Chimps and Photomatix

A few weeks ago I was at the zoo and got some photos of a few chimpanzees hanging out in the trees.  It was about 5pm in the afternoon and super sunny.  Between the bright sky and the dark chimps, I figured this was a good time to do a bracketed exposure so that I could create an HDR image in Photomatix.  Here is my HDR version:

ISO 160 50mm f/6.3 1/400

I had my shutter speed set pretty fast for this series of shots, but the chimps did still move a bit between exposures.  Movement like that is called ghosting.  Photomatix has an easy to use tool to take care of that, in this case it worked pretty well but not perfectly.

Here is the original so you can see the difference:

ISO 160 50mm f/6.3 1/400

I think, in this case, the HDR version does a nice job of bringing out details that you can’t see in the original, would you agree?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Cheers!

Weekly Photo Challenge: My 2012 in Pictures

ISO 800 50mm -0.33 f/16 1/400

ISO 125 4mm f/2.8 1/120

ISO 800 50mm 0.33ev f/1.8 1/640

ISO 500 135mm f/10 1/50

ISO 500 28mm f/22 1/125

ISO 100 50mm f/5 1/25

ISO 500 50mm f/4.5 1/125

ISO 500 90mm f/9 1/50

This is a gallery of some of my favorite pictures from my blog this year.  It is a response to this week’s photo challenge from WordPress.  A big thank you to everyone who has stopped by my blog this year!

Cheers!

Happy Holiday Monday

Even if you don’t have a holiday today, hope you get a chance to relax for at least a bit like this chimp:

ISO 100 f.5 1/25 50mm

The reality behind this photo is that it was hot at 8 in the morning and every being was looking for a bit of shade.

Cheers!

Chimp with an iTouch

Technically, it is my oldest child that has the touch, the chimp is just looking at it:

ISO 100 50mm f/5 1/25

I didn’t actually notice right away what my child was doing, I was taking photos of another chimp at the time.  Then I noticed that a crowd was gathering and that my child was talking to the chimp and showing the chimp pictures of itself and other animals.  The chimp seemed pretty interested.  This isn’t a great picture technically speaking, there was quite a bit of glare and the glass was really dirty right in that spot.  Still, it was an interesting moment.

Cheers!

Me and the Chimpanzee

ISO 320 135mm f/5.6 1/100

Can you just imagine that I was sitting on the other side of the enclosure thinking, please look this way 🙂

ISO 320 135mm f/5.6 1/100

A bit of glare off the window.

ISO 320 41mm f/4 1/100

Also, some glare.  Will be back to try again!

Cheers!