Decided to put some more photos out here that my brother and his wife took on their African Camera Safari this month . I’ve included his comments … which mention Cameras, setting, etc. for those of you who are photo fans.

“Nikon D800E. MT suggested I take three lenses (80-400, 24-120, and fast 50) and with few exceptions the shots I’m publishing were taken with the long lens.”

There are four truly stellar ones that he sent to my parents already … far better than any out here so far. But I’ll wait till he posts them with comments before sharing here. He shares one a day. So maybe in a week I’ll do another of these mega-posts.

And yes, I know … I’ve put them out in reverse date order. But you can figure the comments out, I’m sure.

Enjoy!

Safari photo of the day — a flock of Cattle Egrets, caught in motion at sunset… (4/21)

Safari photo of the day, Easter edition: the African Jacana, known in Botswana as the “Jesus Bird” for its apparent ability to walk on water (in reality, staying afloat by spreading its weight across the lily pads) (4/20)

Today’s safari photo — yesterday’s male lion shot seems to have been a big hit, so I won’t try to follow it with anything “serious” — here are three marabou storks (big guys, by the way). Not sure whether to name this one “business partners” or “watch buddies” but a fortunate capture in any case…

Thanks, all!— these looked to be 3+ feet tall — a quick look at Wikipedia reveals that the Marabou Stork can be up to 60 inches in height with a wingspan of up to 12 feet!  — thanks — I was shooting the D800E, mostly with the 80-400, and my wife had our Soviet-era D40 with the “holy trinity” 70-200. The resolving power of the D800E is stunning, as you know! (4/19)

Safari photo of the day — I hope that the Prof. will take it as a sign of respect that this photo immediately put me in mind of one of his self-portraits! Big male lion in the afternoon sun… (4/18)

Bonus safari shot: predator and prey. The impala got away — good news for her but bad news for the leopard… (4/17)

Today’s safari photo: Baboons… (4/17)

Today’s safari photo — another one from Lorrie, this one of (obviously) an elephant from relatively early in the trip. Great having both of us shooting, as she caught many angles and moments that I did not.

Lorrie was shooting the 70-200 f2.8 Nikon lens wide open, and of course the variety of foliage from close in to far away helped as well. No cropping on this one — she framed it this way in-camera.

The hippo shot was hers as well and she had a bunch of other great photos too. Meanwhile, I had the Mighty D800E, the big glass, and the expensive lessons and was just barely keeping up with her work. (4/16)

 

Today’s safari shot as we are now back on US soil, in Atlanta awaiting our connection to SFO. This one from Lorrie — great image (I didn’t take it, so I can say so ) of a threat display from a hippo. We were about 50 meters away in a small flat-bottomed boat, so we felt threatened indeed — especially when this guy and two other big hippos submerged for quite a while! Obviously we survived to tell the tale.

(On asked by a friend “Gary, did you guide tell you that hippos are the main cause of human deaths in the wild? More so than all other predators? So, you definitely had good reason to feel threatened! But still, I would have done the same and take some risk to capture these huge beautiful creatures. I like the light on this shot. Late afternoon near sunset?”)

I was quite nervous indeed, as we had been told repeatedly about the lethal nature of hippos and in addition to the threat displays the darned things kept going underwater for long periods while we sat in our little flat-bottomed boat. This was perhaps 15 minutes before sunset, as you suspected — and luckily this big fellow turned just slightly to his left as this photo was taken, as the Sun was almost directly to our right and other images were much darker. (4/15)

Today’s safari photo — a follow-up to yesterday’s, with “Ms. Grumpy”  showing more of her true feelings after an unsuccessful hunting attempt on an impala. Definitely using a telephoto, but we were no more than 50 feet away (perhaps closer) at this point.

I believe that the apparent bulb is actually an optical illusion caused by the white tip of the tail bending directly back toward the viewer. (4/14)

Leaving Africa tomorrow and as of today back in wifi and phone range after 9 days of blissful silence — lots of photos to process, but here’s one to start off — female leopard who favored us with her presence yesterday… — at Vumbura Plains Camp, Botswana. (4/13)

(Leopard is the common name for Panthera pardus. “Panther” is not uniformedly used everywhere. Most of the time it refers to the black panther. But when used on a non black cat it can refer to either leopard or jaguar.)