My First Attempt at Photographing Wildlife, San Diego Zoo

It seems like it’s been a LONG time since I’ve taken some photos just for myself… things have been so busy with Fotility (and me and my team are extremely grateful and thankful for that!) that we don’t often get to sit back, take a deep breath, and just practice this craft that we love so much! I’ve been dying to try my hand at shooting some long lens stuff (like wildlife or surfers) so I picked up a used Tokina 80-400mm a few months back. I figured I’d try it out, and if I liked it, I’d make the investment into some nicer glass with a longer range (i.e. a 600mm!). I even renewed my San Diego Zoo membership and bought a ‘just for fun’ photography backpack!

This long Thanksgiving weekend finally afforded me some time to get out and fool around with the long lens. As a full time studio, we still have a lot of shoots going on, so open time on my calendar literally means I had 3-4 hours to get out and have some ‘me’ time. I didn’t want to waste it, so I planned everything. I checked what time the Zoo opened, and what delays I should expect with the COVID restrictions. I downloaded the San Diego Zoo app and mapped out a plan of attack. My goal was to photograph the tigers, and my backup plan was the flamingos. I researched recommended DSLR settings for shooting wildlife, packed and prepped my ‘just for fun’ backpack with my camera gear (Nikon D750, Tokina 80-400mm, multiple batteries/SD Cards, tripod w/ball head mount, shutter trigger, cleaning tools, etc.). I even threw in some gloves, a neck gaitor and bluetooth headphones so I can listen to some music while I waited for my shot. Before I left, I threw in a thermos with some hot cream-of-wheat, another thermos with hot coffee and a Hydro Flask. And finally, I dressed in layers, wore comfortable walking shoes, and lathered on some SPF50 as I was heading out the door!

I entered the park right when it opened and made a beeline for the Tiger Trail. Fortunately, the zoo attendee assigned to the tiger exhibit was in a very chatty mood, so she gave me quite a bit of helpful info as I setup my tripod and camera! So I knew the zookeepers were going to hide some food around the exhibit before they let the big cats out, so I should get ready for my shots as soon as I saw them doing that. While I was waiting for that to happen, I took some test shots, checking my AF zooming in and out, and fooling around a little with manual focus (one of my goals for 2021 is to start shooting a lot more manual focus, so I figure I’d start practicing now). I even had time to enjoy a little cream-of-wheat before all the action started!

Just as the attendant said, the zookeepers set out and hid some food right around 945a, and the tigers came out right after that. The tigers went straight for the food, so it was some pretty fast and furious shooting. Since this was my first time shooting wildlife, I didn’t set any unreasonable expectations for myself. My goal was just to get my feet wet, learn what to expect and try out the new lens. I shot using both AF-C and MF, and used the full range of the 80-400mm. I got far more shots than I expected (and in a far shorter amount of time than anticipated), and it was so much fun! Can’t wait to get back out and shoot some wildlife again!

Here are the things that I learned: a) add some milk to the cream-of-wheat! my new Stanley thermos keeps things waaayyy toooo hot, so I couldn’t eat much; b) next time bring candy bars/dry snacks; c) be more mindful of where you setup, anticipate where the animals will be and where you can get the best shot of them; and d) MF will give me the sharpest images, but shoot AF-C for fast moving animals because you won’t be able to keep up shooting MF.

Looking forward to my next outing!