My Gosh, She Has A Macro Lens!!!

Back at the Academy of Science in San Francisco. Despite not having a lot of stuff, it's still quite an amazing place to shoot if you have the right equipment.

IF you have it.

I feel sorry for the point and shoot users who can't get an exposure in the aquatic areas. Ah, what a shame. I was in that position once- with the E900 at the "max" settings, exposure was still hard.

Problem? Most people don't put their P+S in manual mode (Unless your really into photography.) So, therefore, they resort to the flash, which hurts the animals.

I also found that in general, photography was rather difficult there. In the "amazon room" where there was a collection of free flying butterflies and birds, they were usually pretty far away, except for a few "feeding areas" where they would go. I did not see many telephoto lenses either, and I know that at 200mm it was still quite short. In reality, 400mm would have been great but...well, who brings a 400mm lens to a place like that?

And there are the "caged" animals (plastic boxes or nets). That may be the only time the P+S may shine- but still, a good macro lens makes a huge difference. This photo is quite sharp.

I think they need to add some more birds and butterflies to the exhibit- that would be awesome. In a similar place in Canada, they had some amazing birds there (here they were these kinda small-ish finch looking birds) and also things like turtles, and other mammals like some monkeys, a sloth..etc. Well, still a fun place, and it's not too far away.


And more on the photo:

Not much editing done actually! I noticed the fella was under a spotlight so I just framed it in such a way that the background was mostly dark. Meter away at the top of the head, and the effect is done.

I could have pushed this picture to the max and done a super-HDR type of thing, but I decided to leave it be. No reason in making it look too unnatural.

As always, there is a lot of editing to be done to perfect the image. Namely brightening the areas around the eyes as the shadows there are killer.

-indeed, a flash would have helped...

Well, if it means not hurting the animals I am down with that.

Today:

Lots of work to do :( Homework over the winter break...horrible! Well, it is raining outside and my family is pretty much going to stay inside for the day, so I can;t really venture out or anything. Well, I could, but I would get yelled at for not doing homework ;)