A walk on the (not quite so) wild side

For a person that enjoys taking wildlife pictures, I have had very few chances to actually do this as of late. In fact I have been mostly limited to shots of the family dogs, the birds in the park and the squirrel that feeds in the tree outside the front of my house. What I really wanted is an opportunity to spend a few hours dedicated to practising my photography on various creatures. The problem is mainly finding the time. Fixing up my house, planning for my wedding (well I cant take too much credit for that one), work and many other things, I was finding it hard to set some time aside.

Then last sunday my fiance had arranged to spend a good part of the day at a wedding fair with my future mother in law. Seeing as I had no plans of my own I decided to visit the local zoo and see what I could capture.

Before I set out I planned what I would take, how I would shoot the shots and made sure my memory cards were empty and batteries charged.

Kit check:
Panasonic lumix fz28 (18x superzoom bridge camera 28mm – 486mm equivilant)
Battery and spare
TCON-17 – 1.7x teleconverter plus adaptor ring
Camera bag
Re-attach neck strap (I often just use a wrist strap)
Filters – just incase
Lens hood – also just incase
Formatted 16gb card plus spares

With the kit ready I needed a plan of action. A small sensor camera like the fz28 is limited when it comes to image quality. You dont want to go above ISO 200 unless you really have to. I wanted my images to be as sharp and detailed as possible. For this reason I would be sticking with aperture priority mode with ISO set to 100. I would check my shutter speed at each animal enclosure with a half press. If to slow I would try and increase it by either upping the ISO to 200 (maybe 400 but I really don’t want to) and adjusting the exposure compensation. Under exposing a shot not only increases the shutter speed but also means less chance of blown highlights. It would however mean more image noise to contend with, but that could be fixable in post processing as long as I stick to lower ISO’s. I would be shooting in RAW. This would allow me the maximum amount of detail to be retained to give me the best results in post processing. It would also give me greater ability to fix poorly exposed shots. I would also be using spot focusing mode so that I could precisely focus on the subject where I wanted to.

Another plan was to not use the full zoom of my fz-28. The problem with superzoom camera’s as well as many large zoom range DSLR lenses is that they get quite soft at the full zoom. I have used my fz-28 at the full zoom many times and unless in very decent light I always tend to be disappointed with the results. For this reason I would be sticking to about 10-12x zoom – 300-350mm (35mm equiv) and use my TCON-17 to make up the difference. This would mean I lose some light but I would end up with the same zoom level and sharper results than using the fz-28 at full zoom without the tele-converter. I had practised this a few days before and it seemed to work.

The zoo didn’t open till 10, it only takes 25 mins to get there but I didn’t want to be stuck in a queue. So I left a little early so I could arrive about 20 minutes before the zoo opens. I got there and it was empty. I guess at this time of year its to cold to rush to the zoo on a Sunday. I passed the time with a few practise shots on the birds flying around near by.

10 am hit, i paid my entrance (plus the optional donation as it’s for a good cause) and decided I would start by heading to the Tigers. I always wanted an exciting shot of these big cats. I always hear animals tend to be more active early on. Despite being 10 and not really that early I thought I would give it a shot. On the way there I kept seeing these creatures that roam freely around the zoo. They look sort of like a cross between a rabbit, wallaby and deer. The name totally eluded me but have found out they are called Mara. They are apparently relatives of the guinea pig. They would provide a good chance for somef practise shots.

Mara - the guinea pigs BIG cousin

Out of all the different shots of these cute creatures I took I felt this one was the nicest. It’s not exactly exciting but its a nice portrait shot. The exposure was kept within limits with no highlights blown and its nice and sharp. A bit of cropping was needed to finish it off.

Off I set again towards those amazing powerful beasts, the Tigers. On the way I get distracted yet again by the Red Panda enclosure. I always found these little guys very cute and seeing as no one was there I decided I better see if I can get a good shot. At first the enclosure looked totally void of life but I kept scanning the tree. Then it popped into vision. It was just cuddled up to a tree branch staring at me. Perfect position for the shot I wanted. I had some issues with this shot. Firstly the Rad Panda was backlit but also mostly covered in shade. Even with exposure bias set to -2/3 and ISO 200 I could only get a shutter speed of 1/100. Not exactly desirable. With this in mind I supported my self against the small fencing and took a few shots.

Red Panda

I was pleased with the composition with this one. I even found that I managed to sharpen up the image to an acceptable level but I was disappointed that I blew the highlights around the head and ears. All that said, I am very happy that I got a shot of this cute little thing staring straight at me.

Right, now it was time to go to the Tiger pen and no more distractions.

When I got there I realised I needed to find 2 things. First I needed to find the Tigers and secondly I needed a spot where I didn’t have a fence in the way. If you have a DSLR then fencing isn’t such a problem as you can open the aperture and make it so out of focus its invisible. However a small sensor camera doesn’t have such a luxury. Its depth of field is to great to achieve this. I managed to find a place where they have a bridge that overlooks the pen so I headed there. Set up and in place it was some time for some classic Tiger action shots.

The lazy Tiger

WOW… I hear you say. Needless to say I was a little bit disappointed but it does look fairly comfy and happy in its little bed. I did see one walking around but it was in a part of the pen where I couldn’t see it without a fence in the way. I just enjoyed the moment and moved on. I did check back a couple of hours later but the Tiger was still having its nap.

I had a look at the map and just decided to randomly follow the roads and paths and see where they took me. Luckily they led me straight to the elephants. There I saw mother, father and baby all heading towards the feeding area. With my camera at the ready I got my self into position and started shooting. I was after a shot of them all together as a family and a shot of the baby under the mother or fathers body.

a family strole

Baby under protection

As you can see I got both the shots I was after. They were fairly far away, so even with the TCON attached I needed to do some cropping to get the compositions I wanted. In the family shot I also would have preferred not to have a building and fence in the background. I could clone them out in Photoshop, maybe I will at a later date. My favourite of the 2 is the baby shot as its sharper, better exposed and has no man made structures ruining the shot.

The next animal I stumbled across not only almost blinded me through sheer vibrancy but also reminded me to use a very useful setting when it comes to shooting animals.

We all know Flamingos are a very vibrant pink/orange colour but sometimes I forget just how bright. This also made getting the exposure correct a little tricky. It seemed no matter what I did I was blowing the highlights. Then my brain switched on again and I remembered about spot metering mode. I turned this on, set my AE/AF lock to only lock the exposure and then I was all set. Target the brightest part of the animal, lock the exposure and then compose the shot.

I was after the classic solo flamingo on one leg and a shot of a flamingos beak in the water meeting its reflection.

Perfect balance

High Flying, High Fasion

The second shot has some slightly blown highlights and I would have prefered no tag on its leg but for my first time shooting animals at a zoo properly, I am fairly pleased with the results. I was glad to get the flamingo meeting its reflection, it took a little patience but it was worth it. I just love how vibrant these birds are.

When I arrived at the Hippo enclosure I was greeted straight away by one of the Pygmy Hippo’s. He toddled up to me, gave me a funny look then went to have a scratch against a tree stump. Then he did exactly what I wanted him to do. He yawned.

Pygmy Hippo Yawning

I got a bit lucky here as I rushed the shot to get it but it came out well enough. I also went and looked at the large Hippo’s. They were swimming in the water but the light was so harsh that the shots all had blown highlights no matter what I tried. I also totally missed one opening its mouth, showing its teeth looking straight at me as I was watching the other one at the time. A shame as that was the exact shot I was after.

I made a quick stop at the penguins after this. I knew I would be able to get fairly close there and get some fairly detailed shots. They all stood around fairly motionless, some huddled together. One or two were swimming as well. They are good subjects for practising your composition and exposure.

Portrait of a penguin

Water wings

One of my favourite creatures is normally the Bear. Large and strong yet they look so gentle at the same time. I visited them several times to try and get a picture I liked. After several attempts I wasn’t overly impressed with the way any of them turned out. Because the walls are so high its hard to get a decent angle that isn’t overbearing (im sure theres a pun in there).  After looking at them a few days later I felt my best one was of my first visit to them when one was hiding under a bush.

A shy guy

The angle of the shot made it seem like I was not so high and it shows off the bears gentle side.

I visited many other animals on the way to all the above mentioned, but few gave many chances for exciting shots. The various deer, buffalo, donkeys and even Rhino’s did very little to give an interesting shot. I got some snaps but nothing worth showing off. In fact the best of these shots involved a type of deer chewing on some food.

Not the most exciting of shots

The cheetah sat on the other side of the pen and I only just managed to see it. It was sitting against a fence ruining any illusion of wilderness.

Keeping a lookout

A bit of creative cropping did help a lot in the end.

I had a similar problem with the wolves. Most were hiding in the grass and all of them were very far away. Again, a bit of cropping managed to save one shot. Shame about the fence.

On the prowl

Im also fairly sure the wallabies didn’t like my presence. So much so im pretty sure this one wanted to kill me.

The death stare

Even the Giraffes refused to co-operate. They wouldn’t even look at me.

Camera shy

More disappointment was to come. I went to the discovery centre (which was indoors). Knowing full well that my camera really struggles with low light I didn’t get my hopes up, but I went in regardless as I like to go see the creatures in there anyway. Just as I thought, the light was so low that it was hard to get any decent sort of shutter speed. It was also dark, which would mean even more noise. I had a go at a few shots and most came out rather terrible. I managed to salvage one in post.

All coiled up

I had to up the ISO to 400 and reduce the exposure to -2/3 and even then I only had a shutter speed of 1/13 of a second. Luckily the fz-28 has a very good IS (image stabilization) which allowed me to recover some sharpness in post for a reasonable result. It was about 300 degrees in that place and I was wearing a winter coat so I had a quick look at the other animals and then made an exit back into the cool autumn air.

As with all things, the best was very much saved till last. I had mixed moments up until this point but any downsides were completely made up by the last part of this trip. First I went to the chimpanzee’s. I was watching two of the young ones play fighting but unfortunately couldn’t get a decent shot off as there were wooden structures in the way of the shots. Parts of them would always end up being behind something or other. I wondered around to the other side of the enclosure and there I was treated to a much more entertaining show. The same two young chimps had stopped play fighting and decided to play with the ropes. With a clear view to them, reasonable light and my camera ready to go I started to fire off some shots of them in action.

Chimping around

The swing king

I had to use ISO of 200 and reduce the exposure compensation slightly to get the shutter fast enough (1/500) and I was very happy to have actually got some shots of chimps swinging on the ropes.

My day then got even better as I went into the Lemur enclosure. These cute little guys were the highlight of the trip. You can walk through the middle and get so close to them that you can actually touch them (although your not actually meant to). These guys did all sorts of entertaining things from sitting on a swing, chasing each other on the ropes to sunning their bellies in a way they look like they are meditating. They were so used to humans that you can go right up close for a high detail portrait shot. I got by far the most ‘keepers’ from this lot.

Lemur on his swing

Lemur off his swing

Meditation is the path to enlightenment

Mr bright eyes

Meet the Lemur

I was incredibly happy with what I got here. An amazing chance for all kinds of up close and personal shots. They are so playful that you can sit there and watch them all day. Unfortunately my time was running out fast so I decided to call it a day.

However on my way back I walked past the Otter pen and had to stop for some shots. A group of them were all playing around, and again, I got so close it was a good chance for some high detail shots. These guys were also very cute and I managed a fair few decent shots. Here are my favourite two.

Otter having a snack by the river

Otters in love

I just loved the colour of these little guys and the detail I managed to get of their fur and whiskers.

That, alas, was the end of the trip. Time to head home, pick up my beautiful fiance from the station and then start processing the shots.

As my first ever photographic trip to the zoo I think I did OK. I missed a few key enclosures and would have liked more time to get some decent shots of certain animals. These things all mainly come down to a combination of luck and patience. I have the patience but didn’t always have the luck. That all being said I was very happy with my Chimp, Lemur and Otter pictures. I also loved the Red Panda (shame about the highlights) and the baby elephant.

I will be upgrading to a DSLR (Canon 500d) in November so this has given me a great learning experience for then. With the large sensor and higher quality lenses I will look forward to doing a zoo trip again. Maybe next time I will concentrate on fewer animals and try to get more shots of those instead of trying to see as many different animals as possible.

Things to remember

– Use spot metering on animals. You can recover shadows a lot easier than the highlights. There is almost always details in the shadows but a blown highlight is pure white. It’s also a lot more important to have a properly exposed subject than background. Also, as long as the highlights aren’t blown, it can all be fixed later in post.

– Small sensor cameras blow the highlights very easily. This is yet another reason to use spot metering. The dynamic range is also a lot less than with a DSLR.

– By not using the full zoom I ended up with sharper images. I had to crop them a bit more in post but the final result still ended up looking better.

– My camera leaves a red colour cast AND adds a lot of cyan to grey and black furs. I already knew about the reds and I fix that with a levels adjustment in Photoshop. The cyan I fix using a hue/saturation adjustment layer, select cyan from the list and reduce the saturation.

– Have your camera ready. I missed a few shots while I was checking images on the LCD. Do that at the end when your about to move on. If you see you missed anything at the end, then try and retake them.

– Don’t expect to get all the shots you want. Animals are just that. They do their own thing. Patience is the best way to see what you want.

– Have an idea of what sort of shots your after. This will help you when choosing what animal to follow and help you predict when it may happen.

– Try and compose your shots to eliminate human presence as much as possible.

Get more from your superzoom using a conversion lens

Superzooms have a fantastic zoom range as it is, but as with everything you buy, you always end up wanting more.

A conversion lens gives you that extra that you need for a reasonable pricel. These can be bought for both bridge cameras (advanced superzooms and compacts) as well as DSLR’s.

The fz-28 already has a rather large zoom range. Its macro mode allows you to focus as little as 1cm away when using the wide angle (no zoom) and 1 meter away at full zoom. This is great for taking photos of flowers. For example:

It also has a great telephoto of 486mm (35 mm equivalent) allowing you to take great close ups of wildlife such as this

But still you will want more. You see these pictures of insects taking up the whole frame and wonder how on earth that shot got taken. You see full frame pictures of baby animals that should be easily startled.

Well for these types of shots you need a few things. Firstly, and most importantly, you will need a macro lens for the super small and tele converter for the extra zoom.

First lets talk about my favourite of the two, the macro lens. This is possibly one of the best and most fun bits of kit you can buy for a camera because the difference it makes is huge. The macro lens i bought is called the Raynox 250. It simply clips on to the front of various size lenses so has no screw thread. Some cameras (such as the fz-28) will need an adaptor tube to fit this, but its worth it. The adaptor tube is called the DMW-LA3 E. This same tube will allow you to fit the Tcon-17 tele converter as well.

The raynox 250 macro lens will do a few things.
-It will magnify your subject by about 3 times
-It will massively reduce the depth of field. So much so that it will only be a few mm big
-It will make your focusing distance about 11-13 cm away depending on the zoom.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the focusing distance gets increased compared to using full wide angle without this lens where you get a 1cm focus distance. As its wide angle you still see a lot of the frame. On the fz-28, as you zoom the focus distance changes. At full zoom it is 1 meter away and will give a similar close up as using 1cm away at the wide angle. With the raynox attached its about 12cm at FULL telephoto.  Mixed with the 3X magnification the lens gives you really do get extream close ups.

Before i show you some examples this next image is about as close as you can get with the standard lens. This doesnt include massively croping an image as that would make the image tiny and fairly unusable for anything but the web. This next image was still cropped a lot but it remains a fairly usable size

That isnt a bad result of course. You get a nice enough picture and you can pic up the detail on the bees wings.

But compaired to the following, this is nothing. These are some of my favourite macro shots i have taken recently using the Raynox 250.

As you can see you can get incredibly close to your subject with one of these lenses. The detail you can pick up it quite incredible. From these pictures you can see what i was talking about with having a very small depth of field. In the first picture of the fly you only get the flys head in focus. That is at full zoom. You can increase the depth by reducing the  zoom and also by closing the aperture but dont expect it to increase by much.

Other things you need to know about using a macro lens is that you really need a lot of light and you need to be stable. I tend to get myself into a possition where i can rest my elbows on something, otherwise you rock back and forwards to much making it incredibly hard to get a shot in focus. I also only do this on a sunny, bright day to get enough natural light. You can use a flash but the light looks very unatural and the final image is never as pleasing to the eye. Try and stick to shutter speeds at a bare minimum of 1/125. You will be suffering from camera shake (even with image stabalisation) at this sort of magnification and you need to counter it with as fast a shutter speed as possible.

The most important tip you will need to know is this. Move slowly. If you move slowly the bugs dont even seem to know your there. Sudden fast movments will send them packing. The fly head shot i got, i managed to move a chair and sit next to it simply by moving slowly.

Now onto tele converter lenses. The one I own is the TCON-17. This gives you a 1.7x magnification. It has a few other advantages as well as some disadvantages. Lets get the bad stuff out the way first. Teleconverters eat up light. You will need very good light to get decent shutter speeds. If you only plan to use them on a sunny day then this isnt really a problem but in low light they are a bad idea as cameras struggle enough in those situations already. The other downside is that almost all teleconverters will have soft edges to the images. Luckily i have found the TCON-17 to not suffer to badly from this. The center and even most the frame stays pretty sharp with only the edges being slightly soft, not really enough to cause to much of a problem but the issue does exist. One extra thing to note is that you will of course get even more camera shake. Make sure your in a stable position when using one.

Now for the good. You increase your zoom by 1.7x. That alone is pretty cool. This turns my 486mm zoom into a HUGE 826mm zoom. The other bonus i have found is that i can use it to increase the max shutter speed of the fz-28’s max zoom without the teleconverter. That sounds confusing but i shall explain. The fz-28 has a max shutter speed of 1/2000 at the a wide angle. But this decreases to 1/1300 at the max telephoto. And that only if you close the aperture. If you set the aperture to be wide open (4.4) then this decreases to 1/1000. This is still fairly fast but for subjects such as sports and wildlife its nice to be able to get to about 1/1500 to really freeze the action. So heres what i found out. With the Tcon-17 attached i can set the camera to 10x zoom. this will give me about the same as 18x zoom without the tele converter attached. Becase the camera isnt zoomed as much it now allows me to shoot at 1/1300 at its max aperture (and its aperture is larger as its not as zoomed, about 3.7) and 1/1600 if you close the aperture up a bit. This is a nice shutter speed increase for sunny days when light is in abundance.

So thats the pluses and minuses. Now for the example shots. Ducklings are nice to shoot but to get a full frame shot of them bobbing in the water is hard if you dont fancy a swim. What you need is more zoom. Well heres one i got using this lens.

and heres one of a duck splashing about in the middle of the pond

without the lens i wouldn’t have got as close and therefore not as much detail.

Some people could argue that you could just use the EZ (extra zoom) function to get closer but that isnt really the same. Cameras that offer this extra zoom in exchange for less mega pixels are basically just cropping the image and it isn’t real zoom. Its a nice feature but if your after maximum detail its best you stay clear. Also its nothing you cant just do your self more accurately in post processing later on.

Out of the two lenses  i would highly recommend a macro lens to anyone. It gives you a totally new area of photography you can cover and turns your back garden into a jungle of insects.

The teleconverter is also fun and a good purchase but it is used a lot less as more often than not the normal (albeit large) zoom range of this sort of camera is more than enough.

Here are the amazon links to the 2 lenses and the adaptor tube.

Adaptor tube for panasonic fz-18 and 28 (and i imagin the new fz-38 as well)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-5025232438402-DMW-LA3-E/dp/B000ULPK2C/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250001878&sr=8-4

The Tcon-17 1.7X tele converter
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-Conversion-TCON-17-SP-550UZ-C-5050/dp/B0002HNR6A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250001878&sr=8-1

and lastly the pick of the litter. The Raynox 250 macro lens
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raynox-RADCR-0250-DCR-250/dp/B000A1SZ2Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1250004984&sr=1-1