Sunset, Halali, Etosha National Park, Namibia (II)

NOVEMBER 2006 – Elephants take a bath after sunset at the Moringa waterhole which can be accessed from the Halali Camp in Namibia’s Etosha National Park. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com

---

The story behind the image

(Continued from part 1.)

And then, like two minutes later, a single tiny elephant came running (!) from the left towards the waterhole, just as if someone had pushed him onto a big stage, saying “okay buddy, it’s your turn now”. 🙂 And then a herd of 15 elephants approached slowly the waterhole. And drank. And bathed. And breathed. And played. And we sat there just about 10 meters away. We were stunned.

As the light was more or less gone already, I increased the ISO setting of the camera to 1600. The results are still okay at this setting. But it was getting darker by the second, and the 100-400 zoom would just not give good results any longer. I needed something else.

I selected the 50 mm f/1.4 lens – allowing for several dramatic photos of the herd at the available light. The light, by the way, was now a mixture of the evening sky and the two artificial lights illuminating the water hole.

(To be continued in part 3.)

---

The high resolution image

Capture Date & Time	29-NOV-2006, 19:35
Location	Halali Camp, Namibia
Camera	Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II
Lens	Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4 USM
ISO	800
Exposure	1/50 sec at f/2
Digital Image Source Format	JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, AdobeRGB
Edited Image Format	JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Dimensions	4992 x 3328 Pixels
Copyright	© by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com