The Christmas holidays was a good excuse for going to the zoo. Well, any excuse would have done, because I always enjoy looking for funny snouts there. I decided to take this opportunity to practise shooting with the Leica Tele-Elmarit 90mm lens. I haven’t used it very often yet, and I still find it quite difficult to ‘see’ like a 90 mm.

Next to the different focal length the Tele-Elmarit also has a very different kind of rendering of the images. The photo of the polar bear below is a good demonstration of it. There is less micro-contrast then what I’m used to with the Summicron. I have to say that I forgot to bring the lens hood, so a bit of flare is not entirely out of the question. With the lack of contrast and the muted colors, at first I wasn’t sure I liked it. But after some time studying the photo I’m growing more fond of it. There still is plenty of detail, I just have to work a bit harder at post-processing.

The good thing with this lens is that it is very small for a 90mm lens. And as I still have a lot of training to do before I have a good set of biceps and triceps, weight does matter. The photo below of the vulture shows similar rendering. Again, for me it took some getting used to, but now I appreciate it more as just a different (more vintage?) look. And it is nice to be able to have different choices, isn’t it?

Now for a bit of fun, don’t these two birds look very grumpy? I guess they didn’t like the cold or something… 🙂 .

I tried the lens inside as well. The jellyfish are always very photogenic. Off course it is quite a challenge, with the lack of light. But with iso 3200 I managed to get some decent shots. They’re not as sharp as it could have been, with 1/60 seconds exposure there will probably be some motion blur. But I still like the shapes.

My favourite photo from this day at the zoo is the one with the little monkey (photo on top). I cannot remember how I took it, because it looks sharper than it should be for a handheld shot at 1/15 seconds. Maybe I used the bar as a rest-stand for my elbows? Can’t remember, but I like the result. You do see grain when you zoom in, but that’s due to the high iso (it was quite dark inside). Speaking of the colors with the Tele-Elmarit, this one is also more muted than what I get from a Summicron, but in this photo I like it a lot. 

And just because monkeys are so much fun, let’s finish with one or two (count the tails 😉 ) more…