Cindy Marple
September 2023 - Lemur
Original
About the Image(s)
On my trip to Madagascar, we visited a preserve called Lemur Island. The lemurs were free to roam, but confined to the island. They were habituated to feeding stations where they would get bananas, and were accustomed to being close to people. In other locations, they were up high and distant, requiring long lenses for photos. So I took advantage of this opportunity and put on my short zoom for this visit, which also happened to have very few people around, so I could stay close and not be in the way of others. I wanted to capture a different perspective, with the distortion of the wide angle, and including the habitat. It’s challenging in the dark, dappled light of a forest though. I had auto-iso engaged and didn’t realize how high it’d gone, but Topaz did a decent job of cleaning it up.
Very little else done in post-processing, mainly increasing the contrast a bit.
Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur
Nikon Z9, 24mm, ISO16,000(!), 1/250, f/9
8 comments posted
Those golden colored eyes just draw you in! The pose of the lemur on the branch is terrific! Hard to believe that you took this at night. You might reduce teh highlights and exposure on the sky that is peeking through the trees at the top, but otherwide this looks great! Posted: 09/08/2023 14:15:45
I guess I wasn't very clear in my description, this was taken mid-afternoon. It's just that the dense forest was quite dark, but as you can see from the sky it was dappled. The bit of contrast enhancement I did made the bright sky stand out even more. Would you just take a brush with a slight minus exposure adjustment to that area? When I've tried highlight reduction on something like that it can get a little weird looking. I'll play with it a little too. Thanks for your feedback! Posted: 09/08/2023 17:06:33
I wish you luck with that dappled sunlight--when the area is blown out you can't bring back what is not there. Sometimes you can use the color grading panel in Lightroom and add a tint to the area and that will get rid of the pure white or the strange gray that appears when you start editing.
If this were mine I would approach this issue first by cropping, you can lose some area off the top and try to limit as much as possible that way. The alternative would be that since as a nature image it will not score high due to the lack of a nature story then I would just clone it out and not say a word to anyone. This is an image that I know you will treasure as it is so captivating. Everything does not have to be entered in competition so make it look good for yourself.
I really like this as it brings a smile to my face. Posted: 09/10/2023 13:15:13
