Yesterday I took my Nikon 1 J5, a couple of lenses, and some extension tubes to the Toronto Metropolitan Zoo, spending half a day with my wife wandering about and capturing images. This short article shares some primate portraits captured at the zoo. All images are presented as 100% captures without any cropping.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

One of the first places we stopped to capture some images was at the orangutan exhibit. Only one individual was on display at the time of our visit.

Shooting through thick, heavily soiled glass is always a challenge but with a little patience I was able to capture a few different facial expressions of the orangutan.

One of the gibbons was close to the edge of the display area, affording me a few quick image opportunities before it moved on.

The harsh sunlight actually helped to add a bit of drama to the photographs, also creating a few challenges in post. The spot weighted DxO Smart Lighting tool in PhotoLab was quite helpful in balancing out the highlights and shadow areas.

We also captured a small selection of images at the lowland gorilla exhibit. The area around the display was extremely crowded as throngs of people strained to see a mother gorilla with its two-week-old baby. I was unable to get any kind of decent shooting angle so I concentrated instead on a large male.

He lumbered around the upper part of the display, affording me a number of image opportunities.

The male gorilla eventually sat down against a large stone to rest. Even then he remained a bit animated.

One of my better shots of the day was him examining something he had picked off of his face.

While it is easier to use an EVF-equipped camera with the 1 Nikon CX 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, I did appreciate the higher resolution sensor of the Nikon 1 J5 and its additional dynamic range and colour depth.

Technical Note:
All photographs were captured hand-held using Nikon 1 gear as noted in the EXIF data. Images were produced from RAW files using my standard process of DxO PhotoLab, CS6, and the Nik Collection.

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