Taipei Zoo - Tiger

Now on to some animals at the zoo.  As noted before, the habitats at the Taipei Zoo are awesome, mostly free of gates, fences and wires.  This majestic beast was creeping slowly down a path when I was able to catch his eye in between the leaves of a bamboo stalk, thanks to the awesome pin-point capabilities of the Big Cahoona.  The focus still wasn't quite perfect, so had to apply the unsharp mask twice to make the eye crystal clear.  This was the shot that convinced me that focus fine-tuning may be necessary for my "walkabout" lens.  That conclusion in turn led me to believe that the new D500 would be ideal, as fine-tune focusing is an automatic feature in that body.  However, the lack of pop-up flash is a deal-killer for me.

The second exposure was captured after he'd settled into the classic pose of the big cats.  In my opinion these two shots made the whole trip worth that morning's excursion, and I ended up making a 16x20 gatorboard-backed print of each to give my brother for Christmas.