Taiping Zoo 1 of 6 (intoduction)

Sleeping Tiger in its Shady Den
Low light , High Zoom into Digital Range!

Orang Utan at Taiping Zoo

Taiping Zoo Animals

This is the first of many post (6 I believe) on Taiping Zoo. With over 180 types of animals, there will be alot of photographs so its much better if I split up the posts, To see all the post click Taiping Zoo tag.

My criteria in the photograph selected in this series of taiping zoo post is quite simple, 1. The animals them self, 2. The “Action” and 3. One photo (if possible) to an animal.

Information

Before arriving at the zoo I surf the web and found the following sites for information, so instead of repeating go to this sites.

http://www.pulau-pangkor.com/Taiping-Zoo.html

http://www.malaysiavacationguide.com/taipingzoo.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoo_Taiping

http://www.zootaiping.gov.my/

Basically Taiping Zoo official name is Taman Mergastua Sultan Idris Shah, it covers 14.4 hectares (34 acres) of land within the Taiping Lake Garden located at the Foot of Maxwell Hill on the Outskirts of Taiping Town. It is establish in 1961, making this the oldest zoo and the only zoo in the Northern States of Malaysia.

According to Taiping Zoo Web, it has around 180 types of animals, totalling around 1300. That a lot of animals to take photograph off. It is open in two sessions ie in the day and at night (8pm till 11pm) for the Night Safari. Day time entrance is RM12 for adults and for 5 to 12 years old (if I am not mistaken) is RM8.

Some tips Photography of the animals which I found to be usefull

1. Respect the Animals, Do not bang on the cages or enclosure etc and Most certainly do not feed the animals.

G Force in Taiping!

2. A 10 X zoom is a must, a 20 X zoom will be better (Optical zoom, not digital) Most of the photos take here have at least 5X zoom. For full face shots, especially of tiger it will go over 10X.

3. Switch off the Flash, at certain areas it can be quite shady, so if you are autoflash, if will fire and the results you just disturb the animals.

4. Bring along EXTRA batteries, even with full charge batteries, the zoo have so many types of animals you will need them. At least one set.

5. Polaroid Lens, and Manual Focus, will be an asset as you will need to shoot through wire mash and glasses. Just like the henya, and small monkeys shots.

Photo of this "Cat" is through Glass

Photo of this Hyena is through a fence. As the Hyena is quite a distance from the fence, I was able to out focus the fence, to get a not too bad photo but as you can see there is some area it look hazy.

This photo look hazy, unfortunately i was not able to out focus the wire mash fence as the monkey is too near to the fence, but its not too bad.

6. Travel Light, Leave your bag behind, it a 2.5 km walk, take the train first to get the feel of the zoo then walk.