Posing Tiger

This was taken on Presidents Day. I took the day off from work and went to the Phoenix Zoo with my family. We arrived just after the zoo opened. It was a very overcast day with on and off sprinkling. Luckily it wasn't raining at this point. The zoo is a favorite of our family. Every time we have been, this tiger is always just laying about and never seems to move. Maybe an occasional ear twitch or tail swoosh but rarely ever standing or walking around. Even on this day the tiger was lying around. Suddenly she stood up and then jumped up on to this bolder and just stood and stared at me. I was able to snap off a couple really good shots while she stood there. It seems like she was posing specifically for the camera. This was a real treat! Oh, the kids liked it too. :)

I used my wife's Nikon D80 with the Nikkor 18-135 zoom at focal length of 135mm. White balance was set to cloudy and was using aperture priority with the aperture wide open, which for this lens is only f5.6 at 135mm. ISO was set at 250.


I really like this shot which i just cropped in on the one above. I think it shows the detail of her face. I think she looks really fierce or angry here, like she just needs a big hug.