Ring-Tailed Lemur(s) -- CAPTIVE

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EOS Elan IIE, 70-200/2.8L, taken @ 200mm and f2.8, handheld, exposure not recorded, Royal Gold 200, scanned from print.

-- John Karidis (karidis@ibm.net), January 01, 1999

Answers

This picture looks soft to me - as if a soft filter had been used. Perhaps it was the scanning. My other comment is that I can't figure out the head, tail and body of the lemur. Their positions look a bit out of place. I gather the photo had been cropped.

Exposure seems to be spot on.

-- Alan (afive@pacific.net.sg), January 02, 1999.


Alan, The light was very soft (indirect, late afternoon) and scanning from a print didn't help the contrast. This image was only cropped slightly from the original negative, but you are correct to wonder about the odd body part placements, since this is actually a close-up taken when several young lemurs were clinging to the back of an adult. The face you see is one young animal, while the tail actually belongs to a different young animal facing the other direction, and the grey back belongs to the adult. This makes for a non-standard portrait, but it does capture three key elements of the lemur in what looked to me to be an uncluttered composition. Is this just too strange a way to present an animal portrait?

-- John Karidis (karidis@ibm.net), January 02, 1999.

John,

Imagine what you might think, if you had never seen a lemur before. Without your explanation you'd get a real strange idea of what a lemur is, so, in a way, it may be too strange. It is generally a good idea to show the important body parts of each animal in an image as publishers seem to expect some anatomical correspondence with life, unless humor is the object of the image and even then you do have to be able to figure out the joke.

The overall softness is not due to the soft light or the lack of contrast, I think. The softness is either due to your scanner or the image is quite out of focus.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), January 03, 1999.


While the original photo is not nearly as soft as this small scan (without unshark masking) appears, I think it isn't as sharp as it could be because it was taken through a wire fence. I got as close as possible but the pitch of the fence was smaller than the front element of my lens and I couldn't stop down. (The hand of man isn't visible directly, but I think it is showing itself indirectly). I think that is really the problem, not the focus or the scanner. In any case, thanks for the input, I had my own reservations about the odd nature of this shot and that is why I posted it for critique (although perhaps I should have chosen something better for my first post).

-- John Karidis (karidis@ibm.net), January 03, 1999.

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