Shoot Wide to See More...

Most, if not all, wildlife photographers have gorilla sized forearms from wielding some of the longest lenses money can buy. They are also not shy to wield the beastly lenses in the direction of any animal, bird or insect that has the misfortune to wander into view. Its no surprise that I fit into that bracket and unashamedly utilize the large magnification you get from long lenses.

Other then the associated cardio workout that you get from wielding such lenses, you are also able to get really close to your subject matter without having to sit on top of them. This is an advantage that we should not scoff at as most wildlife photographers are keen conservationists and have the comfort of and respect for their subjects in the fore of their consciousness. The only drawback from wielding such magnification is that it can become quite addictive and when the action heats up there is little regard for thinking or doing anything else.

Again, I am one of those that gets distracted by the 'pink mist; when the action starts and have only recently been able to consciously drag myself away from the long glass and approach animal, action and behavior using shorter lenses that afford a wider view of my subjects. Again, most pro wildlife photographers will have a shorter zoom or prime, such as the excellent 70-210 range, for exactly that reason, the wider you shoot the more you see and seeing the whole picture is as important as seeing the tick that hangs off your subjects eyelash.

So next time you are bashing away with your long glass, stop, think and pick up a shorter telephoto and try and capture the animal, or animals, in their environment.

Why: Despite the temptation to use his longest lens Chris used a shorter focal length to enable him to capture the whole herd of Buffalo as well as the huge cloud of dust that picked up the subtle pink hues of dawn. Using a longer lens would have drastically reduced the angle of vision and thus how much of the scene Chris could have captured.
How: Nikon D610 and Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8 @ 200mm ISO 800 1/500th second @f6.3
Where: Hwange National Park

Would you like to learn more about photographic techniques and how to take great pictures? Join Chris on a Photographic Safari Workshop in some on Southern Africa's most stunning wild areas.

Don't Create Wallpaper...

Everyone loves a sunset, especially one of those breathtaking, ‘OMG those are colors I have never seen’, kind of sunsets. I'm sure all of us, professional, amateur or learner photographers have captured a million such sunsets, and I'm sure we have all photographed them in the same manic, run-around, wild eyed, the "lights about to disappear" manner. After your nine-millionth sunset you will hopefully have control of the wild-eyed demon that emerges at sundown and will start to think critically about what you are doing.

Take this picture for example, its not even a sunset, rather a sunrise and something that most people not blessed with the crazy urge to rise before the sun often miss out on. Given a bit of cloudy weather to pick up the rays of the rising sun and the colors that they produce you can capture some stunning images, once you have tamed the wild - eyed panic beast.

And so to get to the point, an old University professor used to regard sunrises and sunsets with marginal interest and with almost gleeful disdain referred to them as "wallpaper". Beautiful colors yes but nothing of much interest. It took me quite a few years of frantic running around at sunset and sunrise to realise what he was on about.

You need something of interest, even if its subtle, to bring the organza of colors into perspective, to give them root in the place and scene you are photographing. In short you still need a subject matter even if you are photographing colors never seen by another human eye before.

So when you are next in the heat of the moment, take some time to slow down, pull yourself towards yourself and look for a subject matter to give some sense, place or scale to those amazing colors.

Where: Little Samavhundla pan, Hwange National Park.
How: Sunrise, HDR composite of 3 different exposures, calmness and attention to subject matter!
Tech specs: Nikon D610 with Nikkor 80-200mm f2.8 @ 80mm ISO 800 F8 1st exposure 1/80th sec, 2nd exposure 1/20th sec, third exposure 1/250th sec.

Would you like to learn more about photographic techniques and how to take great pictures? Join Chris on a Photographic Safari Workshop in some on Southern Africa's most stunning wild areas.

Patience Pays...

I’m often asked what the key to getting good wildlife images is, and lets not be fooled there are many important factors that contribute, but the one that is both the most crucial and hardest to live by is patience. Especially for me, I am not generally a patient person (still working on it though!) but in the bush I seem to be able to dig deep and tap into an endless supply of the stuff.

It could be in part that I am happy and at peace in the bush, away from the pressures of town and the associated hair pulling that entails, happy to sit back and absorb my surroundings, listen to the noises, watch the birds and generally do what it takes to while the time away while I am waiting for a specific shot.

So when you find something thats interesting, do yourself a favour and wait for it, or even if you find something that has some vague potential, sit around and wait and see. You may only end up with a better tan and a longer bird list but you may also end up with that once in a lifetime picture, the one the pro’s always manage to get...

The above picture is a great example of patience, I had been desperate to get what I thought should be a typical Ele-in-the-sunset-Lake Kariba-picture but it had been eluding me for some time. So you can imagine how I nearly fell out of the land rover while leading a photographic safari at Rhino Safari Camp when we came around the corner and there was the sun setting into the lake with an elephant....almost in the picture.

In fact the jumbo was far from where he needed to be (for me and my clients’ sake) and though he seemed to be heading in the right direction (towards the lovely sunset) he must have picked up on the anxiety in the air from all the nail biting, camera toting photographers and this seemed to slow his pace to a gentle, teasing meander.

After what seemed like an age and just before we lost the sun to the horizon he made his way, to our utmost joy and accompanied by rapid, sustained shutter firing, into the pink walkway. I had the shot I had been after, I couldn't believe my luck and had to keep reminding myself that patience won the day!

Where: On Safari at Rhino Safari Camp, Lake Kariba
Equipment: Nikon D3s and Nikkor 500mm F4 lens
Settings: ISO 800, f4 @ 1/500th sec, used a beanbag and the landy bonnet for support

Would you like have experiences and take pictures like this? Then join us on a Photo Safari Workshop!

Streaky Star Trails...

As you can see from this photo you can create a lot of drama once the sun has gone down, and with the right equipment and a little bit of know-how its not as difficult as you may be imagining. What you are seeing is effectively a 3 hour exposure that has captured the movement of the stars as the Earth spins around it southern axis. However, for some reason or other, modern digital cameras just don't like very long exposures (hours not minutes) so we use another nifty menu option in the camera called the intervalometer timer. This basically allows us to tell the camera to take a picture every x number of minutes or hours for a certain period of time. This means that instead of doing a very long exposure we can lots of shorter ones and then stack them together in photoshop to create the same streaky or 'trail' effect.

In order for the stacking to be effective each picture needs to be exactly the same and as you are shooting a 30 second exposure it would make sense that a stable tripod is required for a successful star trail. As dramatic as the stars are on their own you will also need some form of foreground to tie the whole picture together and create a pleasing composition. The fantastic and prolific Albida trees on the Mana Pools floodplain provided the perfect foreground for this particular shot. So to the technicalities of shooting. Once you have found your foreground you need to point your camera just left of South, this will ensure you get the circle as appose to just streaks across the sky, and set your cameras ISO to 6400. Ideally you need to shoot with your widest lens as well as your fastest aperture (F2.8 is ideal) and set your focus on manual and then on infinity on the lens focus ring. Make sure you horizon is straight as you don't want to have to crop hundreds of pictures!

Once you are satisfied you have set up everything then find your cameras' intervalometer or interval timer shooting in the case of Nikon and see it to take 1 picture every 30 seconds for 2-3 hours. Be sure to shoot in RAW you you can tinker with the light balance afterwards and ensure that there is minimal ambient light (torches, camp lights etc) falling on your foreground. And also watch out, creating star trails can get addictive!

Backlighting can be the Best...

Its often difficult to capture dramatic environmental portraits of animals. So imagine my joy when one day in Mana Pools National Park I came around the corner and saw this small herd of Waterbuck watching me intently! Mana is renowned for scenes of the last rays of light filtering through the Albida forests and of course whenever this happens there is no game around to add some interest to the scene's foreground.

Thankfully not on this occasion as I managed to position myself at an angle that utilized the stunning golden backlight. Using backlight can sometimes be a tricky affair, you need to ensure that you are not directly in front of the sun as this will cause glare and refraction that will result in circles of confusion and rainbows all over your image (the result of the light bouncing around your lenses' glass as well as the lenses' end element coating). So its best to offset the sun at a bit of an angle. This as well as the background will then cause some tricky metering, the general rule for backlighting your subjects is to underexpose but you don't want to loose detail in your main subject so the amount will vary from scene to scene. In this instance I metered off the highlights but not directly off the sun and the light was soft enough to ensure I still maintained detail in the Waterbuck.

This must be one of my favorite recent shots from Mana Pools and goes to show how technical knowledge and its application goes a long way in creating that 'perfect image'!

Want to learn more about photography and wildlife techniques? Why not join Chris on a Photographic Safari Workshop in some of Southern and East Africa's best wildlife areas? See more info on the website here.

A Personal Hwange Serenade...

Being a lover of the bush its easy to appreciate the small things when on a game drive, especially when they put on what seems like a performance just for you! On a recent trip to Hwange National Park in the wet season we drove around the corner to see this little Red Billed Spurfowl taking in the afternoon sun on a dead tree right next to the road. Immediately cutting the engine we rolled slowly to a stop right opposite the bird. With my heart in my mouth and fully anticipating the little guy to flap off we waited for a few minutes in complete silence. Red seemed to be taking it all in his stride and after surveying us for a few minutes went back to his usual routine, which happened to be his late afternoon bath.

After much vigorous preening and grooming he ended the pamper session with, literally, a little song and dance! Shuffling up and down the dead branch he crooned, sqwuaked and sang all to our utter astonishment and wide eyed enjoyment. After just the rich amount of time and feeling as if he had obviously entertained us enough he threw back his head for on last trill and flapped off into the setting sun. It has been one of the most enjoyable bush experienced I have had in a long time, being serenaded as the hot African sun goes down!

Chris frequently travels to Southern and east Africa's best wildlife destinations leading Photographic Safari Workshops, why not join him in Hwange in October 2014

Photography in Stormy Weather...

A lot of photographers (including me!) can get quite depressed in "off" weather, typically cloudy and non-sunshine weather is the usual culprit. But given certain circumstances the potential to get amazingly dramatic pictures if often there if you are willing to take the chance with the elements. I have spent a lot of time out in the field and always have my eye on the horizon in 'cloudy' weather as the sun often pops out from behind the cloud just before it sets. This combination of golden light shining on stormy clouds can be fantastic and result in some breathtaking images! This is exactly what happened in the case above when Chris watched the gathering storms being light up by the afternoon light, even though it was raining in the distance perseverence paid off and Chris managed to get quite a dramatic sequence of pictures!

Where: Top of Joina City, Harare, Zimbabwe
How: Nikon D3 and Nikkor 16-35mm lens on a tripod
Settings: ISO 400, f11 @1/15th sec

Would you like to learn more about photography and how to take great pictures? Why not join Chris on an introduction to photography course or a photographic safari workshop?

When Fish Eagles Attack...

On a recent visit to Rhino Safari Camp in the stunning Matusadonha National Park I was pottering around one of the multitude of quite bays that fringe the island when I came across a Goliath Heron going about his early morning fishing routine; flitting from spot to spot looking for the biggest catch.

The largest of the Heron family, the Goliath is a beautiful bird and thus I was very keen to get a few pictures of this chap and his morning routine so I slowly and quietly eased myself into a position where I had a good view of him hoping he would move towards me so the early morning light would catch him at the right angle and light up his beautiful feather markings.

After a few moments of blissful silence and serene observation he started moving, to my dismay, away from me and out of the bay towards the open water. Disappointed but still keen for a picture of this large bird in flight I lined up and waited patiently for him to spread his wings and head out.

Almost on queue the magnificent bird, with wings outstretched began hi pre-flight check when all of a sudden in a blur of sharp claws and unrestrained anger a nearby previously peaceful Fish Eagle had taken some deep exception to the presence of the Goliath and decided to see him off! Obliviously unawares of this potential all I saw through the view-frame was a blur of motion in from the top right and the indignant sqwuake of the Goliath as it headed out, feathers abruptly ruffled!

Thankfully, due mostly to reaction than anything else I managed to squeeze off a few shots of the action before I even knew what was going on, which brings us on to this months bit of pearly advise; plan and expect for everything and when it happens when you are off guard don't hesitate to hold your finger down on the shutter button, you may end up with some stunning results!

The Sound of Africa's Rivers...

A trip to any of Africa’s large waterways wouldn't be the same without the iconic sounds of honking, snorting, laughing, wheezing, spraying, splashing, roaring and general cavorting that Hippo’s tend to punctuate the atmosphere with. An African sunset wouldn't be the same without the accompanying vocal acrobatics but in addition to the audio satisfaction it may provide its onlookers the seemingly random bursts of sounds are vitally important in the Hippo community.

Due to their amorphous build, nocturnal activity and tendency to spend most of the day submerged in water communication plays a vital role in any Hippo community. The amazing variations of sound are made from the exhaled breath of a surfacing Hippo, can resonate for many kilometers and can communicate anger, threat, alarm and general communication between family members “honey I’m over here-here-here-here-here” as most if us would like to imagine!

Where: On a Photo Safari at Rhino Safari Camp on Lake Kariba in the Matusadona National Park.

How: Nikon D3 and Nikkor 500mm f4 VR ED. ISO 640 Aperture f7.1 @ 1/500th of a second. Shooting into the sun can be tricky so its best to try and avoid blowout in the highlights. To do this you must make sure you do not overexpose the scene and so meter for the highlights i.e the brighter part of the image. This however ushers in a new problem in that you do not want to loose detail in the darker areas of the picture! Such is the tricky life of a photographer!

Why not learn more about metering and join us on a photographic safari to one of our stunning wildlife destinations!