Our visit to Victoria Falls and our first day in Botswana

I am now back home and back to fast Internet which gives me a chance to catch up on my blog posts from the second photo tour in Africa. We had some unbelievable experiences on this trip and I am excited to share them with you all.

Before we ever made it to Botswana, the plan was to fly to Zimbabwe to photograph Victoria Falls in the late afternoon light, when it is best. But as you may have read on my Facebook or Instagram pages, we ended having a cracked windshield on our South African Airlines plane and having to turn around. This meant that, by the time we got another flight out, we missed our photo opportunity.

But, knowing that the morning light would be bad for photographing the falls (rising right in front of us), myself and one of our guests, Patsy, made our way over to the falls before sunrise to see if we could get some nice photos.

I hurried to get this slow shutter shot of the falls, trying to beat the rising sun, which you see coming up on the right of the image. I used my new Tiffen HT ND filter to darken the scene and get a shutter speed of 1.6 seconds to blur the water.

I moved quickly from one fall to the other to get some different shots. The water was flowing at a record level, so the rising mist made it very difficult to get a clean shot of the falls. I had to wait for the wind to blow just right to get a clear view.

There are many separate falls with Victoria Falls, but we only saw the first three since the mist was so all encompassing. Right before leaving the falls, I saw this rainbow pop up and grabbed one last photo.

Later in the morning, we made another trip to the falls, but the light wasn't as good and the mist was still overwhelming. It was time to head to Botswana for our first safari.

Unlike all game drives that I have done before, this time we were on a boat to capture images along the Okavango River.

And as you can see from this photo, the boat was specially outfitted for photographers with custom-made gimbals. These were very handy for shooting video, although unlike most of our guests, I actually preferred to shoot handheld. 

It was so awesome, cruising along the shoreline and seeing so much wildlife!

We watched as a heard of African Buffalo grazed in the swampy grass.

The best part of being on the water, was the opportunity to photograph the animals in the water from the water.

These two young elephants were playing around and giving us one great photo after another.

We enjoyed the wildlife, both big and small.

As we coasted along the shoreline, it was really fun to spot so many different animals to photograph. Our guide spotted this Monitor Lizard walking along the bank of the river. He pulled the boat in nice and close for a better view.

I kept my Canon 1D X Mark II camera and Canon 100-400mm lens trained on the lizard, waiting for him to smell with his tongue. I wanted to get a photo with the forked tongue very visible.

It was late in the afternoon and the sun was low, giving us really pretty light to photograph these Yellow-billed stork. I not only loved the colors on the birds, but also the warm light on the grass and surrounding hills.

As we were photographing the storks on the ground, one of them flew by with some nest-building material. I quickly moved my lens to the flying stork and got this shot of it flying by us. (Photographer's note: This is why I almost always leave my camera in AI Servo focus mode when photographing wildlife. Since I use back-button focusing, I can easily focus on my subject which might not be in motion, and also track animals that are on the move.)

At one point, as we pulled away from the shoreline, I saw all of our long shadows and thought that it would make a good photo. I know that you can't see it from this photo, but I know that we all had big smiles on our faces!

This was one of my last photos of the day. The sun was very close to setting when we saw this huge crocodile resting along the edge of the water. Our guide was able to get the boat VERY close to the crocodile. I got down low on the boat and shot this image at it's eye level. I really love the bright yellow eye on this prehistoric beast.

And this was just day one of our trip!!! I have so many more photos to share with you all. Stay tuned!

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If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
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Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.
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We have 2 spots open for my Costa Rica photo tour in 3 weeks

I am back from the two amazing photo tours in Africa and now making final plans for the rain forest trip to Costa Rica next month. We have 2 spots left if you want to do something really exciting in August. Get away from home and see the rain forest at it's best!

I will get you to the right locations, Canon will let you borrow gear at no cost, and you will come home with photos like these!

The trip is all inclusive and includes internal airfare, all meals (which are fantastic), wine with dinner, and even tips. And, of course, I will be helping you with your photography the entire time. This trip is perfect for photo enthusiasts at any level. You can see all the details of the trip here.  Contact me immediately if you are interested in grabbing one of these last two spots.

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Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.
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My first visit to Cape Town, South Africa

After a full week of being deep in the bush with no WiFi or cell service, I am back and able to write blogs again. It was both refreshing and frustrating not having any connectivity. But alas, I am connected again and writing again. And I am heading home too!

In between the Namibia photo tour and the Botswana photo tour we took a break in Cape Town, South Africa for a week. It was my first time visiting South Africa and we had a good time touring the area.

In this blog post, I will share with you some of the cool things we saw during our stay.

I was amazed at the amount of snow on the mountains as we approached Cape Town by air.  Since my camera gear was packed up, I took this shot with my iPhone X.

We arrived at our hotel in the the Sea Point area and I went up to the roof to check out the view. In this photo, you can see Lion's Head (right) and Table Mountain (left) which is covered in this big cloud bank.

I liked the way the clouds were formed over Table Mountain and decided to get a shot of just that.

I then turned and got a shot of just Lion's Head.

As I was taking the photos, I looked up and saw these para-gliders in the air above me.

On our second day, we hired a car and driver and took a tour of the area. I used my Canon 5D Mark IV and Canon 24-105mm lens to capture the beautiful coastline.

We drove along the coast and checked out some of the marinas.

Not only did we see the touristy things, but we also made it a point to check out the living area outside the city. As you can see, there are some people in the area who are still living minimally. Apartheid ended almost 30 years ago, but you can still see some of the remaining separate living conditions throughout the city.

I found it interesting that, even with the sparse conditions, almost everyone had a satellite dish for television.

We drove up to Table Mountain, but did not go all the way up since we showed up after 5pm and the lift to the top was closed. I decided to walk back down the mountain to our hotel, and stopped along the way to get some iPhone shots.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post (which was dedicated to just the penguins), we loved them so much that we visited them twice. If you missed that post, you can find it here.

We toured around and saw some of the great colors of the region.

Since we were staying right on the beach, we had numerous chances to capture the beautiful sunsets.

I was hoping to get more color in the sky after the sun set on this particular evening, but it did not happen. But I took the opportunity to show one of our tour attendees how to motion pan in this low light, following the joggers and bikers as they went by.

On one of our free days we drove down to the Cape of Good Hope (the most South-Western point of Africa).

The Cape Town coastline reminded me a lot of the California coastline.

It was fun to be down at the cape, but not very picturesque. I did see these peaks along the coast and liked the repeating monotone shades that they created.

You can't visit the Cape Town area without visiting the wineries. We spent the afternoon in the Stellenbosch area of the wine country and had a really great lunch at one of the wineries.

On our last day in Cape Town, I walked around the Bo-Kaap area, known for the colorful homes.

I saw this old car in front of the colorful houses and had to take this shot!

It was our last night in Cape Town and I went to see if I could capture a boat directly in front of the setting sun. I got this one, even though the sun was a little higher than I wanted when the boat crossed the path.

A couple of us watched as the sun set and the large waves broke on the shore. I really liked the power of the waves and the amount of mist being pushed into the air, all in front of the orange sky. It was a great way to end our time in Cape Town.

From South Africa, we flew to Botswana to start the second photo tour. I am very excited to show you all those images as well, as we had some epic wildlife encounters! Those are coming...

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Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
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If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.
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Namibia Photo Tour - The final days of the tour

Our first photo tour ended last week, and I am now in Botswana with our second group. But I never got a chance to blog the last couple of days of safari in Namibia. So...here I am sitting in another country in Africa and posting the last images from that trip. Soon I will bring you all images from here in Botswana, but first...

I wanted to thank all of you who commented on the last blog post. Not only was I very happy to read everyone's comments here on the blog, on social media, and in my email, but also thrilled to see that everyone was positive, supportive and respectful in their feedback. That is what this blog is all about - keeping it positive and sharing the passion for photography!!

And now on to our last couple of days in Namibia where we spent the bulk of the time in Etosha National Park, This park is known for all their water holes, where the animals congregate.

We came upon this one watering hole which was devoid of most wildlife except for a couple of giraffe. But, one of the things I teach our tour guests is to look for good reflections and environment shots. I waited for this giraffe to walk towards the center of the water and grabbed this shot with the giraffe and his reflection. They are such pretty and majestic animals.

We were shooting the image above when our driver heard on his radio that there was a black rhino siting nearby. We got our shot of the giraffe and then made a quick turn and headed for that siting.

Sure enough, this rhino was walking right in plain sight of our vehicle. We were all excited and firing our cameras in burst mode.

The rhino walked parallel to the road for so long that I had a chance to try and motion pan him. I quickly changed the aperture of my camera to f/32 (already at ISO 100) to get a shutter speed of 1/25th of a second. I panned with the rhino to get some motion in his legs, while keeping his face in focus.

At one point we came upon this beautiful bird, which was resting in a tree far from us. Right as I prepared to get a photo of it in the tree, it took off and flew right towards us. I always teach our guests to keep their cameras in IO Servo focus mode (otherwise known as follow focus), and to use back-button focus. Since I practice what I preach, I did this and nailed this shot of the bird coming right at me.

There is nothing like seeing elephants in the wild. I have seen them many times, but it never gets tiring.

Later in the day, we visited another watering hole, and this time had a small group of zebra and some giraffe who were sharing the drink.

For those of you not lucky enough to go on a safari, it would amaze you to watch the giraffe drink. They spread their legs and "splay" to get down low enough to drink. It is a site to behold.

While one giraffe was drinking, he got irritated by the zebra and he and some of the other long-legged animals started chasing the zebra away. I quickly changed my aperture to f/40 (using the Canon 1D X Mark II and Canon 100-400mm lens at ISO 320) which gave me a shutter speed of 1/40th second. I then panned with the running giraffe to get this motion blur shot.

After chasing the zebra, these two giraffe got together and had a moment.

The next day we were on a private game reserve when we drove up on three cheetahs who had just killed a springbok. It was awesome to watch them as they made no waste of the kill.

The cheetah is one of my favorite animals here in Africa, with those amazing faces and markings on their bodies.

I was shooting images of the feast when this cheetah stood up with the springbok's head in his mouth. It really shows the circle of life in one image, and is one of my favorites from the trip.

After the cheetahs were done eating, they ventured away from the kill, right into perfect evening light.

Two of them laid down of the ground and started to clean each other's faces. It was an amazing site to see. I shot some video of this which you will see once I get it all edited.

In between their cleaning, they both turned and gave us this pose. We were all excited to get this shot!

In Africa, there is a pecking order for food. Once the cheetahs were done eating, it was time for the jackals to come in and get their leftovers.

The vultures wanted their turn at the carcass and a fight ensued between the jackal and vultures. It was another incredible site to watch.

We completed our last game drive and headed back to our lodge to pack up. But before heading out of Namibia, we had a chance to enjoy one last sunset. It was the perfect ending to an amazing two week journey through this country.

After this, most of the guests flew back to the U.S., while Mike and I (and one guest who is doing both trips) flew to south Africa for some R&R before heading to Zimbabwe and Botswana. Those images are coming next.

__________________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!
__________________________________________________________________________
If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.
__________________________________________________________________________
Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa, Costa Rica, Europe, Asia, India and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.
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