Wildlife Heritage Foundation

Let's start with probably my best shot of the day, got a very lucky shot of a Mountain Lion/Cougar/Puma taking a jump across a pool in order to get to some meat. I have no idea how the head managed to be in focus... this I attribute to photographer's luck.

Anyways, back to the story. This photo was taken at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent. This place serves as a conservation area for endangered large cat species. It is not a public facility, and entry is usually only by joining a photography tour as mine (I went along with Photographers On Safari)

Getting to the location is about an hour on the trains to Headcorn, after which a quick 5 minute transfer on a taxi gets oneself to the location. Bring a good map - as the place can be tough to find if driving!

Main lenses I used were the 300/4 AF-S Nikkor and the 70-200VR Nikkor. Both were at times attached to the TC14EII teleconverter. The 300/4 + TC served very well for head shots, giving me a 420mm /5.6 with little loss in resolution, so long as I can get a decent shutter speed.

What I'd experimented with today was attaching a 1/4 CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gel to my SB600. I was hoping to warm up the cooler shadows, and in this it did not disappoint. However, the images in good light do actually come in a little too warm. Perhaps I can fix it in Bibble, perhaps not. So far I'm reasonably happy with the results, I'll continue to use it and see how it goes.

After an instructional session on how camera settings and composition, we headed out to the Lion's enclosure to shoot them getting fed.



I may have been a little over-handed with the saturation. Anyways... I was prone on the ground for this shot in order to get to eye level. It was an icky proposition, as just a few minutes ago, we saw a live demonstration of a lion "spraying" one of my fellow attendees.... by turning around, and releasing a high pressure jet of lion waste fluid through the fence. If it were a chimera it'd probably have hit the dude, but it's aim, with no eyes on the back was not very good ;-)



Om nom nom nom.

After devouring the meat, they took up positions on the wooden structure which gave us lovely opportunities for head shots.



And when they got too close to the fence, a chance for a little lion abstract ;-)



Sumatran Tigers were up next, tough critters to shoot as they were pacing around lots. The difficulty was in tracking them through a fence with the fellow paparazzi - little movement room, and the ensure that the lens was sticking through the barely-large-fence-holes.



The 70-200 was indispensable for the "wider" shots. Stopped down one stop, it gives great detail, and the background separation is fantastic.



Not to bore everyone to death with endless tiger headshots, I'll move on to the Cheetahs now. The little fellow was in the shade when we arrive, and I was equipped with the 300/4 and TC14EII from the previous tiger session. The Cheetah itself was a little too close (The nose basically was able to fill about half the frame... er...) so I turned to taking some abstract cheetah dots :)



The keeper was trying her best to lay the meat so that the cheetah would move on to the area with lots of high grass, however the cheetah was being a cat, and refused to do anything with it.



As always, the 300/4 + TC14EII combo comes through. So long as there is good light, and there was good light today :)

Moving on, we went to visit the Amur Leopards.



The female was tending to two cubs, and it is understandable if she was pissy when a hoard of paparazzi shows up :)



Still, I managed to snatch a nice portrait once she was fed and chummy. The 70-200 here was equipped with the TC14EII (I think....) - my experience today was that it performs _adequately_ at F4 with the TC, but stopping down to 5.6 releases the full fury of the lens :) The beautiful bokeh is not too badly affected.



The male on the other hand was enjoying the shade and did not want to leave the coolness. A few meat goodies enticed it to come play in the sun though :)

It was rather harsh during that particular time of day, but the fill flash manages to control the contrast, though not the deep dark shadows.




The Snow Leopard was up next. It was a challenge to shoot as it was in deep shade, and again being a cat, just didn't want to move. Got a fairly nice portrait shot.




Next to the Snow Leopard enclosure were the Pallas Cats. Once again, difficult light situations were abundant, and for the head shot, the 300/4 performed admirably.



I'd switched to the 70-200 in order to get more "space" around the furball. The 2.8 helped immensely with shutter speeds, but I was wishing I had a D300 and could push the iso higher....



Finally we went over to the Mountain Lion's playpen. Those cats can jump ;-)



Again, no idea how the AF locked on to the head. Is this a sentient af system?

Next up was the servals, but we saw the lions having an afternoon siesta, so we made a detour to shoot the lions prior to catching the servals.







Very tough furballs to catch as they are quite wary of humans.

Pretty awesome day, not sure about the CTO gel used on the lens though, will probably need to re-visit the photos another day when I'm not so worn out.