Monash Photography Club recently asked me to teach a workshop about ‘Zoo photography’ because they are organising a zoo trip next week to the Melbourne Zoo. If anybody wants to come, feel free to contact them:
Monash Photography Club Zoo Trip
here goes:
1. Use Long Zoom Lenses
Wedge-tailed eagle, one of my favourite image
There are just some animal you can’t afford to get close, think of tiger, bear and rhino. If you get close, they’ll rip you apart. To capture them in all their glory, you just gotta use long lenses.
Long lenses have shallower depth of field, making it easy to shoot through fences.
I personally love my 80-200 f2.8 for zoo trips.
2. Fill the Frame
Handsome Roo!
And his friend the Emu!
When you fill the frame with the subject, and excluding everything else, you will evoke a sense of intimacy and connection between the viewer and the animal. You can either use long lens or crop it in post processing.
3. Get down to their level
Mr Meerkat on the lookout
Lizard doing his thing
It is the same technique we use when photographing children. When you get down to their level, you make the photograph just a little bit more personal.
4. Select good background
The background should NOT distract the viewer’s eye from the cute or fierce animal you are shooting. Try to get a homogenous leaves or pattern for the background.
Super bokeh for ms owlie
So, which one is the head? top or bottom?
If you can’t avoid a distractive background, just blur it out with bokeh. Your long lens and wide aperture will help.
5. Shoot through fences or glass
When you have to shoot though fences or glass, zoom in as long as possible, and open your aperture as wide as possible, and get as close as possible to the fence or glass.
Just repeating:
- longest zoom
- widest aperture
- closest you can get to the fence
Mr and Mrs Lion resting.
It will throw the fence or the glass out of focus, and the viewer will get the illusion of you standing directly infront of the lion.
6. DO NOT use flash
You don't want to make me blind, do you?
Unless you know what you are doing. Flash could potentially scare the animal away. Besides, if you are using flash at night, you could blind all the night-vision animal like owl and cats.
7. Walk around, change your perspective
Do-Re-Mi!
If you couldn’t get a good shoot from your location, don’t just wait in place. Go walk around, jump up a bench, get low, or whatever. Too many people stand in one place and keep shooting, and ended up with the same images. You want variety.
8. If you want to include human in the picture…
WATCH OUT!
Oh, i luv u i luv u i luv u i luv u i luv u i luv u
I-forgot-whats-his-name eating a mouse!
Make sure that they look natural. Avoid posed pictures. Unless you are at the ‘Touch this animal’ section of the zoo.
9. Capture the animal doing human-like activity
Grandpa Roo scratching his back
Don't even think about what you are thinking now
This will introduce humor into the picture, and will make your viewer smile.
BONUS
Oh yeah baby! Kangaroo porn!
Have you ever seen a kangaroo’s balls & penis? well, here is it 
Images were captured by me at
Australia Zoo in QLD
Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in Gold Coast
Weribee Zoo in Victoria
Hope you enjoy!
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