Photography in Zoo

Got a nice DSLR? You want to take photos of the birds and animals inside the cage/fence?

Are you ending up getting nicely focused fence/cage than the bird or animal? Its very easy to fix.  

Change the focusing mode to 'manual' or in other words remove auto focus and focus on the subject manually. Keep your aperture size big enough(small F-number) to get the fence out of focus but small enough(large F-number) to get the subject in super sharp. 

Two things you need to do
1) Change camera's focus mode to manual
2) Change lens' focus mode to manual

You may need to move bit front or back to get the cage out of focus while focusing manually.

A word of caution
Do not keep the lens in manual focus mode and the camera in auto focus mode. For this  follow the below steps

While changing from auto focus to manual focus, first switch camera to manual focus mode and then the lens to manual focus mode.

while changing back from manual focus mode to auto focus mode first bring the lens to auto focus mode then the camera to the auto focus mode.

This will protect your lens' auto focus mechanisms.

So what you need to know?

1) Find out how to change the camera from auto focus mode to manual focus mode and back.
2) Find out how to change the lens' focus mode from auto to manual and back
3) Know where is the focus ring on lens and the effect of turning it clockwise and anti clockwise and
4) What is the indication in camera's live view or view finder for sharp focus on the subject.

See the user manual of your camera and lens for the above since its different for different camera and lens.

Practice focusing manually on the subject. You will see a new world through lens.

Some of the photos in the below link were taken with manual focus.

https://picasaweb.google.com/114216357601642540206/JurongBirdParkSingapore

hmm... that's it.

Focusing

Have you any time faced focusing problem with your camera? If yes then may be you can find some help with this article.

Lets understand

1. Why do we aim and focus?
2. Why camera cannot focus?
3. Even after proper focusing why the images are not sharp!

Here I'll try to explain in plain text. I'll try to post a video in youtube.com and provide link here so that you can see the things what I am explaining here.

Lets take the first question

1. Why do we aim and focus?

We focus on a particular part of the scene so that the focused part will appear sharp compared to rest of the objects in the scene.
After reading the above statement you may be in doubt and below may be you question.

If we focus properly, all the objects in the scene will be sharp not just those we focused?

The answer is yes and no. 
Yes- All the objects in the plane-of-focus will be sharp and some of the objects just in front of it and behind it will be in sharp focus. i.e. all the objects that are at same distance from camera to the one you just focused will appear sharp.

If objects A,B,C are all at the same distance, and you focused on A then objects B and C will also be in sharp focus if the scene is composed of objects A,B,C.

No- As the distance of the objects(either front or back) from  plane-of-focus increases the sharpness will be reduced and objects will appear blurred. We'll understand why this when I'll answer the 3rd question.

Second question
   2. Why camera cannot focus?
There are couple of reason for this

1. There is no enough light in the scene for the camera to detect and focus on the objects.
• in the dark areas
• in the evening or early morning when there is less light
• in  DSLR  if you are in manual mode and the dials are turned for faster shutter speed or if the aperture dial is turned to allow very less light(higher f-stop number) or combination of both you may encounter this problem.
2. You are holding camera too near to the object than the allowed minimum focusing distance of that lens(for DSLR) or camera (if point and shoot camera).
3. There is no contrast in the scene for the camera to focus.
• you have composed a scene that is just in one colour. e.g. plain white wall or black background or any single colour wall or background that doesn't even has a spot or line that is visible. or the whole scene composed is of very less contrast.  

How to resolve the above problems?
Know the limits of your camera/lens to shoot in the dark. No camera can shoot every scene without additional lighting equipments.

In the dark areas if your camera is not able to focus then get the help of someone near you to lit that part of scene for focusing scene using a torch or some other lighting equipment till the camera focus (press the shutter button halfway through) then switch of the light/torch and press the shutter button down. If no one around you can do it yourself by  holding the torch in one had and pressing the shutter button in another hand.

Even in the bright lit day if you are using a very small aperture(higher F-stop number) and your camera is not able to focus then you can use a small light source just for focusing.

Try increasing the ISO to a higher number keeping the same shutter speed and aperture value-be careful not to increase ISO to such a high level that noise level is too high(picture appear too grainy or dotted).

Check whether the negative exposure compensation is ON and has high value. If so then remove the exposure compensation. With negative exposure compensation the amount of light fall on the sensor of the camera will be reduced by increasing the shutter speed or reducing the aperture value i.e. higher F-stop value.

Check that you have proper shutter speed and aperture value(not too less) to allow enough light for shooting the scene if in case the dials of your camera are turned far not allowing enough light to the camera.

If you are too close to the object just to compose the scene, its better that you move a bit farther from the object until camera focus properly then you can crop as you wish in the post production software.

If you are using zoom lens, then see the user manual for minimum distance for focus at minimum and maximum zoom lengths. Keep minimum distance from the object of focus. Use lens that has less minimum focus distance if you really need very close focus distance.

Camera cannot focus if there is no contrast in the scene. You can use manual focus in this case. You can even place temporary objects in the scene at a distance same as the object that needs focus then focus manually on the temporary object and then remove it. Bring back the original object for photographing.

Now the answer to the third question.
3) Even after proper focusing why the images are not sharp!
Re iterating the above statement "As the distance of the objects(either front or back) from  plane-of-focus increases the sharpness will be reduced and objects will appear blurred".
I am not going to answer this question. But I would like you to search for 'Depth of Field' in photography terms. That would give you an answer for this question.

hmm... that's it.