Welcome to the zoo : The pictures - New pics 23 january 2021

Stunning photos, Anna, thank you so much for sharing!  

GORGEOUS  

Beautyful, wonderful aniamls in lovely weather...and your pgotoes are just fantastic   

Good that this subject came alive again, - and I hope you find time to show more

Thank you for comments Bryan, 4U and Susanne    

And yes, I have some more

First my favourite photo from this trip, portrait of Marabou stork

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Bongo close up (these bongo antelopes just ahhh )
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The new building in this zoo is Amazonica, it's a huge dome and inside is full of plants and butterflies Like this blue one for example. (excuse me, I told you "full of plants" and show you photo with wall and pipe  but I just thought the blue colour of butterfly looks more interesting on something dark and grey, indeed most of the little jungle was full of palms, trees and flowers)

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Some more winged friends

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And bigger than these too

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The eider I saw first time in my life in real but it was hard to do sharp photo because of thick glass.  
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Black winged stilt however was easy to observe, it was possible to go into enclosure

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In the same enclosure were also pied avocets

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Just a random shot of Kudu

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He played a lot with giraffes

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Rhinoceroses mommy and baby  
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Beauty and the Beast

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And just one of these monkeys who philosophise  

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Beautiful
Some animals that I never saw in reality. Very nice Zootrip, Anna!

Once again, amazing photography Anna! I'm speechless!  

Thank you again Bryan and 4U   I'm very happy to know you like these pics

Ooohh, gorgeous photos Anna, that bongo is so beautiful, the colours!! I so want to see a Bongo in reality.

WOW!!!   WOW   WOW  

Such fantastic photoes, - they are incredible  

That Stilt...I cept scrolling down and down and down...it seemed those legs went on for ever  

Thank you so much for your comments Susanne and Harriet!!!

Stunning photos Ana! I just love the photo of the bongo, they're all gorgeous!

Great photos Ana ! You are an allround artist !  

Very nice pics Anna

I agree 100% for the blue butterfly, the grey background is perfect  

There is a lot of ideas in your pics and I know how it is uneasy to make pics in a zoo.

How do you build your pics ? I mean for the focus and depth of field.

Also, how do you make the Labo job ?

Thank you so much for your comments Paolo, Kelsey and Kikimalou!!!    

Kikimalou wrote:

There is a lot of ideas in your pics and I know how it is uneasy to make pics in a zoo.

Actually main idea is to take 900 pics and choose 9 later

Kikimalou wrote:

How do you build your pics ? I mean for the focus and depth of field.

Well, my technique is really nothing special. All of the photos from this trip were shot with zoom lens 70mm-300mm and I always used aperture with smallest possible number in this lens so 4.0 to 5.6 for two reasons: shortest exposure (I took no tripod to the zoo) and relatively small depth of field. For the focus I use auto focus option most of the time, until my camera starts to be more interested in flowers in front of animal more than in animal itself (that was the case of bongo in many shots and owl too  ) then I have to use manual focus which is uneasy without the tripod for me. Additionally most of the pictures are a bit underexposed intentionally (again shorter exposure is pro when the tripod stayed home). Underexposure is relatively easy to fix at home. Monkey is the extreme example and of course it wouldn't look good in print because of very flat black.

Kikimalou wrote:

Also, how do you make the Labo job ?

I use Photoshop and in it mainly "Levels" option to get right lighting. After resizing I also use standard "sharper" filter. Most of the time I need to crop the picture a bit too.
In some cases I do a bit more than that, macaw picture for example has desaturated background to about 15% from the original saturation, I also very slightly darkened upper part of the picture.
In case of Marabou portrait I did optimal "Levels" on each surface (except the background), that was the only picture I wanted to work on a bit longer  because I like it more

Very enjoying to watch all these perfect pictures!
Thanks for sharing with us, Ana!
Bongo picture brings me some good memmories. Everything is wonderful!

Thank you so much for your comment Roger!! Yes, bongo remind me about some fun talking too

Wonderful wonderful pics Anna    

Thank you Andreas! I'm glad you like them!

Kikimalou wrote:

What do I think ?
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That's the question maybe...  
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Ok ! But what is the answer  

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.....
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Ooops !    Sorry...  
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Funny

    

Takama wrote:

Kikimalou wrote:

What do I think ?
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That's the question maybe...  
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Ok ! But what is the answer  

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.....
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Ooops !    Sorry...  
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Funny

In my opinion he think, dont shoot me if i will urinate    What would you say if i would follow you with a camera on the toilet   

Ana wrote:

Thank you so much for your comments Paolo, Kelsey and Kikimalou!!!    

Kikimalou wrote:

There is a lot of ideas in your pics and I know how it is uneasy to make pics in a zoo.

Actually main idea is to take 900 pics and choose 9 later

Kikimalou wrote:

How do you build your pics ? I mean for the focus and depth of field.

Well, my technique is really nothing special. All of the photos from this trip were shot with zoom lens 70mm-300mm and I always used aperture with smallest possible number in this lens so 4.0 to 5.6 for two reasons: shortest exposure (I took no tripod to the zoo) and relatively small depth of field. For the focus I use auto focus option most of the time, until my camera starts to be more interested in flowers in front of animal more than in animal itself (that was the case of bongo in many shots and owl too  ) then I have to use manual focus which is uneasy without the tripod for me. Additionally most of the pictures are a bit underexposed intentionally (again shorter exposure is pro when the tripod stayed home). Underexposure is relatively easy to fix at home. Monkey is the extreme example and of course it wouldn't look good in print because of very flat black.

Kikimalou wrote:

Also, how do you make the Labo job ?

I use Photoshop and in it mainly "Levels" option to get right lighting. After resizing I also use standard "sharper" filter. Most of the time I need to crop the picture a bit too.
In some cases I do a bit more than that, macaw picture for example has desaturated background to about 15% from the original saturation, I also very slightly darkened upper part of the picture.
In case of Marabou portrait I did optimal "Levels" on each surface (except the background), that was the only picture I wanted to work on a bit longer  because I like it more

I'm sorry for a belated answer Anna  

IMHO, it would be better to avoid too much underexposure to save as much details as you can, flat black (or white) are always a minus on a pic. A full deep dark is always enhancing a pic. To avoid exposure problems, stay quite and patient and keep your arms near your body, it help. I feel like an old pretentious but really, full rich dark background are really important. I asked you the question because I watched the monkey picture  

A few more birds   : Southern screamer, Demoiselle crane, a beautiful pigeon and a    

Great photos

Beautiful birds Christophe! What a fantastic birds :DIn the last picture the bird looks like he's having super short legs, can you see that?

And thank you for photographic advice friend!  

Thank you -4U and Anna  

Anna, Thank you to be so nice with me and my advices  

About the last bird don't tell it has short legs, it is already very sad to have such a long neck