Rietvlei Nature Reserve–2015-05-30

Rietvlei Nature Reserve is one of my favourite places to visit. It is close to home, and there is enough to see. Early mornings provide for great sunrise photography. One thing is for sure; every time you visit, you will not get to see everything it has on offer. There are some animals there that I have never seen, such as the cheetah and otters. Anyway, here are a few pics from this visit, and if you want to see more go to the album on my Flickr account.

When I walked out of this bird hide, I simply turned around, liked what I saw and took the shot. For some reason, this is my wife’s favourite.

This Waterbuck was hoping that I couldn’t see him.

A beautiful Common Fiscal.

Sabie weekend–2015-05-09

This post is related to my previous post—Bourke’s Luck Potholes - 2015-05-10—as it is part of the same weekend away in Sabie, Mpumalanga (Lat: 25° 5.914'S, Long: 30° 46.735'E). On the Saturday of our weekend away, my wife and I visited the Sudwala Caves (Lat: 25° 22.557’S, Long: 30° 41.555’E) and the Mac Mac Falls (Lat: 25° 0.041'S, Long: 30° 48.986'E).

We stayed over at the Jock-Sabie Lodge (Lat: 25° 5.876'S, Long: 30° 46.682'E). It is a lovely place to stay at right in the heart of the town of Sabie. It is very neat and comfortable, and they make a mean breakfast too!

In the background is the restaurant area of the Jock-Sabie  Lodge.

After we had a delicious breakfast at the lodge we headed out to the Sudwala Caves. I enjoyed visiting the caves. The rock formations, stalactites and stalagmites had really interesting shapes and sizes.

Interesting formations in the cave.

After we finished the visit in the cave we went to the dinosaur park next door and ran into this guy!

When we finished here we went to the Mac Mac Falls. It was already late afternoon. I had heard of these falls so many times, so I was very excited to finally get to see the falls. However, I was very disappointed when I finally got to see the falls. First, you can’t get near them. Second, you get to see the falls from behind a high fence that you need to peer through. Third, with the number of visitors, you have to jockey for a good position if you intend to take any photographs. Fourth, at this time of day the sun sets right behind the falls. In the end, I didn’t have enough time to set up properly in order to get good photographs. My intention was to take long exposure shots of the falls, but with all the people there I didn’t want to occupy the best spot for too long.

I took this photograph with shutter speed of 1.3 seconds, aperture at F29 and ISO at 100.

All in all, my wife and I enjoyed the weekend away and definitely go back to this area. There is just so much to see that we never got to see!

To see the rest of the photographs from this day, please visit this album on my Flickr account.

Bourke’s Luck Potholes – 2015-05-10

A month ago my wife and I had a weekend break in Sabie, Mpumalanga (Lat: 25° 5.914'S, Long: 30° 46.735'E), an area in South Africa where the main business is trees. Yes, they grow thousands upon thousands of trees in the region that are used mainly in the paper making business. The region is one of the most beautiful regions in South Africa!

The problem with this break was that the previous Sunday I started getting sick, and by the Monday morning I was very sick. I decided to go see the doctor, with the result that he booked me off sick the whole week! I had developed bronchitis! The problem was that my lungs did not want to open up and release all the gunk in them. By Wednesday, my lungs weren’t doing better, so the doctor prescribed me a second set of antibiotics to take together with the first set, and he also prescribed stuff that I needed to nebulise with twice a day. By the time Friday arrived—departure day (8 May)—I was still not better. I was still nebulising, but I just felt that we had booked the weekend, and we (my wife and I) were going! I wasn’t going to just lose the money for the weekend away.

My wife had to do the driving, since I couldn’t drive at the time because of all the coughing. I would suddenly get these coughing fits that would completely rob me of oxygen, making me go light-headed with momentary blackouts. I couldn’t sleep in the car as I was the navigator. We eventually arrived at the lodge at about 21:00! After unpacking, I first had to nebulise. Saturday and Sunday morning I first had to nebulise before we went out for the day.

So, even though I was sick, and being in this beautiful area, I just had to take photographs. One of the most amazing places to visit is Bourke’s Luck Potholes (Lat: 24° 40.447'S, Long: 30° 48.646'E). These potholes are truly amazing, and here are some of the photographs I took.

For more photographs of the Bourke’s Luck Potholes, please visit my Flickr account. In the past we used to be able to make slideshows of albums to embed on web pages and blog posts, but it seems that it is no longer available. I also tried some third party Flickr slideshow generators, but none worked.

This n That

On Saturday morning I started the day off with 2 of my friends visiting the Pretoria Boeremark (farmers market) for breakfast. It is not the conventional sit-down breakfast. You simply arrive and watch people buy everything from their weekly meat and eggs, to leather belts, etc. Then there are food stalls where they sell “boerewors” rolls, melkkos, pancakes (not those silly things Americans call pancakes, which are really crumpets or flapjacks), samoosas, and more. We first had condensed milk coffee, which is a real treat! After strolling around checking out the food stalls I started off with 2 bacon and vienna rolls, where the bacon is wrapped around the vienna and then fried. One of my friends also had one of these rolls and the other one had melkkos. We strolled among the stalls some more and the other two decided that they would have some crumpets, but since my wife made us crumpets at home on Friday night, I decided to have some real pancakes. The line was long and by the time I was about 5 people from the front, they ran out of pancake mix. No big deal! Since I had two of the vienna and bacon rolls, I reckoned that I had enough anyway. So, we ended the morning off with some more condensed milk coffee.

I took my camera along in case I saw something interesting. At such a “boeremark” all kinds of things can popup, and that is when I saw this sign:

Direction signs are sometimes helpful, but other times not!

Of course, to understand this sign, it will really help being South African!

I also saw this black man making his wire trinkets and selling them on the spot.

A black man hard at work making his wares!

Those were the only photographs I snapped while at the market.

As an extended family we all decided to go watch the afternoon show of the new Avengers movie. After the movie we quickly popped into a local store, and then we headed home. When we got home I saw that moon was floating at a nice angle, so the first thing I did after returning home was to grab my camera and tripod, set it up outside and started taking pics. I tried a whole lot of settings, but here it is:

-- Hardware -- Camera: Sony SLT-A37 -- Lens: Sigma DG 15-500mm 1:5-6.3 APO HSM  -- Manual Settings -- Shutter: 1/125s -- Aperture: F14 -- ISO: 200 Focal Length: 500mm -- White Balance: Manual 3900K -- Metering Mode: Spot

So, that was my Saturday!

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.

Roodeplaat Nature Reserve–2015-03-21

So, last week I read a bit at South African Birding Spots, and discovered that there is yet another nature reserve that I could go to and be there in about 30 minutes. That is the Roodeplaat Nature Reserve.

I visited Roodeplaat on Saturday morning, arriving there just after 06:00. It opens at 06:00 and I wanted to be there when it opened. It really took some time to eventually get in, even if I was only the eighth car. Once I got in I decided to stick to the tar roads for a while first, just to get to know the lay of the land.

While I was riding I saw a part of the Roodeplaat Dam and decided to follow a dirt road that seemed to go that way. After following the dirt road a while I decided to turn back to the tar road as the dirt road didn’t seem to go anywhere specific. I stayed on the tar road until I saw a bird hide to my right. I stopped the car and walked to the hide.

 

 

I sat at this hide for quite some time. I saw an African Wattled Lapwing at a distance. Slightly closer I saw some Grey Go-away birds.

 

 

After that I carried on with the tar road and eventually came to a T-Junction. Right led to the exit, and left took you further into the reserve. I turned left. I soon came to the reserve’s offices where I saw a sign that said, “Bird hide.” I decided to follow that, which led me onto another dirt track (with lots of stones and smaller rocks). After driving a while I came upon a split in the dirt road. A bunch of arrows pointed left and one pointed back. “Hmmm. Which one?” I went left, and after some time realized that there probably was no bird hide on that road. I turned around and returned to the split and carried on with the other side of the split. Not too long and I came across a beautiful kudu male. He tried to be very nonchalant, and even tried to hide behind some branches and leaves (see the slideshow below), but I spotted him and still got my photograph.

 

 

After the kudu I decided to continue; just to get to another split in the dirt road. I decided to just take the middle one. Eventually I got to the second bird hide. I sat here for some time too. I got to see 2 White-breasted Cormorants, a Squacco Heron and some swallows. I was hoping for so much more.

 

 

As I was walking back to my car, I saw that the tree on the other side of my car was covered in Barn Swallows. It was just amazing to see so many together. They eventually took off, and within minutes a couple of Lesser Striped Swallows came and sat in the same tree.

I wanted to stay longer and cover some more of the reserve. However, while I was driving down the dirt road I realised that my car’s fuel light was on and that my tank was low. Because I didn’t know the rest of the reserve, I decided to pack up and leave (to fill up) and to return another day.

I will return to the reserve soon, perhaps even this coming weekend. It is hard not to compare things with one another. Entering this reserve I had no idea where to go and which roads led to what. You are kind of left to your own devices. What I like about Rietvlei Nature Reserve is that they give visitors a map of the reserve so that you could at least have an idea where the different roads go. Roodeplaat had nothing like that. Also, getting through the gate wasn’t that easy. While we were still sitting in our cars waiting for the gate to open, one of the security team came around and we could enter our information in a log book. Once we got to the physical gate, it had to be done again, even though the first guy was there with the others. It could be that the slow entry was due to the day itself. Maybe the next time I go, it will go better. Next time I will take my own map that I get from Google Earth.

 

Created with flickr slideshow.

New Camera Addition

For some time now I’ve been thinking that a second camera would really be nice.  You know, you are out somewhere walking in the bushes with a 150-500mm lens on the camera, and then you see something that would be captured much easier with a small lens. So, off comes the camera backpack, and the swapping of lenses ensues. You take the photograph, and the lenses are then swapped in reverse order. That is simply annoying.

My main configuration is my Sony A37-SLT with a Sigma DG 15-500mm 1:5-6.3 APO HSM lens. I do still use the Sony 3.5-5.6 18-55 SAM kit lens that came with the camera and also a Sony DT 4.5-5.6 55-300 SAM lens, but that happens seldom, since having to swap lenses isn’t always convenient.

This is a problem for many photographers. The problem is that if photography isn’t what pays your bills, then buying a second camera willy-nilly isn’t always part of the budget. And, if it is like my own budget, then a second camera is definitely not on the cards.

As a result, it was always just a dream to have a second camera. Window shopping without ever laying out the money to get it! In other words…, just a dream! And it was never a case of wanting to buy the best there is, because frankly, the best there is will break our family budget into tiny little pieces that will waft away in the first little breeze that comes along!

So, there I was, wondering how many eBucks I had. eBucks are loyalty points associated with the First National Bank here in South Africa. These eBucks can then be used at the many partners that take these points as money, or you could go straight into the eBucks store to buy whatever is in the store. I started browsing around and found that they sold cameras and accessories.

While browsing through the cameras I realized that I had enough eBucks to buy the Canon EOS 1200D. The deal included the body, the EFS 18-55mm kit lens, a Canon bag and a memory card. It was totally unexpected, but there I was, having enough eBucks to essentially get the camera for free. What providence!

At last! Now I had a second camera that I could use for subjects that were close.

According to eBucks it could take up to 10 working days for delivery, so I was very surprised 2 days later when it was delivered.

I am happy with the purchase. It takes very good looking photographs. Of course, it handles very differently to the Sony, and I had to get used to that first.

Here are 2 of my initial photographs that I shot with the Canon…

This was a hand-held shot at Rietvlei Nature Reserve since I didn’t have a tripod with me.
ISO100 – F5.6 – 1/800 – 55mm

 

This was also a hand-held shot at home when it was dusk.
ISO200 – F5.6 – 1/200 – 55mm – Flash

 

Happy photographing!

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

1st Photos of 2015–Rietvlei Nature Reserve–New Year’s Day

Well, who would’ve thought that I’d start this year with photographs from Rietvlei Nature Reserve (RNR)? To tell you the truth, I hoped that the opportunity would come up, and it did! Initially I wasn’t going to be in a position to go do a photoshoot. The day started off a little gloomy and the plan was to go visit my mom for New Year’s Day at the Alzheimer’s home where she is being cared for. We packed a picnic and arrived there at midday. We had a lovely time, but because we were up on New Year’s Eve through to 01:30 on New Year’s Day (NYD), we were somewhat tired.

Originally, we were going to have an evening braai (barbecue) at our home when we got back from visiting my mom, but on the way home my wife said that she was too tired to bother with the braai and that she was going to have a nap when we got home. Did you hear that? That was opportunity knocking and I grabbed it with both hands. Even though I was awake before everyone on NYD, I just couldn’t let this opportunity go! Sure I was also tired, but “hey!,” I had an opportunity to go hang at RNR for a couple of hours. So, I spent more than two and a half hours there from 16:00 to around 18:40.

I didn’t get to see or photograph a lot of birds or animals, but I enjoyed it nonetheless! So, without further delay here they are…

European Bee-eater

 

Pied Starling

 

Unknown bird – Any ideas?

 

African Wattled Lapwing

 

Zebra shaking its head

 

Diederik Cuckoo

 

Created with flickr slideshow.

Moreleta Kloof Nature Reserve–2014-12-30

On Wednesday morning I quickly popped over to the Moreleta Kloof Nature Reserve (MKNR) the first time I got close enough to get a decent photograph of the Diederik Cuckoo. Without further delay, here are some photographs from MKNR.

Diederik Cuckoo

 

Yellow-bellied Greenbul

 

Weed or flower?

 

Springbok

 

Created with flickr slideshow.