Nov
08
In Namibia in November 2008 we really wanted to see Dead Vlei at Sossusvlei on our own and with nobody else there to spoil the barrenness. Pictures of Dead Vlei needed to contain no other people, just the sky, sand and acacias.
We arrived early, just after the sunrise, and we were relieved to see that it would just be ourselves – at least for a time anyway.
I used mainly a 12-24 zoom lens, and more often than not at the widest end. This image is a little unusual in that I’d used a 70-200 zoom instead to isolate this section and catch the lines of the dunes. And while the scene looks spectacular in color, I thought I’d try a monochrome variant here.
About an hour or so after we’d arrived, more people had arrived and the riverbed started to fill with people.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 70-200 lens at 80mm, f/8, 1/750 and ISO 200.
Dead Vlei is a pan, part of riverbed now isolated by the highest sand dunes in the world, some reaching up to 300 meters which rest on a sandstone terrace. The clay pan was formed after rainfall, when the river flooded, creating temporary pools where the of water allowed acacia trees to grow. When the climate changed and drought hit the area, the sand dunes encroached on the pan, which blocked the river from the area. The remaining skeletons of the trees, which are believed to be about 900 years old, are now black because the intense sun has scorched them. The wood does not decompose because it is so dry.
Oct
31
There were several mountain gorillas infants in Group Thirteen and I took this opportunity to get closer with some detail pictures. This guy was slipping all over the place and occasionally losing his grip. I took this one just before he fell with a thud to the earth.
Group Thirteen is so named because it once held thirteen individuals, but now holds about-twenty six. It’s one of seven habituated groups suitable for mountain gorilla trekking in Rwanda. There are also nine other research groups as well as several uninhabituated ones.
Nobody ever regrets spending the $500 to spend just one hour with mountain gorillas in either Uganda or Rwanda. And that’s excluding the accommodation, flights to get there, and the up to eight hours trekking there and back.
Taken using a Nikon D300 with a 70-100 f2.8 lens and 1.4 converter at f/4.8, 1/180 and ISO 250.
Oct
29
A relatively obliging male – sans harem – was willing to throw a few poses for me for about thirty or forty minutes. It’s from one morning last week, once again in Richmond Park, near London.
It’s a kind of semi-silhouette, and again I was without a tripod, finding bits of trunk and deadwood to press my lens up against. It wasn’t really a silhouette photo, but I made it so by making a one and a half stop adjustment in Adobe Lightroom.
Taken using a Nikon D700 with a 300 f4.0 lens at f/4.0, 1/125 and ISO 1000.
Oct
24
Our guide was old and crusty. He honked our vehicle’s horn to try to get this lion’s attention, but the king didn’t bat an ear. Pretty bad practice by the guide we had.
It’s a two year old picture of a male lion on a kopje in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, which I took in November 2007. It was right on midday when I took this picture.
It was OK in color, but transferred more successfully to monochrome.
Taken using a Nikon D200 with a 70-200 f2.8 lens at f/5.6, 1/800 and ISO 100
Oct
23
At about eight, we saw this stag chase off a rival leaving behind this golden sunlit scene. Thinking he’d eventually return to his harem, we waited under the canopy until he walked back into the path of sunlight, then he roared and I took the picture.
Taken using a Nikon D700 with a 300 f4.0 lens at f/4.0, 1/90 and ISO 900
Oct
17
This is one more from Richmond Park from last Wednesday morning.
By this time, just after ten, the light was better and hand-holding became more conducive, taking this freestanding with a non-VR lens and 1/180th of a second. Happily the sharpness came through :)
Taken using a Nikon D700 with a 300 f4.0 lens at f/4.8, 1/180 and ISO 800
Oct
14
Richmond Park this morning had none of it’s usual picturesque fog, it was overcast at daybreak, and the light was quite dull. All the deer that I could see were under the tree canopy where it’s even duller. My tripod was not with me on this occasion, and so missed a few because of that, so serve me right I guess.
So it wasn’t ideal, having 1/90th for most of the time using ISO 800-1600 and a non-VR lens. But I did manage some good pictures by resting on dead wood and trees for stabilisation.
One benefit of not having a tripod – I can get lower easier.
Taken using a Nikon D700 with a 300 f4.0 lens at f/4.8, 1/90 and ISO 800
Oct
11
One healthy red fox taken at the end of June at about 7:50 pm at the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey. The foxes here are contained in large natural enclosures. The light was near perfect at 7:45pm, and the background greens were nearly as bright as seen here.
So bright that some might think that the color was a little oversaturated on the Nikon Vivid setting. So reducing that saturation in Lightroom makes it a little more natural.
Taken using a Nikon D700 with a 300 f4.0 lens at f/4.5, 1/400 and ISO 450
The new D700 proved crisper than the D300 that I’d used last year.
