Zoo Photography Tips – Adapting to Nature Through the Lens

The Minnesota Zoo is a year-round destination known for nature-oriented habitats where guests can encounter hundreds of species either up close or from across landscapes. These qualities offer photographers valuable opportunities to capture nature in myriad conditions and against a variety of backdrops. If you’re interested in nature photography, check out the following tried and true methods for boosting the potency of your images by adapting to nature through the lens.

01_Scenario

Before arriving at the zoo, plan your day. Study a map to select the animals you would like to see and identify where the sun is likely to be in relation to them throughout the day. Knowing when animals are backlit, side-lit, or lit from the front is valuable intel!

The optimal lighting for photography tends to be either early or late in the day when light rolls across contours of animals and their habitats or on overcast days when light is soft and diffused. Animals also tend to be more active when they first bound onto habitat or as dinner time approaches, making for more dynamic photography opportunities.

Visit the zoo often to identify when various species and individuals tend to be most active or venture toward the front of habitats. Photographing at eye level produces the strongest images so take note of when and where that can happen throughout the zoo. Visit the zoo throughout the year to witness seasonality in animal behaviors and settings. Arrive early and stay late!

Place yourself and the lens as close as possible to the mesh, fencing, or glass perimeters around habitats and use long focal lengths to maximize the sharpness of your subject while eliminating visual barriers. If sunlight is hitting a barrier directly, return after the sun has shifted or dips behind clouds. The light makes the fence noticeable, even when out of focus. When photographing through glass, wear solid, dark clothing. Bright colors, high contrast, and bold patterns tend to reflect in the glass.

If you think a warm, sunny day is the best day for photographing animals, that’s not necessarily true! Precipitation and cooler temps can activate animals and is often their time to thrive. Snow and rain zoomies are charming phenomenons to behold!

Check in with Guest Services before you venture out to the trails to learn where and when zookeepers might be administering enrichment to encounter animals at their most active and engaged. These are often opportunities to experience a keeper chat to learn more about the animals and their behaviors.

Please refrain from using tripods at the Minnesota Zoo, as they can pose a hazard to fellow guests who may not be aware of their surroundings when the animals pull their attention and focus.

02_Lenses

Focal lengths between 70-500mm work well to photograph animals on sizable habitats. For aquarium or small reptile photography where animals are closer to the lens, 18-55mm is a more useful focal length range.

Wide angle lenses are unable to cut through mesh or fencing but using a long lens with a wide aperture is effective at deselecting barrier materials. The greater the distance between the fence and the animal, the better.

For troublesome reflections on glass, try using a polarizing filter to minimize any distracting glare and sharpen images by reducing haze. Polarizers are particularly effective in aquarium photography, when photographing a snowy scene, or when you want to deepen a blue sky.

If you are taking photos in cold weather, take your indoor photos before heading outdoors (unless you plan to break for lunch after coming indoors from the cold). Moving a lens from outdoors to indoors when it is significantly colder out may fog up the lens, and you’ll need to wait for condensation to dissipate after the lens acclimates to indoor air.

03_Exposure and Focus

Good exposure and sharp focus require strategic settings across the exposure triangle of your digital camera: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.

Wide apertures paired with higher shutter speeds create the shallow focus required to blur perimeter fencing or other elements that detract from the natural setting. In low light conditions, a higher ISO may be necessary for proper exposure. Try dialing in a sensible auto ISO range in your camera’s menu settings to free up your technical decision-making to focus on using correct shutter speed and aperture.

If the animals are relatively still, a shutter speed equal to your lens focal length (with either in-camera or in-lens image stabilization) should be sufficient to achieve crisp focus. To compensate for handheld photography without stabilization technology, use a shutter speed twice that of your focal length.

When animals are in motion, faster shutter speeds are needed to freeze action. Try setting the camera to either shutter priority mode with a fast shutter or on sports mode to achieve this effect. For subjects in motion, select continuous autofocus instead of one-shot autofocus and maintain a high enough ISO to prevent exposure time (shutter speed) from introducing unnecessary blur. Another important strategy is to use continuous firing mode to capture fleeting animal postures and expressions that may only last a moment or two.

Set focus on an animal’s eyes. If eyes aren’t in sharp focus, the connection between image and viewer is broken and the power to inspire interest and empathy is lost. When using wide apertures coupled with higher shutter speeds, the shallow depth of field is made manageable by anchoring focus on your subject’s eyes. Employ eye autofocus settings if your camera is equipped for it. Typically, autofocus is adequate for zoo photography but when mesh or other textured perimeter elements grab the attention of a camera’s autofocus, manual focus may be required.

04_Be Patient!

When photographing animals, you are on their time. Avoid circulating as if on a conveyer belt. Consider stopping at the Penguin Café for a coffee to enjoy as you idle and wander from habitat to habitat. Observe an animal’s behavior and how the light lands on the landscape.

Take care in framing up your image. Hitting the pause button before you click the shutter may present you with an opportunity to achieve more natural-looking images with foliage in the background. Returning to a habitat again later in the day may present a moment when an animal comes forward to shift closer to the lens.

05_The Joy of Storytelling

Whether you’re visiting your home zoo or you’re on vacation, the best way to support vital conservation efforts fostered by zoos is to continue visiting them and sharing their stories. Zoos present incredible opportunities to encounter animals up close while zoo photography holds the power to engage, educate, and inspire.

Most importantly… the true take-away from your visit to the zoo is how it has made you feel – just focus on having fun and compelling photography is sure to follow.