Off to the zoo...

[ivandobski]

Off to a local wildlife place tomorrow so will be taking the camera.

Any tips, however basic, will be much appreciated...

(currently thinking, zoom and fill the viewfinder as much as possible?)

 

[stupar]

I was at the zoo just the other day and found myself using the 70-200 a lot just to get in tight on the animals.
If you go down the zoom route be sure to watch your shutter speed at the long end.
I had no tripod (to cumbersome for the zoo) so to keep the shutter fast even on the glorious day that it was I found myself down to ISO 800/1600.

Other than that just shoot happy!

 

[Nod]

Get as close to the wire as safely possible and use as wide an aperture as you can (to keep DoF shallow so you lose the wire). Beware of cats backing up to the wire - some of them have remarkably good wee aiming skills and lion/tiger poness stinks!

 

[cosmix3]

As said, use a low aperture, keep the speed up, with glass if you have a lens hood get that against the glass, if no hood try using your hand around the end to seal, this helps reduce the glare, wire, you need to be as close as possible, also look to lose all signs of the enclosure, feed trays etc.

A tight shot of the animals head sometimes works better than a full shot if the enclosure is obviously man made.

But most of all have fun

 

[ivandobski]

Cheers for all the advice. It was pretty dark in there today, mostly indoors but still low light. Started off sing the manual functions but ended up on auto a couple of times. Definitely want a longer lens and a macro now!

I'm going to post up the 6 "best" (everything's relative!) on the forum and eventually upload the rest to flickr as well.

On a side note, I found I had to make a conscious effort to just "look" at the animals instead of simply treating them as a subject to be togged. I can see how some people can get so absorbed in the photo taking that the reality of the situation passes them by.

Thanks again guys.