Paradise Wildlife Park

Another locale found about an hour away from London by rail, Paradise Wildlife Park boasts a large assortment of rare cats like Snow Leopards and White Lions, and is active in the conservation of such threatened species. My main pull to Paradise, is of course the wolves :)




One thing I enjoy about the park is the many viewing platforms available. These afford a great view from above, without the evils of glass refracting the precious light.


Snow Leopard.... majestic...

The snow leopard though had the incoming light so badly refracted. Pixel peeping this shot is very sad; a combination of low light and firing though glass at an angle. I think the pair at the park just had a kitten, which is good considering their sad state of affairs out in the wild.


Lion

There were the usual colored lions, as well as white lions in the park, something I've never seen before. The above shot is that of the usual variety, and both of them were quite active in er... increasing the size of the pride. The white lion was sleeping the entire day I was there. All I could see was his butt. Boring... This shot looks good in 8x12, though I have some reservations about the B&W toning. Once I get the toning right, I may try to go for a canvas print.


Eagle Owl

Later in the day, there was a bird display, where many birds such as barn owls, eagle owls, macaws are brought out for flying and display. Again, many of these birds seem to be rescued or rehabilitated. I have a particular place in my heart for the Eagle Owls.


Cotton Top Tamarin

As with the London Zoo, there is an area where tons of tamarins run around. No direct interaction with the visitors though, thought they have a tunnel linking the outdoor enclosure to the indoor enclosure. The cotton top was particularly difficult to get the exposure down, never mind they move *fast*.

A pretty good place for a fun day out for the family :)

Shepreth Wildlife Park

Shepreth Wildlife Park is located about an hour from London, just several stops from Cambridge. A welcome location for the public transport-locked traveller, the park itself is situated very near the railway station, and no more than 5 minutes of hoofing will bring you to the front gates. The park is fair sized, but the first thing you'd notice when you step in is the amount of Prarie Dogs digging up a storm in the courtyard.



I mean, seriously :) I wish I had asked them about it before I left, as there does not seem to have an info email of sorts on their website.



It is also interesting to note how localised the area the furballs are digging up, so I'm guessing the park has in place some kind of containment strategy.

Shepreth itself not only does conservation work (with tigers, otters, lemurs, water voles etc), they also provide a sort of a shelter for injured animals.



This fox for example, was injured in a car accident, and is being taken care of.

Oh there are a pair of wolves there, glee! My first wolf encounter in Britain.



I think I had great fun at the park. Just a note of warning for flash users, the fencing used there is highly reflective, and many of my shots were consigned to the trash bin - I really, really should use this thing called an LCD on the back of the camera to review shots.

I'll leave you with a series of images :)


Coati



Mara


Tiger!


Iguana


Capybara

Seeing red (orange) at the British Wildlife Center

This weekend takes me a little further out from London, all the way to Surrey. It's also my first time on the London Railway, and probably my 2nd time on a real train. The train was supposed to stop at Lingfield in Surrey, but as luck would have it, I was up late the night before, and feel asleep on the train, and missed my stop, and only woke up at the terminus :( Thankfully, the terminus is only one stop away from Lingfield, so I just enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate while I waited the half hour for the train to make the return journey.

Now unlike Richmond park, where I already knew there was a bus right up to the gates, the British Wildlife Center does not have public buses that take you right up to the gates. For people without driving licences like me, the only way there is to catch a cab. As luck would have it, there was one waiting at Lingfield when I exited the train station. (As I would learn later, it was pure luck that I had a cab waiting - in general one needs to call for a cab in advance when visiting these locales)

Ten minutes later, I was smack dab in the middle of the wilderness, at the gates of the British Wildlife Center.

As the name might suggest, this center specializes in conservation for several species native to Great Britain. These include critters like Otters, Red Squirrels and Water Voles, to name a few.


Must come back in winter to see if I catch them with their ear tufts

My usual subject as usual, was wolves. Unfortunately, the wildlife center lacks wolves so the next nearest relative I could find, was the humble fox.



There was also a very young rescued fox named Luna. I think she made my day. Utter furball of energy and cuteness.





The otters were quite active to the delight of the visitors and fellow photographers (I counted so many white lenses lol), especially at mealtime when they had fish. From the scent, it's something I won't mind on a nice piece of toast, with cream cheese =)


European Otter

One thing I did not realize till much later in the day was that these are European Otters, and they are much larger compared to the Asian Short Clawed otter I've seen in previous places. I original thought that because these were relatively older specimens, that they were that big! I was wrong.

Other fascinating critters include the minuscule water voles.


They had a whole area filled with tunnels, a water area and platforms for food. (You know, at times like this I wish I had a wide angle shot of what I'm describing...)

Badgers of course.


The area they were in seemed pretty big, and includes another indoor section.

Another section of the BWC was still under construction, a copse designed for the Red Squirrels. Right now it's being inhabited by a few Muntjac deer and a rabbit (Well I only saw one :P).




I'm too cheap for photoshop. And too lazy for gimp.

This only covers a really small bit of the park; there is a huge outdoor area dedicated to deer, as well as an entire wetland reserve. There is also an area where some birds of prey are kept. Love the eagle owl. Inside the main facilities, is a whole indoor area where you can see a hedgehog during feeding time, as well as field mice, black and brown mice, and weasels. Light levels there are pretty low, and I wish I had an shorter stablized lens for indoor use.

Will definitely want to visit again, but there are so many other wildlife places abound!

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?

Hunting Deer at Richmond Park with my 300mm

Fooooood!!!

Richmond park is located about an hour from London via public transport. The underground takes you up to Richmond underground, and from there walk or take a short bus ride (take the bus!) to the gates of the park.

I went there on a Saturday, and it was very busy with people strolling the myriad paths, bikers moving at all speeds and cars clogging the roads. Well not clogging but there is a very low speed limit.

Now this is probably my first time out looking for wildlife in the wild. Unlike the Dingoes in Alice Springs where they'd come up to you at night. My first deer was sighted about half an hour in, under heavy shade just by the road side. I'd actually walked past it, and only noticed when I stopped to look around. Cool. I was certain I'd see more, so I continued on.


At the end of the day, I found a bunch of deer that were quite tolerant of me coming close. Unfortunately, my flash ran out of batteries at that time, and I could only shoot in ambient light. Which was bad.


The next few hours saw me little deer. The park *is* rather big, and they have free reign of it, seemingly moving at will. It reminds me of random encounters in final fantasy - I'd never know when it'd hit me. That in itself is an experience, to see a bunch of deer just gallop across your field of vision and disappear into the thickness of the woods. A binoculars is a very useful tool here. I have been using a cheap, compact Meade binos for the past half year or so, and constant scanning with these binos were key to finding the faraway deer. They are also very good to use at Zoos and wildlife parks just to observe the critters without bringing up the heavy weight camera.

While my main focus was to see deer, other fantastic stuff to observe were the birds - I observed one or two Carrion Crows (I think), big glossy black buggers. Didn't bother to shoot them as my 300mm was just too short. I did come across many packs of Jackdaws foraging in the shade, and they were a good subject to practice shooting birds in flight. They seem to be quite adverse to humans and tend to keep away, so the 300mm was a godsend. Most of the time they just fly away, and the rare times they fly across, I rarely can lock my focus fast enough. Out of the many shots I took probably only had one good BIF keeper:



Jackdaw zooming past

Being a park, there are also plants and flowers of all sorts around. I pulled out my 55mm 2.8 AIS and its extension tube and spent a good hour on my belly shooting just a bunch of flowers :)







Definitely will be going back in Winter during the rutting season, and hopefully with a longer lens.

Woo I'm back!

Aperture UK

Finally got access to blogger from home! Woo! Time to spend some time angst-ting online.

Didn't go out shooting this Saturday as I had stuff to do that couldn't be done on Sunday.

For fun and giggles I went up along New Oxford street, where there are a few camera shops that are supposed to have used goods; Jacobs, Jessops and Aperture.

Jacobs had a fair amount of used stuff, but nothing that caught my eye. Jessops, I only browsed quickly and did not find out where their used rack was, but I spent some time playing with the new Olympus Pen. Damn, it's a really small camera. The AF speed was not very good though, perhaps this was a pre-production camera. 3 were on display, two with the kit zoom lens (I played with that) and one with the pancake lens and viewfinder. OMG, that is really pretty. I'd expect the build quality to be better though - for the price - I think my old rangefinders were better built. Oh well. That said, I tried the Olympus E series SLRs, damn, their autofocus speeds on the kit lenses were _fast_.

Finally, I went over to Aperture (shops were very close to each other) and this is what I saw on the window sill:



Holy Moly! Super telephotos in the flesh! From left to right: 600/4IS, 400/2.8IS, 400/2.8IS, 400/2.8 AF-S, 300/2.8 AIS, 800/5.6 FD.

Inside the shop, there were lots of MF camera gear that I kinda glossed over (sorry). The only thing that caught my eye, was a grey barreled 500/4 AF-S. Drool.... They also had a 300/2.8 AFI.

But I was there for the food; the shop combines used camera gear with a snack cafe. I had probably the best ever smoked salmon ciabatta. ever. Too bad they aren't open on Sundays as I usually shoot stuff on Saturdays :(

Work has been busy, didn't spend much time at home on Houdini though - let's just called it OS issues. I'll be getting a Dell soon, and get rid of this lovely macbook pro. I'm looking forward to running Vista/Ubuntu dual boot - work OS + an OS i can use for photoshop work and gaming :)

Tale of 3 Micro Nikkors

I remember buying my 55mm 2.8 AIS Micro-Nikkor on a whim. Basically I was not using my 28mm/2.8 Nikkor, sold it, and acquired the 55mm - never had a dedicated "macro" lens before, so thought it'd be something fun to experiment with. The 55mm 2.8 Micro is fantastic. Stupid sharp wide open, focuses down to 1:2 life size, which makes for interesting perspectives for a 50-ish lens, and its light. I just put on my 16-85 that I haven't used in ages, and oh man, that's a heavy piece of glass. I can't believe I trekked that and its tele breathen up Morialta and Black Hil Conservation Park.

Now the only main issue is I'm actually using it nowadays as my main lens. And being a MF lens, its not exactly easy to track moving subjects with. Props to the Manual Focus photographers pulling off the amazing shots. So I thought I'd look into Nikon's modern AF offerings. The 60mm AF-D and the 60mm AF-S. Here's my thoughts and comparisons:

Build quality:
1. 55mm 2.8 AIS Micro Nikkor. You hold it, you know its the good stuff. Why don't they make stuff like that anymore?
2. 60mm AF-D. Very nice, even though its plastic-ky. Feels very solid in my hand.
3. 60mm AF-S. Feels like any kit lens. Hello? Nikon? Some metal externals please?

Handling:
I'll give the edge to the 55mm 2.8, though it's not very fair since I have used it *alot* in the field. The 60mm AF-D only for 2 days, and the AF-S only a few days. Somehow, I need a slightly higher shutter speed on the AF lenses to get rid of hand shake. Does 5mm make that much of a difference? The AF-D has a very nice manual focusing ring, big, easy to handle. The AF-s has full time manual, and the focus ring is very wide, easy to grab. But also easy to accidently move.

Controls:
55mm 2.8 only has a focusing ring, very high tech. The AF-D has a AF/MF control on the lens, needs to have a button to be depressed to switch. Very nice. It also has a two-range focus limiter. The 60mm AF-S has full time manual focus, and a little MA/M switch - not much use for people using AF-On technique anyways.

Focusing Speed:
1. 60mm AF-S - I think this is the fastest of the bunch. Very solid lock on.
2. 60mm AF-D - *feels* slightly slow, but snaps in fast.
3. 55mm 2.8 - being non-autofocus, it takes ages to autofocus. Like. Never.

Bokeh:
Super subjective stuff again, so take it with a grain of salt.
55mm 2.8 AIS - Generally smooth, however, I consider it a neutral - slightly harsh lens. This feel propogates even when stopped down to 5.6
60mm AF-D - Didn't bother to keep an eye out as I was distracted by its infinity focus issues (see below)
60mm AF-S - Still early days, especially since my 55mm has gone through hundreds of shots and this lens has gone through less than a hundred! That said, I think it is quite smooth, though I'd put in in with the neutral - slightly harsh lens. Needs much much more use in the field to get a feel for this.
300mm F4 AF-S.... what?! Well for fun, I must say I don't like the bokeh of the 300mm/4 AF-s, which is sad since its a nice big solid prime. Does not do well against harsh backgrounds.
70-300mm VR - bad. bad. bad. Both the 300/4 and 70-300VR perform very well if you choose a proper background to shoot against, but if against a harsh contrasty background. Ergh. If you are only going to put up 800x600 stills on the web, it's perfectly fine - you'll need to really blow stuff up to at least 10x15 to see it. 8x12s are fine unless I'm nitpicking.

Image Quality at close focus
Again, two of these lenses are so not field tested, take what I say with a grain of salt. The 55mm AIS and 60mm AF-S would be the winner here, because the 60mm AF-D shows definite signs of CA, very obvious since I use flash alot for my macro stuff. And usually I don't even bother about CA but it shows up a leeeetle too much. Now wide open at close focus (it's no longer F2.8 but F something else), the 55mm 2.8 and 60mm AF-S seems better imo. At 1:1 I'd say the edge goes to the 60mm AF-S.

Image Quality at Infinity focus
55mm 2.8 is perfect. I love it. 60mm AF-S - I think I may have a front focusing issue with my body, but it is generally excellent. And this is at F2.8 I'm talking about. Now the 60mm AF-D... don't bother focusing at infinity. Use it only for close up work. Horrible! This is probably a very stupid thing of me to do, buy a Micro Lens to use as a general purpose lens. I've read in forums that macro lenses are optimized for *duh* close up work. And aren't that good at infinity. But I'm very spoilt by my 55mm/2.8 that does both. Hence, the 60mm AF-S

Why did I even bother getting a AF lens anyways? Back in Australia, I'd like to go up close and personal with the critters in the wildlife parks, and using a MF lens only works on sleepy red roos, not the active greys. Moving kids are also in the same ball game. Finally, sold off the 60mm AF-D.

Here's some test shots using the 60mm AF-S with my neighbourhood cat.

Perpetually unappy, this furball will scratch if annoyed :P
Very obvious front focusing issue. But wide open its good enough for me. Focus point was on the left eye (or eye on camera right :P)
The 60mm Micro allows a very different perspective because of the ability to go closer. Not something say, a normal 50mm lens can do. (That said, I do still lust after a 50mm/1.4G :P )

Cleland, the pre final visit

Kimba (Omega)
Mary (Alpha Female)

Ah, Cleland. Magic again. The bus ride up was sad. So very sad. Raining most of the way up the expressway, and upon reaching the summit of Mount Lofty, the view was nothing but a white fog bank. The bus driver mentions that usually Mount Lofty has very sudden weather changes, and things could change at any moment, and started the bus for Cleland. Just minutes from Cleland, the sun broke through the clouds, and parted the fog. Sun light backlights the trees on both sides of the road. Marvelous.

Female Superb Fairy Wren

Red Browed Firetail Finch (cropped image)

Spent some time at the aviary, and decided that I won't leave till I get at least one shot of a Firetail Finch. These birds are... wild... I guess. But there is a feeder there where they congregate. Unlike the Fairy Wrens who I've experienced flittering up to me a few times, the Firetails simply will not tolerate movement. Thankfully, I didn't need a hide, and just sat down at a convenient bench, barely 2 meters away from the feeder. And kept quiet. About 5-10 minutes later, the birds returned to feed, and I took as many shots as I could as these birds move *fast*.

Short Nosed Bandicoot

Was never ever able to catch a good pic of the Bandicoots, and as luck would have it, a nice side on shot.

Hairy Nose Wombat

The Wombats are usually munching away or snoozing. Today, one of them was posing just for me. How could I resist.

POTOROO!

Most of the potoroos in the main cleland park are evidently not too human shy. Apart from the one in the bush area. This one was happily posing for me and tons of tourists. (assume 1 tourist == 100kg, 10 tourist == 1 ton)

I leave thee today with one of our fine feathered friends.

Superb Parrot