BIG CATS CRITTERS:

’VE HAD A

Naturalist, broadcaster and author Simon King speaks about his experiences of using ZEISS optics to capture all creatures great and small…

Simon King Lions at Longleat Safari Park Lemurs at Longleat Safari Park & field mouse in Naturewatch

Ibusy couple of years. Besides my ongoing conservation work with our land restoration and education project (www.simonkingwildllife.com), a lot of my efforts have concentrated in the field of wildlife still photography, focussing on two major projects; a book about tracking and watching British wildlife, called Naturewatch and an exhibition of images to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire. The only similarities between the two projects are that both concern animals and DSLR cameras. Otherwise, each required different approaches and both presented a unique set of challenges! For the book, I have travelled the length and breadth of the UK photographing the magnificent wildlife and the clues they leave behind, from footprints to poop, in an attempt to produce the most comprehensive and fully illustrated book on the subject available to date! This task has called upon the full battery of lenses I have at my disposal, including the razor sharp ZEISS 100mm f2 Milvus lens for the majority of animal track and sign images, as well as photographs of reptiles, butterflies, small mammals and the like. By contrast, I approached the challenge of photographing some of Longleat’s iconic animals in the Safari Park with a clear target – to get inside their world! With this in mind I had a special predator-proof door built to fit on the side of my Land Rover. This enabled me to get down to ground level and up close and personal with the more dangerous residents of the park, including the lions and tigers. To enter their world I wanted a low, wide, very close view and so I predominantly used ZEISS wide angle lenses, specifically the astonishingly sharp 15mm f2.8 T* Distagon and the ZEISS 28mm f1.4 Otus. Both of these remarkable precision optics gave me punchy, bright and sharp images with a minimum of edge distortion. Just as well, because for the effect I was looking for, the big cats had to be very, VERY