Thank you, Barry for telling me that the animals I posted yesterday are Meerkats--my lovely bride of 40+ years had already told me, as my six year old grandson also did. JD and Cole have informed me of the names of all the animals that I forgot to shoot the signs of; but, I do not plan on using the names so I can demonstrate how "stupid" I was (some would say "am" would be a more appropriate verb) in not photographing the signs. So, get ready for more "mystery animal #s".
The male lion wondered over next to the Plexiglas near where I was standing. Looking at him, I wanted the photograph to be totally about his face, especially his eyes. My Nikon 300mm would only let me focus at a distance where I could get his entire face. I thought about cropping the image after I got it into the computer, but then decided that I wanted to show the total frame. This image has not been cropped. You are seeing everything that I recorded.
The major problem in taking this shot was making sure that I did not get any distortion or reflection from the Plexiglas. I wanted the shot to be straight-on so that his eyes would be the main aspect of the photograph, but I got too much reflection, so I shifted my angle slightly in order to eliminate as much of the reflection as possible. I still got some reflection in the very top left corner which I cloned-out in Photoshop. A polarizing filter might have been the answer, but I did not have one with me.
Enjoy.
Camera settings: Nikon D3, 300mm f/4 with 1.7x teleconverter attached (effective 500mm lens), shot at ISO 600, f/11 and 1/60 of a second on tripod.
This is a great portrait of one of my favorite animals.
ReplyDeletevery nicely done Larry!
Wonderful photo of Jonathan, our male African lion.
ReplyDeleteKelly Russo
Mgr. Interactive Marketing, Houston Zoo
Very nice Patrick!
ReplyDeleteThe straight on POV works really well!
Well done!
Barry
You produced as good an image as you could possible produce shooting through some plexiglas. I cannot believe you got this shot. I have tried to get this photo for years with absolutely nothing to show for my efforts. Let me know if you need someone to help you next time you go to the Houston Zoo because I am your man.
ReplyDeleteJammie
Good. Real good. Even though this is a shot only of the lion's face, you get a sense of how powerful a lion is.
ReplyDeleteJeb
I really like this too. Great shot, especially through plexi!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting photo. I feel like I could just reach out and pet him. I would never had thought that you shot this through plexiglas.
ReplyDeleteDebbie