Photo of the Day - Leopard and her kill, Mala Mala

 

The Tomboti Female leopard and her Meal

Mala Mala Game Reserve, South Africa. August 2010.

Nikon D700, 200-400mm f/4, 1/320 @ f/5.6, ISO 3200

I visited Mala Mala last year twice, and at the time I photographed this female leopard she had no name. She is now known as the Tomboti Female Leopard, and she was likely my best subject in all of last year. I photographed something like 22 different leopards in the Sabi Sands alone, and I often got extremely close to these gorgeous cats. The morning we saw her we were also photographing 2 other leopards, and we rotated between the different sightings over many hours. It was absolutely awesome to have to decide which awesome cat to take photos of, and I am glad and honored that the Tomboti Female gave us her all. She moved her impala kill towards the bottom of the tree, which meant she was very very very close to us. She was around 5 meters from my lens, and when I took shots she would temporarily look up and wonder what the sounds were. Gulp.

If you have never been to the Sabi Sands of South Africa, you are missing out on one of the most dense areas for leopards in all of Africa. I now have a recurring safari each year that I call the ‘Majestic Leopards’ safari, and time is split between 2 different camps in the Sabi Sands over an 8-day period. Accommodations are super nice, wildlife is super close and we have more than ample allowance for your photographic gear in the plane flights and in the vehicles. There are still some spaces available for the safari in July!

Majestic Leopards Safari, July 25 - August 3, 2011

What's in Andy's Camera Bag?

While I was out on safari in Tanzania a few weeks ago, I decided to set up a tripod and shoot a quick video on how I pack my Gura Gear Kiboko bag.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts, I would love to hear them!

Update: Some people have been asking me how I created the video, so here are the details: Canon 5DMk2 camera, 50mm f/1.2 lens, SONY UWP-V1 wireless microphone with audio recorded on a Roland R-09 portable recorder.

Tanzania Safari Summary

I have been back home from Tanzania for a few weeks, and I needed to finish up some family things before I sat down to reflect on my 3 weeks out on safari. Before I get into the overall summary of my two safaris, I wanted to break down some of the gear that was used on the 2nd safari. I wrote about the gear used on the 1st safari in an earlier blog post, so scroll back through the entries to find out what people used on safari #1.

On my second safari we had mostly Canon shooters, and I think I saw about every Canon camera that has been manufactured in the past 3 or 4 years: 1DsMk3, 1DMk4, 1DMk3, 7D, 5DMk2, 5D and a digital Rebel (I forgot which model). On the Nikon side we had 4 shooters, including myself, and we had D3x, D3, D3s, D700 and D300s cameras. We didn’t have any major malfunctions with regards to cameras, thank God.

On the lens front, we had the Canon 100-400mm, 500mm f/4, 300mm f/2.8 and 70-200mm lenses (a few wide angle lenses as well), and on the Nikon front we had 200-400mm, 500mm f/4, 70-200mm f/2.8 (VRI and II), 28-300mm and 70-300mm lenses. Again, no major issues at all with any of the lenses.

After shooting with Canon and Nikon equipment out on safari for the past 10 years, I have to say that there is no inherent upper hand by either Canon or Nikon, and it really does come down to personal choice. I think if money were no object for me I could talk myself into owning both systems. I switched to Nikon about 2 years ago because of the 200-400mm f/4 lens, but now that Canon will have their own flavor of that lens (with an included 1.4x TC, mind you) I would be happy with either system. I am dying to see when SONY will have their 500mm f/4 lens to market, as it was officially announced in 2010. With all of the factory issues going on in Japan I don’t have a foggy clue when we will see it. My hunch is that I will begin to see more SONY equipment on my safaris when that lens starts to ship to customers, and I have no doubt that they are going to play are larger role in the nature photography market as a whole. If I was SONY for a day, I would really want to get that 500mm lens into the hands of working wildlife photographers before it goes to market (wink wink), as imagery from the field to help support the broader marketing plan would be a good move.

OK, on to my overall feeling from my past two safaris. To sum up the 3 weeks, I have to say that these two safaris were some of my best days spent on safari. Ever. We had 4 kills in 24 hours, we had dramatic light, we had views of the enormous migration, great lions, lion cubs, cheetahs, leopard, calving wildebeest / gazelle / zebra, breathtaking scenery, great guides and accommodations. What made me the happiest was watching the smiles on all of my travelers’ faces throughout each day. I think I identify myself more as a teacher than anything else, because I do live my experiences through the eyes of others.

One of the questions I have a difficult time with is: “which safari destination do you like the most?”. The first thing that I think of is how a mother or father feels about their children, and how each is different in so many ways. I feel like Tanzania is my home, as it was my first safari destination. I also love Botswana for the remote Okavango Delta, South Africa for the Sabi Sands and Tswalu, Namibia for the entire desert wilderness, Kenya for its dense wildebeest herds and Rwanda for its Mountain Gorillas. I love it all, and I cannot wait to get back to Africa in July. And then again in September. And then again in February. And so on, and so on.

Back home from Tanzania

I am back home from safari, and I will be writing up a summary from my 3 weeks away, including some gear talk and other misc thoughts on my experiences. It has been a busy week since I returned home, and the major challenge for the Biggs family was that our 2.5 year old son, William, was admitted to the hospital for a stubborn infection in his foot, which was originally caused by a simple splinter in his heel of his right foot. We have him back home now, but suffice to say it made us worried about his health.

Safari Update - Serengeti

Running Zebras

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2011

Nikon D3x, 70-200mm f/2.8, 1/50 @ f/14, ISO 200

Today was our final day out on safari for this safari group, and my final one as well. I thought yesterday was incredible, but today was equal if not better. We didn’t get 1 more lion hunting a wildebeest, we didn’t get 2, but we got a total of 3 takedowns in plain sight within a span of 20 minutes. It was incredible. So the total kills for this trip was 4, which is a better batting average than any given year since I started running safaris. Heck, I am lucky to see 1 in a year, much less 4 in the matter of 24 hours. Amazing.

I didn’t get many photographs of either the chases or final moments, so I won’t post any online for the time being. I need some time to judge the quality of the images. Keep in mind that I really do prefer to post hopeful looking images, so predatory action isn’t something that I am going to be quick to post anyway.

The entire rest of the day was spent near water holes, as that success worked for us yesterday and today. We didn’t see any more action of the predatory type, however I did take some time to help people work on their blurred panning shots of wildebeest and zebras running away from water.

Tonight’s dinner back at Bilila was extremely casual and fun, given today’s wonderful sightings. I could see that some people had the images they were searching for, and I cannot wait to see what they have taken today as well as during the entire safari.

Safari Update - Serengeti

The Chase

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2011

Nikon D3x, 200-400mm, 1/1600 @ f/5.6, ISO 400

Ok, where do I even begin? Let me first start off by saying that I am not going to write down all that happened today, other than one amazing wildlife moment. It was a moment that is up there with my best wildlife viewing moments over the past 10 years of running photo safaris in Africa. It was that kind of cool moment. So here goes.

We saw a kill. A good one, at that. We were sitting at a good watering hole, watching zebras and wildebeest come in for water. After about half an hour we saw a huge splash in the water as a lioness came running out of the bushes to chase the subjects were just photographing. I completely missed the shots, as we were in a bad location to shoot the lioness, but we did track her down afterwards. We noticed she was very very interested in the wildebeests that lay beyond the water, and she started stalking back towards the water’s edge. We moved our vehicle into position to anticipate where she would hunt, and right as we settled down…….POW! She was chasing after a couple of older wildebeest in hopes of having a nice meal.

I grabbed a few frames before she ran within my minimum focusing distance on my Nikon 200-400mm lens, as you can see in the following frame.

Whoops. The minimum focusing distance on the 200-400mm is only 6 feet. Nothing like a lioness chasing a wildebeest only inches away.

The lioness grabbed the wildebeest by the throat only a few feet from the back of my Land Rover, and the struggle only lasted about a minute as the wildebeest was brought to the ground. We had to maneuver the vehicle to be able to shoot from the windows, as the lioness was still trying to finish off the job, so to speak. Autofocus was a challenge, for sure, as there was waving grass right in front of her face. I had to tweak the focus manually, as autofocus just does not work in these situations. The best thing to do is to tweak it manually and stop down a little bit to make sure that you have enough depth of field in case you missed the focus.

…And the final shot

Lesson learned: always be ready for the action, and always decide ahead of time which lens you are going to use. The 70-200mm would not have been ideal for the chase, however it might have worked when they ran by the vehicle. That wasn’t ‘the shot’ I was after, so my 200-400mm was chosen and I went with it.

The rest of the day was also amazing, but in a very very different way.

Safari Update - Serengeti

Zebras at a Watering Hole

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. March 2011

Nikon D3, 200-400mm, 1/800 @ f/6.3, ISO 400

Today we said goodbye to the wonderful Kusini staff, and headed north through the acacia woodland towards the central Serengeti. We are spending the last 3 nights of this safari at the new Kempenski Bilila Lodge, and I can already tell you that I really do like the accommodations here. But I digress…

The morning game drive was fairly quiet until we got to the Moru Kopjes, where we stumbled on a lion pride with many young cubs. We didn’t have a long time with them, as they were rapidly moving from the open grasslands to shaded trees, and we were on our way within a few minutes. It’s funny to be so casual about passing up lion opportunities, but these safaris really do allow my travelers to get picky about which opportunities are good and which are marginal. I am spoiled, for sure.

When we made it to the Moru Kopjes we saw three female lions in the distance, as well as a solo female leopard out in the waving green grass. These weren’t photographic moments, but rather great sightings that make me think long and hard about walking out in the open in the middle of the Serengeti. I had that thought on my mind as we also came across two large male lions at the Masai paintings area. I am glad we noticed them first, as we might have had a problem on our hands had we exited the vehicle too early.

We had to fill up the vehicles at Seronera, as we were running low on fuel. I thought we would be at the lodge by noon, however we decided to stop at a watering hole to watch the huge herds of zebras and wildebeest come in to drink. We definitely found a HUGE chunk of the migration right in the middle of the Serengeti. I always like to have 2 camp locations when I visit the Serengeti, as you never know where the migration is going to be. The herds we saw today in the Seronera valley were fairly substantial, and I know how many we saw down near Kusini yesterday, which means the migration is splintered right now. It’s a really cool sight to see.

I really like to drag the shutter on these types of shots, however I decided to go for the fast shutter speeds this afternoon to try something new. I think it worked, and I am happy with the results.

Safari Update - Serengeti

We were out early this morning (duh), and we headed towards the open plains towards Ndutu. Since we are on the Serengeti side of the border, I suspected we wouldn’t run into many people at all today. Well, I was right, because Kusini is the only camp in the southern Serengeti National Park. There are many many camps and also a few lodges on the Ngorongoro Conservation Area side, but the two management areas really don’t have many people that move back and forth between the two, as the costs and logistics can get more than messy. I find it is easiest to make a decision which side to stay on and then just do it.

Other than our vehicles, there are only 2 others in the entire southern part of the Serengeti right now. You can really feel all of the area has been set aside for just us.

When we entered the open plains, we noticed a few lions who were walking towards a sizable water source. After about 30 seconds, we all noticed there were actually 12 lions in total, with adult females and subadult males and female. They were all running around, jumping all over each other with joy. It was great to have good subjects in the early morning light.

After a while, we noticed there were some hyaenas congregating for a huge standoff with the lions. One by one, the hyaena numbers went from 2 to 3, to 10, to 12 and then ultimately to 17. It was interesting watching their behavior, as they encircled the lions. I could tell there wouldn’t be a fight, but it was clear that the hyaenas weren’t going to let the lions take advantage of them in any way.

We followed the lions for about 2 hours, and left them when they finally settled down underneath the shade of a large acacia tree. We then drove around on the open plains, looking for interesting subjects. I thought it would be fun to try and get ostrich images, so we worked with a small group of them for probably 30 minutes. The problem with them is that they run away when you get close to them. My goal was to get them to run in the same direction our Land Rover was heading, but we didn’t have any luck today. Not a big deal, because watching them is good enough for me.

We went back to camp for a wonderful lunch, and then headed back out around 3:30. Again, we went to the open plains. We did follow a large herd of giraffes for a long time, and eventually they were tired of us and ran away. I decided to try and get them running, while bouncing around in our Land Rover at 40mph off-road. Oh joy!