Silverback Gorilla Miami Metro Zoo

Captain Kimo visited the Miami Metro Zoo Friday for the first time ever! What a place. I didn’t know what I was missing out on until now. The awesome thing about the Miami Metro Zoo is that there are no fences so taking photos of the animals wasn’t restricted by anything obscuring the view. The zoo itself was larger than I expected, so large I didn’t have time to finish viewing the entire facility. Which was fine since it started to rain anyways.

But before it rained I had a chance to photograph this Silverback Gorilla. This big guy was my main objective when I got to the zoo. I zoomed passed the rest of the animals only stopping briefly to snap a few shots. When I got to the big guy’s territory, I only waited 20 minutes before he walked to the wall and did a posing session for me.

I took a bunch of exposures of this Silverback. I also had it on AEB for some HDRing but Mr. Gorilla didn’t want to stay still for one second. So trying to do a 3 exposure HDR was impossible. When I got home and saw my exposures, I decided that single exposure HDR was the only way to go. So I took this single RAW file and tone mapped it using Photomatix. The final pseudo HDR didn’t look bad at all. I added textures to give it more of a artistic and at the same time it took away the concrete wall in the background.

Click here to view original exposure from RAW file.

Click here to view single exposure HDR from Photomatix.

Learn Captain Kimo’s HDR techniques with his e-book…
“Secrets to Mastering HDR Photography”

Software Used for Processing Photo:

Photomatix – Used for creating high dynamic range.
Topaz Adjust – Photoshop plugin used to enhance details.
Topaz DeNoise – Photoshop plugin used to eliminate noise.
Topaz Clean – Photoshop plugin used to smooth pixels.

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Photography Style: High Dynamic Range
Digital Camera Used: Canon 5D Mark2
Lens Used: Canon 100-400mm f/5.6L USM
Photo Location: Miami Metro Zoo, Miami, Florida