Trip to the Zoo - tips needed

Hi guys, I'm planning on taking a visit to Belfast Zoo tomorrow, and of course I plan to take many shots! I just wanted to see if anyone had any tips (no matter how insignificant they may seem!) that may help me to get some better and more creative shots of the animals on show. Bit of info that may help:

weather is to be mostly cloudy with sunny spells
I'll be using a Nikon D3100 with either 18-55mm or 50-200mm lens (I'm guessing the 55-200mm would be the best for this).


Any help is appreciated!

Tips...

Don't pet the lions

55-200 lens

put camera on a mono pod

The 18-55 is the faster lens so with the lower amount of light, it will provide faster shutter speeds. Make a point of bracing yourself against anything...fence, post, etc. so that you can minimize camera shake. Shoot wide open on each lens to isolate the animals against backgrounds or even glass or fence foregrounds. Also shoot as tight as you can to make the animals seem as much as possible in a natural environment. If you can adjust exposure compensation, try underexposing by 1/3rd stop to give you a bit of extra shutter speed and reduce distracting highlights in photos when the sun does manage to peek out. And most of all, enjoy yourself!

Take both, put the 18-55 in your bag or pocket.

I took my 55-200 to the zoo earlier this year, see the pics here.

Enjoy!

carguy said:

Take both, put the 18-55 in your bag or pocket.

I took my 55-200 to the zoo earlier this year, see the pics here.

Enjoy!

Click to expand...

Nice Zoo shots... I used to love going to the Detroit Zoo! Been many years now...

Pat in NH

Thanks Pat, we love it. It was my first time (in 40 years) in the Winter.

Shoot through glass as close as you can get, If your inside or it's cloudy, use the biggest aperture you can get to make sure the shutter speed stays up. I'm guessing the 18-55 will be best for that. As for outside, use a quick enough shutter speed to eliminate blur. And for the lions and tigers... eh, pet them. They're nice.

And no flash against the glass. Or Fly everyone from the stats here out to the UK so we can help you directly. ;-)

I don't think the 18-55 will have the reach you desire assuming these are outdoors cages.

Thanks guys for all the helpful tips, I'll be sure to post some shots later on!

Most of the enclosures are outdoor and cover a pretty large area so I suppose 55-200mm may be best for this.

Along with adjusting my exposure compensation, would it be recommended to maybe increase my iso slightly? Just thinking that my 55-200mm doesn't have vibration reduction so faster shutter speeds are a must.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

I don't know the D3100 but I'd set ISO to auto, set base to 100 with maximum 1600.
Set shutter speed to minimum 1/300 if you are going to shoot at 200mm, maybe 1/500 if things are moving and use aperture priority.
With a mono pod or steady hand with good panning during the shot you should be fine.
Remember to pan with the animal even after the button is pressed.

You'll be shooting outdoors with a wide aperture so the speed should stay up ok. If you are in a darker area and the shutter speed drops to the minimum preset, the ISO will go up.

Ideally you want the ISO to stay low but a higher ISO is very usable where a slow shutter giving a blurred shot is useless.

Chimp your first few shots but don't let the monkeys see you doing it

I like to seperate the focusing for this kind of shooting too (focus with the exposure lock button) but if you haven't practised doing that it's probably best to avoid.

Cheers for the tips!

Got quite a few photos, so it's now just a case of sifting through them all. Weather was generally bright and sunny so I was able to use a fast shutter speed for the most part and kept my ISO constant at 200 for the whole shoot. Will post some pictures tomorrow when I have gone through them!

Righto, as promised here are some select shots from my trip to the zoo. Any thoughts etc are appreciated Beware, this is quite a hefty post...


Belfast Floral Hall by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Flamingo by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Peacock by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Peacock up close by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Giraffe by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Asian Elephant by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Meerkat by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Meerkat by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Taking a moment out by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Vicuna by dbrowne88, on Flickr


King of the Jungle by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Chillin Cheetah by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Tamarin by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Another Penguin by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Penguin by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Sea Lion by dbrowne88, on Flickr


Crane by dbrowne88, on Flickr

Great job. Nice captures!

Tap'n on the Galaxy S3

Thanks very much! Just one more for good measure. This guy was happy for me to keep posing for shots so it's only fair to give him some more photo time!


Meerkat by dbrowne88, on Flickr

You have a lot of good captures! Good Job, makes me want to head to the zoo!

Pat in NH

Really like the penguin coming out of the water and the tamarin Looks like it was a great day

Nice photos, not keen on the elephant snap though.
Love the Tamarin and the dancing Penguin (Happy feet) splashing the water.

"King of the jungle", not sure where that comes from but I think it's probably Tarzan, and the song "The lion sleeps tonight".
Hopefully it wasn't a title on the information board at the zoo

Unfortunately the king of the jungle title was from the info booklet! Even though tarzan technically is the king of the jungle lol.

I didn't manage one good shot of the elephants at all, strangely the enclosure wall was quite high so I had to hold my camera up and try to use live view on it with limited success!

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

Axemaniac88 said:

Unfortunately the king of the jungle title was from the info booklet!

Click to expand...

Tut tut tut, the lion doesn't live in the jungle.
African lions live on the savanna.
The Asiatic lion lives in a forest national park but that's a small sub species.

Nothing wrong with your pictures title but I'm surprised at the zoo.