National Aquarium: Baltimore, MD(WARNING 15 shots)

Took a trip out there this weekend.Got a few pictures that I like, had a few pictures I could have liked, but were ruined by the plexiglass gages/glares/poor lighting...Anybody have any tips for shooting zoo/aquarium photos?...Because of the glass and all, I didn't really get any fish shots I liked due to dirty water/plexiglass and the reasons stated above....Anyway, heres what I got:


I figured I'd start the set with an image I took outside before we went in...This is fort McHenry, the place in which one of the biggest battles of 1812 took place. It was at this very hill that Francis Scott Key would sit and watch the battle. It would in turn inspire him to write a song. What song you ask? It would be none other than My Star Spangled Banner, also known as the United States National Anthem. Normally I'm not big on selecive coloring, but I did it in this case to really make the flag the center point.

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C&C please!

 

I wasn't sure whether this should be in the general or nature gallery, so if it needs to be moved feel free to move it, and I apologize.

 

that bad huh?

 

I really like number 6! Overall a pretty good series.

 

Thanks. Any critique as to what I can do to get better shots?

 

It's kind of hard because a lot of the time I find nature shots tend to look snap-shotish (even most of mine). I personally have shot a ton of animal pics being so close to Seaworld and Animal Kingdom and such, yet like very few of them in post-processing.

All that is to follow is my opinion!

1) Try to get the animals doing stuff they would do in the wild.
2) Try to make it look like it was shot in the wild, not in a cage / tank
3) Like you did with the frogs, get up close with smaller creatures
4) Birds: unless they are colorful or doing something really interesting, its hard to get an interesting shot.

Like I said, I tend to find wildlife harder to shoot.

 

Brian, Ms. Bernhardt would love these pictures

I like 2 and 3 for the vividness of the picture.
My favorite is number 10, i cant really put my finger on the reason, but it is my favorite of them all.

 

Thanks for the critique. I agree with you on shooting wild life...I shot about 200 shots, but deleted half of them because they didn't stand out.

I'll work on trying to catch them doing things like they would in the wild.

Hopefully when I get my 100-400 It'll allow me to get better angels/zoom to achieve this.

 

Thanks Hoss. I found I really liked number 10 as well, mainly because of how sharp/crisp it came out.

 

The selective coloring on #1 is corny.

 

Yes, I would assume it would!

 

The frogs kick ass. When you were shooting, which lens did you use? I am sure that there isn't a ton of light in there... like a zoo, and your images all came out pretty good. What settings did you use?

Oh, and #3 and #6 are my favorites.