Blue Monkey, Ngorongoro Crater

This is my first post over here on the Wildlife Forum. We cane across a troop of Blue Monkeys while driving around the crater rim late in the day, 8 April 2015. I targeted this one, feeding on vine shoots, with its face illuminated by a shaft of warm light. The frame is full height as I was set up for small birds and the monkeys were rather close.

Canon 5DIII + 600 mm f/4 II + 1.4x III extender, hand-held.
Manual, spot metering, spot AF on the nose, f/7.1, 1/640 sec, ISO 640.
Processed with DPP4 and PS Elements. I have adjusted the brightness, shadows and highlights, and output sharpened.

Thanks for looking, critical feedback welcome and appreciated. Regards, Ian.

Hi Ian and a big fat welcome here to Wildlife, I'm glad you ventured into this pond too as we don't bite. :w3

I really like this with the face appearing out of the dark shadows of the undergrowth, the vibrant greens of the vegetation really work too. Personally I would have kept to Evaluated metering, ramped up the ISO to say 2000 and gone to f/9 hoping to get more detail from the eyes to the nose, it looks like the eyes are just falling short (???) and ensuring a high SS, the 5D can take it. I might suggest you try to darken the exposure either side to emphasis more this 'emerging' face, so the light & dark is more dramatic in the overall capture.

TFS
Steve

Hi Ian - Another warm welcome to the Wildlife Forum and thanks for jumping right in with comments too. I like these kind of images and have experimented with a couple of my own recently. I agree with Steve about going for a bit more dof and sharpness but not often something that we realize when these opportunities present themselves in the field. If you had the time and a cooperative subject then experimenting with different settings in the field is a solution but I don't know if that was an option. Of course, this is also easier said from the comfort of an armchair. I too would suggest going darker in some of the surroundings, like the patch of hair below and to the left of the face and also the bg elements peeking through on the right. I hope to see more of your images in Wildlife.

TFS,
Rachel

Hi Ian -- And another warm welcome !! I liked ur attempt here and wished that light was on the eyes !! beautiful looking creature and i would say u have got some very good suggestions by the mods !! TFS

Hey Ian, I think this is a super image. Love the facial expression, grass in the mouth and the mystery created by the lighting. Must have been a really cool experience! TFS

Hello Ian:wave:

What a lovely surprise to discover an image from you in the Wildlife Forum tonight- thank you!

This is a species I am not familiar with, which makes it even more special for me personally. I love the unusual expression you have captured from this Blue Monkey and the surrounding darkness creates a degree of mystery around the subject. The inclusion of deep green foliage makes me think of tall trees in lush forests and I love the image design and presentation overall - I find this so refreshing!

I completely agree with suggestions from Steve and Rachel, in the same breath let me say how much I enjoy what you have captured. I took quite some time to contemplate this frame and I have to congratulate you for presenting us with something that IMO lends itself to a number of interpretations: in terms of feeling/impressions I experienced sadness, amusement, a kind of awe... all in all I managed to "read" this in so many ways.

So once again a big Thank You for sharing this with us - I find it evocative and very touching.

Warmest regards,

Hi Ian another welcome to this section .
I nice starter you posted . I like the idea and experiment in general .From my chair i would say the focus(my eye ) is too much to the bright and colorful food of the subject and is taking my eye to look too long to this stuff instead of looking into these gorgeous eyes .
I would like to see more detail in the face , not knowing how the raw file does look like .Saying this just as my personal view .

TFS Andreas

...aaand another warm welcome from me, Ian!
Love this image, great use of key lighting. I do agree more DOF would have been a plus.
I look forward to seeing more of your work - show some more from Ngorongoro!

Thanks everyone for your warm welcome and especially for some excellent advice. I was disappointed with my aperture selection, I took the first few frames with my default aperture for small birds and by the time I woke up to the need for more DOF, the monkeys had started to move away. I have lifted the shadows so no problem darkening the background and I think I can do a little selective area sharpening around the eyes to bring out more detail in the wrinkles and hair on the cheeks. I am quite excited about getting back to work on this image. Thanks again for kind comments and great feedback. Regards, Ian.

Hello again. I am thinking I might have been a bit over-zealous with my adoption of the excellent advice received about my original post. I would be grateful for your opinion on this re-post. Kind regards, Ian.

Welcome to the section!

That RP for me shows a marked improvement to the image

I am trying to figure out if that is his hand holding the vegetation or his chin munching :)

TFS and good work on the reprocessing

Wonderful improvement in the repost! The eyes really dominate the image now. By following the suggestions of others you have taken your image to new heights! Well done! There appears to be a thin black horizontal line starting at the middle of his nose, right side. Not sure what it is, but I'd suggest zapping it.

That would be a whisker!:bg3:

I'd still suggest a light shave! :t3 The one black line detracts, for me, the pattern of the fur! Regardless, a very nice image.

Love the RP, Ian!

As well as the whisker -I believe it was there in the first place. A loose hair falling about is one thing, interfering with the subject's anatomy is another, IMO not such a nice thing to do, cloning it out as if it does not belong:)

Oh, this face! It will haunt me for weeks, Ian:bg3: I absolutely love it!

Warmest regards,

Thanks everyone for your great feedback on this image. Karen has pointed to the important benefit that members can derive from having their work critiqued here. In my case I have received wonderful help and encouragement on the Avian Forum which has been the single most important factor in improving my work.

Regarding the dark horizontal line noted by Karen, this is indeed a whisker. In fact, in the RAW image I can see several more whiskers on both sides of the nose but they have been mostly lost in resampling during the down-size from full frame height (3840 pixels) to 900 pixels. On a large print, I am sure these whiskers would be clearly visible.

Shane the vegetation is being held by the monkey's hand and its jaw is hidden behind the hand.