[Dave]

Popped to Bristol Zoo today & managed to fire off a few shots. Lighting was pretty poor & how many kids running around Can you tell this is my first year of being restricted to school hols for planning trips

Only had chance to process this one , but will add a few more later. Must admit the zoom doesn't offer many great photo opportunities, as so much is behind glass these days ...ooh I do love a good refelction in a shot

Anyway here's Percy



Taken with Sigma 70-200mm at f/2.8

[Dave]

For the Photo Shop whizzes, try & save this shot in the Pimping section :- http://www.pixalo.com/gallery/showph...o/7178/cat/582

[Dave]

Right here is just a 60 second conversion of the PIMP shot from above. It's got blown highlights, still blurred ....have you checked the EXIF



From this I feel confident we can actually PIMP this to a decent shot & prove it is possible to polish a turd Come on PS'ers, get to it

[Rob Barron]

Wow, what a terrific self portrait Dave, must have taken you ages to clone out the camera round your neck Just kidding but P-P-P-Percy does need a little p-p-p-pick me up so I've had a little play. I have taken out the obvious ID tag but most of what I've done is fairly subtle, i hope.

There was quite an obvious halo around Percy's wings, maybe from being over-sharpened I am not sure. So i cloned the halo out and sharpened the focus around the legs just a little. I didn't want to give him a cut out and stuck on look.

I am not sure whether you were wanting something more dramatic as if so this won't be what you after but I do think the tidying up has lifted it a bit. I did also give our cheeky Percy a little catchlight in the eye just to add a bit of character.

Cheers,
Rob

[Dave]

Cheers Rob, excellent pimp Yep, I did have to do too much sharpening for my liking, but with poor light the shot did look very flat . Good work that man

[skipper954]

Hi Dave

I certainly don't want to dis a guru (crew), but the thing I really don't like about Percy is that one can't really distinguish facial details. I assume that he is a pengie, but he could also be a duck, a funny bird, or Dave

Ouch

skip

I certainly understand the difficulties in taking shots in this environment. Been there, done that.

[Dave]

Guru I wish. No probs Skip, you make a valid point. I assume you mean because the face is front on, you don't have the advantage of seeing the shape of the bill etc ? Must admit I've never shot animals / wildlife in anger before, so it's all new to me. Good to learn from others

[skipper954]

Hey Dave

Yes, that plus there seems, at least on my screen and with the compression, that there is facial detail lost in shadow.

Um, who was in anger, you or the wildlife?

skip

[Dave]

I think most of the animals are a tad miffed at lack of space they have at zoo's ;(