My second outing in Mana Pools National Park
It has now gone almost one month since I got back from my second safari trip to Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. Last year I visited the park in the middle of July and this year I went there at the end of September.
If I compare the trips both were successful, but this year’s trip gave me a better portfolio. The reason behind that is easy to explain. I knew better what to expect this year and the group size was smaller and without any big ego.
Sadly we didn’t get any great light this year. We had better light last year, but never really worked with it to my frustration. One reason to this years flat light might be that people where burning grass both on the Zimbabwe and Zambian side.
I also found it frustrating that we weren’t allowed outside camp earlier. We lost almost 45 minutes of good light each day due to this strange regulations. I understand that they are considering changing the regulations to better fit the sunrise and sunset over the season.
Mana Pools National Park anno 2015
So what did this year’s trip to Mana Pools result in photo wise?
Well we did get to see the Painted Dogs this year which was my hope for the trip. We had a couple of good sightings of Lions. Spent time at both at a Carmine Bee-eater colony as well as White-fronted Bee-eater colony, which was fun. We had many good Elephant sightings even if we missed out on Boswell. It was really interesting to see the amount of Elephants that gathered when a fig tree lost a huge branch.
The Chacma baboons were ever present, but this year I got more keepers of them which was great. We also had a nice sightings of a Cape buffalo herd that came down to drink as well as fighting Zebras.
I must say that I am most pleased with this trip back to Mana Pools National Park and I surely hope to get back there next year.
I will make a Photo Album from this year’s trip and write about the second sighting with the Painted wolves, aka Painted dogs, as that was a magical moment that Mana Pools shared with us.
Photo Gallery: My second outing in Mana Pools National Park
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11 Comments
Fran Hardy
Great read Lennart … even better images …
Thanks Etienne. Mana Pools is surely a special place…
It is, went there as a child in the 80’s twice a year … but then my only interest was to go fishing! Need to visit again, but the other side of the river at Chiawa Camp and Old Mondoro Camp holds a special place for me … wait, fishing is still very much high on my list of things when I am 1km away from any stretch of the Zambezi!
Haven’t been on the Zambia side yet, but I think I will do some canoeing next time in Mana. It is always special to be out on the water seeing the wildlife from that perspective.
Lennart bring a 400 f5.6 if you want to canoe, its light, fast, sharp and reasonably cheap … incase you end up in the water!
Etienne I have just received the new light 300mm/4 phase fresnel lens from Nikon. I think that would be an excellent choice from the canoe…
aah forgot that you shoot Nikon, yip a 300 is great, what is nice about the canoe is you get really close to water birds at their level … if you lucky enough to get a big and hairy close to the water its great because you sit quite deep in the water … take a wide angle along as well incase you come up close to a elephant …
Yeah I know I am one of the bad boys that doesn’t sport the grey lenses 🙂 I think the 300/4 will work as a charm with a 1,4x converter. Will use the coming months to get a feeling for the lens and fine tune the AF. Canoe/boats are really favorable for water birds as well as the hairy ones if you are lucky to find them. Need to go back to both Okavango and Chobe for some proper boat/canoe photography. I really like it and always want to get out on the water even during the workshops here in Europe. It gives you another type of experience, one a like very much…
Yip on the Chobe a 500mm better, but you know that
All your travel seems very venturosas because the photos you and bring all the details of the trip, seem incredible. I would like to be there. I am also very enthusiastic in my work, always seems to be the first time … Congratulations on this beautiful work-leisure and many samples of photographing!