back to brookfield

It was time for another visit to Brookfield Zoo. ; I went back for a members only preview of their new exhibit, "Great Bear Wilderness". ; It's a new habitat for their brown and polar bears that gives them a lot more space that joins together with their already existing wolf habitat, there's also bald eagles and bison.

The bears were not really cooperating for the camera, besides it'll take time to get used to shooting them in this new environment. ; When they behave it should be good, it seems like it gives me open air (no barriers of any kind between me and them) line of sight to them with a comparatively low angle that should make for dramatic shots, and there's also a viewing window into the polar bear pool.

However, to start off with the wolves were still good to me. ; I never get tired of shooting them, even if I do largely return with the same shots every time. ; For this one, notice the shaved patch on the front leg. ; I think I know what that is, it seems one of their wolves was given something like a CAT scan a little while back, I'm guessing maybe they sedated it for the procedure and the leg is where they put the IV line in.
I want opinions on this shot. ; What do you guys think? ; Okay, aside from the shaved patch, it ruins the illusion of this being a wild setting, that I know. ; But otherwise how does it look? ; I thought it was kind of unique, the lighting at least is not like what I've captured before. ; But as is too often the case I have no sense of it being better or worse.. just.. different.



When I saw this next little fellow I knew I was going to be sticking by him (or her) for a bit. ; I can honestly say I suffered for this little guy, kneeling down to get a lower angle really did a number on my knees. ; I got a lot of good shots though, but this was one of my favorites. ; I thought the little blue flowers added a nice splash of extra color that cranked the cuteness factor up a bit.



I call this next one a persuasive argument in favor of the bigma mark 2. ; Every single one of these shots was taken with the 400mm F5.6. ; I gotta say, it performed remarkably. ; Even in exceptionally dark environments where point and shoots would fear to tread, the not all that fast lens still produced workable results, admittedly either on a tripod or using the tripod as a crude monopod. ; But, well, see.. sometimes 400 was a bit too much. ; As was the case here. ; This little fennec fox was out and about and at first I didn't bother trying to shoot it, but it started stretching and I knew I had to try. ; Just for the record, this is ISO 12,800, F5.6 at 1/60 of a second. ; I'm darned pleased with the results, I can't believe I got a sharp(ish) image of the fennec with the 400 in that simulated night environment.

But if only I could have zoomed out a little bit. ; I know the framing is shot, I know the image just irritates you with everything being cropped off. ; The bigma could have gotten the whole fox, and the IS probably would have still been useful when shooting on a sort of improvised monopod.



I'm not giving up the 400, no way. ; I've become rather attached to it. ; But let's say I can understand the utility in having a lens that can zoom from 50 to 500mm. ; I carry enough lenses to swap in the field and get pretty much every animal at the zoo, but once I've been out for an hour or two I start getting tired and hot and I just don't exactly feel motivated to take the time and effort to do the swapping. ; I'd have to double check on the minimum focus distance of the bigma mark 2 and compare it to my current best lens for closeups if I can get close enough to not need a telephoto, but it may well be able to cover pretty much all of my targets at the zoo.

I'll be back with my 70-200 mounted to spend some quality time with the foxes.


Next up we have a baby meerkat with an adult. ; Apparently the appropriate term for a young meerkat is "kit". ; I think it's something like two or three months old. ; Okay, so in meerkat terms not really a baby anymore. ; All I have to say here is that I overestimated the depth of field of 400mm F5.6 at that comparatively close distance. ; But at least the kit is the one in focus.



Finally, we have clouded leopard! ; It's always a good day if I can see a clouded leopard. ; I often never see it, this individual seems to be quite shy. ; I almost didn't get this, I saw it out and excitedly began to get set up for a tripod shot. ; Mounting the tripod ring, pulling out the cable release, etc. ; By the time I turned my attention back to the leopard it was moving off to a box, you can see it in the background of this shot. ; I don't think it liked my presence. ; I muttered something about it being a cruel, vicious beast to get me all excited and then run away, but went on to shoot a smaller feline in an adjacent enclosure. ; Just to be sure I went back to the leopard to check on it and it was out of the box, just barely.

All in all I got shots of it when it was in two different locations, this is perhaps the best. ; Still not great quality, there were strong shadow issues where part of the leopard always ended up too dark or else part was too bright. ; But I GOT IT, just getting it on camera is an achievement.


My dream is to get a good enough shot of this one to enter it into the photography contest with a note swearing that I didn't use a flash to get the image (another simulated night time environment, it's DARK in there, you can barely make out it out with your eyes, I kept having to point it out to people who came by as I was shooting it). ; I dream of getting a shot good enough that I'd have to provide the RAW files to prove I was using natural light.

The biggest problem isn't the dark. ; The biggest problem is just finding it in a better location. ; You can't even see how spectacular clouded leopards are from this shot. ; Their spots are much larger and don't really look like those of most other leopards. ; I don't know if it has a resting spot that gives me the kind of angle I need of it.


So, another great day of shooting at the zoo. ; Lots of other photographers were out too. ; I saw at least one 100-400, what looked like a 70-200 F2.8 with a teleconverter, and one of those huge long telephoto lenses, maybe the 600mm F4.

I saw something interesting. ; When I was heading to the bear exhibit I crossed paths with what looked like a camera crew heading back after doing some shooting. ; There were maybe three people carrying cameras mounted to tripods. ; The first two were carrying what I'd classify as either prosumer video cameras or perhaps outright pro-spec but lightweight gear. ; The third had a DSLR with one of those things attached to the LCD screen so you can put your eye up to it like a viewfinder. ; I'll bet that means it was being used for shooting video. ; My first sighting of such a setup. ; I'm sure it won't be my last.

 

Nice work Dan! ; I especially like the wolf shot.

 

The wolf photo is excellent. ; Very natural looking Spring photo of a wolf with ears perked moving through his territory. Beautiful light and colors. ; I forget what camera you use? ;

I'm very impressed with the 400mm f/5.6 especially on the fennec fox. ; Do not worry about what is not in the photo but what is. ; While not ideal, people can fill in the missing parts. ; You got the eyes and face which is most important.

Meerket kit is lovely. ; Again, unless you could step the lens down and still get a fast enough shutter speed, the depth of field is not a breaker for me as the kit is in focus and the more important feature of the photo, IMO.

Well done, Dan! ; Gets me itching for my own zoo safari. ; If only the weather forecast would stop putting snow in it. ;

 

Dan, holy cow this is a great post! ; All of these photos are amazing but the first two, I just can't stop looking at them. ; You must have been grinning ear to ear when you put them up on the computer and saw what you actually got on the big screen.

I think the light on the wolf is crazy great and the tiny purple flowers make that photo of the baby really special. ; Also the clarity of the other shots that were taken in such low light, are stunning to me. ; Incredible work. ; Really.

Super job. ; Very well done.

 

take a bow dan, these are great, makes me want to break out my 400, i did tell you it was a great lens did i not? perhaps consider a 300 f4 L, the non is versions are kicking around, in great shape and not too expensive, keh has one in stock, bargain condition, for 670, that means it looks cosmetically used, but the glass will be useable, remember keh usually is conservative in their rating systemand don't worry too much about the fox, you got the important parts just fine

 

The Wolf shot is great, the only thing that would make it better would be to have the wolf jumping over a fence. ; Wait, never mind. ; I am hoping to get up to Brookfield in a couple of weeks (and also see Iron Man 2 in IMAX). ; Can't wait to see some of the new environments and get some good photos. ; And still looking forward to your photos if you make it down to Wildlife Prairie State Park in Peoria.

 

Thank you all for the replies, a little ego stroking is always a welcome thing.

Scott, I'm using a 5dmkII. ; That kind of pixel density on a full frame sensor gives me an awful lot of leeway in using the 400mm F5.6, I can crop fairly heavily or benefit from the wider angle of view. ; This trip was a wider angle sort of day.

Gary, thanks for the recommendation for the 300. ; I'm not sure if that's really appropriate to me though, the fennec was kind of unusual, I've never before found that my subject was too big in the viewfinder before with the 400. ; Normally I want more reach or else a closer focusing distance, I'm starting to think about some sort of long macro to give me better access to reptiles and amphibians and such.

Roni, actually I'm usually grinning more in the field when I'm taking the pictures. ; I get such a kick out of shooting the wolves. ; The trip before this one I actually filled my buffer, I've never done that on the 5dmkII before. ; I mean okay, I'm not using a hyper fast memory card, it's not entirely surprising, each of those pictures is frighteningly large when shooting RAW, but I had the wolves in an unusual location and I was just shooting madly away.
For this incident it was more that I was happy to see them making themselves accessible to me. ; I thought I was too late, at first they seemed to have been resting on the top of their hill. ; But this individual went out on a patrol anyway, as if he knew what I wanted and grudgingly accommodated me. ; The wolf enclosure is well done, the spot where I took this is reasonably close to ground the wolves routinely cover on their rounds but it's also clear air between me and them. ; Newcomers always stop at another viewing area you encounter first that looks through the fence, or else go inside and look through reasonably decent glass. ; I go straight to this overlook.

Back on the computer what I liked was the ground cover, the detail of all the dandelions and such. ; And the unique lighting. ; It's perhaps the most lush wolf picture I have yet, I have plenty with green plants but this is a little more dense than I've gotten before. ; If not for that shaved leg... grr.. ; I'm seriously contemplating patching that up with a little photo manipulation, because except for that this would become something I'd seriously try to enter into a sci-fi convention art show. ; Yeah, I know, sci-fi? ; But there's a certain overlap with animals and wildlife and the sci-fi con world. ; For instance, the nearest convention to me regularly has a wild bird sanctuary group attend to put on a bird show. ; One of these years I'm going to inquire whether they'd accept animal pictures and maybe give 'em a sample to see if they like what I have to offer. ; Um.. just to explain.. in the con world context, art show means that yes, art is shown off and you can come and look at it, but also much of it is offered for sale, either for fixed prices or on a silent bidding system. ; It'd be just awesome to have some of my stuff hanging on the walls next to some of the incredible stuff I saw at the art show last year.

But I really need to figure out what else I can do with the wolves. ; I'm running out of angles, I mean when I catch them on their rounds they're typically even walking in the same direction, always circling their enclosure clockwise. ; It's either that, or get them resting on rocks on the top of their hill.


So about the baby goose.. ; the odd thing is, all my pictures of it in the grass (I also got plenty of it on pavement, but as you might imagine it just doesn't look the same there) look like they were done with soft focus or something. ; It's not that they're blurry, not quite, but I look at them and feel like I must have already used a soft focus or glamor glow filter on it and forgotten about it. ; I guess it's just the impression I get from the downy fluff.

 

Nice work Dan, those are fantastic!

 

so 300 isn't enough reach in brookfield?? i'm going to be in chicago for 4 days next week, sat and sunday are free right now, and brookfield is a possibility, and i'm trying to keep the bag light for this trip, 17-40, 24-105, 70-300. can i do brookfield justice with that set up?

 

I really like this set!

 

Well, see, it's not that I spend all my time wishing I had more than 400mm. ; It's just that either I am, or 400mm is just right, or else I'm too darned close to the subject and need to drop down to something more like the 70-200 F4 or something with a closer minimum focusing distance still. ; The 300 would probably have been good for the fennec fox, but otherwise I'm not sure it solves any problems I may be having, it even seems to share the 400's trait of having an unfortunately long minimum focusing distance. ; To a point it would let me dispense with the 70-200 and go more prime only, but a lot might still remain unshootable due to that minimum focus distance issue. ;

Before I got the 400mm I spent a lot of time with the 70-200 being my longest lens. ; I can't say I felt terribly deprived in terms of reach. ; This partially depends on what body you're using. ; My time spent with the 70-200 was spent on crop factor bodies, the highest pixel density being on the 30D. ; At that level I look back at my pictures and it seems I had access to plenty.

If you're going crop factor then 300 should be fine. ; I'm less certain with a 5d mark one, that's a lower pixel density than I'm accustomed to and a focal length I'm not used to.


I'm also only guessing on the minimum focus distance on the 24-105. ; It looks like it should be adequate should you desire to shoot things in aquarium type enclosures. ; Not always a good idea, but.. well.. I find the poison arrow frogs irresistible, even if the glass walls are often dirty and/or have condensed water on them.

Really I can only think of one thing that's likely to be too far for 300 on a crop factor body. ; The wolves on top of their hill. ; I can only barely get enough detail to be happy of what I get of them up there now. ; But you really want to get them on patrol anyway, it makes for much nicer shots. ; Also there's the limiting factor of light in simulated night areas, whether you bring a tripod or monopod is up to you but that's really beyond the scope of lens choices. ; I'm still on a mission to get a picture of a wombat sleeping upside down with its legs up in the air, saw it last time but wasn't able to spend the time needed to set up a tripod and shoot it.

I think the dolphins will still be gone, which is a shame because while their dolphin show was never particularly flashy or complex I always enjoyed it. ; Usually that was my excuse to take a break, a reason to sit down for a while. ; Otherwise it's a pretty good time for a visit, what with the shiny new exhibit just becoming operational. ; 'Course, it'll probably make it busier too.

 

Dan- Nice set- but the first one is just awesome!