The Zoo,

lucien

Senior Member
Hi I plan on going to the Zoo in the spring and questions regarding fence/mesh. I've been looking/studying stuff about said issue. Use your smallest aperture and manual focus. Is that the way to go? Any other insights please. And I'm debating raw vs JPEG. I know the benefits of raw and and I'm not worried about memory. If I don't want to spend time in the "darkroom aka lightroom software lol. Should I just shoot in jpeg. Or should I practice with nef/jpeg and see which is better? Again new kid on the block.

Thanks in advance,
 
Shallow depth of field is one way to help with the fence issues. What I always do when I shoot at the zoo is to just be very careful when I shoot and try to avoid any backgrounds that are distracting. Careful editing and cropping also helps. I use The Nik Collection to de-emphasize backgrounds when nothing else works.

Shoot RAW at all time and spend the time in editing to get the best results.

Here are some of my zoo photos

https://www.flickr.com/photos/122524246@N06/sets/72157643537827175/

https://www.facebook.com/dkuykendall/media_set?set=a.10204697862235024.1073741931.1490357588&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/dkuykendall/media_set?set=a.10201813460326779.1073741845.1490357588&type=3

This might give you some ideas for shooting at a zoo

Also I always use a long lens for shooting at a zoo. This lets me zoom in to the animal and get rid of all the distractions.
 

lucien

Senior Member
Thank you, Mr Don you are a very good wildlife photo guy.;) I don't know how your Zoo is set up but our big cats in Toronto are surrounded by an all enclosed fence and then another barrier to keep people safe than sorry. The lions are in a moat kind of setup. I could get to the Carical though. Your flicker pics are awesome. I don't think I'll get results from like that in my lifetime lol. Thanks for sharing

Do I need a fast shutter speed? And if the lens is 3.6 -5.6 I should go to 3.6? And zoom length max 240mm, go all the way out?

double thanks,
 
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lucien

Senior Member
my tool, is nowhere as competent as yours aka D50 :eek: I might end up bringing my fuji along and shoot videos through the wire fence just to make sure I get something. I guess that would mess up the video too wouldn't it?
 
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lucien

Senior Member
very nice pics and the camera is around my era lol. Don't have a long throw like yours though my 240 will probably be weak at the long end. It's not a great lens. So if I'm wrong the 240 with the 1.5 mag factor is just a crop isn't it. It's an artificial zoom. 240mm=360mm? I thought bald eagles made nests in trees lol. What zoo was/is that?

thx,

oh shoot, almost missed out the jpeg part. There is hope then. LOL
 

Lovin Our Life

Senior Member
very nice pics and the camera is around my era lol. Don't have a long throw like yours though my 240 will probably be weak at the long end. It's not a great lens. So if I'm wrong the 240 with the 1.5 mag factor is just a crop isn't it. It's an artificial zoom. 240mm=360mm? I thought bald eagles made nests in trees lol. What zoo was/is that?

thx,

oh shoot, almost missed out the jpeg part. There is hope then. LOL

Down here in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma City Zoo.
 

lucien

Senior Member
Nice Zoo, you know what I mean. But not for the animals. excellent pics. The only way is get out there and shoot and hope it's a nice sunny day. And when I get to the Cats it's show time literally.
 
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