B&B: Buddies and Breakfast–2015-06-20

For a long time, some years ago, 2 of my friends and I used to have breakfast together once a month on a Friday morning. Then I changed jobs and needed to travel 50Km (31mi) to work, and the same happened with one of the other two, and the breakfast fell by the wayside. But, then a little more than a month ago we decided to start it up again, on a Saturday morning! So, we had the first one last month, and then yesterday we had the second one. However, yesterday’s breakfast took on a different slant to just being a breakfast. Two of us like photography and use proper equipment, and the third uses his iPad (and some iPad apps) to come up with some creative photographs. So, iPad Man, his name is Drix, came up with the idea that we should have breakfast at Rietvlei Nature Reserve this month, and then he would drive us around the reserve so that the other two, Mark and myself, could take photographs of the wildlife at Rietvlei. It turned out to be a great morning for each of us!

Here are a few of the photographs that I took, and you can see more at my Flickr account of this visit.

This mongoose, and his little pal, were not bothered by our presence at all!

Have you ever tried to scratch your ear with your foot like this Springbuck?

The Cape Longclaw really makes a pretty picture!

Slow day at Moreleta Kloof Nature Reserve–2015-04-11

I visited MKNR last weekend and it was a very quiet day. It isn’t a big reserve, in fact, it is in the middle of one of Pretoria’s up market suburbs, Moreleta Park. At a brisk walking pace you could walk through the reserve in a couple of hours. Somehow, the zebras, impalas and blesbucks evaded me. I walked right around the reserve, and discovered that they had all settled on the front lawn of the Rademeyer Restaurant on the reserve. I also sat at the bird hide for at least half an hour and never saw one bird there. It was one of those days.

 

Anyway, here is what I did capture…

Springbok

 

Helmeted Guineafowl

 

Bridge over … peaceful waters

 

Bad hair day!

 

Serenity in the woods

More of my photographs can be seen at my Flickr account.

Another visit to Rietvlei Nature Reserve–2015-02-07

I arrived at Rietvlei at about 6am, but hardly got to see any animals this day. I saw a few springboks, blesbucks and black Wildebeest in the distance, but nothing up close. I got close to zebras, but they were on the wrong side of the car, exactly in line with the sun behind them. The landscape photographs were as a result of testing out a new 2nd camera.

For some time now I’ve been wanting a second camera. My main camera is the Sony A37 with the Sigma DG 150-500mm 5-6.3 APO HSM lens. This is almost a permanent configuration. I really don’t like to have to change lenses when the big lens is just to big for closer subjects.

Here in South Africa, our First National Bank (FNB) has a loyalty points system called eBucks. The more you use your credit and cheque cards the more points you get. Then, when you have enough points, you can use them to purchase stuff from partner stores nation wide. eBucks also has its own store through which you can buy all kinds of stuff. Then a couple of weeks ago I wanted to check the status of my eBucks. While I was on their website, I decided to browse around their online store and found that they sold cameras and lenses. Because of my good rating with them, I could also get 40% of anything I bought using eBucks alone. I realized that I could buy one of the cameras with the eBucks I had at the time. They only had Canon and Nikon cameras in their store. So, I ordered the Canon EOS 1200D.

Feeding Bee

Hardware
Camera:	Canon EOS 1200D
Lens:	Canon EFS 18-55mm
Photo Settings
Aperture:	f/5.6
Shutter:	1/800
ISO:	100
Focal Length:	55mm

 

Amur Falcon

Hardware
Camera:	Sony SLT-A37
Lens:	Sigma DG 150-500mm 5-6.3 APO HSM
Photo Settings
Aperture:	f/6.3
Shutter:	1/1250
ISO:	200
Focal Length:	500mm

 

Landscape

Hardware
Camera:	Canon EOS 1200D
Lens:	EFS 18-55mm
Photo Settings
Aperture:	f/5.0
Shutter:	1/1600
ISO:	100
Focal Length:	46mm

 

B&W Landscape

Hardware
Camera:	Canon EOS 1200D
Lens:	EFS 18-55mm
Photo Settings
Aperture:	f/4.0
Shutter:	1/4000
ISO:	100
Focal Length:	27mm

 

Created with flickr slideshow.

Rietvlei Nature Reserve - 2015-02-07

Visiting Voortrekker Monument

Together with my photographic club, I visited the Voortrekker Monument (25°46'35.40"S, 28°10'33.06"E) in Pretoria last Saturday, 19 July 2014. The idea was not so much to take pics of the monument, although we took a few, but rather to get some landscaping pics and also some night photography of the monument and the city of Pretoria. We took some photographs from the top of the monument, but then just before dusk we drove over to Skanskop (25°46'38.24"S, 28°11'4.55"E), which is on the monument’s property. From here we took photographs of the monument and the city as the sun set and we also did some night photography. All in all it was a lot of fun.

Created with flickr slideshow.