FAQs
What camera equipment is required?
What camera and lenses are required varies, depending on the venue and how close participants may get to the cats or other wildlife species. As a general guidance, the technical aspects of our photography tuition is aimed for digital SLR cameras, but will also benefit bridge camera users.
Furthermore, for any type of wildlife photography (in the natural habitat or in captivity), you don’t want to be too close to the animals and therefore, a larger zoom lens is advisable (e.g. 70-300mm lenses or longer is recommended; 400mm, 500mm or even more so 600mm lenses have advantages in many wildlife photography situations).
At zoos and wildlife parks or at private cat collections, there may also be situations when a wide angle lens will be of benefit (e.g. 28-50mm). This goes also, if you like to take some landscape images while being out in natural habitat areas.
An important piece of equipment at zoos and wildlife parks is a rubber lens hood, which helps to block out light and through this reflection, which helps greatly when taking photos through glass.
In view of tripod, it is very beneficial when taking photos in natural habitat, especially when staying for longer periods in some areas and when taking photos in low light conditions (though it won’t help preventing motion blur if there is some fast moving action; do keep an eye on your shutter speed). In zoos and wildlife parks tripods may get in the way at times, and most of our customers have brought it back to their car (as it is also another piece of equipment to carry around); a monopod may be better at zoos and wildlife parks.
What kind of access to enclosures will we have?
Only at two of our venues, photo day participants will have special access. This is at the Cat Survival Trust (generally closed to the public, and even members won’t get access inside the Cat House when visiting on their own) and at the Rutland Falconry & Owl Centre (the cat section with the leopards, pumas and the serval cat is generally not open to the public either). At both venues, you will be able to get close to the fence; though it will be slightly closer at the Cat Survival Trust (and yes, we will teach you how to take photos through a fence).
At Colchester Zoo and also at all our natural habitat venues, we will stay in areas, open to the public. Our photography workshops are about teaching customers about how to utilise the functionality of their camera and the accessories equipment better, and how to approach wildlife photography to get great images, without distressing or endangering animals. For example, we won’t go through a heavily populated seal rookery to get images of pups and seals at the water edge (the white grey seal pup coat is not waterproof and seal pups should ideally not be anywhere close to the water edge - at some rookeries the seal pups may be close to the sea, but we are using an approach, which prevents getting them closer to the edge or us coming between them and their mum or disturbing their feeding and resting).
Your photography guide supports wildlife conservation and raises awareness for the issues, different species have in their natural habitat; including mammal species here in the UK.
Do I get a discount as a Gold Card holder at Colchester Zoo?
As the share of the fee, we give to Colchester Zoo goes 100% as a donation to Action For The Wild (wildlife conservation projects), we are unfortunately not able to provide any discounts to Gold Pass holders. Hope you will understand and support our commitment to wildlife conservation.
How and where do I book my space(s) on one of the photography experiences?
You can book any of our Photography Workshops and Photo Days by completing the booking form at the bottom of either the relevant photography experience type pages or the relevant venue pages; and this can be done at any time via our website (apologies, but as I have no standard office hours, the web page is the only way to book the photography experiences).
Once you have submitted the completed booking form and paid either the full fee for the event or at least a deposit, you will receive an e-mail that confirms your booking or respectively reservation. Please note that this is not an automated response, and there may be a delay before you get the e-mail! (although Big Cat & Nature Photography is working in co-operation with e.g. zoos and wildlife parks, the entire booking administration, the provision of photography experiences as well as of talks is done by only one person – please bear with me).
If you buy a gift voucher, you may receive an initial e-mail, acknowledging the receipt of your booking/payment. This depends on timing and whether it may be better timewise to focus on preparing and posting the gift voucher immediately. In both cases, you will receive an e-mail confirming your booking and payment plus providing you with the posting details and when the gift voucher should be with you.
If you book for yourself or for someone else without requesting a gift voucher, you will receive a formal confirmation e-mail including details on where to meet, the provisional programme for the day and directions to the appropriate venue.
How can I pay for photography experiences?
Once you have completed the booking form, you can proceed directly to pay for the photography workshop / photo day either in full or just the deposit (the full fee is only required when paying 4 weeks or less prior to the photography experience day or when buying a gift voucher). Please submit the booking form without payment if the photography workshop / photo day, you selected, is marked as fully booked, or as having only 1 or 2 spaces left (in those case we will contact you to discuss availability and possible options).
You can make the payment directly by clicking on the Payment Link in the booking request confirmation (displayed in a green message box after you submitted the booking form), or by accessing the Payment Link from here later. Please ensure that you have completed a booking form before you pay!.
What camera and lenses are required varies, depending on the venue and how close participants may get to the cats or other wildlife species. As a general guidance, the technical aspects of our photography tuition is aimed for digital SLR cameras, but will also benefit bridge camera users.
Furthermore, for any type of wildlife photography (in the natural habitat or in captivity), you don’t want to be too close to the animals and therefore, a larger zoom lens is advisable (e.g. 70-300mm lenses or longer is recommended; 400mm, 500mm or even more so 600mm lenses have advantages in many wildlife photography situations).
At zoos and wildlife parks or at private cat collections, there may also be situations when a wide angle lens will be of benefit (e.g. 28-50mm). This goes also, if you like to take some landscape images while being out in natural habitat areas.
An important piece of equipment at zoos and wildlife parks is a rubber lens hood, which helps to block out light and through this reflection, which helps greatly when taking photos through glass.
In view of tripod, it is very beneficial when taking photos in natural habitat, especially when staying for longer periods in some areas and when taking photos in low light conditions (though it won’t help preventing motion blur if there is some fast moving action; do keep an eye on your shutter speed). In zoos and wildlife parks tripods may get in the way at times, and most of our customers have brought it back to their car (as it is also another piece of equipment to carry around); a monopod may be better at zoos and wildlife parks.
What kind of access to enclosures will we have?
Only at two of our venues, photo day participants will have special access. This is at the Cat Survival Trust (generally closed to the public, and even members won’t get access inside the Cat House when visiting on their own) and at the Rutland Falconry & Owl Centre (the cat section with the leopards, pumas and the serval cat is generally not open to the public either). At both venues, you will be able to get close to the fence; though it will be slightly closer at the Cat Survival Trust (and yes, we will teach you how to take photos through a fence).
At Colchester Zoo and also at all our natural habitat venues, we will stay in areas, open to the public. Our photography workshops are about teaching customers about how to utilise the functionality of their camera and the accessories equipment better, and how to approach wildlife photography to get great images, without distressing or endangering animals. For example, we won’t go through a heavily populated seal rookery to get images of pups and seals at the water edge (the white grey seal pup coat is not waterproof and seal pups should ideally not be anywhere close to the water edge - at some rookeries the seal pups may be close to the sea, but we are using an approach, which prevents getting them closer to the edge or us coming between them and their mum or disturbing their feeding and resting).
Your photography guide supports wildlife conservation and raises awareness for the issues, different species have in their natural habitat; including mammal species here in the UK.
Do I get a discount as a Gold Card holder at Colchester Zoo?
As the share of the fee, we give to Colchester Zoo goes 100% as a donation to Action For The Wild (wildlife conservation projects), we are unfortunately not able to provide any discounts to Gold Pass holders. Hope you will understand and support our commitment to wildlife conservation.
How and where do I book my space(s) on one of the photography experiences?
You can book any of our Photography Workshops and Photo Days by completing the booking form at the bottom of either the relevant photography experience type pages or the relevant venue pages; and this can be done at any time via our website (apologies, but as I have no standard office hours, the web page is the only way to book the photography experiences).
Once you have submitted the completed booking form and paid either the full fee for the event or at least a deposit, you will receive an e-mail that confirms your booking or respectively reservation. Please note that this is not an automated response, and there may be a delay before you get the e-mail! (although Big Cat & Nature Photography is working in co-operation with e.g. zoos and wildlife parks, the entire booking administration, the provision of photography experiences as well as of talks is done by only one person – please bear with me).
If you buy a gift voucher, you may receive an initial e-mail, acknowledging the receipt of your booking/payment. This depends on timing and whether it may be better timewise to focus on preparing and posting the gift voucher immediately. In both cases, you will receive an e-mail confirming your booking and payment plus providing you with the posting details and when the gift voucher should be with you.
If you book for yourself or for someone else without requesting a gift voucher, you will receive a formal confirmation e-mail including details on where to meet, the provisional programme for the day and directions to the appropriate venue.
How can I pay for photography experiences?
Once you have completed the booking form, you can proceed directly to pay for the photography workshop / photo day either in full or just the deposit (the full fee is only required when paying 4 weeks or less prior to the photography experience day or when buying a gift voucher). Please submit the booking form without payment if the photography workshop / photo day, you selected, is marked as fully booked, or as having only 1 or 2 spaces left (in those case we will contact you to discuss availability and possible options).
You can make the payment directly by clicking on the Payment Link in the booking request confirmation (displayed in a green message box after you submitted the booking form), or by accessing the Payment Link from here later. Please ensure that you have completed a booking form before you pay!.