Mana Magic

Hi folks - just back from an epic safari to Mana Pools.
The predators stayed away in daytime due to the full moon, but the quality of light and the quality of elephant interactions on foot far surpassed the lack of sharp-toothed sightings.

We found this elephant bull and a younger one roaming the floodplains directly behind our camp yesterday morning. There was some haze from fires in Zambia that made for interesting light and conditions. I know the SS is low, was shooting in much less light minutes before the sun peeked out here and only changed my SS a couple minutes later. It is sharp though.

After completing this session - we simply strolled back into our camp to grab a quick coffee before heading out to find some more photographic subjects. This place remains my all-time favourite safari location of all those I've visited in Africa. I can't see it being dethroned very soon!

Simply processed this very quickly in Lightroom CC and then exported at the right size (normally I take it to PS first and then finish my workflow).

I opted to keep some of the cooler tones in the image as well, as it was quite cool and the colours do reflect that way early morning in Mana if the sun is subdued by haze. Might need to slightly reduce the cooler cast on the elephant in a second round, looking at it now.

It went to 30 degrees Celcius by 10am though!

Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 300mm f2.8 VR-II
f4.0 | 1/250 SS | ISO-800
Taken handheld and ON FOOT, as we do in Mana :)