Orangutan & Royal Angelfish

[RandyRFJP]

Brookfield Zoo; CFPD; Brookfield, IL. Photographed 2017-05-20; Processed 2017-08-16

Photo 1: Orangutan Mother & Child



Photo 2: Royal Angelfish



C&C is welcomed and appreciated.

[NorthernFocus]

The orangutan is awesome. Great techs on the fish but framed a bit tight.

[John 2]

Love the first one in particular randy. Nicely caught pose.

[Shadowman]

Nice set.

[Ziggy]

Like that first one!

[RandyRFJP]

The orangutan is awesome. Great techs on the fish but framed a bit tight.

Thanks Dan. Although I readily admit that I do tend to crop many of my images tightly, in this instance the tight crop on the fish was primarily due to many scratches on the plexiglass "face" of its enclosure, and I would not have enjoyed the post-processing work that would have been required to remove many of those scratches.

[RandyRFJP]

Love the first one in particular randy. Nicely caught pose.

Thanks John. I find the mother orangutan to be very photogenic. The mother seems to enjoy viewing the zoo patrons who enjoy viewing her. This was the first time, however, that I've been able to get a good capture of her with her baby. Most of the time, the baby is either tucked under its mother's arm or is clinging, out of view, to her back.

[RandyRFJP]

Nice set.

Thanks, John, for viewing the photos and for your kind comment.

[RandyRFJP]

Like that first one!

Jim, thanks for your reply. Getting the photo of the orangutan mother and baby was easy compared to getting a decent photo of the fish, which was constantly moving and rarely even "semi-parallel" to the focal plane of my camera.

[Cogito]

What a lovely ape(s). Maybe the fish could do with a bit more background?

[RandyRFJP]

What a lovely ape(s). Maybe the fish could do with a bit more background?

Thanks, Tony, for viewing the photos and for your comments. I agree that the fish is very tightly cropped. The plexiglass face of the tank it was in had many scratches on it, and I didn't want to do the post-processing work needed to remove them, so I performed a very tight crop. I now realize that action wasn't the best choice. If what you meant by "more background" refers to a greater depth of field, the tank was large, and there were different types of fish in it, with most of them in constant motion. I wanted an image of an isolated angelfish, and had to wait until there were no fish in the foreground or background, and that meant I had to wait for the fish to be close to the face of the aquarium, with no other fish behind it.

[IzzieK]

Pity about the angel fish but you got the colours of that one right, just that the eyes seemed to be dark hallows. Must have too many late nights... .. j. k.. anyway, I like #1 better. She posed for you right that time around...great shots.

[Cogito]

..... If what you meant by "more background" refers to a greater depth of field,...

No, I was indeed referring to the crop!

Best I've ever managed was this taken in a Seattle aquarium on film

[Wavelength]

First one is an emotional feast; second one is a feast to eyes.....well done

[RandyRFJP]

Pity about the angel fish but you got the colours of that one right, just that the eyes seemed to be dark hallows. Must have too many late nights... .. j. k.. anyway, I like #1 better. She posed for you right that time around...great shots.

Thanks, Izzie. I was tempted to try to add highlights to the angelfish's eye, but I thought I'd land up just making it look worse. That orangutan is one of my favorite animals to photograph. Except for when her baby was very small, she seems to enjoy the attention she gets from the zoo patrons.

[RandyRFJP]

No, I was indeed referring to the crop!

Best I've ever managed was this taken in a Seattle aquarium on film

Tony, many years ago I tried to photograph fish at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago using a Canon A1 film camera. I knew from even that limited experience that it's very difficult to get a good capture of a free-swimming fish. Out of curiosity, I checked how many photos I took of the angelfish to see how many tries it took to get the one I posted. It was the 11th photo I took of a total of 11 photos of that particular fish, which works out to be about a dismally small 9% keeper rate.

[RandyRFJP]

First one is an emotional feast; second one is a feast to eyes.....well done

Thanks, Nandakumar, for your kind words.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Randy , I especially like the first image, lovely colors in #2

[RandyRFJP]

Hi Randy , I especially like the first image, lovely colors in #2

Thank you, Binnur. It was the colors that attracted me to try photographing the fish.