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Aperture F4.0, shutter speed 1/250 sec, ISO 200
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Okay. Today's post.
So I secured a very cool corporate shoot. It wasn’t just any corporate shoot; it was to retake all the photos for African Lion Safari. Turn down your sound down a bit before you click on the link.
The way they exhibit animals is completely different from the traditional approach; that is, the visitor is caged in the car, and the animals roam in 2 to 20 hectare (5 to 50 acre) reserves. They first opened the gates to the public in 1969 with 40 lions in 3 reserves; today the park houses in excess of 1,000 animals comprised of over 100 species including Asian Elephants, Lions, Cheetah, White Rhino, Rothschild Giraffe and numerous other animals from Africa, Asia and North America.
What
equipment should you use for a shoot like this?
1)
Lenses - In my experience, a long zoom lens is required to take good
photographs at the zoo. By a long zoom lens, I am referring to one in the range
of 100mm, to 400mm in focal length. In a lot of cases, you’ll find yourself
shooting within the 200 – 300mm focal length.
2)
Use a tripod or monopod? - Whether or not to use a tripod or monopod is often a
grey area when it comes to wildlife park photography. Yes, it’s true that
animals in darker enclosures may need a slower shutter speed to allow more
light into the shot, therefore requiring extra stability. Personally in these
cases, I prefer to increase the ISO to a higher number, for example 800 to 1600.
3)
Use a lens hood - Lens hoods come in handy for times when you have no choice as
to the angle from which to shoot. Often you may need to shoot into the sun.
Lens hoods may be useful for stopping sun flares in these situations.
| Aperture F10, Shutter Speed 1/80, ISO 160 |
Zoo
photography tips for beginners
As
for the shooting tips, listed below are some tips for taking good photographs
at a zoo or wildlife park.
1)
Animals are constantly on the move and aren’t going to sit and pose on cue. I
like to keep my camera settings on shutter priority mode with a fast shutter,
an appropriate ISO and an aperture around f3.5 to f5.6. Some photographers will set the aperture
at f2.8 to maximize the wide open iris, but for those less experienced
shooters, the narrow depth of field with an f2.8 will lend itself to more
missed shots than keepers.
2)
Get in close, and then crop the images even closer. When you arrive at the zoo
or animal park, take time to look through the shop and take notice of the
posters and postcards being sold. You’ll soon learn that tightly cropped faces
and body parts have more impact than those with ample surroundings. This allows
you to capture details otherwise not seen.
3)
Focus on the eyes. As with all living subjects, if the eyes aren’t sharp, you
lose the connection between the animal and the viewer.
4)
Have patience. Give yourself ample time to get the right shot. I can’t count
the number of times I’ve walked away from an animal, to find they yawned or did
that unique expression.
5)
Eliminate backgrounds where possible. Nothing is more distracting in a zoo photo
than a fence in the background, or a feeding bucket. I often do this by
repositioning myself so the distracting object isn’t in view, or using aperture
mode (set to a small F number) to nicely smooth the background.
6) When you get your photos home and you are editing,
don’t be confined to the traditional sized image, try something new and crop
your photos in a way that gives the subject more impact.
I hope I gave you some things to think about… and if
you want to come with Rick and I to photograph these animals in their natural
habitat, we are headed to Tanzania in April of 2013. Check out the details of this awesome trip here.