Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/02/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 5:51 AM, Bill Pearce <billcpearce at cox.net> wrote: > If you are in the bush in Africa, as I was, you always stay in the > jeep/land > rover as that is the only way to come home alive. My safari was a personal > one (no one but me, the guide and my now ex wife) and there was no question > of an out of jeep experience. I have read of safaris that allow trail > walking, but am quite skeptical that they are able to provide for your > safety. I disagree really strongly. It's not that unsafe to be on your feet in the bush in Africa. I spent several weeks doing walking safaris in South Africa, the Okavango, various places in Botswana and Zimbabwe in 1999 and only ever felt nervous because of Homo sapiens, never because of another species of animal, even when I had to swap from a 75mm lens to a 35 and back up quite a lot to fit the whole animal into this shot: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/Botswana/img920a.jpg.html or when I was less than a metre from this cheetah: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/75+Summilux/cheetah.jpg.html The whole set is here: http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/Africa+2009/ Especially in well trafficked parks, you can get lots of 'great' shots with almost no effort - the driver drives right up to the lion drinking/hunting/eating its kill, you pull out your 200-400 and go click click click . . . seriously, hardly any effort at all. The hardest thing about it is getting up early enough to get early light or convincing the driver to stay out long enough to be there at dusk. You see more and more interesting things on foot, including smaller animals, amphibians, reptiles and many insects. You don't see things from an artificially elevated perspective, and you get a better feel for the terrain and what the animals that live there experience. I am 100% certain that going on a safari on foot is vastly less dangerous than spending a comparable amount of time walking in Johannesburg. Marty