A wonderful 4 day trip to the Kruger National Park end of March 2009.
The first three days we spent in the Kruger Park properly speaking, staying at the Skukuza Camp http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/camps/skukuza/
For the last day we moved to the private Mohlabetsi lodge in an adjacent private park. http://www.mohlabetsi.co.za/
Hoppy our driver was our guide for the first three days. We saw plenty of animals and made the big five in just three days.
I didn’t get the chance to get a shot at the Leopard myself but the image is in my head and I will get one next time.
Most extraordinarily we crossed the same pack of wild dogs on the second and third days.
During the trip my EOS5D became quite unusable when the reflex mirror suddenly became simply dropped out. Rather unsual to shoot blindly but it is possible.
Fortunately I still had my old EOS620 and took some shots on film. I also aimed at the night sky with that camera.
After sticking the mirror back in with some band aid tape the 5D was up again.
I did most of the shooting with my EF70-200L F4 IS lens which is really fantastic. Others I took using the EF24-105L which is very good too. Both have the image stabilizor which helps in low light.
On the last day we took a bush walk with our ranger. We could observe a pair of Giraffes in their nuptial proceedings which you can see in the last photos of the set. As I was approaching to get a better shot the male was suddenly looking at me as if to say get lost you paparazzi!
Made with Adobe Lightroom 2.
Martin Wenk, November 2009