ape tips

[Oz_Beachside]

Hello,

I have been invited to spend some person time with apes or orangutans in the coming weeks, and wondering if any wildlife/animal expert togs in here can give me some tips...

As far as I know, the contact time will be priviledged access to the enclosures, via safety gates. I would love to capture some images of this "up close and personal" time, but not sure how to go about it.

For now, I assume flash is not suitable, so it might be a single lens, and my D200. or tripod and radio trigger?

thinking of something fast, in case its dark, and can focus up close. hmm, wide, like a 12-24, of fast like a 85/1.4.

Just sold my 50/1.8 which may have been perfect (murphy, and her laws...).

Also love to get any "behavioural" tips too ...

[Oz_Beachside]

oh, and please dont post a "take a 17-35". cause its one lens I dont have, and this months budget is allocated to an SB800

[christiand]

bananas

sorry, just being silly.
I suppose a fast lens, perhaps 50mm f1.8 or f1.4,
a 28-70mm f2.8 and or a 12-24mm (not that fast, f4) ?
70-200 mm will cover quite a distance.
If you are not sure about focal lengths; try whatever distances you will encounter with the ape enclosure in a test environment.
I did family portraits once with the 24-70 mm and it got tight regarding distance for whole group body shots ( 4m approximately away from the objects).
Also find out how close or distant you are going to be to our "neighbours"

HTH,
CD
CD

[hangdog]

Something which you might find worthwhile -- or a complete waste of time -- is to find out which group(s) of apes you will be photographing, and then spending a couple of hours outside each enclosure well before your inside visit. Zoo staff will be able to furnish you with the nickname given to each ape, or you can make up your own, since it doesn't matter to the apes. What you will find useful is to get a brief description of each member from the zoo staff -- gender, familial relationship to others, age, and so on.

What you can then do is observe the members of each group and work out the dominance relationships amongst them, and develop a good idea of the personality and situation of each subject. It's not actually very hard, it just requires a modicum of patience and a supply of peanuts and bananas (for yourself to snack on during those hours of watching! ). It's a common enough exercise in high school biology and uni zoology courses.

One thing which *may* strike you (as it did me) is how sad the situation is for the ones at the bottom of the hierarchy, entrapped and with no possibility of escape, ever. The realisation may add some poignancy to your pictures.

The idea I'm getting at is to photograph them as you'd photograph people -- interacting in their myriad ways or capturing their essence in portraits. What's more, prior observation will inform you of what you can expect, and hence be better prepared to capture, once you're inside.

Good luck!


--Chuan

[Glen]

Chuan is dead accurate Oz, I was casually photographing apes and monkeys a few months back at Taronga and struck up a conversation with a zoo employee who was monitoring the group. She knew every monkey by name, probably 60 of them, and explained their community role. Her job was to record the behaviour of the group every 2 minutes for an hour. she told me they did this quite a few days a week. At the very least I would ask to get there an hour early and ask if someone could point out group members to you, you will be surprised how quickly you can pick up some group members behaviour.