Camera gets a workout

A while back, I was speculating about getting a new camera. I finally gave up using the S30 with the broken screen and decided to act. Although I showed some recent system-administration-confererence-action shots, indoor snapshots are never as much fun.

So when we decided to go see the visiting reindeers—from central Oregon apparently—at the San Francisco Zoo, the camera went along for the ride. One of the guests of honour:

Note the ground-scraping horn extending well over the left brow.

Nathaniel thought the reindeer were cool and kept trying to pass through the outer fence to get a closer look:

Next up was seeing the bears, but the playground is a mandatory stop on this route:

Since our trip to San Diego, Ben has been very interested in the state of the Alaskan Brown Bear at that zoo. If the bear’s blogging I don’t know about it, but I was able to convince Ben that seeing the young grizzlies get larger was just as interesting—and they are getting bigger:

Down the way, at the spectacled bear grotto, I noticed some writing on a railing:

The bear dens were built by the WPA, so this railing’s Bethlehem Steel parentage is not surprising. (Apparently, these grottos and the other WPA-built exhibits are some of the earliest “barless” zoo exhibits in the world. I’ve noticed that children’s books often render cagebar zoo displays, even when written many years after such displays were common.)

On the way out, we noticed the otters were enjoying a light lunch:

One tip with electronic viewfinder cameras: turn off the review period to make the camera feel faster. (It is often set to about 2 seconds.) For outdoor shots, where the flash isn’t a factor, you’ll be much less likely to miss a good photo.