Avoiding Obstacles and Anticipating Action

Cages: Single level caging, wherever the animal is only behind one layer, can often be dealt with… but it's tricky. When the caging is wherever you can place your camera up towards it, merely put your camera so that you can shoot through the bars. If, as is most typical, the cage is between you and the critter, then pick an area that's shaded if possible and shoot through it. Get as close to the cage as you can, use the fastest lens you own, shoot wide open and shoot the animal when it's as far from the fence as possible. That’s your best shot.

Glass: Consider glass cleaner with you to wipe off the grime. Most of the zoo glass is that awful double layered stuff, so you just have to complete your best. Press your lens towards the glass and shoot at a 25 degree angle if you are able to, this may be the least quantity of distortion. If you are utilizing a flash, use an external flash and make Certain you're pressing against the glass. When the glass is that horrible green tinted stuff, you can very easily fix that in post by (I'll use the Photoshop technique here since most photographers do not do it "my" way which can be to make use of Capture NX) adding a channel mixer layer, choosing the RED layer and bumping up the green channel a bit. Works like a charm.

Cloudy/Overcast days: They are your best friends for taking animal pictures, because they will soften shadows. Watch your white balance if shooting JPEG (Please no RAW bashers right here, some folks don’t have cameras that shoot RAW), because you are going to be a bit bluish if you do not compensate for it.

Sunny Days: Great for overall pictures, and your greatest shots will come on days like this… but… sun makes your work a whole lot harder. Pay attention to the orientation from the enclosures, and plan your shoot so that you simply work west to east as the day progresses to limit the backlighting situations you will get into. Always try to work the zoo so that you simply will have the best sun angles for your shots.

Focus: Nail the eyes. This really is critical. People will forgive a whole lot of errors in pictures, but the eyes being out of focus may be the a single "unpardonable sin" of animal photography. Set your focus spot on the eye. The biggest problems I see in individuals who post their shots of zoos is that they are missing focus. Using the sharpening in Photoshop doesn’t make up for focusing errors.

Bird’s flight paths: Birds fly off in the direction that they are pointed when they are sitting on a branch or perch or whatever. They never, ever, consider off backwards. If a bird gets twitchy, or poops, then it's ready to go, so crank up that shutter speed to 1/1000th or faster, and frame it so that the bird will fly into your frame.

Yawns: Cats almost always yawn more than once, so if you missed the first a single, keep ready for the next. Set your camera to continuous and blaze away during the yawn… you will catch a very ferocious look.

Sea Lion shows: If you want to consider pictures of sea lions doing their behaviors, shoot some during the show but realize that they always work with the animals after the shows as well so you can get closer after it's over. Merely walk up towards the rail after it is done and you will get a much better chance to get a shot.