It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a ...

[Nancy Bell]

Colugo! I just returned from a fabulous trip to Borneo where I saw 12 species of primates and experienced the incredible heat and humidity of the equatorial jungle! I had never heard of a "colugo" and first saw it as a large red disc-shape zipping through the trees and watched it appear to plaster itself against a tree trunk. Upon closer inspection it looked like a cross between a flying squirrel, a lemur and a bat :e3! It is also known as a Sunda flying lemur. I looked it up and discovered there are only 2 species of colugo and they are found only in southeast Asia and some of the Philippine Islands. They are primitive gliding mammals, most closely related to primates, nocturnal and vegetarian. They can glide 70 m (230 ft) while losing little altitude. I was super thrilled to see this animal plus get photos! Something must have disturbed it from its day roost. It stayed very still for about 15 minutes then very, very slowly made its way up the tree into thicker leaf cover. A totally awesome experience!

Canon 1Dx, Canon 200-400 f/4 L IS with internal 1.4 @ 400, f5.6, 1/125, exp. comp. +1/3, ISO 1600, tripod

c & c most welcome

[Dave Kettles]

wow, TFS such a rare sighting, and for including the back story. Incredible, looks like a fried egg fitted with a head. Amazing image quality/sharpness at a relatively low ss just demonstrates the value of the tripod I guess. I really like the comp, complete with upward gaze and a little catchlight, really perfect. It seems you did extremely well to get this pic: I can imagine the conditions were not easy, never mind the rarity and special quality of this sighting.
D

[Karen Pleasant]

REALLY an excellent image! The sharpness of the head and the little bit of catch light are excellent! What an experience! TFS!

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Nancy, welcome back! I am so glad you had a great trip to Borneo. It is on my wish list as well. It's not too far from India and I should be able to do it easily. Coming to the image, this is the first time I am seeing it! What an incredible creature and am sure seeing it and photographing it must have been quiet a thrill! Congrats on that. I like how it stretches across the trunk with contrasting color and you did an amazing job getting it sharp and with wonderful detail at this slow SS. I like the visible eye and composition.
Well done Nancy. And TFS. Looking forward to more.
Cheers,
Sanjeev

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Nancy, a warm welcome back and what a fantastic trip, it one of those locations that I still think retains mystery with great encounters, look forward to seeing more.

Overall I think you did well, but ISO needed to be higher even on a tripod IMHO, 3200 easily and with that set up the IQ would have been better, retaining a faster SS. As it was still, if you had it I might have even used a cable release to really minimise any additional movement. Love that 'wrapped around' pose and the hint of tongue is just visible. Personally I might just loose a little off the top so the OOF leaves are not so dominate, but all personal taste.

IMHO Adobe has a habit of adding colour, hence why I personally strip it all out, plus shoot Faithful, but if you have the time create a virtual copy in LR (I think you use it?) and just look at how the HSL affects colour, albeit in parts subtle, reduced to retain IQ. I'm certainly not saying this is right, but sometimes colour can saturate and bleed into the finer detail, just a thought.

I think Nancy you will be posting a lot of images never seen here, fantastic. :cheers:

[Nancy Bell]

Thanks all! Steve, I don't exactly understand what you are saying. I do not use Lightroom. I have noticed that when I bring an image into Adobe Raw Converter it does appears different and more diffuse than what I see on Breezebrowser. Is this an "improvement" that I get using the Adobe CC monthly cloud subscription? It is frustrating as I try to bring back what I think is in the original Raw image, let alone make any adjustments. How do I "strip out the color" in ACR? How do I "return" it? Do you mean to use the "faithful" choice in ACR? I understand that I can also choose "faithful" on the camera. I feel as I am indeed missing something and I so appreciate that you could address it. I do like your adjustments to the image.

My concern in increasing ISO was the dreaded addition of noise, especially since in the jungle that are a great deal of "darks" that reveal noise so easily. I also desired a cable release at that moment (back in my room, ha!). I usually use a 9x6 format for any cropping but I should be more flexible in my thinking. Thank you so much for all of your comments and suggestions! Very appreciated.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Nancy - Welcome back. It sounds like you had a great trip and I am very much looking forward to your images. Thanks also for the bg info about this species. I don't recall ever hearing about it before either. I am guessing from your description that one doesn't often get a chance to photograph these in daylight or in the open so congrats and well done for seizing the opportunity. You've brought out some nice detail in the fur and handled the jungle light well. I do prefer Steve's crop with the oof foliage near the top removed to an extent. In your op I might back off on the sharpening of the tree to the extent you added any.

Yes, in ACR under the "Camera Calibration" tab, Steve is suggesting select "Adobe Faithful" in the Camera Profile pull-down. I think Steve also now shoots on Faithful in his camera.

TFS,
Rachel

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Nancy, when you bring your RAW files into Adobe I feeling is that often they are perhaps too Saturated, flooded with colour & vibrance, sometimes clipping in the Histogram, however some people like that and it also personal choice. Breezebrowser is just an editing software, something that you can quickly edit images in, i.e. soft, sharp, well/badly composed..., I would not use it for colour.

If you decide to join Adobe CC then you will get all updates, revisions as and when instantly, however you then will have sold your soul, as you will then never own the software you are 'captured' and if you left, all you current images could not then be accessed, you would have to start all over again, the price (small) you pay.

I shoot Faithful so there is no added items to the image, although you can do this in ACR, all I want is the RAW with minimal colour and zero sharpening, contrast, as Canon do through so much Contrast into the image, clearly seen if you compare a Nikon D4 image, this is mainly why they look so clean, no dam added Contrast as such!

Without going into too much detail, using HSL in the make up of your image to adjust colour I think works and can be clearly seen. This will give you a good platform, but this is just my thinking, but a lot of the 'tweaks' to the image were done mainly through this.

[Gabriela Plesea]

A warm welcome back Nancy,

Wow, this little one looks like a bat with a bear's coat... what a privilege to see and capture such amazing species! I hope there's more where this came from?

Well exposed, and I like the composition/presentation, I tend to agree with Steve on the need for more SS but I have never worked with Canon equipment so not sure of the consequences in terms of noise. This is so unique and I cannot remember ever seeing a photograph of the species:)

My guess is "faithful" in Canon is somehow similar to "neutral" in Nikon, but not 100% sure. In terms of Nikon, when choosing to shoot "Neutral" one gets a more natural, unsaturated, unsharpened, and almost "unprocessed" version of the image one has taken, low in contrast and it might not look that good when imported in LR or Photoshop but it makes post processing easier. And a very humble suggestion - do try Lightroom if possible Nancy, I think it comes with PP CC which you are already using, and I personally find it quite useful in "preparing" the image for editing in Photoshop. I use it to correct WB, among other things...

Once again thank you for sharing this lovely capture, indeed a rare sighting and I loved reading the info you provided. Hope to see more from you in the Wildlife Forum:cheers:

Kind regards, a lovely evening to you:)

[Gabriela Plesea]

Oops, sorry Rachel and Steve, only saw your replies after posting mine, thanks for clarifying things regarding "faithful":5

Warmest regards,

[MiroslavMaric]

Hi Nancy, great capture and story with all details. I like the frame, position of the subject and light. Hope to see more photos from Borneo. TFS.

Cheers,
Miro

[Steve Kaluski]

Gabriela, your right and well phrased, but do as much as you can in RAW before exporting.

[Morkel Erasmus]

A really cool shot of an interesting species, Nancy.
The suggestions on higher SS above ring true, albeit in the jungle it's a constant battle for light I would think.
I like Steve's closer crop. Looking forward to more from your trip!

[haseeb badar]

Hi Nancy -- Never seen this before so thank u for sharing this with us with all the info abt it. A very interesting discussion regarding the picture style , very grateful for this post to happen as i got to learn some new things . Wish to see many more images from u !