Gorilla Photos

[Ian]

Hi folks, I am off to Africa in a few weeks, the highlight for me is a visit to the Gorillas in Rwanda. Hopefully we will have an hour with them, up close and personal. So i was wondering about the best settings for them? I understand I am going to be photographing a dark animal and likely in dim surroundings with no use of flash. I have an Olympus E-520 and will be shooting raw but with only having an hour to get a perfect photo I thought I would see what other people have done in similar situations.

Ian

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Ian and welcome to CiC.

I have been to Africa but unfortunately not to the gorillas. I have seen them on TV and yes it looks like you will be working in a closed forests environment. You seem to able to get pretty close from what I’ve seen on TV (hopefully anyway) so I would work with the shortest focal length you can get away with to allow as much light as you can. The only thing you really have to use (given no flash) is the ISO setting on your camera. Getting the exposure right (particularly not under exposing) should give good results without too much noise up to ISO 800.

Are you going to carry a tripod or monopod? If so you will be able to get away with lower ISO settings. Also check your exposure regularly, particularly the shutter speed available to you as you work, as the light changes you maybe be able to work at lower ISO settings.

Have a great trip and post some of the gorilla images when you get back.

[Ian]

Hi, thanks yes I will be carrying a monopod and will likely try setting at least a third over exposure, the footage I have seen indicates that we could be within a few meters which should be fun.

I have two choices on lens a 22-44 mm f2.8 or a 36-380 f3.5. As I understand it I wont easily be able to change the lens because of the humidity so I likely need to make a choice early. My camera goes to 1600 ISO but hopefully I will not have to use that as I get a but of noise. One thing is I gather that mostly they don't move fast so I wont have to worry about them running around too much. One of our group is going to take HD videos on a Panasonic GF1 so we should have both.

We have 6 weeks in Africa so hopefully there will be some nice images especially of the gorillas.

[Peter Ryan]

I am not sure where you live but I am sure you will enjoy Africa. I can assure you the two lenses you have will be more than sufficient to cover what you you are going to do. I understand about changing lense believe me I got plenty of dust in Namibia but make sure you take a really good blower brush and you will be ok.