Springbok drinking at waterhole in the Namibian desert.

I like using wide angle lenses for wildlife photography because itenables me to include a lot of habitat, and I like the perspective ofwide angles. Obviously it is not easy to get close to wild animalswith a wide angle, which explains why you don't see it very often.

Here I wanted to capture the animals that visited this small waterholein the Namibian desert. In order to be able to shoot from closeby, Iused a radio-controlled remote to trigger the shutter from a distance.I chose a position where the sun was shining over my shoulder and putmy tripod in the lowest possible position. I made my composition andfocused manually on an area just in front of the other side of thewaterhole. I selected my aperture and let the camera choose theshutterspeed. After that it was all a matter of waiting. Long waiting,actually, because the first animals that arrived at the waterhole werevery cautious when they saw the tripod. When the first brave springbokdecided that the tripod did not pose a threat and started drinking, Iclicked the shutter. Nikon shutters are not particularly subtle, so Iwas back at square one with the animals keeping their distance fromthat strange clicking thing.

Eventually most animals came to drink and I was able to get a few goodshots. When I noticed that the birds would still fly away the momentthey heard the shutter, I decided to make use of that and shoot two tothree frames each time. Here I like how the birds form a band acrossthe frame.

Your comments are appreciated as always.

[if you would like to join me on a photo trip to Namibia, please havea look at squiver.com]

fantastic

Excellent shot, very well captured, congrats..

 

Best,

 

cigdem

and the escaping birds round up the image to a felicitous composition. Good idea, to "use" their escaping from the shutter sound.

Very nice image, and thanks a lot for the technical explanation. Regards, Jean-Marc

by a master, Thank you, Giuseppe

Perfect photo, bravo.

A wonderful achievement!

Love the stillness of the gazelle together with the rush of the flying birds in the background - great motion contrast.

inspirational work...7-7

Beautiful - well done 7/6. I like the two different colors of mud and the birds flying in the background.

Beautiful light, colors and great moment too with all these birds passing by on the background. Great image Marsel, greetings from Greece

Agree, very masterful work. Outstanding!

very natural and story telling shot, i really admire all your work outstanding portfolio.

 

Regards

bolti

 

This is amazing. Wonderful work.

 

Daniel

Outstanding. Your patience paid off in a big way. Thanks for the background info regarding the making of the photo.

great job! beautiful composition!

One of the nature photos I like most of all I have seen so far!!! Congratulations. I´ll love to go in one of thos photo trips. Maybe 2011.... I´ll see.

love it