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Jan, 2015Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I was traveling with my family (vacations) to visit my nephews in Luxembourg. I took this photo during a visit to Zoo d'Amneville, in France, in December 2014. It is a great zoo, within a 1h drive from Belgium/France border.Time
This photo was taken in the morning, and it was really cold for a Brazilian. The region had snow the day before, and it was lucky to find this animal in open air in such temperature.Lighting
As in many zoo visits, you need to cope with far subjects, use all zoom you got, keep the shutter speed as fast as possible (animals are unpredictable). It creates some challenges, and it's even worse in a snowy morning and cloudy skies. Light was harsh and blueish, and usually it creates additional work in post production to fix WB and warm up some colors.Equipment
I had my Canon 6D, with EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS II USM, and a simple UV filter attached to it. This photo was taken handheld (no tripod), with no flash. I used ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/180s.Inspiration
One of my intentions during this visit was take good photos of wonderful "big cats". When I visited the lions' cage, they were laying down, really far from the fence in a terrible position. I couldn't find an angle. I was affraid to not find any to shot. Then I found this one. This wonderful animal was resting, but suddenly started to stare at us from the distance with very intimidating eyes. The shelter created a nice, dramatic shadow and I was sure that it would be a great shot. Even at distance, I could notice a stronger light in the face and in the left shoulder. This was my chance to have a great animal portrait, looking at me, and I immediately imagined a low key shot.Editing
A lot. As said, the light conditions were terrible, the animal was far from the fence, under a shelter with strong shadows. Focus was fine, but colors were dull, and the background was very distracting (even with the shadows). In Photoshop, I started by fixing the white balance, to bring some warmth to the colors. When I was ok with the colors, a crop was needed to turn it into the portrait I wanted. Later, I spent a good time trying to isolate the animal by darkening the background and surroundings. Although it was way more complex than simply use select tools to isolate the animal, I thought it would be better this way (using a darkening pencil) to better preserve the animal fur and texture. It was a great exercise, because I tried to understand the animal's anatomy to decide where it should be darker or lighter. It was almost like a painting on a canvas. Finally, now in Lightroom, I used tweaked some presets to emphasize the texture, clarity and sharpeness, and I loved the way it looked like a hyperrealism drawing.In my camera bag
Well, it depends on what I'm trying to do. As it was a family travel, and we were supposed to walk for quite some time in the zoo, I didn't bring too many things in my bag. That day, I had my Canon 6D, my EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II and a EF 17-40mm f/4. When I want to go really light, I just carry my EF 24-105mm f/4 with me as it is fairly wide for most of the situations and also has a medium zoom. As I never know what may happen, I also take with me a grad ND4 filter to balance sky exposure a little bit, a CPL filter just in case I see rainbow or - in the zoo case - to minimize the glare caused by any glass separating us from the animals.Feedback
When visiting a zoo, it is important to keep in mind two basic things: one, light conditions will be usually terrible and, two, animals don't cooperate with you. You need to be patient, observe how the animal moves, try to predict its next position, pay attention to the angles you want to explore (this is even more important when the place is crowded). Set your camera to a fast shutter speed (1/180s is usualy better) and continuous shooting. Animals may change positions very fast, so I like to push the button with no mercy at all to improve my chances to capture "the" shot. Because of such sudden chances, I use the automatic focus. I keep the ISO not too high to prevent noise, usually constant at 800 or 1250, and the shutter at 1/180s. Depending on the light, I increase or decrease the DoF to have a better exposure. It may not be the best way to handle it, but it is the way I'm comfort with. As my goal is a good shutter speed and lower noise, I don't pay too much attention if the exposure is to the right or left: if the exposure is up to -1 or +1, I can fix in post production easily and yet keep a good level of detail. Out of the technical specs, please remember: animals won't cooperate. Evaluate it, try to predict the moves, feel the animal rythm...wait...and shot. Please don't shout, throw things or slap in the fence to call the animal attention to you: it is a stress to the animal, disrespectful to the zoo employees, annoying to the ones around you and a bad example to kids. Be patient, stay ahead of the game with your gear, finger ready and shot with no mercy (your camera, not the animal please).
