Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/10/26

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Subject: [Leica] African animals
From: jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj)
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:54:03 +0530
References: <8CC24657AD50813-2188-1342E@webmail-m088.sysops.aol.com> <3cad89990910260827l72054e37v828e8a842240f9c6@mail.gmail.com> <ee8fa51c0910262153n37161dc2t5c46738e5f2c8c2e@mail.gmail.com>

Marty,
That is a good one, if you were on foot, even better! I have seen
enough Masai mauled by the big cats who have lived to tell the tale,
so it might be a little more dangerous than you think. I think
Cheetahs are relatively safe, though. Elephants are the biggest
killers in India relative to all the other forms of wildlife, and the
Asian Elephant is far more docile than the African one, so one has to
tread with great care, which I am sure your guides would have ensured.
BTW the maximum number of wildlife deaths in Africa is caused by the
Hippo, so you were probably lucky you did not get closer to them in a
small canoe!
Cheers
Jayanand

On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Marty Deveney <benedenia at gmail.com> 
wrote:
> I have also just come back from Africa. ?A lot of what I did was work,
> and I am a hopeless animal/wildlife photographer anyway, so I haven't
> shown many shots. ?The few snaps of animals that i did take were all
> done with a leica M (I had an M8, an MP and an M7 with me). ?To keep
> it further on topic, all animals were viewed, when necessary, using a
> pair of Leica Trinovid 10x25s or a pair of Leica Ultravid 10x50s.
>
> Unlike Jayanand, we opted to walk most of the time. ?You need a lot
> more time, but I've never liked viewing animals from a vehicle. ?This
> photo of a cheetah:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/freakscene/75+Summilux/cheetah.jpg.html
> was taken with a 75 Summilux on my M8 - I was about a metre away from
> it. ?It was too exhausted to run away. ?When it caught its breath, it
> jumped over me to get away.
>
> My other photos on film are on the way (still developing them) but I
> also got close enough to elephants several times that individual
> elephants did not fit into the field of a 50 mm lens and similarly
> close to many other large animals. ?We also had well qualified guides
> with us who were totally relaxed except on three occasions: once when
> we found a solitary male Cape buffalo that had been recently killed by
> a lion and I wanted to find the lion (they get possessive about their
> kills); once when I started walking into a thicket from which leopard
> sounds were emanating and once when I kept asking the guides to get
> our mokoro closer and closer to a bloat of hippos. ?A mokoro is a
> canoe made out of a tree - it has about 3-5 inches of freeboard and
> would be suitable to act as a toothpick for most adult hippos.
>
> It isn't particularly dangerous if you approach it the right way. ?At
> no time did I feel threatened in the bush, although I did walking at
> night in African cities.
>
> Marty
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 1:57 AM, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at 
> gmail.com> wrote:
>> Richard,Luis and Larry,
>> Thanks for taking a peek.
>>
>> I was in a Land Rover or Landcruiser, and the drivers we had on our
>> Photosafari are amongst the best in that part of the world. Secondly,
>> the animals are so used to vehicles, they don't perceive them as a
>> threat at all - they will go under the vehicle for shade at times. All
>> those cubs in my photograph will grow up with no fear, and communicate
>> that to their offspring as well. This is not an unmitigated blessing,
>> because it also allows poachers to get very close to their quarry.
>>
>> Actually it is far more dangerous in Indian parks like Ranthambhore,
>> where I get very, very close to tigers in an open, unprotected jeep -
>> I have been so close that I could not focus on them with a 70-200
>> lens. I have no fear, and as long as I am in a vehicle, and don't do
>> anything foolish, I feel nothing will happen.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Jayanand
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 8:39 PM, ?<lrzeitlin at aol.com> wrote:
>>> Jayanard,
>>> Your animal and bird pictures are wonderful. I envy both your photo 
>>> skills
>>> and your safari. One question, how did you get so close to the animals
>>> without getting eaten?
>>> Larry Z
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
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Replies: Reply from mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner) ([Leica] African animals)
In reply to: Message from lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com) ([Leica] African animals)
Message from jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj) ([Leica] African animals)
Message from benedenia at gmail.com (Marty Deveney) ([Leica] African animals)