions. The Rhino photos show a common
problem when photographing either people or animals, that both seem to
want to stand in the shade when it is sunny.

Scott

"Gene Palmiter" wrote in message
news:EDKnf.41154$Y7.25088@trnddc02...
The rhino photo could have been great if he had gotten real close and used
flash!

Yes......I have always wanted to see what the bottom of a Rhino's foot
looked like........

In article .com,
says...
This is a half-assed attempt at landscape photography.
http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Vista.jpg

Can you e-mail me the NEF file? You were shooting RAW, I hope.

Sorry Dude. I only shoot RAW when I absolutely have to (I only have
1x512MB CF card). I have scanned a different version in last night,
which was taken with expired Porta 160VC. The colours looked a bit
weird, but I have tried to get it normal by using the colour sampler in
the curves tool. This is a 78MB TIFF file, so I think emailing it might
break something!

Will post a comparative jpeg at some point today...

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article ,
says...
In article ,
DD wrote:
This past weekend I stayed at a private game reserve here in Kwa-Zulu
Natal and of course a bag full of Nikons came with.

I have a new respect for nature photographers, because this is a very
difficult field to get good shots in. Unfortunately most of mine suck,
but I thought I would share these few with you anyway.

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Rhino_1.jpg

I like photographing wild animals. Or trying to. From my ratio of almost
decent shots to animals simply centered in the frame, I've concluded that
wildlife photography is a lot harder than hunting. But photography has
been something to do while I'm in the woods rather than the reason to go
out there, so I've never felt that my time was wasted.

More often than not I could spend hours in the woods and go home with
nothing at all. But from watching the way the animals behave when they do
show up I've decided that a lot of hunting equipment, like dirt-scented
wafers (Dirt scented? Like you can't find dirt in the woods?) are more
for the hunter than for the animals they hunt. I think a lot of those
folks go out to the woods once per year in November, don't want to take
any chances on missing the opportunity to bag a buck, and otherwise can't
think of enough reasons to go out there during the rest of the year to
notice how much good their gear is doing them.

Yep, you need lots of time if you are going to do this sort of thing
properly. You don't want a petrified wife in the seat next to you, or
two kids sitting in the back asking if we are nearly finished the game
drive yet.

I might go back there on my own for the day sometime next year, but
instead of driving the route I will most likely hike it.

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article ,
lid says...
DD wrote:

This past weekend I stayed at a private game reserve here in Kwa-Zulu
Natal and of course a bag full of Nikons came with.

I have a new respect for nature photographers, because this is a very
difficult field to get good shots in. Unfortunately most of mine suck,
but I thought I would share these few with you anyway.

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Rhino_1.jpg


Rhinos are one of the few animals you can get decent shots of at the
North Carolina Zoo here in Asheboro. The enclosure looks very much like
the what you have in your second shot, although it's smaller, so that
when they're out, you're fairly close.

The rhinos move about the enclosure, so with patience you can get some
shots pretty much like what you have there. Any good tele from about
100mm up works well there. With a 500mm, on 35mm film, you get a really
tight crop for a head-shot. A 70 - 200 is a great lens for rhinos at the
NC zoo.

The elephants are nearby, and have the same type of natural enclosure.
It's mainly a ditch with thorny plants on the edges with an electric
fence wire along the inside edge. But they're very hard to get anything
that doesn't look like elephants IN A ZOO.

Mainly because it's hard to get good shots that don't include the cement
pond that provides their water and/or the electric fence wire that tells
them where their boundary is. The zoo announced they're going to enlarge
the elephant enclosure and add more elephants which might improve the
opportunities.

The gazelles & other deer-like African animals have a very large
enclosure, but there's not many of them in there, so it's hard to get
any kind of a good shot.

Sounds like you need to get out on a real safari. How expensive is a
flight out to RSA from where you are?

I've often toyed with the idea of setting up a safari organising
business, but I need to do a lot of homework first. I suppose the most
difficult part of any hospitality business is dealing with the people!

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article ,
says...
In article .com,
says...
This is a half-assed attempt at landscape photography.
http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Vista.jpg

Can you e-mail me the NEF file? You were shooting RAW, I hope.

Sorry Dude. I only shoot RAW when I absolutely have to (I only have
1x512MB CF card). I have scanned a different version in last night,
which was taken with expired Porta 160VC. The colours looked a bit
weird, but I have tried to get it normal by using the colour sampler in
the curves tool. This is a 78MB TIFF file, so I think emailing it might
break something!

Will post a comparative jpeg at some point today...


And here it is...

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Vista_Filmversion.jpg

This was shot from the same position, at the same time (give or take
about a minute) using the Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 on an F100. The aperture
was about f/11 and the film was Portra 160VC. This film had expired so
the colour on the neg had shifted by quite a considerable margin. I
messed around in photoshop and got it about as close to the digital
image as I could. As you can see, I haven't done anything about the
grain.

What's most interesting about this image is to see just how much more
coverage you are getting with the full 35mm frame compared to the 1.5x
crop of the D70.
--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

In article . com,
says...
Why do digital shots all look so flat and lifeless?


Nobody bothers to put them on low blood pressure medication?

Here's a film shot from the same position:

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Vista_Filmversion.jpg

--
DD
www.dallasdahms.com
Central Scrutinizer

"DD" wrote in message
...
In article . com,
says...
Why do digital shots all look so flat and lifeless?


Nobody bothers to put them on low blood pressure medication?

Here's a film shot from the same position:

http://www.dallasdahms.com/photos/Vista_Filmversion.jpg


Did you scan that into your computer with the Dimage 5400 II, Dallas? And if
so, was it a slide, or a negative?