dawn baobab
Golden hour in the Kalahari
Golden hour in the Kalahari
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Apr, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This image was captured at Nxai pan NP in Botswana. It's a part of the country where it starts to shade into the Kalahari and in March, it's getting very arid. There's very little tall tree cover and it seems that the elephants change their behaviour because of this. Elsewhere they will regularly knock down medium sized Mopane and acacia to get at the green foliage, but on the Kalahari fringes it's been noted (apocryphally) that they leave what trees there are to provide some shade. The occasional baobab stands out head and shoulders above the rest.Time
We were setting off on a game drive at around 5.30 a.m. - absolutely the golden hour!Lighting
I wish I could claim tremendous planning was involved, but this was simply an opportunity seized. I only took 3 shots, just varying the shutter speed to try and capture the sky accurately, it was a tremendous sight.Equipment
When I'm on this kind of trip I'm mainly set up for long range wildlife shots, but also have a standby for closer work and landscape. Accordingly I grabbed the Canon 6D with 24-105mm f4 lens. Because the sky was so luminous and I was only looking for the baobab silhouette I closed the aperture right down to give the best depth of field.Inspiration
No inspiration required for this one. There it was right in front of us, you couldn't possible turn it down. It has, however, inspired me to consider how I could have done better, to be more alert and prepared to maximise unexpected opportunities.Editing
Very little processing went into the final image. The tonal range was good so I just adjusted (v slightly) brightness/contrast and a tiny bit of exposure using Photoshop bridge.In my camera bag
I usually go out with two possibilities in mind. I'm most interested in the wildlife side, especially birds in flight, but also enjoy landscape and macro. To that end my current kit is usually (all Canon) 1DX with 200-400 f4 (1.4 extender built in) and a 5DMkIII body. Depending on what I'm expecting I'll either have the 24-105mm f4 L series for landscape or a 100mm f2.8 L series for macro. Either way both lenses are in the bag. I often include a travel tripod and remote shutter release - just in case.Feedback
For this shot the best advice is "be ready"! The conditions only lasted a few minutes before the whole scene changed. Otherwise if I spot something I quite like and am not ready to take the shot I'll note where I was time of day (or at least time after/before sunrise/sunset) and weather conditions. Then I'll keep an eye out for similar circumstances and a time slot to use them. I have a couple of shots in mind that I've been waiting for years to try.
