Your Canon Photos No. 28: 12th to 18th November 2023

Hi all
Some big cat pics from Kruger National Park South Africa from our recent trip there.

Leopard
We did 7 safari drives in total, roughly 3 hours each. One early in the mornings and one later in the afternoons.
We stayed at 2 locations, Simbavati which was a private reserve and the other outside Kruger.

My wife and I had done a single safari drive in India back in 2011but did not see any tigers or leopards. We did another in Sri Lanka but again no leopards.
Even in Simbavati we were unfortunate not to see any leopards as others on our drive had seen one a day or so before we got there.
Still no luck at Kruger but on our last drive there as we were leaving, our guide stopped to speak to another guide who was incoming and he told our guide that a leopard had been seen about 500 yards/metres down the road. So we did a u-turn and our guide found the leopard. I have absolutely no idea how he found it!! It was about 50 metres from the road virtually covered by the branches that were quite thick.
To my naked eye, it was invisible and it took me about 10 minutes of searching just to make it out!
Autofocus of the Canon R8 was impossible in this situation, and I tried a few different method but in the end had to focus my Tamron 100-400 manually so, this was the best shot I managed.
Still, extremely happy that we got to see one!

Cheetah
This was back in Simbavati and we were fortunate to see one as it hadn't been around since May (and this was October(.
In the private reserves the guides can get very close to the animals so it was much easier to get some photos.

Lion
In Kruger
This was the only lion that we got to see with the naked eye (the other was in a cave up in a mountain) and although the view was unobstructed it was still at a distance. You are not allowed to go off-road (up to the animals) in Kruger.

The whole trip was amazing and a lot of fun even though the private reserve drives in uncovered vehicles can be jarring as we went off-road.
The guides provided thick, felt-lined ponchos for the mornings that gave us some comfort from the cold and the wind (and rain on one drive) in the open vehicle.
The vehicle needs to be open to go off-road to get under all the trees etc

The Kruger vehicle was comparative luxury being enclosed with a roof and some glass panels.

Thanks
Paul

Dunlin,

Thanks. In some of the pictures you can see part of el tigre on the blue background.

Photobygms,

That's great to see your autumn colors and surroundings. I've been also walking about and taking pictures of colorful leaves.

Paul,

That's a treat to see the cats. Yes, I can see that manually focusing the first one was the way to go, with the branches so close together. When we first find something that's difficult to find, it's usually a few tense moments to try to get the best photos possible.

Here's a long exposure I took today around 4:30PM.

It's a 13" exposure with a 10 stop ND filter taken at f/9 and ISO of 100. (Regular exposure was around 1/20).

It's a little soft 'cause I took it out the window.

Steve Thomas

Sunset 11-14-23

Steve Thomas

Thanks Dig.
I tried for a while but it was really difficult. Even manual focus was a challenge with ISO at 8000, it was pretty dark. Definitely tense moments lol.

Cheers
Paul

David,

The statues and architecture are amazing. For something so old how to they keep everything so clean looking? Everything has the appearance of being new.

Steve,

The long exposure picture makes it look like a cold and dreary day. How are the temperatures?

Steve,

I like your sunset picture. You managed to capture a large amount of reddish clouds.

Have you tried any of the classic long-exposure subjects yet - moving water, cars driving at night ("car trails")?

You take super architecture photos David, even if the light isn't the best.

Dig,

The temperatures are not too bad right now. The highs are in the upper 50's (F), and the lows in the low 40's.
The long exposure shot is a little underexposed. I erred on the side of caution, I think..
It was about 4:30PM though, the sun had gone down below the horizon.
The sunset picture I showed was done about 20 minutes later. You can tell that by the 1/6th shutter speed. The ground was dark, but the sky was still lit up, at least for a few minutes more.

Steve Thomas

Dunlin,

Not yet. I'm still learning the ropes.

I did spend some time today using my tablet and doing some wireless remote shooting using an app called Camera Connect and Control in Bulb mode.

It's so cool. You can put your camera in Bulb mode and remotely change things like exposure time, aperture and ISO and see the results right on your screen before you take your shot. The advantage here is that you are looking at a 10" screen instead of a 3" screen. The Bulb mode even has a timer on it, so if you set it for 10 seconds shutter speed (or whatever), you can see it counting down. The timer goes off and your shutter closes. It's pretty neat.

Steve Thomas

You remind me, my Olympus can do a similar thing, and I recently got my first tablet. I'll have to try that!

Exeter at night.

Was taken handheld. With IBIS and software denoising (not AI-denoising), I think it's still usable at ISO 1000.
Shot as RAW, processed in darktable.