Exotic Animals in Focus

Just for fun some exotic animal shots. Maybe a tip or two.

Some of it will be more obvious than others. For instance... you'll probably want a long telephoto lens. Some of them are fairly inexpensive, but, of course there are sacrifices to be made. Cheap glass might not be all that bad, but your aperture will be limited and you probably won't be getting any image stabilization. The longer the lens, the more it amplifies even the smallest movement on your part. So, use a tripod. Tripods are all a give-and-take. They are either lightweight and flimsy (easy to carry but not as stable as you want) or stable and a pain to haul. Still, with the long lens, any tripod is better than none.

Shooting through glass? Find (or create) a clean spot. CAREFULLY put your lens right up against it and shoot. No glare or reflections.

Shooting through bars or chain-link fencing? Go to Aperture Priority mode and open up your aperture as far as it will go. Then, get as close to the fence as possible before you shoot (you might have to manually focus to avoid focusing on the fence) and shoot away. You'll find that the fence blurs away into nearly non-existence.

Want your zoo shots to look like they were taken in the wild? Pay special attention to the background. Zoom in tight on your animal. Look for unique angles that avoid obviously man-made items. Crank open that aperture to push the background into blur. Get down low so the background is sky.

Shooting at the zoo requires one thing above all else to achieve success -- patience! Patience while waiting for the animal to do something interesting or at least look in your general direction, patience for the crowd of kindergarteners to get out of the way, and sometimes patience with the weather, your thirst, or even your fellow shooter. Pack lots of patience and lots of memory cards and you shall prevail!