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Hello!

All taken with the 80-200, light was very harsh yesterday, i didn't want to freak out the animals with a flash. It was very hard to shoot the exotic cats behind the glass and the animals looked so bored! Quite a few to PP, more to come, these are my fav's so far...

http://www.pixspot.com/thumbnails.php?album=170

Critique please

Cheers

Bruno - I will comment on the eagle 1 pic - nicely caught - the predator against the background of the predator city

Overall a nice collection of pics

Chris

I like "Seal" picture. Cought very good and colors are very attractive

Thanks for the responses guys, here are a few more...





I had to PP the last 2 shots quite a bit, i found it really hard to shoot through the dirty glass. Anyone got any tips for this, polarizer? Windex? I think i will go back in a few months for another try


Cheers

the last shot does does seem to have dirty blacks.
not sure if your allowed to use cleaning products as it may affect the animals, better ask staff to be sure.
did you use spot metering? maby try shooting wide open to help.

yeah, those are kids greasy fingerprints on the glass
i think that last one was at f2.8 with pattern metering
i tried a few different settings, and thats the best one i got

How would changing the metering mode get a better result?

In the melb zoo the gorilla enclosure viewing area is a glass wall. It had smudges everywhere. The only angles I could get to were right where smudges were located, go figure. Its hard to get through all the kids.

I nearly knocked a few people on the head with my 70-200 it gets so cramped.

well basically it puts the metering sensitivity to a small spot in the frame. hence your only exposuring for the lion head keeping everything around him/her dark

G'day,
Dunno about critique but with large eyed animals such as cats, primates etc I always try to get either some form of eye contact or interesting pose. I thought the male lion is terrific with such clearly defined eyes, that would look great cropped around his head and front paw, isolating the expression...

Spose you could try cloning out the dirty glass areas, as there doesn't appear to be much detail in that area...

Otherwise, not too sure about how to handle dirty glass, I usually wander off somewhere else to get a different viewpoint but that's not practical so I don't know what to suggest, the reflections of people around you also have troubled me so I'm keen to see what tips are offered too

Cheers,
Mudder