Animals in a Zoo

mercphoto

When shooting in a zoo, you are going to go through a fence. Which looks better, blurring a fence as much as possible (though you still can see it is there), or showing the fence, maybe so as to add context?

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/185968/1/7046506/Medium

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/185968/1/7046309/Medium

I would have embedded the JPG's directly into this post, but it didn't work.

pathfinder

mercphoto wrote:

When shooting in a zoo, you are going to go through a fence. Which looks better, blurring a fence as much as possible (though you still can see it is there), or showing the fence, maybe so as to add context?

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/185968/1/7046506/Medium

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/185968/1/7046309/Medium

I would have embedded the JPG's directly into this post, but it didn't work.

My first choice would be neither - I prefer no sign of a fence in the image - But then, I don't always get my first choice in a lot of things in life either:D

For the second shot a longer telephoto for a closeup of the animal's head might have enabled you to crop tight enough that no fence was visible or was blurred by the shallow DOF. Just a thought.

dkapp

mercphoto wrote:

When shooting in a zoo, you are going to go through a fence. Which looks better, blurring a fence as much as possible (though you still can see it is there), or showing the fence, maybe so as to add context?

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/185968/1/7046506/Medium

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/185968/1/7046309/Medium

I would have embedded the JPG's directly into this post, but it didn't work.

The zoo is always a hard place to get a good shot. There are a lot of obstacles in the way, people, fences and dirty glass. I have had the best luck w/ animals that are a good distance away from the fence & zooming in for a tight crop. Usually the Shallow DOF will take care of the fence, or imperfections in the glass.

To embed the photo into the forum, you will have to click on the "share with friends, forums" button & put that link inside your img /img tags.

Dave

mercphoto

Zoo

dkapp wrote:

The zoo is always a hard place to get a good shot. There are a lot of obstacles in the way, people, fences and dirty glass. I have had the best luck w/ animals that are a good distance away from the fence & zooming in for a tight crop. Usually the Shallow DOF will take care of the fence, or imperfections in the glass.

This image was probably about my best chance of doing just that:


Shot at f/5.6 at 135mm (the largest aperture I could get). The fence was about half-way to the animal. I would imagine faster glass would help. Thanks for the advice. Overall I was pretty happy. Cloudy day, but went with auto-white-balance and large-fine JPG mode and things turned out well.

To embed the photo into the forum, you will have to click on the "share with friends, forums" button & put that link inside your img /img tags.

Thanks!