Last month I posted a photograph from a visit to Singapore a year earlier, and commented then about how shopping was the predominant way of passing time there during the day. On our last day in the city, which was also the last day of our holiday, after visiting yet another shopping centre we decided to take a taxi out to the outskirts of the city to spend the afternoon in Singapore Zoo.
The zoo is renowned for its use of ‘open’ exhibits, using natural barriers such as moats and bushes, where possible, instead of cages and fences to keep animals separated from each other and the general public. By all accounts the best time to visit is at night when the zoo runs a night safari, but by the time that started we were going to be on our flight home, so had to make do with an afternoon visit instead.
It can get quite overcast in Singapore due to its near equatorial position and the associated high humidity, which ,every now and then, results in a very sudden and heavy downpour of rain. Ultimately such a downpour was to cut our visit short, but not before I got some photographs of the animals.
As usual, the penguins were a favourite, and after paying them a visit we came to a gathering of white tigers, which lounged lazily on rocks, watching us watching them. They are really lovely animals and you’d easily forget that they’d probably eat you given half the chance. In fact about 4 months later one of these mauled a cleaner at the zoo to death after he jumped into the moat.
They were looking more placid on the day I photographed them, and all I had to worry about while doing so was keeping the camera steady enough to get a sharp shot. They were some distance away, so I was using a 150mm lens (the longest I had with me) and that required me to have a steady hand, and use as short a shutter speed as possible. I helped steady my hand by resting my elbows on the edge of the enclosure, and I used an increased ISO and an f/2.8 aperture to maximise the amount of light absorbed by the sensor and so minimize the required shutter speed. Finally I shot in burst mode in the hope that at least one of the burst of images would be sharp. The image you see here was about the sharpest.
I possibly focused on the wrong tiger – while the guy in the foreground (and at the point of focus) is not doing a whole lot, his buddy behind him is being a little more interesting. However had I been focused on him, the movement of his head would likely have scuppered my plans for a sharp shot at the shutter speed I was working with.
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