DECEMBER 2011 – A hippo shows his giant mouth to scare away potential enemies in a river arm of the Okavango Delta in Botswana. © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Yesterday I shared a photo of a canoe excursion we did while staying for a couple of nights in the Okavango Delta in Botswana and pointed out that the guides really watch out for potential issues along the track.
Just to put this statement to life – here’s an image of a hippo that I shot from the motor boat while on another excursion. The animal emerged from the water and opened up his giant mouth showing power and determination to scare away potential attackers. The guides were quite alert and kept watching this hippo but also looked for signs of other hippos closer to our boat. After all, a hippo is way stronger than a human, and this is clearly its territory, and we were the unwanted visitors.
My 100-400 mm zoom lens was welcome here, as it behaved on the 1D Mark III like a 130-520 mm zoom (compared to a full frame body.) And this time I used the 400 mm focal width and I cropped the image slightly later. The result? A nice yet slightly scary image.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date & Time | 03-DEC-2011, 16:44 |
| Location | Gunn’s Camp, Botsuana |
| Camera | Canon EOS-1D Mark III |
| Lens | Canon EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM |
| ISO | 400 |
| Exposure | 1/800 sec at f/5.6 |
| Digital Image Source Format | Canon Camera RAW (CR2) |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 3114 x 2076 Pixels |
| Copyright | © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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