San Diego Zoo/ Safari Park Photography

[PhelsumaPhanatic]

Hi everyone! I’ll be in San Diego from August 14–24 and I plan on visiting the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park during my trip. I’m bringing my Canon EOS R7 with the RF100-400mm F5.6-8 and the RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3.

I’d love any tips—best times to shoot, recommended spots, or things to watch out for. Will my current gear be enough to get some solid wildlife shots, or should I consider renting something else?

So far my plan is, get there as soon as possible, zoo twice, safari park once. Three day pass and the safari park is far away since I won’t have a car. I’m probably gonna opt for the morning panda walk and the deluxe wildlife safari.

Also, is one day at the zoo enough, or is it worth going more than once to make the most of the photo opportunities?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lafone]

Hi everyone! I’ll be in San Diego from August 14–24 and I plan on visiting the San Diego Zoo and Safari Park during my trip. I’m bringing my Canon EOS R7 with the RF100-400mm F5.6-8 and the RF-S18-150mm F3.5-6.3.

I’d love any tips—best times to shoot, recommended spots, or things to watch out for. Will my current gear be enough to get some solid wildlife shots, or should I consider renting something else?

So far my plan is, get there as soon as possible, zoo twice, safari park once. Three day pass and the safari park is far away since I won’t have a car. I’m probably gonna opt for the morning panda walk and the deluxe wildlife safari.

Also, is one day at the zoo enough, or is it worth going more than once to make the most of the photo opportunities?

Thanks in advance!

@Julio C Castro has taken some wonderful shots at the SD zoos and might be well placed to advise. @Austin the Sengi has some excellent shots from there too and could know some cool angles. You could also take a look in the San Diego gallery and see what shots people got you liked and reach out too though I am sure lots of people will comment.

Sounds like it will be a great trip!

 

[cloudedleopard611]

I only got to go to the zoo and not the Safari Park but I do have some pointers. First, a recommended spot is the Indian gharial pond. It is absolutely beautiful and makes for great photos. Also, in my experience, the gharials were much more active than most crocodilians are. That's not exactly saying much, but they did move around into different positions while I was there. I personally visited this part of the zoo in the evening, so I got that beautiful evening light that further enhanced my shots. It is also home to a lot of different turtles, some of which I am sure are rare. I also thought the gelada exhibit was excellent for photography and I wish I had spent more time there. I will also say that if you like photographing birds, make sure you make it to the African Acacia woodland aviary during the day, as it was closed when I made it over there around 7:00 PM. It was one of the parts I was most excited for so that was a pretty big disappointment. As for an area to de-prioritize, I would say the Urban Jungle is not an area I recommend spending much time in. The species for the most part are very common in zoos and the exhibits do not photograph well. Another tip is more of just a general shooting through fences tip, but try to time your stops at exhibits with fences according to the light. You want to avoid any glare on fences as that will make them visible in your photo and make it very hard for your camera to focus on the animals behind the fence. If you get lucky and its cloudy at any point in the day, that is the time for those exhibits and I would definitely take advantage of that. However, San Diego is not known for cloudy weather, so I would not count on it. I certainly did not get much on my visit. Those are the tips that come to mind, but let me know of any specific species you are interested in photographing and I may have some more advice.

 

[Julio C Castro]

Thank you for tagging me, @Lafone! What @cloudedleopard611 mentioned for the zoo are amazing pointers and really take them up on them.

As for the Safari Park, I saw the gear you’re taking and your lenses would be quite suited there. While the Safari Park has multi acre habitats for their herding animals, a good chunk of the collection can be seen while walking around. If you wanna see the platypus, sometimes they have the lights on very early as soon as the park opens and turn them back on around closing(5 PMish). As for their big cats, the earlier the better. Tiger Trail is forested and can be considered low light. However, you can get up to the glass windows to take shots of their tigers from the Sumbatan Longhouse. It’s always a good area to get active tigers and the 3 yards vary in terrain and design, allowing for more dynamic shooting. Lion Camp is pretty wide open and lions rotate, Bo the male lion will be out or the 3 females will switch with him. My best vantage point for shooting them is on the first bridge, it’s wide open and have seen the girls get on the kopje many times.

As for the elephants, it’s been a few months since I’ve seen them and I know they had a queue to have a guide walk you down to the new viewing area as Elephant Valley is nearing completion. They’re definitely a highlight to catch and have had the best luck with them closer to noon. Condor Ridge can be brutal when the sun is high and the fencing can be harder to blend out. My best advice is to shoot the condors from under the shaded area, luckily it’s never so busy there and can spend a lot of time there. Another area many guests over look is African Forest area, it’s a collection of hoofstock and birds. With your lenses, you can capture them all pretty well and less packed than most of the Safari Park. Another tip is to drink plenty of water and wear sunscreen. It’s way hotter at the Safari Park than the zoo and you can dehydrate quickly walking around even in August. Wish you the best time down at SD and have fun!

 

[cloudedleopard611]

I only got to go to the zoo and not the Safari Park but I do have some pointers. First, a recommended spot is the Indian gharial pond. It is absolutely beautiful and makes for great photos. Also, in my experience, the gharials were much more active than most crocodilians are. That's not exactly saying much, but they did move around into different positions while I was there. I personally visited this part of the zoo in the evening, so I got that beautiful evening light that further enhanced my shots. It is also home to a lot of different turtles, some of which I am sure are rare. I also thought the gelada exhibit was excellent for photography and I wish I had spent more time there. I will also say that if you like photographing birds, make sure you make it to the African Acacia woodland aviary during the day, as it was closed when I made it over there around 7:00 PM. It was one of the parts I was most excited for so that was a pretty big disappointment. As for an area to de-prioritize, I would say the Urban Jungle is not an area I recommend spending much time in. The species for the most part are very common in zoos and the exhibits do not photograph well. Another tip is more of just a general shooting through fences tip, but try to time your stops at exhibits with fences according to the light. You want to avoid any glare on fences as that will make them visible in your photo and make it very hard for your camera to focus on the animals behind the fence. If you get lucky and its cloudy at any point in the day, that is the time for those exhibits and I would definitely take advantage of that. However, San Diego is not known for cloudy weather, so I would not count on it. I certainly did not get much on my visit. Those are the tips that come to mind, but let me know of any specific species you are interested in photographing and I may have some more advice.

Sorry to spam your thread but I just remembered I had made a similar thread prior to my visit and people gave a lot of great advice. I will link it here so you can see the advice given
Any advice for photography at the San Diego Zoo?