Just to get this out of the way: This is not a rare wildlife shot for which I had to slip into a neoprene suit and brave the elements. It is a shot of a captive animal which I got with relative ease investing, say, ten minutes by the side of its habitat at Dresden Zoo, Germany. It was taken hand-held with a slow screwdrive-AF consumer telezoom that is not known for stellar subject tracking. And yet everything aligned here (no need to crop even), not least because I made sure to have a fast shutter speed and help the AF-C a little by pre-focusing and carefully selecting my AF point.

The rest was luck for the most part, I guess. But who cares when you get that close to the subjective essence of such a remarkable creature? It may not be a perfect image, but it is one of the cherished few I took in 2016 of which I would say that I captured a real moment.

Hope you guys enjoy.

[FozzFoster]

Just to get this out of the way: This is not a rare wildlife shot for which I had to slip into a neoprene suit and brave the elements. It is a shot of a captive animal which I got with relative ease investing, say, ten minutes by the side of its habitat at Dresden Zoo, Germany. It was taken hand-held with a slow screwdrive-AF consumer telezoom that is not known for stellar subject tracking. And yet everything aligned here (no need to crop even), not least because I made sure to have a fast shutter speed and help the AF-C a little by pre-focusing and carefully selecting my AF point.

The rest was luck for the most part, I guess. But who cares when you get that close to the subjective essence of such a remarkable creature? It may not be a perfect image, but it is one of the cherished few I took in 2016 of which I would say that I captured a real moment.

Hope you guys enjoy.

really nice shot! love the action and the bit of bokeh! really good one