Back to the Zoo 17

Another kingfisher-type bird...



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/30 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 16

Captured this bird from the front during an earlier trip to the zoo...



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/40 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 15

This and the next three pictures will be of birds at the Houston Zoo. The ISO was brought up to 800 for all of them, even for this outdoor shot due to the shadows.



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/40 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 14

This one's fairly cropped in...



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/125 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 13

Welcome to the world, Little Buddy!



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-200, f/10, 1/250 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 12

If you're from Houston you probably read or saw a report recently on the new baby giraffe, born just a couple of weeks before this picture was taken. Here you can see the umbilical cord still attached.

Mom is a tad out of focus, as this was zoomed in all the way...



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-200, f/10, 1/400 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 11

This guy is cropped way in, eliminating about 2/3 of the picture from around this scene. Great justification again for choosing the D300 over the D700...



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/125 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 10

This was taken through a chain-link fence...blurred out almost completely as focus was placed on the cat.



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-200, f/9, 1/200 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 09

This, I believe, is a green mamba. The focus on nature or animal photography (and probably people too), should be on the eyes. For these snake shots that wasn't too much of a problem, as they are fairly slow moving...if moving at all. However, to increase or enhance the appearance of good, solid eye focus, further steps were taken: 1) select just the eye(s); 2) feather the selection by 4 or 5 pixels; then 3) then use the unsharp mask tool, 4 px at 50%. Even if it's already pretty good, this makes the eye appear to be in even sharper focus.

Also, for this shot a broken stick in the background was cloned out as well as some color and level correction...



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/60 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood

Back to the Zoo 08

One thing that surprised me about the lens chosen with the Big Cahoona was its ability to focus on objects that are only a few feet away, even at full zoom. This provides a pretty good macro effect, as can be seen here...the camera was less than three feet away from the subject, yet zoomed in all the way at 200mm.



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Nikon D300s, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
ISO-800, f/5.6, 1/20 sec
Photo taken 03/20/11 by Jim Mahood