After a hectic weekend in Bloemfontein(a Wedding on Friday, Kovsie Aquatic Swimming Gala on Saturday and Celtic vs Kaiser  Chiefs at Seisa Ramabodu Saturday evening) and 900 km further we arrived at Pretorius Kop in the Kruger National park this afternoon. After we quickly unpacked we went for our first game drive. Not much except for a herd of elephants and the normal antelope here and there. Tomorrow we head for Satara for the next five days and then back to Lower Sabie for the next five days.

Elephant - Photo: Gerhard Steenkamp

The Kruger National Park’s proud history of nurturing biodiversity is deeply interwoven with a rich legacy of cultural diversity streching back more than a million years. At least 150 Mammals species, 500 birds, 340 tress, 115 reptiles, 50 fish, and 35 amphibians have been recorded in Kruger, which is about 20 000 sq km – the size of Wales.

Elephant - Photo: Gerhard Steenkamp

Taking photos from a vehicle is quite a mission. Basically i’m using two bodies(Nikon D3 and a D700) and three lenses(Nikon 400mm F2.8 fitted with a 1.4 converter, 70-200mm F2.8 Lens and a 24-70mm lens)

Settings are very basic in a sense that i’m using manual mode as a basis. Try to keep my speed above 1/1000 sec, F Stop above F8 and the ISO below 1600. Further i’m making use of the vivid setting on my Picture Control setting. More about this in a earlier post.

The White Balance is on auto and the quality setting on Raw. The reason for this is basically to record more data to work with when it comes to post processing.

To steady the camera while shooting from my vehicle i’m making use of bean bags to support it through the window.

Elephants - Photo: Gerhard Steenkamp