Nikon in partnership with Melbourne Zoo and as part of the Photo Ark exhibition, provided the opportunity to get some expert advice on wildlife photography from award winning photographer Jay Town and the chance to play with some of their cool gear. Naturally, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try out some different gear and to get some expert advice on how to make more from our current gear. We loved the idea so much that we signed up to do the course twice and both times got great advice and really learnt something, so this post covers both sessions.
The course started with a brief presentation from Jay.
Jay gave us some great tips on wildlife photography and shared his passion for wildlife photography, particularly at Melbourne Zoo.
Before we headed out to shoot some of the more iconic animals of Melbourne Zoo, we got the opportunity to put the macro lenses to use photographing a tortoise and a corn snake:
Once we headed out, our first stop was the Meerkats. Nikon very kindly allowed us to borrow a D500 camera body to try out and compare to our existing gear.
We toured the zoo as a friendly group, chatting and exchanging stories. An occasional passerby would comment on all the photographers with all the cameras, including one young lad who seemed totally awestruck by seeing so much gear in one place at the zoo at the same time. Thanks to Nikon, we were all well equiped:
We visited the Elephants:
The Orangutans (a favourite of Jay’s):
The Lions:
The Reptile House:
The Gorillas:
And lastly the Seals. This presented the greatest challenge of the day. Photographing something fast moving, through glass, while standing in the dark.
Although they were a little easier to photograph when they sat and posed out of the water:
Over the two sessions we were given lots of technical advice from the Nikon experts as well as great advice from Jay on how to take better wildlife shots, plus we got to play with some cool gear and as an added bonus, aside from getting to photograph the animals of Melbourne Zoo, we made some new friends.