A Trip To The Zoo

This past weekend I went to the local zoo with my daughter and grand-children. The kids love going to the zoo and I do too, so sharing the experience is always great fun. I am basically a  landscape photographer but animals interest me --- two legged and four legged. I was amazed at the number of people; mostly young, who were carrying expensive cameras and lenses over their shoulders. I was also astounded by the photographers who were shooting with smart-phones. I sometimes think that I'm out of touch with today's world because I still believe the picture is more important than the equipment used. In other words; if you can take a "once in a lifetime picture" with an I-phone, you deserve the same accolades as the person getting the shot with  the weighty, high priced, professional gear. The smart phone bearer also has a better chance at a grab shot because the camera is always with them.

This whole idea of smart phones, professional cameras, point and shoot cameras, etc., got me to thinking about my many years in photography and how sometimes less is better. I often look at work I did decades ago with only a simple, inexpensive camera and one lens and the pictures still satisfy me and please others as well. The freedom of not having to haul a ton of equipment into the field or the decision of which lens to use for the moment gave me freedom and spontaneity. I do have to admit though that zoom lenses weren't around many years ago and one had to embrace a fixed focus lens; which if you were a landscape photographer meant wide-angle. This was also very limiting because a wide-angle lens is absolutely worthless for portraiture or macro photography.

Anyway; enough said about photo gear. The pictures that I am putting on this blog are from my recent walk around our Detroit Zoological Park. I used a Nikor 70-300 mm film lens on a Nikon digital body which turns the lens into a 140-450mm. I hope you enjoy my pictures and will share a comment.