Twycross Zoo

Went to Twycross Zoo today with 'Holiday at home' (Holiday club for the over 60s). Rad said I could come since there was plenty of extra space on the bus, and it only cost £3.50!

Unfortunately it rained all the time we were there, although it stopped raining when we got back on the bus, and by the time we got back home the sun had come out!

I took the following gear:

• Nikon D200 camera
• Nikon 70-300/4.5-5.6 VR lens
• Nikon 18-70/3.5-5.6 DX lens
• Tokina 10-17/3.5-4.5 fisheye lens
• Panasonic FZ5 camera
• B+W “Käsemann” Polarizing Filter 77mm
• Olympus MCon-35 B-Macro
• Raynox DCR-250
• 67-77mm stepping ring
• 67mm – 77mm step up ring
• 67mm – 62mm step down ring
• 55mm – 67mm step up ring
• 4GB Sandisk Extreme III CF
• 8GB Datawrite CF
• 1GB Bytestor SD
• 512MB Viking SD
• Spare EN-EL3e battery
• Lenspen mini
• Microfibre cloth
• Manfrotto 676B DIGI Monopod
• Manfrotto shoulder brace
• FLM CB18 Ball Head
• Nodal Ninja 3 II
• My lunch
  

all packed in my Lidl Essential PX Pack. As it turned out, I only used the D200 with the 70-300/4.5-5.6 lens, both the CF cards and both the batteries. Due to the rain I didn't want to be switching lenses outside and neither inside due to the muddy wet floors and also there was often quite a few people around inside that I would probably be getting in the way of if I put my bag down and got my lenses out to change them round. Having said that, there did seem to be a lot less people round from about 2pm onwards. Maybe they just got fed up of the rain.

My camera got quite and I was a bit concerned about the 70-300 lens as when I zoomed in, the lens would extend and rain would get on the extended barrel. Then when you zoom back in, the extended barrel goes back inside the main barrel, taking the raindrops on it with it. The lens seems to be okay, I just hope I don't get problems with water/mist/fungus inside it in the future. I'm quite sleepy now, so I'll probably have a better look at it tomorrow.

Being very cloudy and rainy, the conditions weren't exactly great for photography, and for the inside exhibits, the conditions were even worse due to the low light. I set the camera on Aperture Priority, with the lens wide open, and ISO at 1600. Even so, I found I was getting shutter speeds like 1/10s inside. Rain on the filter in front of the lens, rain, wire fences, Smudgy glass, reflections, low light, creatures moving about quickly and a minimum focus distance of the lens of 1.5m all conspired against me to try and stop me getting any decent photos. I think I got a few okay ones, but I haven't looked through any on the PC yet and images often look very different on the PC to how they do on the on camera screen.

We left the zoo at 3pm, and by the time we got back home it was about 4.20pm. I copied all the pics from the Compact Flash cards to the PC, and then after that processed JPEGs for them all. I couldn't batch process them all in one go due to the differing white balance between pictures taken outside and those inside with artificial light.

The zoo had quite a few different animals, elephants, giraffes, alpacas, a few others and lots of primates. Due to the rain most of the animals that normally live outside were hiding, sheltering from the rain, which was a shame. The small monkeys, which were inside, were what I thought was best. Some of them had sort of feathery fur around their faces, and interesting patterns on their backs.

After dinner I watched 2 episodes of Battlestar Trashlactica with Mac.

Food
Breakfast: Lemon marmalade toast sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese sandwich; Chargrilled steak (or sumat similar) ridged crisps; chocolate digestive bar; coffee.
Dinner: Spag bol. Pudding was a slice of posh lemon swiss roll with lots of creamy stuff in it. Coffee; Roses.