Marwell (image heavy)

Hello all. It seems like absolutely ages since I have posted any pictures on here. Been very busy at work, and moved house, so I have been a bit distracted. However, on holiday last week though I managed a day at Marwell Wildlife near Winchester and grabbed a bunch of shots and thought I would share some of them They were all taken using the K5 and the DA*200 (my favourite lens for places like this). I enjoyed Marwell, it seems like it has been very much modernised since I last went there (years ago!).

1. Hakuna Matata!




2. Melman




3. Oryx




4. Somali Wild Ass (although clearly not that wild just now)




5. Wiseguy!




6. Mini Dorcas




7. Me and my shadow




8. Waldrapp's Ibis




9. Crowned Lapwing




10. and to round off, a Eurasian short toed Otter (and quite a cutie!)




I hope you like them - there are a couple more on my flickr stream if anyone wants to see more.

Cheers

Great Set. 1,2 and 6 stand out for me

An absolutely stunning set!

Some cracking work. Well done. particularly like #1.

Good stuff all round. 1 & 3 are the class acts here for me. 1 is an overlooked subject but has real character (highlights a little strong?). 3 is beautifully simple but actually a textbook composition that works brilliantly.

Very stylish, superb set.

What a great set! Fabulous shots all round.

What pp did you use for the mono conversion?

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. The highlights were a little tricky as it was a pretty sunny day Steve - I have a bit of a ramshackle bunch of software which I have accumulated over the years, but in general for B/W like this I process the RAW file with DXO Optics pro, then the output from that gets opened in Photoshop elements for any further fine tuning - normally just shadows/highlights, brightness/contrast and a bit of levels; in this case I converted to mono using DXO film pack, picking whichever preset I think works best (I especially like neopan acros 100 and agfa APX 25, although I then often tweak a little with that software) - although equally I also use Silver Efex Pro, or simply 'Convert to Black and White' in PSE; then, if I want to burn the edges I normally use Silver Efex Pro functions as I like its functions better than the vignette functions in either PSE or DXO film pack; finally, back into PSE for dodging and burning (I like to burn the backgrounds on shots like this to get rid of extraneous clutter and fences/wires etc. normally). Sounds laborious, but actually it is pretty quick and I make use of presets and things which I have set up.

Cheers

Cracking shots there

Beautiful shots Mat, 3 and 6 for me are the ones that really strike home.

Regards
David

Thanks Stuey and David