Marie asked whether we could visit the Opel Zoo – she'd never been there before – and so we did, on a Thursday that we both had off from work! Lots of school and kindergarten groups, but fortunately the place wasn't too busy overall. For me it was a great opportunity to use the Olympus m.Zuiko 100-400mm/5-6.3 lens (which I hadn't had for my last visit in 2020) to get up close and personal with many of the animals. Great fun!

The 100-400mm/5-6.3 isn't the fastest lens in existence and it likes lots of light. Today was mostly cloudy, with a few sunny breaks, so the E-M5 II was using a little more ISO than would have been optimal, but as far as I'm concerned the pictures still look pretty good. The amount of reach this lens gives you is amazing, as is the fact that it is easy to shoot hand-held based on a rock-steady viewfinder image even at an FF-equivalent focal length of 800mm. Sometimes the real problem is that the animals are too close and won't fit the frame.

Click on any picture for an enlarged view.