I Love The Zoo!!!

I love taking photographs at the zoo. Sure, zoo photos can get a bit cliche, but I find it a challenge to take a photo at the zoo and turn it into something more than a snapshot of a captive animal.



Above is a shot of a Cassowary in a fenced in cage. The challenge was to try and show the bird as if it was in its natvie habitat. By waiting until the bird was far away from the fence, I could focus on the bird and the fence literally disappeared.

I have to wait awhile until the zebra decided to get totally in the shade or totally in the sun. Once in the shade, the shot was easy. I had to play with the white balance and the exposure in Lightroom to get the shot the way I wanted it.

To me, the key to great animal shots is to get close. I used my Tamron 200-500 lens with the camera on a monopod exclusively on this trip. Sometimes I missed shots because the lens got me a bit too close, but overall, I thought this was a successful trip.

This shot of the elephant is cropped for 8X10 printing, but that is it. The Tamron performed admirably this trip!

I saved the best for last. I had the exposure compensation dialed down to -1 EV to try and eliminate blown out highlights. This left the lion's eyes very dark. This was an easy fix in Lightroom, as I used the adjustment brush and dialed it up to +1 EV. I really love this shot, I hope you do as well.

Thanks for looking!

Scott