A Morning at the Zoo

 I was one of the first visitors through the gate of the Rio Grande Zoo on Friday morning.  I was alone for much of the hour circuit of the exhibits.  As it turned out, there were also few animals to be seen as most had yet to be let into their outdoor spaces.  I decided to head back toward the exit by way of the Africa section and found to my delight that the hippos and their month-old baby were in the pond.

I think it has been determined that the baby is a female.  I believe that she weighed about fifty pounds at birth.  She is playful and active and seems completely comfortable in her aquatic environment.  While I watched, the mother several times swam under the bridge over the pond, and there was a good deal of thrashing and bellowing underneath as she was apparently letting the big male know that he was expected to remain in the small section of the pond well away from the little one.

The cheetah's enclosure is near the hippos and they were also active, possibly inspired by the cool morning air.

I gave the expired Fuji 400 an extra stop of exposure and some extra time in the Cinestill C-41 to compensate for the film's age and the fact that this was the 13th roll through this processing kit.  The aperture-priority automation of the Pentax ME makes it a very pleasant camera to shoot; all these shots were made with the SMC Pentax-A f/2.8 135mm lens.

The camera's well-placed controls, bayonet lens mount and compactness makes it a quick shooter.  To appreciate the small size of this advanced slr it is worthwhile to compare it to my Leica IIIa; the body dimensions are nearly equal.  Of course, that is a tribute to the pioneering Barnack design,  as well as to the Japanese innovators who brought the 35mm format into the latter half of the Twentieth Century.