Day out at the London Zoo

Golden Lion Tamarins


The London Zoo is located just at the northern edge of Regent Park, not too far a walk from central London. I remember that day being particularly dreary, and there was a very light drizzle. Hmm. Zoo or bed? Tough call. I decided to give it a go, and headed out kitted out with my wet weather gear.

Half way through Regent's park, it actually started to pour. Thankfully, there was a place called The Honest Sausage just off the path, and ducked in for some bangers and mash with a nice cuppa tea. By the time I had finished off my little snack, the rain had stopped, and the clouds were clearing. Could it be the winds of fate are turning?


Mallard

Heading down the path, I encountered my first Grey Squirrel. OMG. Now, when I'm traveling to my destination I only have my D200 + 55mm 2.8 AIS bolted on, everything else is in my backpack. Locating a nearby bench, I strapped on my Think Tank pro speed belt + 300mm/4 attached with the Skin 75 pop-down. Proceeded to attach flash. And the flash extender. And hook the rig up onto the monopod when....

Some guy was letting his dog run loose without a leash, and said dog went straight at the grey squirrel. Which, obviously turned tail and bolted into the bushes. Damn. Oh well.... I finished strapping all the crap on myself and headed on.

Once in the zoo, the first order of the day is to locate wolves. Which, there aren't, as far as I know. So, next better choice, the African Wild Dogs!


African Wild Dog

When I got to the enclosure though, they were a) Sleeping b) In shade c) through a glass viewpoint. Sigh. Moving on, I went over to the open air aviary. Light levels were pretty low, but I still managed to pull of some wildlife stills, such as this Mandarin Duck:



Not the sharpest picture ever, but at 1/50th of a second with a 450mm lens, I think lens support is worth its weight in gold. I think I put out a pretty long burst, and only one came back usable. I can dream of a gimbal all I want but there is not way I am going to transport that big pile of metal and carbon fiber on the tube.

Turning around to figure out how to shoot the Sacred Ibises, I noticed movement on the enclosure opposite - the african wild dogs were moving! I hesitated. Should I go now, and miss out on the Ibises or run over and hope the dogs were still running about? Birds can wait.

I managed to get lots of shots, though I forgot to check my exposure properly, and most of the shots were motioned blurred thanks to the longish shutter. In addition, most of them were of the dogs running up and down a path. The auto focus was mostly unable to keep up with the critters moving towards the camera. Sigh.



Ok I think this post is getting a bit long :P I'll finish up quickly, being the Zoo is really huge and I've only blogged about 1 critter so far :)


Pygmy Marmoset

The primate conservation area was a blast to visit. Its of course enclosed, but inside, the animals are left to run wild. I had a very close call with a Trumpeter attempting to eat my jacket (everyone's jacket actually). Very amusing. The pygmy marmoset caught my attention the most though. I think it's about the same size as my flash, it can probably fit in my tea cup. Due to being indoors, I had no choice but to shoot at iso800, and I was quite concerned because I'm dealing with fine fur that is not filling the frame totally. To be honest, when I was pixel peeping I was quite sad and wish I had a D700 or something.

But the 8x12 prints were great - in terms of clarity and sharpness anyways. I still need to find a place that works with people battling with color calibration. I'm certain without the monopod this would be really tough to pull off - there were rails of course, but that limits the framing lots.


Forgot the name :(

Out of the enclosure, the next event was the Otter's lunch time! I was positioned quite badly, but the kind visitors made way for me. Having a mid-sized lens helps I think :P


OM NOM NOM NOM

During the course of the day, there were the usual critters to see, like Lions and Tigers. The furballs were sleeping as expected, and behind glass, so i didn't both to take shots, just observed for a bit.


Ground Hogs

One thing I noticed is that at times I really need to stop the lens down. The above picture above of the ground hog does not work at all at 8x12 - being there is so little for the eye to see. I think stopping down at least 2 stops may give enough detail for the eye to follow.


Alpaca

Similarly, I think the above Alpaca portrait may work better with the lens stopped down further to get the entire face in focus.


Aardvark

The Aardvarks are nocturnal, so the most you can see is them dozing off. Kids seem to really enjoy the area as there are many tunnels to crawl into that lead into a plastic bubble for a really close up encounter with the sleeping Aardvarks. During feeding time, only the female woke up to feed. I was in a really bad position again, and no one was giving way to The Guy With The 300mm F4 AF-S On A Monopod. Thankfully even with my bad position the kind lady took up a path and I managed to fire of a sequence, only one (above) was nicely framed. Whew. And she went back to nap. Gah.

Fin?