photographing wild animals in cages

[mishababy]

So I have a new camera I got for christmas and Im not too sure about what all to do

we are going this weekend to turpentine creek wildlife refuge where they have tigers, cougars, lions and bears but I wont be able to get up close and they will have bars (cages) between me and the animals.
does anyone have any advice for me?

[sk66]

Use a wide aperture and get very close to the cage. When you focus well beyond the bars/fence/obstruction with a narrow DOF the obstruction will mostly disappear.

[inkista]

Using a telephoto and looking to see if there are animals at the back of the enclosure might help, too. You basically want the wire of the cage to be closer to you than to your subject. If they're right up against the bars, you're screwed.

Same enclosure:

Right up against the fence with a 60/2.8 lens:



A ways back from the fence with a 135/2 lens:

[Poider]

Originally Posted by mishababy

So I have a new camera I got for christmas and Im not too sure about what all to do

we are going this weekend to turpentine creek wildlife refuge where they have tigers, cougars, lions and bears but I wont be able to get up close and they will have bars (cages) between me and the animals.
does anyone have any advice for me?

This series was done 6 years ago with a canon powershot a70 and processed with u lead, at he time i was very inexperienced and just playing around so i know it's not perfect but you could try post processing









Oh and by the way welcome to the D3100 club I too got one fro Christmas
Peter

[camera3d]

Hey - you made the fence disappear.. how did you erase it ? What function in Ulead did you use ?

[SusanH1970]

Originally Posted by inkista

Using a telephoto and looking to see if there are animals at the back of the enclosure might help, too. You basically want the wire of the cage to be closer to you than to your subject. If they're right up against the bars, you're screwed.

Same enclosure:

Right up against the fence with a 60/2.8 lens:



A ways back from the fence with a 135/2 lens:

Another reason for me to be your psycho stalker.

ETA: Did you manual focus or AF? I've found that sometimes AF will focus on the fence.

[sk66]

Originally Posted by SusanH1970

Another reason for me to be your psycho stalker.

ETA: Did you manual focus or AF? I've found that sometimes AF will focus on the fence.

I think "right up against the fence"/ "a ways back" is the subject's proximity to the fence and not the photographer's....
The goal is to get the fence so out of focus that it disappears...A shallow DOF (camera closer to the fence and wider aperture) will help make that happen...the further away from the fence the "focal zone" is (subject "a ways back") will increase the benefit...The more you can optimize these the more accurate autofocus will be (especially if the fence itself is closer than minimum focus distance for the lens).