Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 16

Today was the first day where I started to feel some fatigue setting in. Game drives aren’t that tiring in and of themselves, but always being ‘on’ with my job as a photographic safari leader does create a need for some down time. I love what I do, and I absolutely love helping people get the best images possible, so I will try to figure out a way to get some down time in the next day or I will burn out.

Ok, on to today’s sightings!

The morning’s drive was extremely quiet, but one thing we noticed immediately upon leaving our camp was that we had clouds. The clouds meant the morning wasn’t very cool, and we welcomed dramatic light to our day. I love clouds, because wildlife photography can be much easier with the softer light, as we can shoot all day long without having to worry about harsh shadows. Change the white balance a bit and poof! Good colors and contrast can be tweaked to taste and there you have it.

We did see an adult female leopard with what we thought was the Kashane male leopard, but we didn’t get a long enough look of them before they took off into the bush. We did drive offroad for a while to see what was going on, but we had to disengage after a while due to the tall grass and thick thorn trees.

The rest of the morning was filled tracking activities, and nothing to report.

On our afternoon drive we followed up on the leopard sighting from this morning, and low and behold we eventually found them only a few meters from where we saw them last. It definitely was Kashane and an unknown female. What a guy, as he was mating with another female only 4 days ago. Insert your Barry White CD with some shakka shakka boom boom. Kashane is the man of the hour. The grass was super tall, so no easy photographs could be had this time around. I have actually lost count of the number of leopard matings we have had since we arrived 2 weeks ago.

We did have a crash of rhinos with some interesting sparring behavior, and we made sure we spent an adequate amount of time trying to make some good photographs. I have never had so many quality rhino sightings before, and I am glad to have something new to work on. The only photos I was able to be remotely happy with are the ones included in this post, and I do wish the other attempts would have worked out for me. This safari trip has been a challenge for me, because I don’t have much time to process any images. I want to post at least 2 to 4 images each day to illustrate what we are seeing and doing. This means my standards have to be reduced, and that isn’t something I am normally comfortable with. I just hope these blog posts help show what we are seeing and just how rich the wildlife experiences are.

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/500 @ f/6.3, ISO 640

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/640 @ f/6.3, ISO 640

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 15

Dear diary:

Today we were chased by a bull elephant. It was really cool. It is amazing how fast a Land Rover can go with short notice. And it’s also amazing how fast adult male elephants can run when they are in musth.

Glad to be safe-

Andy

We did have a great morning with a bull elephant who turned out to be our most memorable sighting of the day. Whenever we got anywhere near him he would come out of the trees to ‘greet’ the vehicle, but we would back way off and try it a few minutes later. We were always had a safe escape plan, and also planned for his own escape route, but it was fun to approach him slowly from a distance just to watch his behavior. We never endangered ourselves nor did we intentionally agitate him and it was good fun to see how he would close the distance between us once he noticed we were somewhat near him.

We had a pride of lions just outside of camp, and when I mean outside of camp I mean 100 feet away from one of our rooms. They weren’t very interesting to watch, as they were just lying around passing the time until their next meal walked by.

We found a small journey of giraffe around one of the watering holes, and photographed them drinking water. It’s tough to get these types of shots, because one needs to be either right in front of them or to the side of them. All other angles just don’t work. You also need to have a high shutter speed to get the water dripping from their mouth as they pull their head away from the water, and I think 1/1600 is a good minimum speed to consider. I love shooting giraffes in this way, because you know they are relaxed enough to put their long necks down for a long drink of water. It’s difficult to shoot them, though, as the tendency is to use too much focal length and next thing you know it you cannot get their whole body and neck in your frame when they quickly lift their neck and head up from the water. The key is to back off with your lens selection, pre-focus on where the head is before they drink, wait for them to lift their heads and then fire away when they do finally come up. The resulting frames are interesting, due to the long stream of water that comes from their mouth. The best scenario is when that water stream is side or back lit, because the sun coming through the water will light it up like a Christmas tree. The light was to our backs, so this didn’t work out.

The highlight of the afternoon and early evening was the Kashane male leopard, as he patrolled the area just outside of the other side of camp. He vocalized his presence, which is a thunderous growl that can be heard far away. We photographed him coming towards our vehicle numerous times, as he would pass the vehicle and we would drive around in front of him for it to happen all over again. What a beautiful male leopard he was.

Yawning Lioness

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/3200 @ f/4, ISO 500

Two Giraffes

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/2500 @ f/6.3, ISO 1000

Kashane Male Leopard

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/200 @ f/4, ISO 1600

Kashane Male Leopard at Dusk

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/6 @ f/4.5, ISO 100

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 14

I am short on time today to write up this entry, but we saw and photographed landscapes at sunrise, worked on blurred panning shots and had rhinos sniff the edge of our Land Rover. All in a day’s work, I suppose. More writing tomorrow, as tonight we have a dinner outdoors in the boma and I need to get some things setup beforehand. I love eating in the boma, especially in the winter, as fires are lite primarily for warmth and not ambience. The warmth of the fire draws everybody in close and conversations are much more intimate and personal. I do suspect the staff will come out and entertain everybody with song and dance, which everybody loves and appreciates.

Smile

iPhone at who-know-what-settings

All Geared Up

Nikon D4, 16-35mm f/4, 1/1600 @ f/4, ISO 1600

Running Impala

Nikon D4, 70-200mm, 1/13 @ f/16, ISO 50

Rhino Mouth

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/800 @ f/7.1, ISO 500, hand-held

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 13

We found ourselves along the Sand River at sunrise, and the river had a fog layer in one of the sections that had water from one edge to the other. We stopped in the middle of a crossing and just sat there for a few minutes to watch how the morning sun altered the landscape and pondered how to best photograph the scene. Sometimes photographs never capture a moment, and during those moments we just watched and enjoyed the experience of being outdoors and away from our daily lives back at home.

Eventually we located and sat with a large herd of elephants, how were amongst the tall grass and round leaf teak bushes that littered the landscapes. The elephants were extremely calm in our presence, and we focused our attention and lenses on a baby elephant who wanted to nurse. The mother moved away every time the little guy wanted some milk, but eventually the mother gave in when they were close to our Land Rover. What a tender moment, and our shutters were clicking away for the next little while.

The afternoon was mostly filled with tracking activities, as we wanted to try and locate one of the leopards with cubs, but we couldn’t find any tracks in the area that she was last known to be in. It’s good to have patience, and we all have it, but it didn’t pay off today. That was perfectly ok, because we sat at a watering hole with a pair of rhinos as the light faded away. J

Sand River at Sunrise

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/1000 @ f/8, ISO 1000

Elephant and Mother

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/800 @ f/2.8, ISO 500

Rhino and Refletion

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/2000 @ f/4, ISO 800

All Smiles

Nikon D4, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/200 @ f/10, ISO 500

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 12

Today was a crazy day with my saying goodbye to my first safari group and then saying hello to my second safari group, all done in the space of about 5 minutes out on the airstrip here at Singita. This happened after brunch, but we still here able to fit in a game drive, and it included more leopard cubs to cap off a superb safari over the past 8 days. I cannot think of a better send off gift than that.

We all had a final brunch out on the lawn, everybody but me said goodbye to the staff and we headed to the airstrip. The privately chartered aircraft arrived 20 minutes early, and I am glad that we arrived just as they were landing. That would have been an interesting experience for my travelers to arrive without anybody to greet them.

We all exchanged hugs and handshakes and I had greetings and more handshakes for my arriving crew. Back to camp with everybody and I knew deep down that the group is going to have a great time out here for the next 8 days. Changeover days can be chaotic, but this went off without any glitches.

We had an introductory ‘hello’ meeting back at Castleton Camp, grabbed a nice bite to eat and took off on our afternoon game drive. I hoped this first game drive would be a good one, but I had absolutely no idea just how incredible it would be. We wanted the drive to be on the easy side, but we heard sounds of mating leopards as we drove the scenic River Road East in the north of the reserve. You know we couldn’t leave those sounds unattended, so we quickly put our tracking to work and located Kashane and Nlabankuzi mating on the top of a termite mound. In all of my safaris I have never had mating leopards up on a perched position for me to see clearly.  Two thumbs up, and 6 more as I looked back from my front seat at my vehicle mates. Oh heck yeah. The light was warm, the action aggressive and extremely exciting. They mated a few times near the termite mound and eventually moved off into the thick brush. We got our best photographs early, and later attempts weren’t as fruitful.

We had our sundowner drinks on the way back to camp, and I hoped (and still do) that expectations don’t rise because of the amazing sighting we had this afternoon. Some drives are great and some are slow, and this first one was one of the best sightings one could ever ask for, and we have 8 more days to go.

Mating Leopards

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/800 @ f/4, ISO 500

Mating Leopards

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/800 @ f/4, ISO 500

Hlabankuzi Female Leopard

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/640 @ f/4.5, ISO 500

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 11

This morning we drove in one huge circle around the edge of the Singita area and we eventually picked up the tracks of 3 adult female lionesses and a single adult male. We knew direction and approximate time of the tracks, so it was a matter of time before we were able to find them. We had them walking down a road, and from a photographic standpoint I don’t prefer to have man made objects in my photographs, so we positioned our Land Rover parallel to the road so we could photograph the walking lions without any hint of a road. What made the composition better was that there was tall grass in the foreground, and that created depth to the scene. The challenge with the setup was how to focus on the lions, as the foreground grass was the only thing we could get a clean autofocus point on. Not to fret, as it is easy to tweak the focus manually and use an f-stop to make sure we had enough depth of field just in case of error. I recommended f/8 to f/14, and it seemed to work out.

Eventually the lions took a long drink, and the only way we could position the vehicle was to have them looking to the side, parallel to us. Since lions don’t like mud, we had a good idea where they would eventually place themselves for a drink. Almost the entire edge of the water was covered in mud, so it made it easy to predict where the lions would drink from.

Lion At The Waterhole

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/1600 @ f/5.6, ISO 400

In the afternoon we had an excess of riches. We ‘had’ to decide between mating leopards (the same we had photographed a day ago) and the mother leopard and her two cubs. Both sightings were within 500 meters of each other, so we just went to the location of the mating leopards first. The leopards weren’t as easy to photograph this time, due to the area of thick bush they were in, but I used the opportunity to shoot video just so I could have audio of the affair. After a 6 matings we were anxious to get ourselves to Hlabankuzi and her two cubs, so we drove out and headed towards the Sand River’s edge.

Renee and Deven

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/200 @ f/7.1, ISO 400

On the way to the river we noticed some tracks on the road that were out of place, and eventually figured out that Hlabankuzi had made a kill near the road and had dragged the carcass down to the sandy part of the river. Score! We found her with her cubs on the carcass, but they were in an extremely dense bush and we couldn’t see much. We waited until one of them appeared, and eventually Hlabankuzi dragged the remaining impala carcass down the road and up into a huge jackalberry tree.

The light had already faded, but we sat and watched one of her cubs climb up into the tree and enjoy the meal by herself. The irony of the moment was that the kill was sitting on top of a leopard orchid, which was growing wild on top of a low branch in the tree. A leopard on top of a leopard orchid. Poetic. I pushed the D4 to ISO 12,800 before we needed to leave them to dine. Hlabankuzi had left the jackalberry tree to go and fetch cub number two, and we needed to respect the rule that nobody should spend time with a leopard cub without the presence of the mother, so we drove back to camp in the dark. On the way back we saw yet another leopard and 2 more cubs, so today we had seven unique leopards in the span of only one hour. What an awesome way to end the last full day of safari for my safari group.

Tomorrow I will have to say goodbye to my group, as I have another safari group arriving. I know we are going to have another 8 days of fantastic sightings, even if we don’t see a single leopard, lion or cheetah. The general game has been excellent, and I anticipate more of the same in the week ahead.

Ravenscourt Female Leopard

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/1250 @ f/4, ISO 5000

Ravenscourt Female Leopard and One of Her Cubs With a Kill

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/1250 @ f/3.2, ISO 6400

Leopard Cub

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/100 @ f/2.8, ISO 12,800, hand-held

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 10

Some people have emailed me and have confronted me on my opinions of the D800 versus D4 camera bodies, and I just want to be on record that my needs and desires might be completely different to others who use these tools. I am actually a good candidate for medium format digital equipment, as I don’t think that I need high frames per second as much as I need larger file sizes for bigger print reproductions. Your needs might be different than mine, and I don’t pretend to think my needs are similar or dissimilar to others. The D4 is a great camera and I just prefer the D800 over it. It’s just that simple.

Yellow Billed Horn Bill

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/1600 @ f/5, ISO 500

What about the Canon 5DMk3? Well, a few of my travelers have that camera on this trip and from what I see it is also an excellent camera. The autofocus is in a completely different league than that of the 5DMk2, and for that reason I can easily recommend it to wildlife photographers. Even though Nikon stole some thunder with the D800, the 5DMk3 is a much more capable camera than the camera that came before it. Since we don’t have the 1Dx out in the marketplace as of this blog post, I have absolutely no idea which one I would choose if I were still shooting with Canon. It is likely that I will rent an entire Canon kit for my pair of Botswana safaris this November, and I will be in a better position to have some opinions on the matter.

As far as sightings go, we had a hunting male leopard on some warthogs (unsuccessful hunt for him), a large male lion who was intent on finding other lions to socialize with and the finale for the day was…….drum roll please…….a mating pair of leopards. We had the most amazing afternoon, as we sat and watched the mating pair for at least 8 copulations. On one occasion the male mounted the female about 2 meters from my front seat in the Land Rover. Mating leopards are fascinating to watch, as the female instigates the action and the male follows suit. The male will bite the back of the female as a sign of domination and the female will growl back as the end nears. This action happened 8 times before the light faded and we needed to head back to camp. It had been a few years since I had seen mating leopards, and the sights and sounds were jaw dropping. Nature really has a way of impressing me.

Mating Leopards In The Road

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/200 @ f/5, ISO 2500 (not enough shutter speed!)

Mating Pair Of Leopards

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/500 @ f/3.2, ISO 2500

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/1250 @ f/4.5, ISO 400

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.

Sabi Sand Safari Report - Day 9

Ok. All I want to talk about today was our experience with a mother leopard and her two four-month old cubs. Nothing else even came close to that kind of quality of sighting, well, except the mother/daughter rhinos that walked up to the edge of our vehicle in the afternoon. J

We had heard of the Ravenscourt female leopard and her two young cubs, and there had been a sighting of hear earlier in the morning on a fresh impala kill in the grass. We made our way to the edge of the Sand River where she had been seen, and it took some time to figure out where she might be. We were successful locating the impala kill, but initially we didn’t find any signs of the three leopards. We found them playing in a very thick area of the bush, and for the next 90 minutes we had one of the most wonderful viewings of a young family at play. The 4-month old brother and sister cubs ran circles around their mother, they played in the low branches of the trees and chased each other around our vehicle. The dappled light made for difficult exposures, as well as the erratic movement, but I couldn’t stop smiling the entire time.

Leopard Cub In A Tree

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/800 @ f/5.6, ISO 3200. Hand Held

From a technique standpoint, I had to rely on autofocus with manual focus tweaks. The foreground grass was often in the way, and I just couldn’t rely on autofocus to do everything for me. I also tried to stop down to get more depth of field as a precaution, as I would have hated to shoot at f/2.8 or f/4 and not have their eyes sharp.

I have been on many many safaris in the past 10 years, and this sighting was difficult to top. Leopards are incredible. Leopard cubs are incredible times ten. Or one thousand. Or more. Yes, I have seen leopard cubs in the past, as in last week, but this one stands on top of all others, due to the length of time, the behaviors witnessed and our ability to see it all clearly only a few feet from us.

Leopard Cubs Playing

Nikon D800, 300mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/400 @ f/4.5, ISO 1000

Leopard Cub

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/500 @/f4.5, ISO 1600

Wade With A Smile (Leopard Cubs Will Do that To A Person)

Nikon D4, 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, 1/500 @ f/5.6, ISO 2500

Ok, I will talk about another great sighting today: rhinos next to our vehicle. Not just rhinos, but a mother and her young calf. At one point the calf came up and sniffed the edge of our rear tire, and when we lightly giggled he got started and walked off.

One must always remember that a slow day in the bush beats the best day in an office, and the best day in the bush has no equal. Today has no equal.  

Camera bags on this safari are sponsored by Gura Gear, which I started in 2008. Check us out. We make the best camera bags on the planet.

Some of the gear on this safari has been provided by Borrowlenses.com. I rely on borrowlenses.com for both my own needs as well as my safari travelers’ needs. When we need big lenses, cameras or anything else photographic, we turn to borrowlenses.com to help out. They are the best resource in the industry for traveling photographers.