GAPS2 Africa II 2008 - experience a trip of a life-time!

I'm gettin' real itchy for the trip to start now. Today I had a day off and I have been checking through all my last year stuff and seeing if I need to replace anything in my medical, papers and electricals bags. Also reviewed and updated my packing list and for fun checked out last years shots from people by doing a GAPS search. We had a mellow, shot-filled, great time. I really enjoyed the bakkie shots for some reason. I got quite attached to 'mine' over the three weeks

Shots to get those juices flowing for all of you. These were all shot at once location over 10 days along the Chobe River. (shots in no particular order)

http://www.flickriver.​com …3/sets/72157604​081437686/

buddy4344 wrote in post #5583601
Shots to get those juices flowing for all of you. These were all shot at once location over 10 days along the Chobe River.

That is a lot of shots and to be honest I lost attention at 200 or so. You have plenty of top quality ones there IMO but for me they get lost in the merely good and so-so and repeat/similar style ones. I reckon with the right selection and PP you could have 50 truly stunning compositions. It would make a wonderful table book.

You clearly saw way more animals than we did. It was very dry when we were there and I recognise many of the locations. The Sable in particular we saw very few.

Were you using the same gear you have now during the trip? Some of them look like 600mm or so or good quality crops.

Yeah, I gave you a link to my bulk or uploaded shots and not to the 'prime only' ones as my new gallery is under construction. I have made a large coffee table book - 200 pages, mostly full bleed, at Blurb. I did this as a gift for my son to remember the trip; however, to date 20 copies have been bought by various folks. I highly recommend the large blurb book - and also the large, expensive version of calendar at Snapfish. Both are great ways to share a high number of shots with family/friends.

The link I gave you has about 2/3 shot with my gear listed below mostly using a bean bag to stablize and about 1/3 shot by my son, who used an XT and a 70-300IS for his shots. A few were manual focus with the 1-4 and my Kenko1.4x, but not many due to the manual focus. Most were shot at 400 ISO, some higher. Many of the shots are cropped. Post processing was a little Lightroom, a lot of PS and tools like Dfine 2.0 for noise. It was very dry when we were there also, and afternoon low light combined with dust made for some challenges.

I learned a ton and am headed back next year. I also recommend all to head to your local book store and look closely at techniques and compositions by those who have published coffee table books. It may effect how you look at subjects - I know I will do things a little differently. For example, I will focus on details like oxpeckers on the backs of animals more.

buddy4344 wrote in post #5587201
I learned a ton ... I know I will do things a little differently. For example, I will focus on details like oxpeckers on the backs of animals more.

Thanks for the insights (I'm headed over to Africa on Friday!). One question: how did you get that sunset shot and the elephant shot ? I'd love to get stuff like that but am still learning my gear. (Too many years of P&S since I used an SLR!)

I am a totqal rookie at wildlife myself. My limited experience is landscapes and macros going over.

The most challenging shots are the "into the sunset" shots. This is especially true when subjects like elephants are below the horizon. If you just point and shoot you may get good sky colors, but below the horizon will just be dark. For both of the shots you refer, they were shot from a pontoon boat and silhoutte was ok.

My South African travel friends advised:
1) look at the histogram often! In particular, make sure you are not too heavy on that left edge. Their is more data on center to right, so what appears "blown" can be recovered their, but dark shots will only give you a lot of noise if you try to push these in photoshop.
2) My camera let me bias 2 f-stops and I usually did while shooting into sunset. I think the MkII and MkIII will give you 3 full stops.
3) You can shoot a lot more than you think after the sun has set, so keep shooting for a while, but keep the shutter speed up.
4) Use a beanbag on EVERY shot to stabalize. I only used my monopod on a very few night light shots of baobobs, etc.
5) as noted before, most were shot at ISO 400 on my 30D, but if I had a MkIII or a 40D, I probably would have shot more at ISO 640 to get more light and shutter speed.
6) anticipate where moving/grazing animals will be and position ahead. You may think you are wasting 15 minutes, but the patience allows you to see more and be prepared.
7) spot meter at sunset if animals are below horizon.
8 ) bracket the shot. I tried to keep f-stop above f8 so I had some dof with my tele, but that really cost me shutter speed. I bracketed anyway.
9) final learning: Wildlife is really great, but don't forget to shoot the people. Road scenes, kids, soccer games, etc.

Since I was shooting mostly with telephoto, I never tried graduated ND filters on the trip, but once I started editing the shots, I wish I had done this a little to allow better metering of foreground without over exposure.

Also, one last debate point. Since the exposure levels are soooooo broad, HDR of single frames has worked very well for me on images I have printed large. A few of those are on the link I provided such at this one: http://www.flickr.com …in/set-72157604081437686/

Good luck on the trip.

buddy4344 wrote in post #5587549
I am a totqal rookie at wildlife myself. My limited experience is landscapes and macros going over.

Great stuff for a "rookie"! And great tips, thanks.

buddy4344 wrote in post #5587549
The most challenging shots are the "into the sunset" shots. This is especially true when subjects like elephants are below the horizon. If you just point and shoot you may get good sky colors, but below the horizon will just be dark. For both of the shots you refer, they were shot from a pontoon boat and silhoutte was ok.

Could you post your EXIF data on one or both? I can't imagine this is as easy as you make it sound!! (Just bias two f-stops???)

Lots of very, very good advice there, thanks. I would add shoot less, look for the composition and shoot for quality. I would double emphasise the whole idea of trying to get as stable a platform as you can. That means engine off and people avoiding moving around too much or in a 'heavy' manner that shakes the vehicle.

OK folk's ... a few quick of questions for ya.

1. Does anyone have any medical exxperience, just in case?
   
2. Does anyone have a basic traveller medical kit?
   
3. Do you guys know if the 1D Mk II N has the same charger as your Mk III's? Because we can charge in the bakkies we should not have a problem with batteries, but seems a waste to each bring the huge 1D chargers. Mine is the NC-E2.
   

Dave

The 1D MkIII uses a LC-E4 charger not the NC-E2 so a bit more weight to take!

Tom

Dave

Unfortunately the 1D Mk3 uses a LC-E4 charger not the NC-E2 - so a bit more weight to take.

Tom

erding wrote in post #5587604
The 1D MkIII uses a LC-E4 charger not the NC-E2 so a bit more weight to take!

Curses - I like to strip out every last unnecessary thing I have lots of room in my cargo but I'd prefer to carry essentials in my carry on, but ain't the room there for 'the battery brick'. No worries.

condyk wrote in post #5587598
Lots of very, very good advice there, thanks. I would add shoot less, look for the composition and shoot for quality. I would double emphasise the whole idea of trying to get as stable a platform as you can. That means engine off and people avoiding moving around too much or in a 'heavy' manner that shakes the vehicle.

OK folk's ... a few quick of questions for ya.

1. Does anyone have any medical exxperience, just in case?
   
2. Does anyone have a basic traveller medical kit?
   
3. Do you guys know if the 1D Mk II N has the same charger as your Mk III's? Because we can charge in the bakkies we should not have a problem with batteries, but seems a waste to each bring the huge 1D chargers. Mine is the NC-E2.
   

1: No
2: What I had I left when we gave away all our leftover supplies
3. Already answered.

buddy4344 wrote in post #5587549
6) anticipate where moving/grazing animals will be and position ahead. You may think you are wasting 15 minutes, but the patience allows you to see more and be prepared.

Yep. I got a good example of that. We were at a waterhole and saw this lion drinking.

tommykjensen wrote in post #5587681
I got these shots.

Those and the ones in your gallery are stunning. I hope I can do half as well.

jgrussell wrote in post #5588228
Those and the ones in your gallery are stunning. I hope I can do half as well.

Don't encourage the lad ... we have to share a bakkie with him for three weeks

Interesting however is that in Tommy's gallery a mere 253 looked at this shot and 738looked at this one