Zoo Photography: Lions

Photographing lions, as with any other animal, will depend on what kind of exhibit the zoo has them in. At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, they're outside but you can see them through glass. There are no fences, just a solid wall with three large glass openings for viewing. In Syracuse, the exhibit was actually indoors while the lions playing area is outside. This required different settings and lenses as the lions were somewhat closer.

In Washington, DC, at the National Zoo, the lions are fully outside but you are a lot further from them so you will need a 300mm with a teleconverter or a 400mm. When I say far away I mean FAR AWAY...my 300mm couldn't fill up the frame without showing a lot of the background, which I avoid doing so as to project them in the wild.

The shots I will show here were all taken at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore which has a couple of lions, a male and a female. The lions are not particularly active at any specific time that I know of, so you will more than likely find them lying down or in one spot they seem to like. The good thing is the spot is great for shooting their portrait.

As usual for outdoor exhibits, I used a Canon 300mm F4L IS on a Canon 1D Mark II and edited in Lightroom 3. For some of the shots, I had to remove a blue tint because of the glass reflecting the sky. Took all precautions I take while shooting through glass, but sometimes things just happen how they want, which is why we have computers and software to fix that.

Shot of lion and lioness resting while looking in opposite directions.

The lion posing for me. His intense gaze every time I go by his exhibit makes me wonder whether he has never seen a handsome fellow before, or whether I'm the biggest antelope he's ever seen. Hope it's the first.

Here he looks like he's about to attack but he's really just getting ready to lay down.  The intensity of his gaze is scary, though...I'm very glad for the invention of glass.

Lying down with paws crossed.

He's a good model whenever I pass by his exhibit. The lioness is normally in a spot with a fence showing prominently in the background, so her pictures will definitely come out as having been taken in a zoo.

If your zoo has a way to project these majestic kings of the veld as being in their natural environment, try to bring that in the images. If not, try to take portraits seemingly depicting them in the wild.

Good luck and happy shooting!!!

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Eyes

I apologize for the long delay, but between going out to shoot and staying in to write and edit those select shots I am including in a couple of upcoming works, I haven't had much time to share some tips on here...so, for that I apologize.

Today I want to point out the importance of making your subjects eyes clear and how Photoshop, or Lightroom, can help you. Rule one in animal photography is to have the eyes in focus and clear...as beady as you can make them...but sometimes the light situation or an off exposure will make your pictures come with darkened, unclear eyes. Notice I'm not blaming the lenses since there isn't much we can do about that at the moment because even those with the sharpest lenses do come up with photographs with darkened eyes. So, without further ado, let's see the differences...

Canon 500D (Rebel T1i) with EF-S 55-250mm IS @200mm 1/640s F/5.6 ISO 100

You can click on the image to enlarge it and you will see the eye still somewhat dark and unattractive. Now, I have not adjusted the exposure or any other setting, but I want to stress the importance of shooting RAW especially as a beginner with less than good lenses or spot-on exposure settings. 

Now let's take a look at this one.

Click on the picture to enlarge it and see if there you notice the difference. I did increase the exposure, but I also used the Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw to focus on the eye and increase its contrast, clarity, and exposure. To up the color, I increased saturation all the way and a little on the brightness, too. That's the good thing about the Adjustment Brush, I could select and isolate the eye and work on it without altering the rest of the picture.
Now, let's take look at another photograph.

Canon 500D (Rebel T1i) with EF-S 55-250mm IS @250mm 1/640s F/7.1 ISO 100

For this set, everything is the same except for the eye and all that was needed to bring out its beauty was an extra isolated touching up using the Adjustment Brush in Camera Raw. You can see how its color contrast well with the rest of the picture and how it livens up the bird and the photograph in general. 

To end it all, here's a little something I made using this image to go along with today's subjects. Enjoy and, remember, to focus on the eye.

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