Zoo Taiping Escapade

Last week, I went to Zoo Taiping. This is the first visit since moving here and it is the first visit after almost 10 years I went there. It's located near to Taiping Lake Garden, and situated in front of Sek Men Sains Raja Tun Azlan Shah (SERATAS). It took me around 15 minutes, regardless of traffic jam etc to get there from my home.

I thought the admission fee is RM12, from what I read online before getting there. But, for those who are born or living in Larut, Matang dan Selama (LMS), they give discount. So, I just paid only RM8. For your information, Zoo Taiping also has Night Safari (the one and only in Malaysian Zoo I suppose). The admission fee for it is RM16.

It's a vast area of land, filled with man made ponds, rivers (and cages).There are train-cars inside the zoo, so that the visitors can enjoy the scenery without being too much tired walking around the zoo. But I chose to walk, so that I can take better pictures.

During this trip I'm using Nikon D700. And I'm using my telephoto lens, Tamron SP AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD (IF) Macro. Since I just want to capture the animals in great sense of depth of field, I used the maximum aperture, f/2.8 in A mode and also set the lowest ISO possible, that is 100. Both camera and lens = more than 2kg. Plus I didn't bring my monopod (left it in New Zealand), so it's kinda heavy for me. Luckily, my D700 has Mirror Up (MuP) mode that successfully reduced the possibility of blurry pictures. For metering and white balance at the beginning, I used matrix metering, but since it resulted in over-exposed images and unusual tone (looks like too cold), I changed to center-weighted metering and daylight white balance.

I made two rounds of walking, in three hours. And, this is what I got. So, please...enjoy :D

Buaya Tembaga. So many of em there, basking under the sun.

Zebra. Or Kuda Belang. Share the same place with giraffe and ostrich.

Bearded pig. Babi Bodoh in Malay. Looks friendly compared to...

It's cousin. Babi Hutan or Hogs.

Seladang. It reminds me of a Biology book's page that I read long time ago, about it's mating with cow that produces, "Selembu".

Beaver. Or memerang. It took me few shots since it's moving fast within seconds into and out of the water in front of it.

Kembara di Tanah Gersang. Realm of Deer.

That's the end of first round. I went to the surau inside the zoo for solat Zohor, and then get something to eat. I noticed that, there's a group of monkey that freely going around the zoo, climb over the dustbins and scattered the thrash to find some foods. It's quite messy indeed. Plus, they stole visitors' drink bottles and bags. I didn't take pictures of em' since they're no friendly folks.

Now, there goes the second round;

Hippo. During their lunch time. Only two hippos there.

A peacock. I had to clap my hands many times to get it's attention to the camera.

For others, this time might be the lunch time. But for these porcupines, this is their power nap time. Sunnah tido pas Zohor. Hahaha.

And also for this lioness.

A black panther. Rimo Kumbang.

I dunno, but my lens couldn't get close enough to the tiger. This is the weakness of full frame camera like D700.

I dunno this bird's name but too many of em at the lake side.

Honey bear. I guess she's trying to find the way out eversince.

The rear one looks happy when I directed my huge lens towards them.

Beaver. Again. This one looks cute :D

An infant kangaroo. There's a guy on the right side of the fence when I took this picture, feeding her with leaves and grass just to take her picture.

Symbol of Kelantan. Kijang.

One of the visitors, capturing picture of a giraffe.

But I managed to get closer!

Elephant. Many of this folks in my village.

On the way out, there's a playground for parrots. And I managed to snap this one!

It was an enjoyable moments that I had. I'm planning to come again in the future, maybe for Night Safari.

If you guys want to see more pictures, please go to my flickr set, HERE.

Enjoy :D