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It's All Happening At The Zoo (1 Viewer)

Scott Merryfield

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Sam Posten said:
Wonder if you could take some of that blue out of the WB if it would help or not... It looks pretty soft tho...
dmiller68 said:
I did have a polarizing filter on for my shots. I was using my Sigma 120-400 lens
 
I definitely need to experiment with both a polarizer and some post processing next time. I didn't have a shot I was happy enough with last time to mess with the PP. It was difficult to get a good composition, as this was a new exhibit and there were always other people right near the lions when I wanted to shoot. Hopefully it will be less crowded as the exhibit ages.
 

Ed Moxley

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I'll throw in some too from our zoo trip.........
Falcon.jpg

PolarBear.jpg

Lion.jpg

ImSoooooTired.jpg

BigBrownEyes.jpg

BabyOcelotsmall.jpg
 

Citizen87645

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Great shots all! Makes me realize I should suck it up and bring my largest telephoto on my next visit to the San Diego Zoo. Though I will never compete with this dude:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ygx/4249330979/

I love red pandas, but they are a little difficult to photograph given their shyness and nocturnal habits (the wire mesh enclosures don't help either). However, I was quite happy to catch one sleeping in a patch of sunlight on my last visit to the SD Zoo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ygx/3706029171/

This one isn't as sharp as I would like it, but I do like the mood it conveys (though I will probably clean up that bit of twig along the upper edge). It was one of the last shots of the day as I was leaving the park.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ygx/3706942349/

I'll be back at the park next month, and am excited to see what kind of shots I'll get!
 

Mike Frezon

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Ed:

That's a great series of shots!

But, except for the first shot (of the bird) it looks like they are keeping all the animals doped up on Xanax! Or, you caught them all at nap time!
 

Ed Moxley

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Mike Frezon said:
Ed:
That's a great series of shots! 
But, except for the first shot (of the bird) it looks like they are keeping all the animals doped up on Xanax!  :D   Or, you caught them all at nap time! 
It was in August, and it was humid and hot. Most of the animals were asleep, in their hideaways, or moping around and panting, like the bobcat below. The monkeys and chimps never came out into view. Still a few pics I haven't processed yet (buffalo, grizzly bear, zebra, and a couple of other birds).
BobCat46.jpg

Before we left at the end of the day, a woman asked us if we got a pic of the polar bear playing in the water. She said he put on a real good show for everyone, with the ball he liked to play with. I said the only pics we got was him asleep. We went back to his area, and guess what? He was asleep again.......... Oh well.
 

Mike Frezon

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What a beautiful picture of the bobcat.

Gorgeous creature and I love the way he pops off that pretty colored background.
 

Ed Moxley

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Thanks.
I'm a cat lover, so I wanted to go in and pet them, especially the baby ocelot. But, then you see this huge cat looking straight at you and lickin' his chops! Kinda makes the hair on your neck stand up. :)
LickinChopsmod.jpg
 

Scott Merryfield

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Great shots, Ed. I love bobcats, and have been lucky enough to see two of them in the wild in my lifetime -- both in northern Michigan. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me either time.
We just returned from a week in Myrtle Beach. I am going through the photos now, and when I am done I will post a few from our visit to Alligator Adventure, which is across the street from our condo.
 

Scott Merryfield

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As promised, here are some shots from our visit to Alligator Adventure in Myrtle Beach, SC last week.
IMG3598-L.jpg

IMG3634-L.jpg

IMG3671-L.jpg

IMG3674-L.jpg

IMG3700-L.jpg

While the shot below isn't great, it was unusual. The exhibit was bathed in red light for the bats, which appears to have messed with my auto focus some. This was the best of the three shots I tried. I removed the red channel in post processing to turn it into a b&w photo.
IMG3676-L.jpg
 

Cees Alons

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Do not believe they are sloooow. Very close by, baby roadrunner was actually beating my my shutter.


9ed4a843_CLA_8583s.jpeg


65dbac48_CLA_8584s.jpeg



Cees
 

dmiller68

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Nice shots Cees and Scott! Scott I really like the bird shot. I guess I'm becoming attracted to the birds because of all the colors you can get. It really sets them off from the background.
 

Scott Merryfield

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Very cool tortoise shots, Cees. The sense of motion in those two shots really is a nice touch.
David, here is another colorful bird from the trip. It's not as good as the first photo, but it's not bad. The first photo was actually shot through a wire cage, but I was able to get close enough to the cage and have enough separation from the subject to completely blur it out. The shot below had no obstruction between the camera and subject.
IMG3647-L.jpg

I have a few "birds in flight" shots, too, but they were taken on the beach and at Huntington Beach State Park, so they are not zoo photos.
 

Cees Alons

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Originally Posted by Scott Merryfield /t/290071/its-all-happening-at-the-zoo/30#post_3918040
Very cool tortoise shots, Cees. The sense of motion in those two shots really is a nice touch.
David, here is another colorful bird from the trip. It's not as good as the first photo, but it's not bad. The first photo was actually shot through a wire cage, but I was able to get close enough to the cage and have enough separation from the subject to completely blur it out. The shot below had no obstruction between the camera and subject.
IMG3647-L.jpg

I have a few "birds in flight" shots, too, but they were taken on the beach and at Huntington Beach State Park, so they are not zoo photos.


But it's not bad at all, Scott! Those colours are beautiful. And the shot is great.
Animal in cages pose specific problems indeed.

If one is honest, many pictures in a zoo are simply failures as a result.
Even stupid failures if one forgets to switch off auto-focus:

0f57bc3c_CLA_8574s.jpeg




...and still not flawless after you do:

13dca173_CLA_8575s.jpeg



Glass can lead to reflections, as you mentioned above, but also pressed noses.

157e2ea3_CLA_8617s.jpeg




This is a cousin, the glass is hardly detectable here:

ddab9dee_CLA_8623s.jpeg




Here are two without cages, wire or glass.

c3e813a9_CLA_8631s.jpeg


13acb8a3_CLA_8639s.jpeg



So we're back at the birds. Certainly not as colourful as your bird pics, Scott, and certainly not a flawless one. But in this case I liked the atmosphere of the scene (in Amsterdam, Holland).


Cees



(click to see the full pictures as downloaded)
 

Scott Merryfield

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Thanks, Cees. I liked the first bird shot more because of its pose and expression. The 2nd bird was very colorful, but the pose was rather blah.
Wires and glass can present a problem, but sometimes you can work around them. In my initial post #52 above, only the first photo of the alligator was obstruction-free. The lemur, monkey and bat where behind glass, while the bird and tiger were behind a wire cage.
Sometimes, though, a cage can ruin an otherwise perfectly good shot, as in the bobcat exhibit below from Alligator Adventure. I couldn't get close enough to the cage to blur out the bars.
IMG3580-L.jpg
 

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