PHOTO CLINIC
02
Narrowing
the aperture
would have kept
the rear monkey
much sharperPHOTO CRITIQUE
01
The composition
and eye contact
makes for a really
engaging wildlife
portrait03
The image
feels too
warm, and would
benefit from a
contrast boostPaul says “I spotted this group of macaque monkeys
on a visit to Newquay Zoo. I immediately envisaged
the shot I wanted to capture, but it took a long time
for the monkeys to play ball and all look at me at
the same time, despite me clicking my fingers and
making various attempts at monkey noises to try
and get their attention! As it was a quite dull day I
had to bump up the ISO to 800 to get a fast enough
shutter speed to enable me to shoot handheld. In
Photoshop I adjusted Levels slightly, cropped in a
little tighter to remove some background distractions,
and added a vignette to draw the eye in. I love the eye
contact with the macaques – even if they do look a
bit sinister!”We say “This is a great shot, Paul, and it goes to
show that you don’t have to go on safari to capture
dramatic wildlife images! As you say, it’s the eye
contact that helps to makes the shot, so it was worth
waiting for the right moment – and possibly getting
funny looks off other visitors with your efforts to
get the monkeys’ attention! But it’s not just that eye
contact that makes this shot a winner – the tilts
of the heads, and the way the monkeys are lined up
as if they’re in a queue, help to create a genuinely
engaging wildlife portrait. Your shutter speed was
fast enough to ensure a sharp image, while the f/14
aperture has kept the closest two macaques in sharp
focus, and the farthest one sharp enough to capture
the eye contact, while blurring the backdrop nicely.
However, a slightly narrower aperture would’ve made
the back monkey sharper; capturing good-quality
images at high ISOs is all in a day’s work for your 5D
Mk III, so you could have gone to ISO1600 without
a noticeable reduction in quality. A vignette effect is
ideal for this sort of shot, but I would just suggest
a couple of small tweaks to enhance the image even
more – I’ve made these in Adobe Camera Raw, which
can be used to edit JPEGs very effectively as well as
raw files. The shot feels too warm, and the yellowish
tint makes the subjects look a little jaundiced, so I’ve
toned down the yellow and added blue by moving
the Temperature slider left; cooling the colours
adds to the feeling of drama and slight menace you
alluded to. I’ve also brightened the image a little,
boosted the overall contrast, and reduced the Blacks
to further boost the contrast between the shadows
and midtones. You also sent us some black-and-
white versions of similar images; mono treatments
can be very effective for wildlife, and converting to
mono is also an easy way to banish colour casts, but
in this case keeping the image in colour preserves the
striking oranges of the macaques’ eyes.”Canon EOS 5D Mk III
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
Aperture f/14
Shutter speed 1/125 secYou Looking
At Me?
BY PAUL FINE
010302