Well I finally got a tripod and took it to the zoo for a test run. I figured it'd take multiple trips before I even saw the clouded leopard again, much less saw it in a stable position where I could use the tripod to take a long exposure shot of it. It's in a very dark enclosure and I think it pretty much has to be perfectly still so I can use an exposure of several seconds. But luckily for me felines do have a tendency to rest for long periods of time, and I caught it resting. Not on a photogenic part of the enclosure, there is a fake log that would have made for a better setting.. but I don't care, I finally got it! I'm actually thrilled that the autofocus was even able to get a lock. That was quite a dark scene. It was a 2 second exposure at F4, ISO 800, 200mm. One interesting problem is that the shutter noise seemed to make its ears twitch. I have a lot of shots with blurred ears. I saw the same effect when taking pictures of my cat. I'll throw in some other tripod animal shots as well. The thing with the big ears is a Bat Eared Fox, as you can see it was excitement central for them that day. 1/10 second, ISO 800, F4, 200mm. As for the meerkat, yeah, I know the chain link background doesn't look nice, but this was really about testing the tripod and seeing how slow I can go with animals. 1/15 second, F4.5, ISO 800, 176mm. I might have shot this without locking the tripod head, I was experimenting to see how slowly I could go with hand aiming. I really have little tripod experience and wanted to know what could be done, I didn't really have any guidelines to work from. The thing I find interesting about meerkats is that even in captivity when they clearly have no threats from predators they still maintain a sentry on guard while the others eat. That's what this individual was doing. I was actually thanked for using a tripod instead of a flash by a zoo volunteer who was working near the meerkats. I mean the area is clearly marked "no flash photography" but.. well, you know how often people pay attention to that. I have reasonable hopes that there may be baby snow leopards in my future. All I know is that they keep their snow leopards in what appear to be two breeding pair groups. I was told that there had been breeding activity over the winter.. and now at least one, possibly two (one from each pair) are missing. They tend to move the animals to private locations for birthing and the early stages of caring for the young, and sometimes they don't mention it for a while, I suspect so that if something goes wrong and the babies die they don't have to mention that as well. A year or two ago I heard that one of the snow leopards had given birth but I never saw or heard anything more about the babies.. I fear that means they didn't survive. They already have a pair of tiger cubs, and BOY are they adorable. Unfortunately for me they're still in the private maternity den area for the moment. If I can manage it I'll be there for the day they're revealed to the public though. [This attachment has been purged. Older attachments are purged from time to time to conserve disk space. Please feel free to repost your image.]
