Yesterday was about as un-interesting as it gets, photographically speaking. Today would’ve been ever worse, so a visit to the zoo was just the ticket to lift up the weekend. I was hoping to get some pictures of the wolves, it’s almost three years since from my last wolf pictures and that’s just too long for my favourite animals.

Since the snow was looking rather ugly with the recent weather, I figured that I should use the 1.4 teleconverter to be able to isolate the animals from the background. When I was at the wolf enclosure, I discovered quickly that 300mm times crop sensor times TC equals too much reach – I could barely fit the animals in the frame! The first wolf pose is full frame and it’s tight. So I removed the TC and framing was easier, although that 300mm x crop sensor can still be a bit much. Especially when you meet friendly wolverines who’ll happily come right up to you to check if it’s a taste bit of meat or a camera in my hand. Since I had very little margin for composition error, I managed clip off the tips of the tail hairs of the sitting wolverine. I had to do some serious post-editing to add some pixels on the left and then try to fake the tail end. I can see it’s fake, but I’m not sure if it’s so obvious when you don’t know what was done?

At feeding time, the keeper was kind enough to put a piece of meat on a branch of the pine. I just had time to flip the camera vertically but it when it came down to it, I failed with it again – just couldn’t fit the fully stretched wolverine in the frame. This one worked because the tail is hidden, although to be honest the face suffers a little bit of motion blur. But I just can’t delete my only tree climbing wolverine picture!

All in all a nice visit in good company, the pictures aren’t stellar but at least I learned that I do not need to use the teleconverter in Järvzoo!