Pics of South Africa

[BobG3]

Hello everybody!

Just came back from south africa and added some pics to this gallery: http://bob-leeuwenkamp.fotopic.net

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much I enjoyed watching those animals and scenery!

Cheers,
Bob.

[leafpile]

Bob,

VERY NICE!!! Can I come over to your place and look at all your pics and get the story on each photo?

I would REALLY love to go to S.A. once in my lifetime! Do you live near there? Your first trip there?

I really liked all your pics. The ones that stood out were: the zebra, the hippo pics, the antelope (?) suprisingly more hairy than I ever noticed on TV nature shows...., the elephant close-up, and the giraffe drinking. Did you use a zoom lens or were the animals allowing you to approach close?

From the scenery pics, the mountain ridge, the waterfall, and the high view of the beach are nice.

What I REALLY enjoyed was seeing the pics of Aloe plants in their native habitat! I have a small collection of Aloe species and other succulents. There is an annual get together of the S.A. Society of Succulent Plants somewhere that hosts field trips and lectures to see native succulents in their habitat.

One of my dreams come true would be a few weeks in S.A. with a few gigabytes of storage for the pics!
Good job.

[lpapagno]

Beautiful pictures.Many questions to ask.Was this done with G3?How did you get such close ups?Also,kinda of sad to relize many of these animals will be extinct in a very few short years.The hippo pics are amazing and the elephants also.It's good to see those beautiful creatures in the wild where they belong and not behind some cage.

[rtamburo]

Very pretty pictures. Wish I was there..

[BobG3]

Thanks for all of your reactions! I live in Holland and it was my first time in south africa..but after this trip I am hoping to see it again sometimes.. The pictures were taken with my G3 yes..and since I don't have a tele lense yet I had to get close to the animals. With most close ups I used my 4x optical zoom and thats it..we were lucky to get close on most animals. The elephant behind the tree was actually going 2 meters from our own hired vehicle and was slapping his ears..a bit upset so I haven't taken many more pictures of it so I could drive away from it. The other elephant was on a 'game drive' on an open landrover in Hluluwe Reserve..when you don't make a noise it can come really close and it was beautifull to see the two elephants with each other. A friend of mine sat on the right side of the vehicle and the elephant came in a range of a meter distance from him. He helt his breath there for a moment and we all sat quietly.

I can talk for hours about the animals and the scenery it is great to experience nature in this way. We drove from the capital: pretoria to kruger park and than south to durban.,.a domestic flight to port elizabeth and again by car to Cape Town. The bush camp was the highlight of the trip..with no fences the animals came right thru the camp and we heard lions roar at night and hyena's laugh it was great! In the end we did a cage dive with white sharks and only the best picture I took is in my gallery. We should've taken an underwater cam but we nearly didn't make it to the place and were short on time but that's a long story.

Thank you for viewing my pictures..I've got about 200 more..mostly from accomadation and private pictures and a friend of mine has another 500 pictures. In south africa we needed to buy another cf card with 256 mb for the end of the trip.

Greetings,
Bob.

[rangersvtsplash]

hey man greatest shots ive seen in a while. bring back memories. i happen to have been born their. wish i could be there but unfortunately caint. well nice pictures. damm love the picture of the shark .
one of my family member had his leg bitten off from one of those but got to love the beaches. clean water and fresh. might just plan my wedding honeymoon their.

luis

[ranjanpa]

Lovely pics!!!!!!!!!!

What setting did you use for shooting the animals as the the animals would have been moving and you would have been moving too in a vehicle.


Do share the settings. I plan to go to Africa next year

Pa

[BobG3]

Hi there thanks for comments.. if you want to see any of the settings just press the 'image info' button when you view an image...with animals probably a fast shutter and enough light is good for taking a picture such as these.

cheers

[getg3]

Bob,

Very nice shots! Both the animals and scenery are awesome. I hope one day I will visit S.A.. Thanks for sharing.

[satnitefever]

Wow, you were pretty close to your subjects (and some dangerous at that), I would have freaked out lol..

Nice photos !

[the_woolies]

Bob

Great Pics !!

I am off to SA in September ... and also to Kruger .... cant wait ... G3 at the ready.

[BobG3]

Thanks for all of your reactions..the_woolies where are you going in kruger? If you haven't allready got a place to stay I know an excellent place there.. It's a 16 persons max but it's a typical bushcamp with no fences. If you want to check out: http://www.fullhouse.co.za/umlani/

believe me it's great with good rangers and not THAT expensive..well a bit but you'll pay for great hospitallity and friendlyness..as well as beautifull surroundings.. But tell me where you go in kruger..I'd like to know

take enough memory with you! O and for how long are you going there?

Greetz,
Bob.

[the_woolies]

Bob

Hi. We are hoping to go to Londolozi. The Umlani looks great also, there are several fantastic lodges / private reserves.

We will probably have 3 nights in Londolozi.

I have 2* 256mb flash and another 2 on order ... so should have plenty of spaces for a few photos !!!

The one thing I am trying to get hold of is a lens adaptor and a tele convertor, but they seem to be in very short supply, nobody in UK seems to have any stock at the moment.

Main thing is lens adaptor and a filter to keep dust out of the lens.

Any tips on photographing the wildlife?

Cheers