Your best travel shots

Here are this month’s reader photos, with tips

WILLEM VAN SCHALWYK Canon EOS 7D Mark II Canon 100 – 400 mm lens

WILLEM WRITES: I took this photo near Mata-Mata in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park early one morning in July 2019. The sun had just come up and there was a lot of dust in the air from other vehicles also out on a game drive. Those vehicles all drove past this scene – they must have been looking for lions.

I like how the giraffes are dwarfed by this enormous camel thorn tree. I had a long lens on my camera so I couldn’t get the whole tree in the frame. I also like how the dust is illuminated by the sun’s low rays.

My settings: aperture f4.5, shutter speed 1/1 250 second, ISO 160.

TOAST SAYS: Willem has already noted what makes his photo stand out – all I can do is agree! I think I know the spot where he took this photo because I’ve also pulled over there on occasion to capture the dust and the low angle of the sunlight in the late afternoon – it’s where the Mata-Mata road crosses the Auob riverbed.

Sure, we all love photographing lions, but don’t waste the soft light early in the morning or late in the afternoon by driving around looking for them. The golden light in the Kgalagadi is so beautiful it doesn’t really matter what you are photographing!

Add a little dust and you might win a camera bag, just like Willem.

LOUISE VICTOR

IG: @louise.victorphotography Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Canon 100 – 400 mm lens

TOAST SAYS: It’s surprisingly hard to take a good photo of the Namib’s wild horses. You might be there at the right time of day, early in the morning or late in the afternoon, and not see a single horse. Or you might drive past and see horses, but it’s the middle of the day and the light is too harsh to take a photo. The horses might also be too far from the road to get a good shot.

Louise was at the Garub waterhole near Aus just after 4 pm one day. The light was soft and she managed to get quite close to this mare and her foal. What makes the photo special is the interaction between them. It’s difficult to show emotion in animal photos, but the way the mare nuzzles the foal creates the impression that she cares about it, and also says something about the horses’ fight for survival in this hostile environment.

The more time you spend with animals, the better your chances of capturing special moments – just be patient and be ready!

NIC SAMWELL

Canon EOS 77D

Canon 18 – 135 mm lens

NIC WRITES: I’m from Kriel in Mpumalanga. In July 2018, we visited my brother-in-law in Oudtshoorn during the winter holidays – that’s when I took this photo.

One morning, when we saw the peaks of the Swartberg covered in snow, the whole family piled into the car and we headed to the Swartberg Pass. There was traffic on the mountain – people had come from as far as Mossel Bay to see the snow. My settings: aperture f14, shutter speed 1/80 second, ISO 100.

TOAST SAYS: Winter is coming! Keep an eye on the weather and put in the effort when there’s snow: Get into your car and go have a look. Just make sure you arrive before it melts. Nic followed the Rule of Thirds: If you divide the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically using imagery lines, you’ll notice that the vehicle is one third from the right and one third from the bottom.

This is a natural resting point for your eye and makes for a pleasing composition. I really like the wet shine on the road and the curves of the pass that lead your eye deeper into the frame. The few patches of sunlight also help to add warmth to the scene.

Nic’s shutter speed was quite slow. With a slow shutter speed you run the risk of camera shake if you move a bit when you press the shutter button. The photo might be slightly blurry as a result.

The solution? Increase your

ISO to 400 or 800 – doing this makes your camera more sensitive to light and allows you to use a faster shutter speed of 1/125 or 1/250 second to compensate for camera shake.

DEREK DONKIN

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200

DEREK WRITES: I spent an hour or so one Saturday afternoon sitting in an empty plot near my house in Tzaneen. After some much-needed rain, butterflies, bees and dragonflies were enjoying the resultant greenery and flowers. The afternoon light brought out the beautiful colours. I set my camera to “Intelligent Auto Mode”, which allows you to adjust the exposure and colour saturation.

TOAST SAYS: What a wonderful pic! We regularly showcase bigger, more obvious animals on these pages, but this photo proves that small critters can pack as big a visual punch as any of the Big Five.

The Panasonic Lumix DMCFZ200 is a versatile bridge camera. It has a 24x built-in zoom, which is equivalent to having a 25 – 600 mm lens on a D-SLR. Derek only needed some of this zoom to get close enough to the butterfly.

It’s usually better to use what I call the “front end” of your zoom rather than the “back end”. The “front end” of a lens like this would be, for example, in the 25 – 200 mm range (Derek’s focal length was 100 mm). Generally, especially with builtin lenses, you’ll find the lens is sharper in this range. Once you go to the “back end” of the lens, for example 400 – 600 mm, it becomes harder to achieve the same sharpness. When venturing to those focal lengths you need to take extra care and keep your camera as stable as possible. Derek’s butterfly is as crisp as a cracker, and because he photographed it almost perfectly side-on, the profile of the insect pops off the page. Well done!

KAREN EDWARDS

Canon EOS 60D

Sigma 150 – 500 mm lens

KAREN WRITES: As an avid subscriber to go!, my family has often encouraged me to submit photos from our travels in the Kruger Park. I’m passionate about wildlife photography and although I’m still finding my way around my camera, I hope to master the art in my lifetime!

I consider this to be one of my better shots. It was taken in October 2019 on the H-10 just past Lower Sabie and Sunset Dam. These two beautiful male lions were sauntering along the road, scent-marking and on a mission.

I love the foreground male’s goatee – you almost want to give him a pat! There is probably room for improvement, but I considered it a “Kruger moment” and I had the photo printed on canvas for our 39th wedding anniversary.

TOAST SAYS: What a cool present to yourself, and what a way to commemorate your wedding day!

This is indeed a classic Kruger scene. Lions are top of most visitors’ mustsee lists, but not everyone is lucky enough to get an up-close sighting. And then, to get a memorable photo too – that’s even harder!

Since the lions were quite close to her car, Karen’s big lens allowed her to easily fill the frame with their heads. No space is wasted. They almost look like they’re kissing the ground.

We can thank our lucky stars for a place as epic as the Kruger. Next time you’re there, Karen, maybe kiss the ground? But please don’t pet a lion…

ISABELLA HUGO

Nikon D750

Nikon 70 – 300 mm lens

ISABELLA’S MOTHER, ANNELINE, WRITES: I gave my camera to my eight-year-old daughter to play with during a visit to Jejane Private Nature Reserve near Hoedspruit. She took this photo. I had to stop myself from grabbing the camera and taking the photo myself – the squirrel had struck such a great pose! But I have to admit, I don’t think I would have done a better job.

We both like the back lighting, which shows off the squirrel’s tail, and the bokeh effect in the background.

TOAST SAYS: I think Isabella should play with the camera more often! This is a great shot of one of the bushveld’s unsung residents, the tree squirrel. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on them when you’re out on a game drive – they will often raise an alarm when there’s a snake or a predator nearby.

What does Anneline mean by “back lighting”? It’s the effect you get when your main source of light, in this case the sun, is behind your subject and illuminates its outline. In Isabella’s photo, the sun highlights the long hairs on the squirrel’s tail and almost acts like an X-ray because we can see the slender meat-andbone part of the tail, too.

And “bokeh”? This Japanese word refers to the out-of-focus part of the photo, where points of light are blurred by the lens. Sometimes bokeh is attractive and sometimes it’s not, and it varies according to the lens you’re using. It’s always more noticeable in photos with a shallow depth of field, like this one.

NICO HENNING

Pentax K200D

Sigma 50 – 500 mm lens

NICO WRITES: I photographed this black-backed jackal in Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock. It was overcast and the light was flat and washed out, so the photo didn’t seem so special in colour. I experimented using photoediting software and changed it to black-and-white, which gave the scene a dreamy quality.

TOAST SAYS: Nico, you’ll never convince a sheep farmer that a photo of a jackal is dreamy, but I get your point!

Photographers often talk about light being “flat”, especially on overcast days. When there’s an absence of direct sunlight, there aren’t any shadows to add depth and the colours aren’t as vivid. The scene appears dull, or “washed out” in Nico’s words, and lacks visual impact. Increasing the contrast between light and dark – where the light falls, where the shadows are – can add oomph to your photo, so play around using editing software. Nico might have gone a little overboard: The grass in front of the jackal is overexposed because he made the contrast too severe.

But he’s right that the photo works better in black-and-white. It has more impact: The grass leaps into the air like flames, and the jackal’s sharp nose and ears stand out. Lekker.