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turbodave99

Impala with Elephant web

SONY ILCE-1

settings

Aperture 9/1 ISO 400 Shutter 1/400 Focal Length 6000/10

upload_date

Sep, 2023

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213

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Behind The Lens

Location

This was taken in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, Africa while I was leading a photo safari with 11 other photographers. It was taken from our safari vehicle. This impala was just walking towards this huge elephant and I was fortunate enough to have my camera at the ready for what I thought would be a nice shot of the impala against the elephant as a backdrop. I guess I was right and lucky!

Time

It was taken about mid morning while we were watching a large herd of elephants. The animals congregate with many other animals of different species so it was not unusual to see large groups of impala and other antelopes like Thomson Gazelle, sharing the space with elephants and others.

Lighting

The early morning and later afternoon lighting always favors good photography. It is important to do as much photography in Africa though in the earlier hours of the day especially. Some animals can be photographed close to your safari vehicle but often they are further away from you. Obviously, the further away they are, the more you tend to use the higher magnification telephoto lenses. Using the long telephoto lenses in the latter part of the day for distant animals magnifies the heat waves, which interferes with getting a good shot.

Equipment

I used a Sony 200 - 600 mm lens on my Sony A-1 body. There is little room to use a tripod when inside the safari vehicles, so the best technique is to rest the camera and lens on sand bags. The sand bags are brought with us empty and we fill them with sand or beans once we get to Africa. The sand bags offer great support when a tripod is not so practical. In addition, the sand bags prevent vibration actually better than tripods do for many situations.

Inspiration

When I saw the impala walking towards the elephant, I just thought what a great backdrop a large elephant would make for the impala. In addition, the contrast of the brown impala against the grey textured skin of the elephant worked well. I didn't know how well till I reviewed the photos later in the day!

Editing

Actually, very little post-processing was done with this photo other than cropping the image for composition. I normally adjust the exposure for luminance and pay a lot of attention to the shadows.

In my camera bag

For my safaris, I always carry two camera bodies, an older Sony A7R3 and a Sony A-1. I bring a Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 II, Sony FE 200-600mm, and a Sony 24-105 f/4, along with a Sony 12-24mm f/4 lens. I use the faster CF Express cards when possible so as to not miss longer action sequences when shooting at higher frame rates. I always carry two Samsung T7 SSD 4 Tb hard drives to back up my photos as well.

Feedback

Always have your camera ready with the settings pre-set with the approximate settings you are going to use. Shoot with the shots necessary to get the shot first then start lowering your ISO and other settings to get a finer high resolution photo if the animals allow you the time.

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turbodave99

turbodave99

Impala with Elephant web

Behind The Lens

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