Taking pictures in zoos: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:48, 10 December 2021

Zoos are among the best practice fields for trying out

You will find subjects that vary in size, in color, in movement speed in a Zoo. Great place to test your gear.

What is great about photographing in zoos

Variety: There is quite a bit of variety of interesting animals. They come in all sizes (elephant to insects), some move very slow (tortoises) and some are very fast (hummingbirds), they can be shiny, furry/fuzzy, can blend into the environment or stand out. Enclosures could be indoors with more difficult light or outside. All this gives you a great variety of subjects to take pictures of
Good access to subjects: Since the idea in a Zoo is that visitors can see the animals, the enclosures are designed to make them visible, and most will allow different vantage points, which is important for example when you want to position yourself with relation to the sun.
Great subjects: Zoos, by definition, house a collection of interesting animals.
Zoom friendly: Long lenses and zooms are particularly useful in a zoo setting.
Meet other gearheads: Many photography enthusiasts will be packing their gear and heading to the zoo to try out things. It is a great place to see a wide variety of photographic equipment in action. If you are interested, talk to them, most gearheads love talking about their equipment.

What is not so great about photographing in zoos

Cages: I am just talking about photography here, but trying to take a picture through a wire fence will not be so easy. The general idea is to be able to come as close as possible to the cage so that the wire mesh is barely in focus.
Similar to cages but much worse are aquariums. I have basically given up trying these. Again the same principle, getting close to the glass helps with reflections. But you would also need something that can focus really close for best results. It does not help that both the glass and the water are usually quite dirty and the light usually fools the auto white balance settings.
When compared to museums there will be much more people in a zoo. be patient, there are also plenty of places in a zoo that do not interest the general public as much where you can practice easily.

Tips

No flash, learn how to turn off the flash of your camera, animals really do not need to have a flash explode into their face.
This is a place for long lenses and zooms as well as macros. Wide angle and mid range zooms are not as useful.
Most zoos are also a botanical garden, there will be many interesting plants and flowers.
See also my pictures from various zoos as well as the zoo closest to me Zurich Zoo

Gallery

Some modern zoos will have enclosures where you can be with the animals. There will be no barriers allowing you to take great pictures. This parrot is in Zoo Zurich.
This colorful gecko in Zoo Zurich is one of the great things about experimenting in a zoo. Fantastic looking subjects that you do not see everyday. This is also an enclosure where you and animals share the same space. One particular problem in this place (Masoala hall) is that it is a tropic forest and it is very hot and humid. The large Nikon 200-500 I used in this shot needs almost half an hour until it gets to the correct temperature so that it stops fogging up. So sometimes you also need to be patient with your equipment and not always with the animals.
Another fantastic looking animal, the panther chameleon in the Masoala hall of Zoo Zurich. This is a macro lens (although a zoom would have also worked).
The incredibly cute and equally lazy Red Panda, here in Zoo Zurich. Some modern zoos can have enclosures that do not have visible barriers between you and the animals and this is how you can get clearer shots. You need to know the patterns of some animals if you want to catch them (a Red Panda sleeps a lot for example). Of course this is nothing compared to what you would have to do when you are in nature. Plus staff in the zoo will usually give you tricks, when to come and where to look for those harder to find animals.
This is a baby Manul, photographed in Paris Menagerie. One of the cutest things you can see. This was taken behind a wire mesh, which explains the softer central part. I positioned the camera so that the head was focussed through the clearing. Still the wire mesh effects the picture quite a bit.
An otter in Zoo Zurich. Again an enclosure where you can shoot pictures without any barriers in between. Otters however, move quite fast and are not always around when you look for them. You are always happy if you can get one to pose for a bit.
Someone that can hold the pose long enough for you to get all the settings right.

These pages are for Amateur Photographers and not really for seasoned photographers and professionals. I have no affiliation or commercial interest with any brand/make. I write from my own experience. I ended up using mainly Nikon, so I am more familiar with this brand than others. See price for notes on pricing as well as photography related links.

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 * '''Good access to subjects''': Since the idea in a Zoo is that visitors can see the animals, the enclosures are designed to make them visible, and most will allow different vantage points, which is important for example when you want to position yourself with relation to the sun.
 * '''Great subjects''': Zoos, by definition, house a collection  of ''interesting'' animals.
+* '''Zoom friendly''': Long lenses and [[zooms]] are particularly useful in a zoo setting.
+* '''Meet other gearheads''': Many photography enthusiasts will be packing their gear and heading to the zoo to try out things. It is a great place to see a wide variety of photographic equipment in action. If you are interested, talk to them, most gearheads love talking about their equipment.
-* '''Time''': Most objects in a museum are static, they do not move giving you all the time in the world to work on your shots and practice.
-* '''Learning''': I love to pick a [[lens]] for a museum and then look at the exhibits to see what I can capture, this changes sometimes the way you look at the objects. If you carry a [[macro]] you will be interested in the smallest details, if you have a wide angle the rooms themselves will be more interesting. No matter what, you will be looking at the exhibits with a different ''eye''.
-* '''Variety''': There is quite a bit of variety of subjects in a museum so you can try out more and different things in a museum.
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 <div class="panel-heading">'''What is not so great about photographing in zoos'''</div>
 <div class="panel-body">
-* The [[light]]. Museums sometimes have to limit exposure to sunlight and as a result many of them are quite dark, making [[exposure]] tricky. You will need to crank up the [[ISO]] in most cases, and work with a [[Shooting Modes|Speed priority]] setting that lets you pick a [[exposure time]] and adjust other settings around that.
+* '''Cages''': I am just talking about photography here, but trying to take a picture through a wire fence will not be so easy. The general idea is to be able to come as close as possible to the cage so that the wire mesh is barely in focus.
-* As museum lights are not always the same, getting the [[white balance]] correct is also not very easy.
+* Similar to cages but much worse are aquariums. I have basically given up trying these. Again the same principle, getting close to the glass helps with reflections. But you would also need something that can focus really close for best results. It does not help that both the glass and the water are usually quite dirty and the light usually fools the auto [[white balance]] settings.
-* '''Glass cases''': Museums want to protect their pieces, and usually will have many of them behind glass boxes. Glass is transparent, but still an additional non-ideal element in the optical path (you pay so much for a high quality [[lens]] and now you have a finger stained, imperfect and thick glass pane in between). And if you come to close, alarms may go off (really embarrassing)
+* When compared to [[Taking pictures in museums|museums]] there will be much more people in a zoo. be patient, there are also plenty of places in a zoo that do not interest the general public as much where you can practice easily.
-* '''People''': well you can not blame them, but will be difficult to get the ''star'' attractions all for yourself, especially if you need to fiddle with the controls to get your shot right. You have more time than most, so let people enjoy the museum, you can practice with ''other'' pieces just as well. Once you have mastered the settings, you can come back to get ''quick snaps''.
-* '''Static scenes''': In some ways it is an advantage, but things in a museum generally do not move so much. If you are trying to practice taking pictures while trying to track your subjects, museums are not a good place to try.
 </div>
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 ===Tips===
-* No flash, learn how to turn off the flash of your camera, most places will not allow you to use a flash, and if you are flashing a glass display case, you will be reflecting most back, it will rarely be what you want.
+* No flash, learn how to turn off the flash of your camera, animals really do not need to have a flash explode into their face.
-* Of course it depends on the museums you visit, but I usually end up needing a [[macro]] to come close to the display cases to reduce the reflections, but I also frequently need something wide 35mm or less to capture rooms or larger exhibits. However, you rarely need something longer than 100mm, so [[mid-range zoom]]s  or even a basic [[universal zoom]] (like the [[Nikon 18-105]] for [[APS-C]]) works great. You can leave the long lenses and zooms at home.
+* This is a place for long lenses and [[zoom]]s as well as [[macro]]s. Wide angle and mid range zooms are not as useful.
-* A higher [[ISO]] and a faster [[exposure]] is better than a picture that has in theory less noise with lower [[ISO]] but is [[sharpness|blurred]].
+* Most zoos are also a botanical garden, there will be many interesting plants and flowers.
-* See also my pictures from [https://iis-people.ee.ethz.ch/~kgf/pics/art_museums/index.html Art museums] as well as [https://iis-people.ee.ethz.ch/~kgf/pics/technical%20museums/index.html Technical museums]
+* See also my pictures from [https://iis-people.ee.ethz.ch/~kgf/pics/zoos/index.html various zoos] as well as the zoo closest to me [https://iis-people.ee.ethz.ch/~kgf/pics/zurich_zoo/index.html Zurich Zoo]
 ===Gallery===
 <gallery mode=slideshow>
-File:sutton.jpg|Mask of Sutton Hoo in British Museum, London. This is handheld and through the display case. One interesting bit about [[taking pictures in museums]] is that if the object is behind a glass case, you will want to come closer to the glass to reduce the reflections. At this time you will be quite close to the object itself, so being able to focus close is a plus. In most cases a regular [[zoom]] would be able to get a similar [[reproduction ratio]] but the lens would be further away from the camera which makes it harder to hide the reflections. In this particular case, note that the mask here will fit an average person so is about 20-25cm high, so the reproduction ratio is more like 0.2x which most practical lenses would manage easily.
+File:Parrot.jpg|Some modern zoos will have enclosures where you can be with the animals. There will be no barriers allowing you to take great pictures. This parrot is in Zoo Zurich.
-File:Ballarin original.jpg|Gorgeous art by Alejandro AZÓN BALLARÍN on display in Zaragoza Spain, in December 2019. This picture suffers from quite a few different things, and the problem of the [[white balance]] is one of them.
+File:Gecko 500.jpg|This colorful gecko in Zoo Zurich is one of the great things about experimenting in a zoo. Fantastic looking subjects that you do not see everyday. This is also an enclosure where you and animals share the same space. One particular problem in this place (Masoala hall) is that it is a tropic forest and it is very hot and humid. The large [[Nikon 200-500]] I used in this shot needs almost half an hour until it gets to the correct temperature so that it stops fogging up. So sometimes you also need to be patient with your equipment and not always with the animals.
-File:Ballarin fixed.jpg|Gorgeous art by Alejandro AZÓN BALLARÍN on display in Zaragoza Spain, in December 2019, this time with issues fixed using [[processing]]
+File:Chamelon.jpg|Another fantastic looking animal, the panther chameleon in the Masoala hall of Zoo Zurich. This is a [[macro]] lens (although a [[zoom]] would have also worked).
-File:Robot orig.jpg|A robot in a museum in Manchester, UK. It is not moving :)
+File:Redpanda.jpg|The incredibly cute and equally lazy Red Panda, here in Zoo Zurich. Some modern zoos can have enclosures that do not have visible barriers between you and the animals and this is how you can get clearer shots. You need to know the patterns of some animals if you want to catch them (a Red Panda sleeps a lot for example). Of course this is nothing compared to what you would have to do when you are in nature. Plus staff in the zoo will usually give you tricks, when to come and where to look for those harder to find animals.
-File:Stockholm85c.jpg|From a museum in Stockholm Sweden. Statues make very good motives
+File:Manul.jpg|This is a baby Manul, photographed in Paris Menagerie. One of the cutest things you can see. This was taken behind a wire mesh, which explains the softer central part. I positioned the camera so that the head was focussed through the clearing. Still the wire mesh effects the picture quite a bit.
-File:Stockholm85b.jpg|From a museum in Stockholm Sweden. This is outside in the garden of the museum. Sometimes you are lucky to have a museum with exhibits outdoors, as you have better and more [[light]].
+File:Otter.jpg|An otter in Zoo Zurich. Again an enclosure where you can shoot pictures without any barriers in between. Otters however, move quite fast and are not always around when you look for them. You are always happy if you can get one to pose for a bit.
-File:Stockholm85a.jpg|From a museum in Stockholm Sweden. It is so good to have someone that can hold the pose long enough for you to get all the settings right.
+ someone that can hold the pose long enough for you to get all the settings right.
 </gallery>
 {{photodisclaimer}}