These pictures were taken when I visited the Melbourne Zoo in August. It's a huge place, and it took us several hours to get through the entire thing. Zoos are great places to take pictures of animals, particularly those which might not be from your own neck of the woods.
Sadly, in my opinion, cages or bars often ruin a great picture. For example, the picture of the lion was taken through wire, but it looks (to me) a little soft or blurry in places from said wire. It's not as bad as having to take the picture where the wire is directly in front of the animal or bird and you can tell that it is in a cage. Thankfully, the picute of the emu had the wire fence in back of the bird. I would prefer the picture to not have had the fence in it, but the emu was standing directly in front of it so it was hard not to get the wires in the frame.
The last shot is of a red panda. It was in the feeding box and poked its head out. I like how you can see the "food dust" on the whiskers. I had cropped this on the computer so that most of the food box wasn't showing, however, for some reason it couldn't save the change.
I like these photos, but I am aware they could probably be adjusted in some way or another, or even have tried different perspectives or whatnot. This is all part of the learning process for me.
Again, I don't have the camera specs, other than to say I used my Pentax K200 camera with my Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens (which also has macro capabilities at 300mm). I love using this lens, but I need to get a stable tripod so I can use it better, especially for macro shots!
I'd love to hear your comments, helpful advice, etc. Remember, I'm not looking for criticism, unless it's constructive, and nice/helpful. I want to learn, not be turned off the hobby by rudeness.
Also, what do you find, if anything, challenging about zoo photography? What is the best zoo shot you've taken?
