Hippo Foursome
by Morkel Erasmus
As we were cruising along the Chobe river that straddles the Chobe National Park in Botswana and the Caprivi strip in Namibia, we came across a pod of Hippopotamus who were out of the river quite late in the morning. Hippo usually come out to graze at night and return to the water as the day breaks.
My guests and I were able to capture a couple of lovely photos of these youngsters lazily standing on the riverbank, not entirely committed to getting wet just yet. Some of them looked like they were standing up sleeping, in fact. We were able to maneuver nicely with our specialised photographic boat for lovely photographic opportunities, even as they eventually stepped into the water.
Techs:
Nikon D3s
Nikkor 500mm f4 VR-II
1.4x teleconverter
f8.0 | 1/1250 SS | ISO-2500
Comments
8 commentsAlways tough working with a group of animals (especially with the thin DoF of a super-telephoto), but this one worked out quite nicely. Nice separation from the background and the soft lighting brings out the colour very well. Nice scene...
When you see these guys out of water like this they seem almost comical - like they're made of rubber!
Cheers...
Brad
Great to see these guys really do have legs & not swimming fins :)
The two left seem like having a Siesta while the other two are giving you a very nice look.
As Mr Hill points out... Good separation from the background!
And CONGRATS on the Group Shot.
Well done
Bill