What to take.

I looks like I will be travelling back to Kruger this year, yippee. But which gear to take? I do so want to take the 500 f4 IS, get me closer to those wonderful birds, give me great bokeh on those distant mammals....but then it is heavy. SAA are a bugger for checking you handluggage weight.
Then I look at shots like these, yes Adam I do, which I would not have gotten without the shorter length and f2.8 of the 300mm IS....

..it was early and quite dark under the trees, but f2.8 and IS worked like a dream. The 500 would be cumbersome and require an ISO boost. Damn. I cannot take both. Will the 100-400 and 500 work well, they should but that f5.6 is no good at night or early mornings. As a friend of mine might say "Grumble".

Better late than never!

Once again my weekend was taken up with various bit of work which needed to be done around the flat. Balcony needed cleaning, drive needed sweeping, BBQ needed lighting....so it was only at 7pm on Sunday evening when I finally got out. Of course arriving in the forest so late means most of the wildlife is already out in the fields, nervously watching the roads and paths for danger. Enter me!
I did manage to stalk close enough to a small group but due to grass and other summer kraut I did not get many clear shots. But the fields are full of some crop which is already flowering a wonderful yellow, I really need to take advantage of this colour over the coming weeks. Certainly until the kraut is so high I can no longer see the damn deer!

1DIII, 500 f4 @ 700mm.



Looking back

Did a quick look through some of my "reject/too many to count" shots from Africa last night. Very early morning along the S100 in Kruger NP we returned to a pride of a dozen lions we had seen the evening before. They had been lounging in the shade then, but in the early sun they were more active and we watched for nearly an hour or so as they lay, played, groomed and drank. All too vivid are the memories, I do hope to see something similar again. Of course the 300mm and 2xTC met their match, the bokeh when using the converter can be atrocious if the background is not suitably distant.

This young male kept taunting his sister, eventually it ended with claws out. I will post more as I sort through them.

GoDaddy go.

A friend of mine recently posted this video on his blog. GoDaddy is a web hosting service and their CEO is known for pulling stunts to gain publicity. This time he has gone too far? I felt so strongly after seeing it I felt it deserved a space in my blog, to pass on the message to others.

Edit: Mr Parsons has now removed his video since losing 14% of his customers (and counting). ;)

So here is another copy of that famous vid!

See the original blog here: http://www.bill.lockharts.com/blog/goodbye-godaddy/

I can see that helping out villagers is something someone would do anyway, what I find outrageous is the way in which it is used to advertise, with pride and a gun slinging all American attitude. It is sickening.

Earth shots

"Earth Shots is a photo of the day contest celebrating the beauty and diversity of our planet. Each day we chose one fantastic photograph to feature on our homepage. Anyone can submit their photographs to Earth Shots for a chance to win the coveted photo of the day title."

I was pointed to this website by a friend, Douglas, who is forever on a search for beautiful images. Having looked at the fantastic shots for a few weeks I figured I would submit one or two myself. So I did. Yesterday.

Today my friend said I absolutely had to look at Earthshots today. ;) Picture of the day

For those who cannot wait, here was the "fantastic" shot.