great pic, now let's hear the details

Amazing. Thanks for sharing!

Sorry to disappoint everyone but it was taken at the Vancouver Zoo.:mrgreen:
So no need to run away.:lol: I have taken lots of bear shots when hiking, but cougars are very elusive and are usually starving when seen in the wild.
The shot was taken with my 75-300 DO lens that is why you can't see the fence. I just really like this picture as he was stretching in the sunlight at the time.

Great shot! I would have made up some near death experience to go with it tho', just to add excitement to the cool picture.LOL
Jim

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Just wondering if I could get permission to try and paint the cougar. Not a profesional at all just a amature. Great shot. Nice lighting

Sure go ahead paint away.

Great lighting, subject and composition but poorly executed. The shutter speed was too slow for the amount of zoom resulting in fairly obvious motion blur. If this shot was taken in the wild it would be excusable since any amateur photographer would be shaking in fear and the story would compensate for the blur. However since it was at the zoo you could have quickly adjusted the settings or used some kind of brace. I only bring this up because IMO it's clearly not your best work and judging by your equipment and other photos you can do better. Plus this is the photography forum :wink:

thanks
 

Thanks Marlain65 I will see when I get time.

Thanks for the feed back.
Dont forget though that the motion blur you are referring to is the fence as it was shot free hand on a spur of the moment threw the fence. He was walking around and only posed for this shot for a few seconds. If I had come there just to shoot I would have brought my tripod and set up to take the best shot possible, but for a hand held shot at a shitty angle on a spur of the moment I think it came out fairly well. I will try the faster shutter speed next time though.

Just remember to use at least double the inverse zoom for your shutter speed, it should be automatically built into your brain so as you zoom in you're increasing your shutter speed accordingly at the same time. You can set your ISO to auto (within a preset range) or adjust it manually for the lighting.

Also keep in mind that 300mm is huge for hand-held, and without a lot of light it'll be difficult to take a fast enough shot. At 200mm the composition would have been equally good and the speed would have been much more manageable.