He's baaaack ... The Tale of the Last Safari for 2015

If you will notice the EXIF data from the last few shots, my shutter speed is getting perilously low. I've pushed the ISO on the 7D MkII as high as I like to shoot it at ISO 1600, but luckily, the cat is walking slowly, so I have a few blurred shots, but lots of keepers .... and then one of those moments you really want to capture happens .... and my shutter speed is just too low. She jumps a small neck of water.

I shoot a few more shots

Well more likely a few hundred more. And then .....

.... I decide that the light is just too low. I need to switch strategies. [BTW, I have the Canon 5D MkIII with a wider angle lens right beside me through all of this and never even thought of changing bodies to shoot higher ISO a little better. What a rookie mistake, but in my defense, I knew every second was precious we really were out of light.]

I've been playing with pan shots a lot lately and decide to switch to shutter priority, lower shutter speed and start shooting pan action shots. While I love my pan action shots, the 'keeper rate' on this style is about 1 in 50, so this is a high risk move, but there is simply no light, so what do I have to loose?

I could bore you with these as I shot quite a number. That I deemed acceptable. Now our boat has floated right up to the fish eagle and I see it has a large African barbel (catfish) in it's claws. I get several nice, but higher ISO shots of it and then it flies away with the body portion of the fish. Sun is now gone for shooting, but we continue to watch the leopard. She sniffs the air, and then looks up at the tree. With a mighty jump and some quick climbing steps, she is in the tree and eating the barbel head left by the eagle. A great ending to the light of day.

On the Fish Eagle shot, I had to shoot under exposed a few shots and then adjust in LR as light was too low to keep my shutter speed at a decent speed. You will see a lot of noise in this image. Conversely, note that noise is much better on the pan shots even though panned at higher ISO. In decide that in the future, if I have any animal movement at all, I'm going to try this pan action thingy as I have taken tons of really high ISO shots and am always disappointed with noise when I get home.

That's it for Day 1 and the afternoon drive. A hell of a start. As we zoom back down river, we are the very last boat in the park. I see smiles everywhere. Time for a drink or two and a nice dinner. I'm famished, need to download my shots and need to get to bed early. Day 2 starts tomorrow at 6 a.m. It will be a morning on the boat followed by afternoon on the land vehicle.

Great shots and you did well with the low light. I really like your blurs. Btw that looks like one skinny leopard!

Well, what can I say? Awesome!

Again... Love the narriations (sp?) and captures, Buddy!!! Well done, as usual...

i-G12 wrote in post #17717373
Well, what can I say? Awesome!

I can say...I want to go!

Awesome Set! Congrats!!!

Thanks for the details of your workflow.

This thread just keeps on getting better and better.

It's now day 2 of the safari. On the first day, things are always frenetic. Typically, everyone has really high expectations and want to see everything at once. I admit, I'm the same. Luckily, we did have a nice first afternoon. Now we will settle down the pace a little and, hopefully get some really quality sightings. I've mentioned the boat previously. The folks I work with in Chobe have two photo boats. In addition, they are adding two smaller photo boats to be assigned to the 5 room house boat that has been purchased and that we will be staying on next season. I've attached another view of the the photo boat so you can get a better view of the swivel chairs and camera mounts.

In addition to the boat, we go on land in a rather unique land vehicle called a Unimog. The 'mog' is a bit taller than I want for low angle shots, however, it allows clients to literally walk to different parts of the vehicle as we see game front, back, left or right. This flexibility really works well. All along the side of the Mog are small bean bag supports to help stabilize shots. Attached also is a shot I took of the Mog with another group in it. This shot was from the boat and from quite far away. Qhile of poor quality, I think you can see the folks moving around in the Mog and also the horizontal supports for shooting. For both of these shots, I've not really done anything but crop as they are merely 'information shots' and not what I'd call photography.

Over the next few days we will rotate between the two options, mixing mornings and afternoons in each option. This morning we will do the boat. Since yesterday afternoon we were on water, this afternoon we will be on land.

An obvious questions is 'which is better?'. It's funny, but I always ask that question later in the safari and the results are always a mix. I think folks like the land trips as they 'feel like a safari should feel'. Also on land you will see more giraffe and zebra and get a feel for the terrain. I've also seen more lions from land. On the other hand, I love the water. I love the unobstructed views and the low angles. In the end, the mix of the two creates diversity for the guests, but if I have a choice, I usually go on the water a bit more than on the land as I think it offers a better chance to capture action and gesture in my images.

Today, (Day 2) we will do water in the morning, land in the afternoon.

In general, mornings are slightly slower than afternoons. I find mornings are usually best for birdlife and also hippos, whereas the elephants and buffalo make river crossings more in the afternoon. Antelope graze and drink throughout the day. On this morning we stopped at a few gazing buffalo where I got this shot of ox peckers on a buffalo back. We also stopped at a white faced bee eater colony that has burrowed into a hillside for a home. We shot a lot of heron and egrets and basically spent some time with each sighting as Shuur and I told folks misc. details of the animals or the behavior. I'm no expert, but I have been a few dozen times now and slowly, I'm learning behavior and species of many animals.

In the middle of the river, there is an island that emerges each winter as the waters of the river lower. The land mass is called Sedudu Island and was jointly claimed by Botswana and Namibia. I'm not sure who currently owns it. This large land mass supports grass and is always inhabited by red lechwe as well as often with hippos and elephants. Birds really like this low level, wet island as they can find snails and small minnows to eat. I like shooting there for the open background; however, I've intentionally shot these lechwe with a few of the chalets of a lodge in Namibia in the distant background. There are two lodges on the Namibian side of the Chobe inside the park boundaries, Neither really are obtrusive nor do they block getting good shots. Remember, there are many, many miles of river and two small lodges.

The other reason I like shooting lechwe is that many guests will only think elephants and hippos unless you get them to shooting the smaller wildlife. Time and again, folks tell me their favorite shots of the trip were of wart hog or impala, yet few spend much time shooting them. If you had subjects like this in your back yard, would YOU pick up the camera and shoot them? I would bet "YES", yet we often take them for granted on safari. I'm also guilty, but like to pontificate.

A few more Red Lechwe shots