Cheetah

 



  Six of a kind
  by
  Wayne Holt



 



  Cheetah BW
  by
  Wayne Holt

Packing for Wildlife Photography Part 1

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 Often one of the most difficult decisions a wildlife photography has to make is what kit to take with on Safari. This is my attempt at trying to help anyone who is planning on coming to Africa or any other wildlife destination, pack their photography kit. The first and most important consideration is the location you will be visiting. Do some some serious homework before you leave, many places are not as remote as you may assume, so you don't have to pack the kitchen sink. That said there is also nothing worse then leaving an essential piece of equipment at home. Most, if not nearly all, Safari destinations will have electricity but double check. Always have at least two charged batteries with you at all times(One in the camera and one spare). If you have more batteries, bring them, they are small and fit into luggage without any issues. I will now go through my kit pictured above and explain why it is in my bag. 

Lenses 

The first bit of equipment I go through is my lenses. Generally for wildlife you will want to be out early in the morning or late in the afternoon, this means you will often be shooting in great and low lighting conditions. So the first two lens I pack are my 300mm F2.8 and my 70-200mm F2.8, these are also extremely handy on night drives where ideally you would want to avoid having to resort to the artificial light of a flash. The maximum aperture of F2.8 gives you great light gathering ability in these tricky conditions and generally a distance the DOF is not an issue. I also pack a 2X Teleconverter and use it with the 300mm F2.8, on high end quality lenses if you use a matched teleconverter you will get a 600 mm f5.6 will practicaly zero image quality loss. The second lens I pack if I have space is my 70-400mm F4-5.6 SSM G, this is a superb lens with great flexibility. I will usually mount this onto my second camera body, this just means that I am not constantly changing lenses in what is normally a pretty dusty environment.

 Then space dependent I will pack a walk around lens in this case a 16-80mm F3-4.5, this is for wide angle and general around the camp people, family, friends pics. Also if I am in the mood and have the time I use this lens for star trails at night. I will also if possible pack a macro 50mm F2.8 for insects etc. and an ultra wide lens 10-20mm for Landscapes. 

Camera Bodies 

 If you have the luxury of more than one camera body pack them in, if you can borrow a second body do so and if you are really paranoid rent one. Not just for in case something goes wrong with your first camera body but because trying to changes lenses when a Lion is walking past is not all that practical and it very unlikely that he will walk past again. If you have a full frame body smile because this will give you better low light performance. If you have an APS-C body smile because this will give you extra reach.

in Part 2 we will look at camera bags and accessories

The law of the bush

I was out on a game drive when we came across the following scene. The sequence of images to the left show a typically scenario in the bush.The first tel tale sign was a number of vultures in the trees. It was a rather wet day and overcast which typically means two things with vultures in trees. 

Either they were just nesting or there was a fresh kill that they were waiting to take their turn on. Most of the vultures were White Backed vultures, who nest in tree ( not good)  but there were a couple of Lappet-Faced vultures mixed in with the White backs which helped in  leaning the argument in favour of the latter scenario. Our misery was ended when while circling the area a Hyena made his appearance and ended our search for a carcass as with his superior sense of smell he simply led us straight to the wildebeest kill, The hyena was very nervous and constantly checked the surrounding bush giving a clue to the fact that the lioness had probably not gone far and was still in the vicinity. Showing the shrewd tact hyenas are know for the male dragged the carcass out into the open which was a major bonus for us. 

Time was not on his side though as after wolfing down a couple of chunks of meat the lioness made her return. I was quite surprised how see focused she was on the Hyena and locked onto the Hyena as if she was hunting. I would have thought that she would have simply roared or made a noise to scare off the hyena. 





 Fortunately it did not take long until the Hyena spotted the approaching Lioness and bolted like an Olympic sprinter.

The Lioness feeling I assume a little uneasy about the presence of the Hyena showed immense strength and simple disappeared with the carcass into the tickets. Ending our mornings excitement.

Boomslang

Boomslang, originally uploaded by holtphoto.

We came across this boomslang just outside of camp. He had been trying to get to a Lilac Breasted Roller atop of the telephone pole and got caught in a wire loop on the pole. The poor guy had been there for a couple of days. You can actually see in the image where his body was caught in the wire loop on the pole. Protocol requires that the section ranger in the Kruger National Park be notified of any animals in distress and any actions needs to be taken by the section ranger. I have to admit that it seems a bit daft and is certainly not the most effective means of management as two days after the snake was reported to the section ranger nobody for SANparks had arrived to assist. You can see in the image that there is a drop of blood on the bottom of the snake. Thankfully the weather was cool and overcast with some rain which would have helped the snake. I am happy to report that eventually staff took matters into their own hands and freed the snake. Snakes have pretty remarkable powers of recovery so I am sure that this guy made a full recovery