Friday 27 January 2012

Chester Zoo Trips jan 2012 Tropical and Butterfly houses

While the weather has been not too good for shooting landscapes i have had a few trips to Chester Zoo which is not too far away.  it is a superb place to spend a day with something different to shoot every visit :)

 I will start with a single Orang portrait from "The Realm of the Red Ape" house , as it is quite dark inside i had to shoot at iso 2000 , and shooting through dirty glass is never going to be easy!
i really think i captured this perfectly !  shooting with 100mm macro lens on 5d2


There are a few snake exhibits and reptiles inside also and the Python was in a really good position with its head just showing above the leaves.  i have never managed to shoot the python before and was really pleased to get this image, i had to jam the lens hard against the glass to keep it steady and shot at f5.6,  1/40th iso 2000.


and a Water Dragon :)    f4 , iso 3200 1/50th



Just outside the exit of the realm is the Flamingo pool , as it was very cold they where all kept inside so shooting through the glass i managed this shot .


The Tigers have a couple of cubs but after spending a while waiting to see them , i gave up! 
 i have no patience  Haha. 

The Giant Otters are always great fun to watch and they are so nosey :)  coming right up close to see what We are doing!   i must have spent about an hour watching and shooting them,  here are two images, both taken with 70-300 is on 5d2



After another look to see if the Tiger cubs were out , NOT! i decided to go into the Jaguar House to see how the new work is getting on, there is a very large exhibit being built with a huge aquarium but still nothing in it yet.
As i got to the indoor jaguar forest enclosure one of the keepers placed a dead chicken about 20 ft from the glass! " Pele " the black jaguars  Feeding Time!  Ya !  even in the poor light i shot these images with 100mm macro lens  iso 5000 &  6400  f5.6  the full frame sensor of 5d2 really is usable at these high iso settings :)



After yet another look to see if the tiger cubs were out,
 I was getting rather cold by this time!  Wimp!   lol
 so i went through to the tropical house to get warm!  
 as luck would have it the American Garter snakes were right next to the glass, so i put a 30 mm extension tube on to my 100mm macro and my macro Flash Diffuser set up .


it is quite difficult shooting through glass with flash but moving the flash diffuser to be flat against the glass i don't have any problem with reflections.

and a quick shot of a toucan/razorbill, cant remember which!  lol
iso 4000 , f6.3  ,1/30th  with 70-300 is



The last exhibit is one of my favourites, the Butterfly house, it is extremely hot and humid so placed camera into a plastic bag to slowly acclimatise it to the heat to prevent condensation on lens and Sensor!  after a good half hour of looking around and seeing which species were flying, i opened the bag and left it another 10m mins just to be sure!
The Glasswing butterfly has always been a favourite but so hard to shoot due to the transparent wings, flash just does not work so natural light shooting needed, which on a dull day indoors among loads of tall plants makes it very difficult to obtain a high enough shutterspeed.
there were a few flying , but all in the darkest areas!  Bummer!  but eventually found one in a brighter area , and beautifully perched at a nice height to be able to rest my left elbow on my knee to brace camera still.   shooting at iso 2000 f5.6,1/30  with 100mm L macro, the lens superb "image stabiliser" really does come in handy :)  at last i managed a great shot of one of these beauties !  So Happy! :)



an Indian leaf butterfly!


and a swallowtail.



The last shots i took were a Owl butterfly that was perched on a woven rope , shot at iso 1600 with 100mmL macro, focus stacked 10 frames handheld to increase depth of field.




On the next visit i did shoot the tiger cubs, awesome!   the subject of another blog :)

All images shot with canon 5d2, 100mmL macro,70-300is f5.6.



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