Tag: South Africa

  • On photographing Leopards

    On photographing Leopards

    Wildlife photography = waiting in the wild…

    Back in 2007 where I had my first wildlife experience in Namibia I instantly fell in love with wildlife photograph. Etosha was a great experience but there where no leopard sightings. I was also lucky to meet Arnoud Quanjer – a real wildlife addict. He told me, if I am looking for leopards, I have to go to Sabi Sands.

    Well five years later I had the chance, time, (little more) knowledge and equipment to go for it:

    Shoot a leopard photo worthy to be on the cover page of National Geographic!

    I know it is so foolish, but we all need goals, right?

    I want to pull out three pictures and a short movie to show how f* hard it is to get even close to it…

    Prequel: I already had some nice leopard shots, but the pinnacle of my expectation was at Londolozi. It is plain simple the best place on Earth to get leopard pictures.

    I started to stalk leopards… reading: waiting and cursing the weather and light condition.
    There was a female leopard watching over her prey. An impala kill up in the tree. There are plenty of opportunities for action and good shoots around this plot, as there are plenty of competitors around

    Impala Kill

    The picture below is my pray. The female leopard guarding her prey. I was patient. spent hours in front of her – waiting! Meanwhile getting nice but boring photos. Have I mentioned it was cloudy?

    Leopard

    An then an action! Some vultures came to close and I got this picture:

    Hissing Leopard

    …even without the sunlight it would have been not so bad – but: for whatever reason (it is just 4 minutes after the previous picture) the camera was on ISO 10000. Nice, but noisy…

    Here is the footage around the waiting. It is really highly condensed.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMAs-r37CUk

  • The Wild Dogs of Sabi Sands

    The Wild Dogs of Sabi Sands

    On my last day at the Inyati Lodge I had the great luck to see Wild Dogs on a hunt or at the end. These creatures require huge hunting territories as they have to share it with other competing predators. They are endangered according to IUCN classification (3000 individuals left)…

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm4IFWZLRVY

    Here is the full Flickr set

    But back home I reviewed my copy of Planet Earth from BBC (you will see an incredible wild dog hunt from above) and I somehow got a bummer – the BBC pics where so much more intense. So I reviewed the ‘making of’ DVD’ and realized I am light years away from what I try to capture. Team (working for 10 years on Wild Dog hunting pics) vs. Kurt, GoPro vs. military eyeball (heligimbal) – I quit… :-/