After three years living in London, I finally got the chance (and by chance, I mean gentle nudge up the backside) to visit London Zoo. I’m not a big fan of zoos, I must admit – but it seems like one of those things you have to do, like going on the Eye, and other touristy things that Londoners would probably rather not admit to doing themselves. So this Flickr meetup seemed a good idea. Unfortunately, it was a bright, sunny day – conditions I still can’t seem to work properly in, and cages and glass panels tried their best to ruin what would otherwise be the perfect shot of each animal. So, here’s a couple of zoo tips:

• When it comes to cages, try and photograph animals furthest from the edge of the cage to you. This means you can ‘zoom through’ the wire, which will become so blurred as to be invisible. (Of course, this then can cause problems with autofocus, so you may wish to switch your lens to manual if it’s not got a USM focus, for instance.)
• Glass is a pain in the arse. What I found to work better was to get on tip-toes (above the reflections of toddlers and crouching parents) and shoot at quite an oblique angle (45º and above). Still, didn’t really get any decent shots through glass at all, so prepare to fail on this one.
• Take a bottle of water. London Zoo may not be that big, but all the walking around adds up, especially on a hot day – even more so if you head into the humid butterfly tent and rainforest biome.
• A telephoto over any other lens. I was using my rubbish (and to-be-replaced-when-I-have-the-money) Tamron 70-300mm, but it was the only usable thing to get shots of the animals. For the butterflies, I had to take a step or two back, but that’s the only situation where it was a slight inconvenience.