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Yesterday i decided to head to Melbourne Zoo with my camera and take a few shots.
I brought a membership as it seemed good value and i'm really enjoying this photography stuff!

Please offer any advice you can on areas you see i need to improve.
All photos were taken with the 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS kit lens.
Here's a few examples...

The expression on the sea gull is great. You lookin at me?
The gorilla shot makes me feel sad so that is a winner as well. You have captured the mood of captivity.
It would have been great to get a bit more depth of field on orangutan to include his eyes.
Self doctoring....just say aaaaah.

Thanks Colin.
I've been trying my hand at photography for about 3 weeks now... Needless to say i've got lots to learn! I'm enjoying every minute of it though!

Hi,
recommend using a fill flash to capture the highlights in the eyes and help show the face detail a little more, while the shots are OK really practice focus on the eyes and it wont matter if the rest of the animal i out. Love the seagull
Deb T

Thanks Deb.
All these are taken right out at 250mm on a 1.6 crop so i'm not sure the flash would have any effect, would it?
A lot of these have been shot through glass also so i figured the flash would only reflect off the glass.

Ideally i'd like a bit more reach than the 250 offers me.

Wink wrote:All these are taken right out at 250mm on a 1.6 crop so i'm not sure the flash would have any effect, would it?

Sure it will. You only need s "kiss" of light to add the catchlight (I'd set the flash exposure compensation down to somewhere between -1.7 and -2.

A lot of these have been shot through glass also so i figured the flash would only reflect off the glass.

True by default. That will cut down on the power still more, and possibly result in reflections into your photo (there are ways of reducing that possibility though).

Ideally i'd like a bit more reach than the 250 offers me.

For those of us photographing wildlife, almost everyone wants more than they've got!

Thanks Dave.

I'm thinking a EF 70-200 f/2.8L USM with the 1.4x TC would cover my needs while also being a very good general purpose lens.

I'd love to be able to buy a different horse for every course, so to speak, but that's just not going to happen.

I'll probably give Healsville Sanctuary a go soon so i'll try these tips then.

The last one is just great.

Well captured.

Mic

I went to the zoo again for my nieces 3rd birthday, so i thought it was a good chance to see if i've improved any from my first attempts.

These were all taken with my 7D and 100-400mm which i brought on the way to the zoo. Didn't have time to look through the book so i just tried to figure it out as i went along.

The birthday girl...









I'll break the rules a little and post a 5th image. Couldn't let one of the baby elephant go, could i?
It's not anything special so i'll keep it small...

These are much sharper and the colour contrast is better.

Big V wrote:These are much sharper and the colour contrast is better.

Agreed with Big V.
Also, your cropping is much tighter and allows my wandering eye to focus on the subject that you want to show me.

Take your tiger shots.

Your first shot almost looked a bit out of focus or blurry as the tiger's moving. Possibly not a high enough shutter speed for the moment?
I'm also looking a lot at the bamboo... well cause it takes up 80% of your picture.

Tiger 2 is sharp as a tack! Colours seem really good and makes the first set almost look washed out in comparison.
The background is fantastic as there's smooth bokeh that is non distracting and it makes your eye focus on that tiger's face... who looks like he's just a naughty big kitten cause he's poking his tongue out like my little cat does when she's in trouble!

Nice shots!

Thanks!

An extra 150mm's (250 vs 400) certainly helped.
I've kicked a bit more contrast and color into most of the shots.
I can crop the 7D images much tighter than i could with the 450D

I'm so confused with the tiger shot (and one of the Giraffe in the gallery these came from)...
Every test image i've done with the 100-400mm @ f/5.6 shows it to be quite soft compared to f/8. However, the tiger photo doesn't seem to be in this case. Can the distance to the subject be a factor?

A few from a trip to the zoo yesterday...



A couple of the Tiger cubs...

You can definetly see the improvements in this latest lot. The last of the tiger shots is great, but I would be cropping out the distracting bright bottom edge.