Langur Portrait

[Steve Lockett]

Here is one of my own humble offerings.
Taken at Pollunaruwa in Sri Lanka in March 2008. This common langur was sitting watching her offspring playing around the ruins of the temple and was quite happy for me to approach and snap away.
I metered from her face to ensure detail and to make the eye stand out even though this meant blowing out the highlights behind her head.
Cropped slightly at the top of the frame, otherwise only adjustments for contrast and sharpening in Photoshop.

Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: Sigma 70-200 f2.8
Manual Mode
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter: not recorded
ISO: 400
shot at 150mm, no flash

This is one of a series I took over the course of half an hour in her company.

[Steve Lockett]

Whoops, is Sri Lanka allowed?

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Nice image. I like the composition. I didn't think that someone will post images from Sri Lanka. :-)

I had mentioned Indian Subcontinent thinking that we may get an occassional image from the Indo-bangladesh or Myanmar borders as wildlife certainly don't understand international borders. Ofcourse, one can argue allowing images from Bangladesh, Myanmar etc that were part of the undivided India before or during the British era.

We can allow an occassional image, if it conveys something important. However, it would be too much to expect conservation issues of bangaldesh, bhutan and srilanka to discuss here, as I am worried that we will lose focus. It would be a tough task to cover all the wilderness areas in India in one lifetime. Raising our voice to save those is a much larger task. So I think it is better to focus on India.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Mrudul Godbole]

Nice portrait. The details on the face are nice. I liked the eye contact. You can upload a bigger image with 800 pixels on the longest side. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward for more.

[Bibhav Behera]

The spot metering has helped you get the exposure right on the face. One often sees under exposed faces in langur images. The blown highlight just behind the head isn't much of a bother for me. However the one on the left does draw attention as the details even though present on the face are not as bright as the patch. However, given a shot at this, one would definitely prioritise to get details on the subject better. So good job at that.

As Mrudul already pointed out, a larger image is always easier to critique. Do check this thread for understanding the uploading process better... http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31

Thanks for sharing. Look forward to more.

[Steve Lockett]

thanks for all the comments. I will post larger images next time...

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Look forward to your images from India (especially Coorg).

[V S Sankar]

Nice and sharp image.I have photographed these langurs but never got an image of my saticfaction(of course others as well!).

Here you got the face in nice and acceptable exposure(When I take pictures of these monkeys face looks dark!)

Agree with Sabya on concentrating on Indian wildlife.India has a very long association with Sri Lanka dating back to mythical ages.Lord Ram with the help of Hanuman defeated Ravana who was the king of Sri Lanka.There is even a natural bridge which connects Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka.(Many believe this to be the work of Hanuman and his troup).Known popularly as Adams bridge,this was used by Rama's army to reach Sri Lanka.In that sense India is connected to Sri Lanka!

Regards

[Steve Lockett]

If you read my post about manual metering in the photo tips area, you will soon be able to get good exposures on things like dark faces.
Thanks again for all the comments

I have to sort through my CDs to find good wildlife shots from India...I only have Sri Lanka & Malaysia pictures on my hard drive.