Red River Zoo - Birds
Aug. 20th, 2012 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guppiecatI finished processing the birds of the Red River Zoo last night. (Due to the sheer number of photos, I've broken them into categories.) The set is here.
Instead of captioning them, I'm going to talk a bit about the experience.
American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) - The kestrel is off exhibit and is kept away from people. I suspect this is because there is no display that is currently suitable. To get these shots, a keeper took him out of his cage and we walked over to a nearby dead tree. I set up my lights and started clicking away. Half way through the shoot, he started making calls, so I was able to get this.
There were more age-ranging ducklings this year. Perhaps it was due to the hot weather earlier in the wummer. This was in the Takin pool which had a lot of foam in small clusters, so you can easily see the duckling's path. He was just old enough to journey away from mom, but when she quacked, he went a-paddling back.
I have named this part of the zoo Peacock Ambush Ridge. There's a little spot where the cranes used to be that is under redevelopment. It's a bit more wild than the rest of the zoo, so it's where the peacocks like to hide. As you walk past it, there's rustling and then suddenly there's a peacock like right there.
The zoo has one chicken. This is it. (Rumor has it that, by now, there are more... but at the time, I found it hilarious that a zoo that does great work breeding Pallas Cats and Red Pandas had a single solitary chicken.)
I was let into the display to see the new baby Duiker (a mammal, so that's another set), but they had birds there as well. These guys are particularly difficult to photograph as the camera tries to balance between the dark background and the light bird, and you wind up with crap at both ends. I had to re-adjust later to bring the detail back. If you look closely, they have three types of feathers. A soft "moulding" feather onthe chest. Flight feathers on the wings and hairy feathers on the chest, head and tail. Birds are complicated.
It's hard to get good shots of eagles, as they like to perch up on things and away from people. That means that fence behind them is almost always in view. You can work around this by cutting out the bird and raising the exposure of the background, but I prefer not to do that if I don't have to. The best solution is to get there when they're fed, so they're on the ground... but I missed that this time around.
Ducks are nice 'cause they often give you good reflections and expressions. Also... quack.
White-naped Crane (Grus vipio) - The cranes were off exhibit because their enclosure is being redone. In the meantime, they spend their time making eggs and being mean to people. These two shots were taking through and over a tall wooden wall. I couldn't get good shots of male, as he was being all defensive and trying to peck my toes through the fence, but the female was happy to sit on her egg as I got all clicky. To get the wide shot, I was standing on a 12 foot tall ladder. I like the contrast of the fuzzy grasses with the crane.
Instead of captioning them, I'm going to talk a bit about the experience.
American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) - The kestrel is off exhibit and is kept away from people. I suspect this is because there is no display that is currently suitable. To get these shots, a keeper took him out of his cage and we walked over to a nearby dead tree. I set up my lights and started clicking away. Half way through the shoot, he started making calls, so I was able to get this.
There were more age-ranging ducklings this year. Perhaps it was due to the hot weather earlier in the wummer. This was in the Takin pool which had a lot of foam in small clusters, so you can easily see the duckling's path. He was just old enough to journey away from mom, but when she quacked, he went a-paddling back.
I have named this part of the zoo Peacock Ambush Ridge. There's a little spot where the cranes used to be that is under redevelopment. It's a bit more wild than the rest of the zoo, so it's where the peacocks like to hide. As you walk past it, there's rustling and then suddenly there's a peacock like right there.
The zoo has one chicken. This is it. (Rumor has it that, by now, there are more... but at the time, I found it hilarious that a zoo that does great work breeding Pallas Cats and Red Pandas had a single solitary chicken.)
I was let into the display to see the new baby Duiker (a mammal, so that's another set), but they had birds there as well. These guys are particularly difficult to photograph as the camera tries to balance between the dark background and the light bird, and you wind up with crap at both ends. I had to re-adjust later to bring the detail back. If you look closely, they have three types of feathers. A soft "moulding" feather onthe chest. Flight feathers on the wings and hairy feathers on the chest, head and tail. Birds are complicated.
It's hard to get good shots of eagles, as they like to perch up on things and away from people. That means that fence behind them is almost always in view. You can work around this by cutting out the bird and raising the exposure of the background, but I prefer not to do that if I don't have to. The best solution is to get there when they're fed, so they're on the ground... but I missed that this time around.
Ducks are nice 'cause they often give you good reflections and expressions. Also... quack.
White-naped Crane (Grus vipio) - The cranes were off exhibit because their enclosure is being redone. In the meantime, they spend their time making eggs and being mean to people. These two shots were taking through and over a tall wooden wall. I couldn't get good shots of male, as he was being all defensive and trying to peck my toes through the fence, but the female was happy to sit on her egg as I got all clicky. To get the wide shot, I was standing on a 12 foot tall ladder. I like the contrast of the fuzzy grasses with the crane.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 04:08 pm (UTC)I loved reading all the descriptions and the pictures are amazing.
I especially like the duckling one. Awwww... :)
K.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 05:56 pm (UTC)The solution to the camera giving too much emphasis to the unimportant background is of course "manual exposure". Or perhaps post-processing, which seems to have worked out very well.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 06:58 pm (UTC)Most of what I do is in aperture mode and I go to spot metering in cases that like. I just don't always know when I have to.
Hey Zoo Man...
Date: 2012-08-20 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 10:33 pm (UTC)K.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:20 am (UTC):-)