This is a Featured Image too long delayed in sharing. The view is from the Skyfari Aerial Tram at San Diego Zoo. Building in the foreground is the California Tower, which is located in nearby Balboa Park. The structure was built in 1915.
I really enjoy the zoo, but we haven’t visited since December. The new parking fees, for which members are exempt, created inertia we never overcame. Parking is more complicated now with mixed free and fee, bringing about congestion and confusion.
I should have known. San Diego Zoo names its animals. But I wouldn’t expect identifying tags. As you can see from the Featured Image, this Penguin is Malloy. In a less-than-clear, unpublished photo, one of his companions is Mac. I wonder: Do they all these birds have “M” names, or is it a coincidence?
I used Nikon Zf and NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR lens for this one, which is close-cropped. Vitals: f/6.3, ISO 110, 1/500 sec, 200mm; 10:20 a.m. PDT. I chose the Zf for many reasons, and effective resolution is one of them: 24.5 megapixels, which is the sweet spot, in my humble opinion. File sizes aren’t overly large and burdensome, while the sharp 6048 x 4032 photos can be cropped to effectively enlarge the subject.
My wife and I don’t go to San Diego Zoo as much as we should. Our current membership expires in April, and I can’t guarantee that we would renew. Perhaps more negligent, I have a trove of unpublished photos from numerous visits that really should be shared with you.
Let’s start with one, and surely no additional identification is necessary, eh? I used Nikon Zf and NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR lens to capture the Featured Image on Sept. 27, 2025. Vitals: f/6.3, ISO 400, 1/320 sec, 200mm; 3:51 p.m. PDT. Composed as shot.
Two weeks to Christmas, time comes to start spreading holiday cheer—decorations, too—and pledge to keep the spirit alive all through the upcoming year. My wife and I dispatched holiday cards today, for the first time in a couple of ages (yeah, too long a time). A final batch goes in the mail tomorrow—followed by, during the coming days, distribution to local friends and neighbors.
The candy canes come courtesy of San Diego Zoo, where we saw them on Nov. 10, 2025. Yeah, Christmas starts early there but means less this year because of the big bah, humbug coming on January 5. Parking will no longer be free for everyone at the zoo, nor in adjoining Balboa Park.
I am way behind posting and make an executive decision: To share a few photos from our second trip—today—since rejoining San Diego Zoo as annual local members (first visit pics are forthcoming). My wife and I parked around 50 minutes after opening, and already the place was packed with families; by the accents, many were adult tourists and their kids.
Annie loves the red pandas (see second shot); a male lives in the main zoo and the female in the children’s area. On the way to the male, we passed the Giant Panda enclosure, where one could be seen sleeping. You tell me: Is that Yun Chuan or Xin Bao?
When my wife and I entered San Diego Zoo on April 4, 2025—the first time since summer 2000—a staffer approached and offered to suggest a destination. The Australian recommended the Koalas, which were being fed at that moment. So off went Annie and I, as you can see from the Featured Image and companion.
The eucalyptus addicts were indeed chowing down, but they kept (purposefully?) behind poles or trees, making getting good shots to be difficult. I would have walked out with nothing, if not for Nikon Zf and attached NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR lens.
This afternoon, my wife and I stood in line to collect new San Diego Zoo passes; I restarted our resident annual membership, yesterday. Nearly five years have passed since our list visit—July 2020. We stopped because of price increases.
We paid $112 for our annual passes during 2018—for two people. For 2025: $111.60 each, so essentially double the cost seven years ago, with the same basic benefits—such as no blackout dates. However, we benefitted by receiving discounts for being 65 or older and being returning members. Otherwise, the annual pass would have been $134 each.
During the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns, my wife and I let expire our membership to San Diego Zoo. Reason: Hefty price increases.
For example, we paid $112 annually for a residential 2-adult pass six years ago, with no blackout dates. I grumbled when the price jumped to $149. In 2024, one-forty-nine is the cost for one adult membership, with blackout dates. Meaning: Twice as much, with restrictions, compared to five years ago. Ah, yeah.
Before SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19 lockdowns temporarily closed San Diego Zoo and precipitated price increases, my wife and I frequently walked about there. Those days are gone.
But remembering is good. On Aug. 15, 2019, when I captured the Featured Image, the economy was robust, inflation nominal, interest rates low, and Donald Trump the unbeatable candidate for the 2020 Presidential Election. Wow, three years ago feels like decades passed—measured by how much is upended. Global recession advances. Inflation roars. Interest rates rise. And the gaffe-prone Joe Biden is president (and the nation’s, ah, senile grandpa). Oh, yeah, who could forget the Russian-Ukraine war, U.S.-China tensions about Taiwan, or famine affecting millions of people.
When my wife and I last visited San Diego Zoo, on July 21, 2020, we debated about whether or not to renew our residential membership before it expired. With much of California locked down in response to SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)/COVID-19—and closures returning—we decided to wait. Had we anticipated a forthcoming price increase, maybe our decision would have been different.
Our 2-adult annual pass during 2018 was $112, if I rightly recall, and either $129 or $149 when renewed. We could have re-upped for $160, with an offer that expired 10 days after our last walkabout among the critters. Since then, the animal refuge switched to individual-only pricing. For comparable benefits as before, which include no blackout dates, our combined renewal rate would be $218, which by my math is a 36-percent increase over our last renewal offer and 95-percent more than our 12-month pass purchased three years ago.
My wife and I walk around our neighborhood and go to the grocery store but not much elsewhere. That’s the state of our lives, and that of many other Californians, since Governor Gavin Newsom essentially closed down the state on March 19, 2020. Subsequently, “shelter-in-place” and social distancing orders worked, or seemed to, and spread of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)—also known as COVID-19—subsided. In June, California started to earnestly reopen, with restrictions placed to prevent resurgence.
But the pandemic savagely surged, shifting from older citizens to younger ones: People under the age of 40 account for about half of all new confirmed cases. One week ago, Newsom ordered partial reclosing, while Los Angeles and San Diego school districts jointly announced that kids would not return to classes as planned; for the foreseeable future, they will be instructed over the Internet.
Yesterday, my wife suggested a walk around San Diego Zoo, which wasn’t nearly as bustling as I would expect it to be on a summer-like-weather Friday afternoon. The place was by no means desolate of people, just not overly crowded. I wonder if increasing paranoia about Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is one reason. People infected or showing symptoms are being treated or quarantined at UCSD Medical Center, which is just 3.7-km drive (2.3 miles) from the zoo. My apartment is even closer: 2 km (1.3 miles) as the crow flies and 3 km (1.9 miles) by road. If—gulp, when—the virus spreads locally, my family will be at the epicenter.
But back to the lovely afternoon spent with the animals—calm before SHTF, as the country’s self-described Preppers call it—I brought along Leica Q2, with the Film Style set to Monochrome. The result wasn’t as anticipated. Importing into Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic, after returning home, the RAWs came in as color. I wrongly assumed that the setting would apply to the native files. Nope, only to the JPEGs.