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It's All Happening At The Zoo - Page 2

post #31 of 82
9/7/11 at 5:11pm

Thanks guys! I was amazed how many turned out. You can sure shoot a lot when you are using digital.

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post #32 of 82
9/8/11 at 4:50am
Thread Starter 
David, I didn't mean to imply that the other shots were not good -- just that the last one of the tiger really had a WOW factor for me due to the animal's expression. It can be difficult to capture such an expression at the zoo.

Here is probably the best of the tiger shots from our Detroit Zoo visit a couple of weeks ago. I like yours better.

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post #33 of 82
9/8/11 at 11:20am
That's because you didn't piss the tiger off, Scott! That'll learn ya for next time! biggrin.gif
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post #34 of 82
4/14/12 at 11:03pm

So I went to Woodland Park Zoo today took a bunch more pictures. Thought I would post some, the first one was my picture of the day:

 

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Sorry for posting so many... I just felt really good about many of my shots today so I thought I would share.

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post #35 of 82
4/15/12 at 4:47am
Thread Starter 
Nice shots, David. I especially like the first lion shot.

The Detroit Zoo opened a new lion exhibit late last year. It is great for viewing the animals, but not for photographing them. The exhbit has solid glass between for protection, but they placed warming rocks rit near the glass to entice the lions to lay next to the visitors. The glass is tough to shoot through.
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post #36 of 82
4/15/12 at 8:07am

Shooting through glass is a total pain but believe it or not I got the lion shots through the glass. The advantage is the way they have it setup. It viewing area has a roof and no lights so I was getting no shadows or reflections. I also shot at the very top of the glass so I didn't have to shoot through kids fingerprints. They are building a new tiger exhibit and I hope they go more open like the on at Point Defiance Zoo. We are really lucky up here having 2 major, 1 minor Zoo's and a Wildlife preserve all within easy driving (no more then an hour away). 

 

I shot this one through glass as well:

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post #37 of 82
4/15/12 at 9:15am
I REALLY like the last Lion one. It needs to become an Internet meme template.
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post #38 of 82
4/17/12 at 5:55am
Thread Starter 
This was probably the best shot I was able to get through the glass of the lion exhibit at the Detroit Zoo the last time we visited. The exhibit had only been open a week, and the glass was already pretty scratched. The exhibit is in the sun, too, which makes it difficult to avoid reflections. I may try a polarizing filter next time.

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post #39 of 82
4/17/12 at 8:20am
Wonder if you could take some of that blue out of the WB if it would help or not... It looks pretty soft tho...
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post #40 of 82
4/17/12 at 5:45pm

I did have a polarizing filter on for my shots. I was using my Sigma 120-400 lens
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Merryfield View Post

This was probably the best shot I was able to get through the glass of the lion exhibit at the Detroit Zoo the last time we visited. The exhibit had only been open a week, and the glass was already pretty scratched. The exhibit is in the sun, too, which makes it difficult to avoid reflections. I may try a polarizing filter next time.


 

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post #41 of 82
4/17/12 at 6:50pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam Posten View Post

Wonder if you could take some of that blue out of the WB if it would help or not... It looks pretty soft tho...
Quote:
Originally Posted by dmiller68 View Post

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.
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post #42 of 82
4/18/12 at 6:28am
I'll throw in some too from our zoo trip.........

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post #43 of 82
4/18/12 at 7:25am
Those are fantastic too, thanks for sharing!
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post #44 of 82
4/18/12 at 7:43am
Thanks. smile.gif
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post #45 of 82
4/18/12 at 9:26am

Great shots!! I could go shoot at the zoo every week. :)

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post #46 of 82
4/18/12 at 9:52am

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:

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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

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post #47 of 82
4/18/12 at 10:23am

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!  biggrin.gif  Or, you caught them all at nap time! 

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post #48 of 82
4/18/12 at 11:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon View Post

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!  biggrin.gif   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.
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post #49 of 82
4/18/12 at 12:23pm

What a beautiful picture of the bobcat.

 

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

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post #50 of 82
4/18/12 at 12:37pm
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. smile.gif


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post #51 of 82
4/18/12 at 3:50pm
Thread Starter 
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.
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post #52 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:17am
Thread Starter 
As promised, here are some shots from our visit to Alligator Adventure in Myrtle Beach, SC last week.

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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.

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post #53 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:20am

But he (or she?) may be the oldest of all...

 

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Cees

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post #54 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:35am
Good shots Scott. I especially like the tiger. Nothing pretty about the gator though........biggrin.gif
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post #55 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:35am

 

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

 

 

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Cees

 

 

 

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post #56 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:39am

 

And speaking of nearby babies...

 

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Cees

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post #57 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:53am

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.

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post #58 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:59am
Thread Starter 
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.

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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.
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post #59 of 82
4/19/12 at 2:37pm

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott Merryfield View Post

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.

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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:

 

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...and still not flawless after you do:

 

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

 

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

 

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Here are two without cages, wire or glass.

 

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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)

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post #60 of 82
4/19/12 at 5:51pm
Thread Starter 
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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