Photo sharing: Zoos

[Steve's Girl]

Great job! Good that you're getting acquainted with stroller parking - you'll see plenty of that at the World.

 

[cryssi]

DAGNABIT!

You had me moving towards that 18-135, and now this?? Great pics! I really love the color on the first one. Can't wait to see your AK shots come July...

 

[YEKCIM]

DAGNABIT!

You had me moving towards that 18-135, and now this?? Great pics! I really love the color on the first one. Can't wait to see your AK shots come July...

Well, you really do need *both*, you know! I agree on the colors, but can't take credit for that. The Creator used His brightest colors when He made Lorikeets, don't you think?

I'll have to say that the bored (yawning) giraffe is my favorite, though...

~YEKCIM

 

[hjd0411]

I love those lorikeets! I have them fly through my yard all the time and they are so fast - it's hard to photograph them!!! I have to wait for the spring flowering native plants to open, and they sit and chatter away all day! In fact there is a tree not far from my house where a whole colony of Rainbow Lorikeets nest, and the noise at dusk is deafening!
Thank you for all your beautiful pictures - I always enjoy seeing your work - an inspiration to a very rank amateur!!

Heather

 

[YEKCIM]

Any more?

Jeff, here's a couple more:

~Ed

 

[Shifletjl]

Thanks for sharing your zoo photos. I love that giraffe! What a ham he is. You've reminded me to get to my local zoo to "practice" before we head to San Diego.

 

[handicap18]

Nicely done Ed.

I'm hoping to get to the zoo in Providence on Monday. The one closest to us is ok, but the one in PVD is really supposed to be good. I'd like to get some good work in with the 70-300mmVR like yourself.

I like your results! Keep up the great work!

 

[YEKCIM]

DAGNABIT!

You had me moving towards that 18-135, and now this?? Great pics! I really love the color on the first one. Can't wait to see your AK shots come July...

How 'bout the 18-135 paired with the new 55-200VR, which can be had for *half* the 70-300VR's price, online? I just saw a post on dpreview that has some pretty impressive pix from the 55-200VR: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1034&message=23292828

~Ed

 

[jann1033]

nice photos..the dusky lorikeets at our zoo eat nector you can buy there & so are very tame...last trip one was enthralled with cleaning out husband's ear ????? ear mites? maybe he is getting "old man ear hair" and they were building a nest?

 

[tinksdad]

Great job!! Love the bird shots!!

Just a thought/opinion about the 55-200mm. My wife bought that lens and I wouldn't suggest it at all. It's inexpensive, but not worth the money. Save up for something more worthwhile!!

 

[sk8belle]

I'll have to say that the bored (yawning) giraffe is my favorite, though...

~YEKCIM

I was going to say the same thing. The clarity on all the photos is wonderful. Great job.

 

[jann1033]

i figured the giraffe was just shocked you took his photo when he wasn't ready yet since he smiled so nice in the next one the flamingo has great color...ours around here are almost white instead of coral which means as usual i overexpose them 1/2 the time

 

[YEKCIM]

i figured the giraffe was just shocked you took his photo when he wasn't ready yet since he smiled so nice in the next one the flamingo has great color...ours around here are almost white instead of coral which means as usual i overexpose them 1/2 the time

I had the same problem with some white duck-looking critters on my zoo outing. Feathers are completely blown out (photographically speaking, that is...). I probably should have underexposed by a couple stops from what the AE set. Oh, well...live and learn.

~Ed

 

[Sir Bouncealot]

Great shots...looking forward to seeing your AK shots!

 

[Groucho]

Wow, very nice work, I particularly like the colors. Are they "natural" or boosted in any way?

We got a zoo membership at our local zoo (which isn't particularly huge or anything) so I'll probably have a ton of zoo pictures by the end of the year... I've done a couple trips so far. Here's a few from my first trip - this are with my very old Vivitar 400mm F5.6 screw-mount lens, which is a pain in the butt to focus (lots of turning the focus ring)... stopped down, it has pretty decent sharpness, but it's heavy (I think these were all done with a monopod) and I think the colors are a little on the bland side (I think that might tie in with that the pics with that lens often end up a tad underexposed, too.) But boy, that 400mm sure gets you up close!

The last one is definitely a bit under-exposed... I am planning on going through these and doing a little more post-processing before putting them up in my gallery, hopefully I can bring out the colors a little more, too. The ones with my other lenses (mostly the 50-200mm, occasionally the 50mm) are definitely more colorful.

 

[YEKCIM]

Wow, very nice work, I particularly like the colors. Are they "natural" or boosted in any way?

We got a zoo membership at our local zoo (which isn't particularly huge or anything) so I'll probably have a ton of zoo pictures by the end of the year... I've done a couple trips so far. Here's a few from my first trip - this are with my very old Vivitar 400mm F5.6 screw-mount lens, which is a pain in the butt to focus (lots of turning the focus ring)... stopped down, it has pretty decent sharpness, but it's heavy (I think these were all done with a monopod) and I think the colors are a little on the bland side (I think that might tie in with that the pics with that lens often end up a tad underexposed, too.) But boy, that 400mm sure gets you up close!



The last one is definitely a bit under-exposed... I am planning on going through these and doing a little more post-processing before putting them up in my gallery, hopefully I can bring out the colors a little more, too. The ones with my other lenses (mostly the 50-200mm, occasionally the 50mm) are definitely more colorful.

Colors are natural, I think. I'm still fiddling around with settings in-camera, so it's possible I could have had it on "Vivid", but don't think I did.

BTW, I really like the second photo and took the liberty of trying a small tweak with it. I saved it to my 'puter and just hit the "auto contrast" button in Picasa. It helped quite a bit; you may want to try something like that with whatever PP software you use. Might give them a little more pop.

You're right about the 400mm really reaching out there. That's 600mm on an APS dSLR, and *plenty* of reach!

Good work!

~Ed

 

[Groucho]

Yeah, I've got mixed feelings on the "auto contrast", "auto levels", etc... they do sometimes help but seem to not just as often. I do need to do something with them though, I have gotten some decent colorful pics with that lens, but it's tough and the color seems really dependent on a stopped-down lens and a fairly long shutter time.

It'll never be a great lens, but it's all I've got for really long-zoom for the moment so I'll have to learn to get the best out of it.

 

[MicMin]

Wonderful pictures. The colors are so vibrant and clear. Looking forward to seeing your Ak pictures.

 

[MicMin]

Hi Everyone.
I have some pictures that my husband and I took at the NC Zoo on Saturday if anyone would like to see them.
We were both using Nikon D40s. We had a 18-55 lens on one of the cameras and a 55-200VR on the other.

http://celebrations.smugmug.com/gallery/2882076#154809706

 

[richard_andmel]

Those are really great photos. You've got some very cooperative animals at your zoo.