Photography at the zoo is not considered wildlife photography.

I'm not much of a wildlife photographer. The longest lens I own is 200mm f2.0 and with that still, I would need to be within a few feet of any wild animals. I could get that new 2x teleconverter from nikon, extending my lens to 400mm, maybe then I will have enough reach.

I enjoy taking my kids to the zoo, I also enjoy photographing the animals there. I don't however, consider that to be wildlife photography. It's not even close, people who try to pass their zoo pics off as wildlife are only cheating themselves out of a very real life experience. Viewing images on flickr, from other photogs, it's easy to differentiate shots taken at the zoo from those taken by real photographers who risk their neck in the wild to shoot bears in a salmon stream.

Wildlife photography is one field where I wish I could experience more of. It's extremely expensive as well as time consuming. It's plenty expensive however, I feel I'm almost there with my current gear. A D3X with 200mm plus 2.0x teleconverter could do the job. Even that setup is no easy task to acquire for most people. My problem has been time and locale. I live in brooklyn and commute to manhattan to work. Little to no wildlife close by except for the zoo and aquarium. Again, those do not count. Shooting pics of your Husky doesn't count either.

I would have to travel out to the country and far away from the city, which to me, is a problem as anyone with a family will tell you. Unless I take them all with me, but then I likely won't have a chance to shoot if I'm watching kids at the same time. Maybe when they are old enough to shoot on their own, that could be fun, but not when they are an infant and two years old. There will be plenty of Zoo trips for a while for us.

Some will argue that new york city is full of wild life, just not the sort I'm interested in. Being a lifer here in NY, things are starting to look a little bland as well as boring for me.