K5, 55-300, ISO 12,800, 260-300mm, f5.6-5.8, 1/200. All are heavily PP'd.

Mountain Gorilla. Shot on a cold, grey day. Gorilla was inside with very little light at all - a little natural light coming in from a window on the left as we look at the gorilla but it was very dark even for humans - everyone else gave up trying to take photos (we were shooting through glass and the gorilla was too far away for the on-camera flashes to reach him). About 15M (50 feet) away. These shots came out very dark - I should have been shooting at 25,600 or even 51,200.





Does converting it to B/W make it better or worse ?

[Bob Harris]

Too bad the light was against you, the 1st one does show the facial features very well, that is just plain scary and powerful. I like the b/w better than the color. King Kong is ALIVE, thanks for sharing Bob

[Manel Brand]

I like the first shot. Impressive animal.

I've edit your photo and tried to recover some color and it come out in a way that I like it better. Don't know what processing you did on the original, but I was able to recover some interesting colors. Unfortunately, I'm out of attachments space and I'm not able to post it here, unless I upload the photo to my gallery or sent to your mail.

[Frogfish]

Thanks Manel - I'd very much like to see it. I didn't spend long on these, maybe 5 mins each, as they are not keepers, just for interest.

[CasualPhil]

Thank you for sharing these, the high ISO levels on the K-5 continue to impress me.

I too, enjoy the b/w version of Kong better- very classic photo looking, and the iso noise makes it seem like its from a newspaper.

[Frogfish]

Thanks Phil ... I'm sure the K5 can do better than these. I do believe that if I had shot at 25,600 then there would have been less noise than resurrecting these under-exposed shots. I thought an interesting test to see what could be saved.

[tessfully]

Technicalities aside, this is a very evocative photo shoot. While I do see strength and power, I also see extreme sadness. Your photos captured this for me ...

[Frogfish]

Thanks Tess. Yes I agree with you - he definitely seemed 'sad' if we can endow him with a human emotion. A very powerful and proud animal.

[Frogfish]

I like the first shot. Impressive animal.

I've edit your photo and tried to recover some color and it come out in a way that I like it better. Don't know what processing you did on the original, but I was able to recover some interesting colors. Unfortunately, I'm out of attachments space and I'm not able to post it here, unless I upload the photo to my gallery or sent to your mail.

Thanks for sending it to me Manuel - here it is below. Another guy in another forum also did a great job on it - cleaned it up a lot with Topaz' Adjust and Sharpener but I don't think I should post it here. By the way the green tint on all these shots is reflection from the green painted floor.

[slowpez]

I love the pose in the first one. Not sure I like the PP in the last one. I am not at all good with getting rid of noise however.