With the current pandemic that’s placed a wet blanket on travel, I’ve been doing a lot more animal photography at my local zoo, Utah’s Hogle Zoo. Just a quick plug for them, Hogle Zoo is an incredibly well-run zoo with excellent and interesting animal habitats for photography. Below are my five tips in setting up a Nikon DSLR for zoo photography that have worked great for me. If you have any other tips or alternative ways you set up your Nikon for zoo photography, please leave a comment!
Before we begin, first a quick note on my current setup. Right now I’m shooting with a Nikon D750 DSLR, which I’ve been using for the past two years or so. It has a full-frame sensor and is a low-light beast. Images are sharp with relatively low noise, especially compared to cropped sensor cameras. I also love the ergonomics of Nikon DSLR’s. The only issue that sometimes comes up is that I occasionally hit a buffer lag after several seconds of using Continuous High shutter. If I were frequently shooting animals in action, this would be a problem and something like a Nikon D500 would have an edge. But, in practice, this is rarely an issue for me.
Portrait of a silverback gorilla. Image taken at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo with a Nikon D300. Click image for full-size.
My favorite lens right now is Nikon’s 200-500mm f/5.6 telephoto zoom lens. In zoo photography, a telephoto lens with a lot of reach has several advantages, including helping to isolate subjects within an image. I prefer to photograph an animal as if they are not confined. Think of a photo safari in Africa or wherever the animal’s natural habitat is. There’s nothing worse than a chainlink fence overlaying an otherwise interesting animal. That includes fencing or barriers behind the animal. I like the shot to look as natural as possible unless I am intentionally shooting a more “environmental” shot with, for example, zoo visitors in the image, or to capture fascinating interactions of an animal with something in its environment, e.g., a monkey swinging gracefully on “vines” through its habitat or playing with a toy. If you’re aim is to photograph visitors as they interact with or respond to the animals, then a wide-angle lens is perfectly fine as long as you get close to fill the frame with the scene. For example, a wide-angle is great for photographing giraffe feedings that zoo’s often allow visitors to do; just get close to the visitor and giraffe to fill the frame and get a more dramatic shot. Maybe wear a mask in this case :).
Lion enjoying the warm morning sunshine at Utah’s Hogle Zoo. Image taken with Nikon D750 using the Nikon 200-500mm lens, 500mm at f/5.6. Click the image for full-size.
That being said, the 200-500mm lens allows me to zoom close onto the animal, emphasizing interesting details or characteristics of an animal, or capturing an animal’s gesture. The subject is nearly always the animal, so a wide angle lens that shows a wide expanse of grass, fencing, water dishes, play toys or whatever else is in the exhibit is not helpful for your image. Think of what a painter would paint; would a painter bother to paint that element into her painting? If not, it’s not helping your image. Ask yourself what is really the subject and fill the frame with it. The main downside of the 200-500mm is its weight…it’ll work out your biceps. So, once in a while, I’ll carry a Nikon 70-200mm f/4 instead.
A big telephoto lens also allows you to shoot through fencing as if it’s invisible. This leads me to my first tip…
(1) If fencing is used, shoot with a telephoto lens at your widest aperture setting.
I actually shoot in Aperture Priority at the widest f-stop possible. For the Nikon 200-500mm lens, this would be f/5.6. I also use the big zoom to basically stand-off from the exhibit. First, shooting at f/5.6 and at the higher zoom settings really isolates the animal from its background, especially useful if the background is distracting or ugly.
A second bonus during these days of COVID-19 is that shooting at something like 500mm definitely helps with social distancing from all the other zoo visitors who might be near the exhibit…who knew a big telephoto lens could advance public health?
Shooting at your widest aperture also means you’re using a faster shutter. This results in our next tip…
(2) Use Auto ISO.
Set up your camera to use Auto ISO. To do this in the Nikon, hit Menu, go to “PHOTO SHOOTING MENU”, then “ISO sensitivity settings”. Set Auto ISO sensitivity control to “ON”. My personal settings using the Nikon 200-500 zoom lens are:
Nikon Auto ISO settings
The D750’s maximum ISO is “HI2” which corresponds to an ISO of 51,200, but I’m not crazy about the noise that shows up beyond ISO6400. Your mileage may vary, though. If you’re using a cropped sensor DX camera (Nikon D3500, D5600, D7500, or D500), I suggest using a lower max ISO to limit noise in images. Also, if you’re shooting indoors, you may need to increase the max ISO to get reasonably sharp images.
I use a minimum shutter speed of 1/500, basically following the reciprocal rule. This rule of thumb is that you can somewhat safely handhold a camera if you use a shutter speed that is the reciprocal of the longest focal length of the lens on it. Since I’m shooting a 200-500mm zoom, I set the minimum shutter for 1/500. However, the Vibration Reduction (VR) on Nikon lenses is usually great, including on the 200-500mm, so I could probably go to 1/250 or a little lower without ruining images. This also depends on your shooting technique, but this requires a separate blog post to fully discuss. Speaking of VR…
(3) Make sure VR is switched on.
Look on the side of your lens, and make sure VR is ON. Unless you’re carrying a monopod or tripod, VR is a must if you’re lugging a big telephoto. Photoshop can do wonders for images, but it just can’t save an out-of-focus subject.
Now, the Nikon 200-500mm lens has Normal vs. Sport modes below the VR switch. I just keep it set on Normal, but if animals are particularly active, you may want to set this to Sport. What’s the difference? My non-technical understanding is that the Sport mode is more appropriate if both the subject and photographer are moving, e.g., you’re panning to follow a galloping zebra. In this case, try Sport mode. (Remember, if you’re shooting on a tripod (if allowed at the zoo), turn off VR.)
Vibration Reduction and Normal vs. Sport modes on Nikon lenses
(4) Use Continuous High (CH) shutter release.
To get max frame rate, use CH. For a D750 this is 6.5 frames per second; for a sports beast like the D500, this would be 10 frames per second. You can always erase images you don’t like but missing a fleeting expressive gesture from a silverback gorilla or peak action as two lions wrestle can ruin a day to the zoo. The other modes are Continuous Low (CL), Single frame (S), and two “quiet” modes, Q and Qc. Whatever you do, don’t use S or else you’ll be pressing your shutter like a wild man to capture an animal in action. Frankly, I never use the quiet modes either. They’re actually only slightly less noisy than the regular shutter releases, so why bother? (Note: mirrorless cameras (Nikon Z5, Z6, Z7) are a different story. Silent mode is great!)
You don’t want to intentionally disturb animals but if a lion is already awake and alert, the sound of the CH mode may get him to look in your direction to see what the rapid fire clacking is about. Since it’s important to capture the animal’s eyes, this is a nice though maybe annoying side effect of a mirrored DSLR. Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue with a Z5 or other Nikon mirrorless camera. Capturing the animal’s eyes leads us to our final tip…
Example of the shutter modes on Nikon DSLR Cameras
(5) Use Eye Detection auto-focus or 3D Tracking auto-focus area mode with AF-C focus mode.
The nice thing about the new Nikon mirrorless cameras like the Z5, Z6 or Z7 is that they have Animal Eye Detection modes. Capturing the eyes makes or breaks your photo. If they’re not visible or out-of-focus, the image has much less visual impact. My favorite shots have the animal staring right at the camera, creating a strong emotional connection between the animal and viewer.
Portrait of a Jaguar. Image taken at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo. This photo was taken with a Nikon D300 using a zoom lens at 200mm. Click image for full-size.
Unfortunately, the D750 doesn’t have Eye Detection, so I typically just use 3D Tracking. On the left side of your camera body, hit the button on top of the AF vs. M switch, then, while holding it down, spin the front dial on your camera until 3D is selected. Similarly, while holding the same button down, spin the rear dial until the AF-C focus mode is highlighted.
Press this button to change the Nikon’s focus modes.
Once 3D Tracking is enabled, I try to place the single small focusing square right on the nearest eye of the animal. AF-C mode will keep focusing continuously as the animal moves as long as your pressing the shutter button halfway (or using backbutton focusing, which is what I use). Again, it is critical to get visible, sharp eyes when you’re photographing zoo animals. (By the way, it also helps if you photograph an animal at their level; this will distinguish your image from the millions of snapshot images taken at the zoo.)
Often, 3D Tracking of an animal’s eye or face is just not possible. For example, if the animal is really moving around, you’ll have a hard time getting accurate focus. In this case, I just use Dynamic Area Auto-Focus with either 21 or 51 focus points. Use 21 points if the animal is erratically moving around. 51 points would be better for animals like birds which are flying fast and are difficult to keep framed.
One last thing…
A last piece of advice is to just vary your settings and lenses to spark creativity. For example, shoot wide angle or use slow shutter speeds to intentionally blur images or try to do some abstract photography at the zoo. Most of all, get a zoo membership and go often! I visit my local zoo two or three times a week, and always come back with Instagram- or portfolio-worthy images. The animals express their characters in unique ways and you want to be there to photograph them when they do.
Hope you find these tips useful. Please let me know in the comments. This isn’t meant to be a completely exhaustive list of tips for Nikon shooters, and certainly some of these tips may not be relevant for older camera bodies. I’ll provide more tips on zoo photography in future blog posts. You can also check out my past blog post on photographing gorillas at the zoo (click here).