Poll: That Monkey Selfie

Bundle in the jungle

  • Copyright of Monkey

    Votes: 110 31.6%

  • Copyright of Dave

    Votes: 139 39.9%

  • Don't give a monkey's

    Votes: 99 28.4%
  • Total voters
    348
Glaucus said:
Or have it set to auto, like most cameras. Especially as it's unlikely he would know the settings in advance or that it would happen.
Click to expand...

photographers don't tend to set their cameras to auto

he'll perhaps use aperture priority or shutter priority, he'll likely have chosen the lens, set the ISO and chosen either the aperture setting or shutter speed for that environment... any of that is perhaps more important than pressing the shutter.

though granted he's got no control over composition
 
He would have no idea when or in what direction he would be holding it, making it near impossible to make any settings in advance. although Ai am just assuming, monkey took it and played with it, rather than anything else.
 
Glaucus said:
He would have no idea when or in what direction he would be holding it, making it near impossible to make any settings in advance. although Ai am just assuming, monkey took it and played with it, rather than anything else.
Click to expand...

not at all... he's right there, in the jungle... he'll have an idea of the ISO he wants to use, he could quite plausibly have set one of either the aperture or shutter speed and set the camera to Tv or Av....

most importantly he set the whole thing up, allowed it to occur...
 
dowie said:
not at all... he's right there, in the jungle... he'll have an idea of the ISO he wants to use, he could quite plausibly have set one of either the aperture or shutter speed and set the camera to Tv or Av....
...
Click to expand...
But all that depends on distance and lighting, something he wouldn't have a clue with, sky is much brighter than the ground or extreme close up, etc.
 
Glaucus said:
But all that depends on distance and lighting, something he wouldn't have a clue with, sky is much brighter than the ground or extreme close up, etc.
Click to expand...

just to nit-pick he has got a clue though... he's there - he's set the camera up for that environment, to take pictures of monkeys up close... sure any photos the monkey took of the ground or of the sky are likely going to be screwy... but close ups of the monkey which came out... well if he's got in on Av the camera is making the shutter adjustments, he's in the jungle with cover overhead, depending on the time of day the lighting isn't going to change too much if you're panning around horizontally - you've got 360 degrees of trees with cover overhead.

main point is he was in the process of setting up some shots of the monkeys, he's a photographer, we can assume he likely didn't have his camera just set to 'auto'. He likely did get a wide array of random, useless pictures from the monkey... in addition to the few where the monkey has the camera held horizontally.
 
So he seta it up to more than likely fail? So unless he holds it at precisely where he set the camera up, it's going to look terrible. that is unlikely. Titled slightly up, far to much light, tilted down, far to dark, different focal lengths etc. It is far far far more likely to be on auto. It's a split second to turn the dial to auto. I sure as hell would, otherwise the chances are you would end up with nothing usable.
 
Maybe hes just really good with photoshop and its all backfired on him :D

First one could have been him taking the photo himself. The second could be the same but the monkey was reaching for something behind the camera?
 
Last edited:
Mynight said:
First one could have been him taking the photo himself. The second could be the same but the monkey was reaching for something behind the camera?
Click to expand...

Haha that would be great if that turned out to be the case, fooled you all, but on the other hand no one wants the pictures now.
 
Glaucus said:
So he seta it up to more than likely fail? So unless he holds it at precisely where he set the camera up, it's going to look terrible. that is unlikely. Titled slightly up, far to much light, tilted down, far to dark, different focal lengths etc. It is far far far more likely to be on auto. It's a split second to turn the dial to auto. I sure as hell would, otherwise the chances are you would end up with nothing usable.
Click to expand...

no its more likely he got a load of naff pictures and some good ones where the monkey held it horizontally. It certainly doesn't need to be set to auto - you do understand that setting it to either aperture priority or shutter priority will mean the other is still set automatically - it doesn't *have* to be completely precise, the camera will adjust the other setting that hasn't been fixed in order to control exposure.
 
Glaucus said:
So an automatic mode, without lots of difficult setting up.
Click to expand...

in a sense yes

its not difficult - it just removes one step and generally makes things a bit easier...

I'd assume he's set the aperture reasonably wide - look at the depth of field in the photos, blurred background etc...

I don't think you'd likely get a similar shot from having the camera on auto - though happy to be corrected, I don't use auto modes on my cameras - I'm assuming relatively wide aperture and relatively high shutter speed to compensate in those photos and am assuming leaving it to the camera in auto mode would end up with the camera trying to go for middle of the range type settings on both - more of a narrower aperture, not so fast shutter..
 
Last edited:
Untitled_1.jpg


Proven false :D
 
=XDC=FluphyBunny said:
Public domain. Slater got lucky when the monkey took the camera and pushed a few buttons. He owes his 15 minutes of fame to a grinning money :D
Click to expand...
From what I've read Slater said in his own words that he was setting up for his planned shots, maybe a few 'test' shots were done and the monkey(s) came over because they were curious so he moved away and left them to 'play'.

The monkeys then basically started pressing the shutter button after hearing it make a noise, lots of shots were taken (sure I read 1000+), most out of focus. This main image was obviously one of the few that were in focus enough to 'use' and the monkey was admiring her own reflection hence the 'smile'.

This wasn't the planned photo's, so can't use the 'major contribution to image' argument in my view, this was one of those 'lucky moments' where something happens without you planning it. He even says in this daily mail article from 2011 he left his camera unattended and the monkey turned the camera on... so basically he did nothing but leave his camera alone.

Sorry but in my view this belongs to the monkey who has kindly given it to the public domain and I'm in a creative field that has copyright to contend with :D

It's the equivalent of me borrowing a friends camera for an event, I took the photo so I get copyright even though I don't own the camera.
 
Moses said:
I guess all jurisdictions will have the idea of the real person and the legal person, but I can't imagine many include monkeys in the latter... given that part will be designed to cover organisations/companies/etc (everything you'd expect... but not monkeys :p)
Click to expand...

Yes. If I go into the zoo and steal a monkey's banana and run away, I've stolen from the zoo, not the monkey.

Ancient Chinese proverb.
 
Last edited:
Where does the law exactly state it has to be the person who pressed the shutter? Creator could encompass a variety of things.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom