Masai Mara Some Sharing and Musings....

Hey Guys

Apologies for going AWOL for a while, had quite a few back to back trips and have just got around to processing the images.

So here are my pictures from my trip to Masai Mara in August.

It is an awesome place and everyone must visit it once at least (get the place on your bucket list), I absolutely loved it.

I took my EM1 with grip, EM5 mki, 4 spare battery, 300 f4 pro, 40-150 f2.8 pro (glad I bought it) which came in handy early morning and late evenings, 12-40 f2.8 pro ( I did not use it much as I did not want to change lenses in the bush, had the 300 and 40-150 mounted the whole time, 9-18 that I managed to use a few times and was glad I took it, 45mm f1.8 that I never used (did not do any portraits, but its so small I always take it with me), aaanndd I was glad I took the Richo GRii with me for the wide angle shots.

Personal impression is that the EM5 mki dose not handle as well as the Em1, and to be honest I am really comfortable with the EM1 (hope they don't do many drastic changes to the EM1 mkii)

I ended up using the 300 and 40-150 quite often, the 40-150 for landscape and habitat shots.

Lots of dust, so glad for the weather sealing, also glad for the compact size as I saw a friend struggle to bring his 600mm to bear while in was already shooting away happily.

I went through Moyo Travel operators based in Nairobi, and stayed at Little Governors camp. There are no fences, and we had Elephants, Hyenas and Hippos walking through the camp during the night. All safe I was told and I never felt threatened. The hippos lived very close to the camp and we could hear them grunting and calling all night. A novel experience and I miss the ruckus. Absolutely a fabulous experience.

The first day of processing, and I got really worried as there was absolutely no details in the fur of the lion and antelope I shot. I was really really really worried and started seriously contemplating going for a full frame with a 70-200 f2.8. When I went on to the second day's processing and much to my relief everything was fine. The Problem, I realised was that it had rained the first day, and wet fur+low light+ low shutter speed from a vehicle are not gonna end up with details.

So here are the pictures

1) This is my favourite picture. Love the expression of wariness on the matriarch. There was a lioness sitting not 8 feet from the elephant on the right (cant see in picture and I could barely see it live). The elephants had calves with them and thus the result. It had rained and you can see it in the skin of the elephants.

2) Cheetahs are incredibly lazy animals, and we saw this one just lazing in the grass all playful like a kitten. I had to overexpose the eyes in post to bring out the colour and details. Shot this leaning out from the vehicles side, with the camera hanging below by the lens tripod mount with two fingers, and using touch focus on the screen with the screen flipped out. No canonikon could do it.

3) Shot similarly, very low or as low as I could lean out from vehicle. The idea was to shoot as low as possible, to get a more eye level view, and not the typical top down shots that people get. The Lion was looking at the lioness who was approaching him ( she was in heat). They mated a little later but sadly I couldn't get a shot of lion porn, as they hid behind the grass to do it.

4) Again shooting low, poor light, IBIS is awesome.

5) Lying down, and waiting for 20 mins for these naughty rascals to appear. In my camp.

6) Tried a different angle again, standing up as high as I could and zooming real close.

7) I realised that taking habitat shots is way more powerful than portraits as it conveys a story. well some portraits are awesome (mine are ) as well but in general the habitat shots win.

8) Another incredibly difficult to shoot animal, such a huge body but need to keep focus point centred on the face. Hope the Pen f tech will come in the next EM1 mkii, will make light easy changing focus point.

9) The river crossing, and it was crazy.... a big heard of about 3000 wildebeest managed to cross in a span of 25 mins. The crossing was narrow, but the heard waited for the alpha male to cross first, and then the mad rush began. The Zebras were smart, they just stood by for a while saw the wildebeest crossing and then chose the easiest route . There was surprisingly low mortality for such a big heard, we counted only 5 wildebeest washing away, all young ones.

10) Now this is a funny animal.. easy to spook, unpredictable keeps calling all day. There was a big heard of about 18 adults and 7 calves right in front of the camp where we stayed. Small sounds would spook them into water, and once it starts all of them will charge into the water, calling loudly. Beware they are the no 1 killers of humans.

11) A local lizard, the 300mm with its close focusing ability is awesome.

12) As the river crossing was taking place, some I saw a big number (about 150-250) wildebeest come charging back. Took me a while to realise that it was the mommas, who had lost their babies. The ladies crossed back to this side in search. You can see the desperation of a mother separated from her baby in their loud repetitive calls. This is where a lot of them died, they got so exhausted going back and forth that the ladies didn't have any strength to swim across.

13) Leopard tree

14) Love the 9-18 for the landscapes, need to use it more.

15) Balloon ride is a must, to experience Mara from a different perspective.

16) The change in light is swift and abrupt

I tried to get out of my comfort zone and shoot differently and process differently, these are more from my personal experiments and taste. An attempt at disregarding whats conventional.

Below are the results.

17) Golden light

18) Don't do a lot of B&W

19) Motion Blur

20) Again trying to get well defined layers in the landscape.

21) Aother B&W habitat shot. The Topi like to stand on the ant mounds to have better view of the surrounding for predators.

22) A totally different processing, shot in the golden hour and then played with on LR.

Hope you Enjoy. C&C always welcome.

Some wonderful, interesting shots!  Welcome to the safari addicts club!

What a fantastic series of this wilderness, well done! My favorite is the elephant as well, knowing the lioness is on the hunt adds to the drama. Well done with the cheetah's eyes, I have to do that a lot when I'm shooting cats.

I often crop hard so I would have been reluctant to go with just m43 but you seem to have managed just fine. Maybe your driver got you closer to the game than is usual.

Those are fantastic!

Regarding hippos, never get between them and water as that's where they'll run to if spooked.

Unless you can run like Usain Bolt, you won't out run a hippo...

... as you totally suck at being a bad photographer.

Seriously though, thanks for sharing these awesome pictures and also your thoughts around the pictures.

#1, #7 and #20 are simply awesome.

Again, thanks for sharing and inspiring.

Regards,

All very nice shots, some are simply great like the elephant shot and I really like #21.

Inspiring results!

Flickr stream at https://www.flickr.com/photos/126284142@N04/

Fantastic series! #17 is my favorite.

Really enjoyable set of pictures. Love the landscape scenes.

Bob657 wrote:

Some wonderful, interesting shots! Welcome to the safari addicts club!

Hehehehe thanks Bob, it certainly is addictive. Gotta plan my next trip.

Dabbler wrote:

What a fantastic series of this wilderness, well done! My favorite is the elephant as well, knowing the lioness is on the hunt adds to the drama. Well done with the cheetah's eyes, I have to do that a lot when I'm shooting cats.

I often crop hard so I would have been reluctant to go with just m43 but you seem to have managed just fine. Maybe your driver got you closer to the game than is usual.

Hey Michael

The m43 is perfect, would not think of any other (even if I did, in my defence I had a bad scare). I didn't need to crop a lot, I was carrying a 600mm equ(unmentionable).

Made my life very easy. Also compared the results to my friend who was carrying a 600mm Nikkor with 4D something..mkii and the results are very comparable. Only in low light do you see a difference but then the light is so poor you should ideally stop shooting anyway. And in low light my em1 focused as ever where as he struggled and had to use mf.

Yes my driver did get close but then i used the 40-150 pro.

Can't wait to go back, Cheers Michael.

Rahul

All are very nice.  Agree that the first elephant shot is excellent.  I also really like the 'golden light' with the solitary antelope(?).

Just a wonderful set! I admire your pushing to get different perspectives, especially low-down shots. Our first safari involved a stay at Little Governors, too. That was 2010, and I was woefully underprepared with camera equipment. I remember fighting (successfully, I think) the urge to portraitize every animal. But, I will try hard to think more about vertical angle, from your shots.

The 300 seemed to do wonderfully for you. But, I've always wanted zoom for safari--to get the framing better fit to the scene more often. Did you miss that flexibility at all? I even found 300 too short on many occasions, and used digital teleconverter. You? These days, I've been shooting 75-300 (plan to move to the 100-400, for the flexibility, per above), and my wife loves the 40-150 for video. I guess your having both on separate cameras lessens the need a bit for a zoom on the big lens.

Two notes: We were told that the wildebeest initiating the river crossing was essentially random...there is no alpha guiding them. Were you told differently? It is very tempting to just assume the first one is a leader. There's actually psychological literature on that assumption!

I have a different perspective on "lazy" cheetah's. They are really very fragile creatures, in a small and narrowing niche. Just at the edge of disaster, most times, even more, I think, than other top-line predators. Lions, for example, are big and burly, but cheetahs have to hit their prey just right...don't have the option of wrestling them to the ground. If you haven't, you must find the BBC series "The Hunt." You're recognize some of the places they filmed. (We also went to Zambia and Botswana more recently, and I swear we recognized some particular fields they photographed.)

Thanks for your contribution. Inspiring.

glassoholic wrote:

RVC as someone mentioned you did not just take tight portraits. Well done for seeing and taking shots that most would not.

Yes, that was transparent in both his stated intent and in its realization.

It's not important, but if you were actually responding to me, I think you misinterpreted my points. I meant to acknowledge his not universally portraitizing as a good lesson (one that I think I learned), but to especially applaud his low angles, which I haven't done nearly enough. I think you must have read this sentence as some kind of criticism, which it was not:

"I remember fighting (successfully, I think) the urge to portraitize every animal. But, I will try hard to think more about vertical angle, from your shots."