Fancy A Day At The Zoo!

Love the picture, I couldn't resist doing one more.


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Gleanies are great. Our shoot gamekeeper decided, in his wisdom, to get around 25 gleanies (guinea fowl) to mingle with the pheasant poults, as they act as excellent 'guards'.

Our shoot operates on a flat fee basis and any game shot is bought at the end of the day by the guns but it was decided that an extra charge would be made on the gleanies (they eat very well, I'm told!). Suffice it to say that there are still some 21 gleanies out of the 25 originally released, making a hell of a racket... They had the cunning plan of simply flying up into the trees in the pens when the beaters went through their wood. I think one was shot, three died probably 'naturally' - grabbed by Mr Fox.

I am pleased to report that no one was unsporting enough to simply shoot them out of the trees.....
 
I think a mystery that has been troubling me for some time has been solved!!

Whilst looking after some foals and mares in the fields at Newmarket, saw this bloody strange looking bird. Out of of the depths of my grey cells ........Guinea Fowl came to mind. I must add I was on my own when I spotted this bird and no-one would believe me. In fact I convinced myself that it couldn't have been a Guinea Fowl and I never saw it again.

There were certainly plenty of pheasants about and we did have the clowns in occassionally, so it could well have been a "GLEANIE"

Thanks, Songsheet.
 
Dims go to SHARPEN and use UNSHARP MASK its used by the pro's ;) you can undo it under edit in task bar at top of page if your not happy ... but really nice photo's all round................
 
Merlin you dont need to sharpen if they are in focus already. Dims photos are already in focus. Artificially sharpened photos look like artificially sharpened photos, whether its used by the pros or not. Getting it in focus to start with improves your chances of getting a good photo by a factor of ten!
 
U/G I am very well aware of that too, all digital cameras have that facility and Dims camera has this too... but by using UNSHARPEN MASK it improves your photo if it needs to be improved.... this info is from a PHOTOGRAPHER who has a masters degree in PHOTOSHOP..... This is his site

log on here
 
Merlin, it may just be possible that Uncle Goober knows a little bit about photography too. B)

Just a thought.....
 
Dims, I'm not trying to be smarmy (moi?) here, but I wonder if you'd consider printing off a number of those as greetings cards? The cute, inquiring little guinea fowl is so nice, the lion's magnificent, the baby giraffe has the 'ah' factor, and the ram is funny, in a nice way. I don't know what sort of shop the Zoo has, but I bet if you offered, say, a pack of six to them to sell, they'd buy them in. I would definitely buy them, and if you DO make any greetings cards from them, I'd like to be your first purchaser, please! I reckon if you offered them to the Zoo for post cards, posters, promotional material, etc., they'd be interested in your work.
 
Originally posted by Merlin the Magician@Feb 11 2006, 09:23 PM
Dims go to SHARPEN and use UNSHARP MASK its used by the pro's ;) you can undo it under edit in task bar at top of page if your not happy ... but really nice photo's all round................
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I actually used Levels Adjustment Layers and Layer Masks on the pictures.

Works great on making a certain area brighter without changing the colour of the image you wish to stay the same.
 
Originally posted by Kathy@Feb 12 2006, 08:22 PM
Merlin, it may just be possible that Uncle Goober knows a little bit about photography too. B)

Just a thought.....
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:o Well I never knocked anything he said but being quite candid (sorry for the pun) they are basic values of most modern day camera's....

I never said her photos were out of focus... so my information was aimed at DIM's and others!! In a helpful guise and without me being egoistic, I do photography as well if you never realised!! :P though not as often as I did, but I personally own a conventional professional camera MINOLTA 800 and a fair array of long lenses etc too.... :rolleyes: but mine was/is an hobby………..

But the site I posted was my sons site, who tries to earn a living doing it... :rolleyes:

P.S. one tries to be helpful to others but then you have got to explain why you post something that’s helpful, me telling you the reasons for this is not my intention, as I think it comes over that you may think that a person is being egoistic and its certainly not posted by me to mean that??
 
Sorry CRAIG I never meant to avoid your answer .....but yes another way there are so many ways one can improve a photo...... especially if taken in low light conditions as well!! you now have the software to do it......
 
Two giraffes killed in zoo fire

The baby giraffe was born a week ago
A baby giraffe born a week ago and its mother have died in a fire at Paignton Zoo in Devon.
Two elephants, a male giraffe and a zookeeper had a narrow escape from the blaze, which broke out among hay bales.

The baby giraffe was born on Monday last week to Kizi and father Paddy after a 15-month gestation period.

Four appliances and 35 firefighters tackled the fire on Sunday evening. An investigation is to be carried out into its cause.
 
Merlin, I agree that it seems the basic values of modern day cameras , and modern day photographic reproduction either in print form or publication is to work on the basis that what you have taken is crap and needs artificially enhancing in some way. When I have photographs printed in labs I tell them to turn off the sharpener! If my pictures are out of focus then they will still be out of focus and I can learn from a mistake, if they are in focus, then thats great.

With sharpening tools employed the crap pictures are marginally less crap and you can tell that manipulation has occurred anyway, and the perfectly good in-focus pictures get the electrocuted-i'm-really-really-sharp-and-unrealistic-looking treatment. I have yet to see people outside of ready brek adverts walking around within a defined outline, but in sharpened photographs they do. Its unrealistic and I dont like it. My point was, if its good leave it good, if its crap, ok, make it less crap, but its still crap!

Where I do like to use photoshop is in order to amend brightness and colour balance. This is legitimate tampering !! :lol: photographic labs have their own set of colour balances and it can even depend on who works the machine. For example years ago I always found my local Boots photos were too dark for my liking, another Boots and you may find your prints to be too bluey/green for example. In photoshop you can play with the colours to what you think they should have been !
 
Originally posted by Muttley@Feb 13 2006, 08:22 AM
Two giraffes killed in zoo fire

The baby giraffe was born a week ago
A baby giraffe born a week ago and its mother have died in a fire at Paignton Zoo in Devon.
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Let's hope that fire was not started deliberately. :angry: That is such sad news Muttley. So many Zoos rely on their babies to attract visitors to their doors. This must have hit the staff very hard.
 
I am devasted at the news regarding Kizi and her baby. :cry: The photo of the baby giraffe on the previous page was the one that died. I spent an hour watching mum and baby. Dad was nearby. The elephants were housed next to the giraffes, but I still cannot understand how this happened. The house is fairly new and looks like a huge metal barn. Yes they had straw, but just a bit for the bay to lay on and the elephants eat theirs as soon as its put down. Very strange indeed and extremely upsetting for all at the zoo.
 
The local news here has shown an interview with a director of the zoo who says there was nothing suspicious. The problem was that the firemen were unused to dealing with large animals whilst the zoo staff are not used to dealing with fires. The staff were able to show the firemen the right sequence of doors to get the animals out into the open again mostly by shooing them.
The surviving male is still suffering from smoke inhalation. The only way he would leave the scene was by having a hosepipe jet turned on him. The director says male giraffes do not grieve like some animals nonetheless he would be puzzled by everything going on around him.
 
I suppose we do rely heavily on our fireservice to be able able to attend almost any situation and absolutely any type of building. I don't suppose they get called to fires at zoos very often. Absolutely heartbreaking for all concerned though.

When the fire service attended the horse stuck in the horsebox a couple of months back which had to be cut out, some of the younger of the crew just stood and watched as it is not something they can be prepared for until it actually happens. Seeing three tonne of horse thrashing about in a horsebox is terrifying especially when they were expected to help remove it before it killed itself. To be honest, they were brilliant and stayed behind to clear away all the straw afterwards.

I can only imagine some were pretty upset too at not being able to save the giraffe and her baby at the zoo. It may be not a humane life, but very precious lives nevertheless.
 
Just seen this on NTL's home page - heartbreaking stuff, especially after the previous failures with babies. The Zoo's getting thousands of hits on its website, and masses of messages of sympathy for the poor giraffe keeper in particular, who must be devastated. Such a great shame, and a real loss for the zoo. Let's hope poor Dad survives the trauma.
 
A third giraffe, Paddy, died this morning. He was the baby giraffes Daddy and didn't recover from the smoke inhalation he suffered during the fire. Very sad news.
 
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