The f8 Group: Photography and Occasional Commentary: How to get the best results on a visit to Singapore's tropical bird park in Jurong

Photo by Robin Nichols(Note: I can probably remember half the names of the birds posted here - but decided not to waste time naming everything, preferring to post the day's results first...).

Although I really don't like seeing beautiful birds cooped up in small cages, a trip to the bird park in western Singapore is well worth the $3 MRT ticket (from the city) and the $29 entrance fee (actually you can get entrance cheaper if you buy a visit all four zoo attractions pass for $69...

Though the park is located in a light industrial part of the city, once through the gates, you step into a different world. Most of the enclosures are large and there are 8 or ten that you can freely walk into, including one aviary that has its own 30metre high waterfall and full size tropical trees - so it's really a piece of enclosed jungle complete with a myriad range of birds from all over the region.

Shooting tips:
If you shoot the birds in the walk-in enclosures the process is quite straight forward: match the shutter speed to the focal length magnification (i.e. if shooting with a 300mm tele lens on an APS-C sensor camera), use a shutter speed of at least 1/300s, faster where possible, to negate camera shake. We were shooting at ISO 1600, 3200, and even higher, under the canopy in the enclosures just to avoid camera/lens shake.

Tips on shooting small birds through the cage mesh
If you are shooting through wire mesh, all you'll see is wire mesh with a bird just in the background.
To get a better result avoid shooting where the sun is actually shining on the mesh exterior.
Always shoot at the widest aperture (i.e. f4 or f2.8 where possible - the shallow depth of field that this produces is less likely to make the out of focus mesh appear too noticeable in the frame.
In this example I shot the bird at f4, then at f11 - neither were that good because the bird was only 150mm behind the mesh.
If you physically get close to the mesh - and the bird is 2 metres into the cage, you'll almost certainly eliminate the mesh entirely - but because you are effectively shooting through a soft focus filter (photographers used to shoot through a piece of nylon stocking to soften the image) you will need to add contrast in post to make the image appear more lifelike.