What’s at the end of the rainbow in Etosha National Park in Namibia? A zebra!
On my two-month Africa trip, I shot thousands of frames and still ended up with 600 GB of images and that’s AFTER deleting my outtakes!
Instead of letting these images sit on my hard drive, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos from the trip and the stories behind them!
Safari photography is anything but easy. It’s a real adrenaline rush because you’re bouncing around in the back of an open-air jeep trying to hold your camera steady to snap a frame before an animal moves, turns its head or decides to hide behind a tree.
These images are from four main parks: Kruger National Park in South Africa, Etosha National Park in Namibia, Okavango Delta in Botswana and Chobe National Park in Botswana. Here’s my favorite 16 images from my Southern Africa safari adventures along with the camera settings for each image:
What photography gear is best for safari in Africa?
All but one of these images was shot with my Sony A7Rv body and an f/4 100-400 lens. The only exception is the rainbow image, which was shot with a 24-70 mm lens. I had two of the same camera bodies with me at all times because changing lens was too risky outside in the back of a jeep. I feared I’d miss a shot or get dirt in my sensor.
I shot with my zoom the majority of the time. Honestly, I could have shot the wide images with my phone easily. (I’ve heard of people just taking a phone and a DSLR with only a long lens.) I had a 1.4x teleconverter but only used it once or twice. I found that I was too shaky when shooting with it from the jeep, so I just stuck to the 100-400mm. I also had a circular polarizing filter on each lens.
Best Camera Settings for African Safari
I used a wide aperture (between f/5.6 and f/7.1) to help blur the background/foreground for tighter animal shots, but I did shoot a smaller aperture on landscape images. I always used a fast shutter speed (minimum 1/500 but aimed for closer to 1/1000) to make up for any movement from the animal or the safari jeep. Plus, the 100-40mm lens gets heavy after a while, so the fast shutter speed really helps when I’m wobbly. Since we were moving in the jeep, I kept my ISO between 400 and 800 usually, except for a couple low-light images. (And the elephant shot where I clearly changed the ISO by mistake in my haste to capture the image. Haha!)
Also, I always shoot fully manual out of habit, but shutter priority would be a great idea for a safari. I’ve shared my exposures below to be helpful. Remember, these are just what worked for me or what my camera was set on when the animals appeared. You don’t often have much time to change settings!
A leopard at Okonjima Nature Reserve in Namibia. (ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/500)
We spent one night at a private game reserve south of Etosha National Park, known for their leopards. It’s very interesting how private game reserves operate differently than national parks. They have trackers on the majority of the leopards, so if you sign up for a leopard safari, you guide pulls out a device that looks like a 1980s-era TV antenna. We saw three leopards on the ground, walking or sleeping off their food coma at the reserve. (We did see one in the wild at Kruger National Park, walking by a watering hole.) They are normally hanging out in trees, so it was very special to see them on the ground in all of our sightings.
Hippos at Kruger National Park, South Africa. (ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/1000)
Did you know the word for a group of hippos is called a bloat? We found this bloat in Kruger National Park on our last day. These two were splashing around in the gross green water. Hippos are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. That’s why every single hippo photo I shot was with my 100-400 lens for safety. (If you like hippos, you should check out my gallery of Moo Deng, the famous sassy pigmy hippo in Thailand.)
Pumba (warthog) at Kruger National Park (ISO 500, f/6.3 at 1/500)
On every single safari, our guide always yelled out the names of The Lion King characters every time we saw an animal. Pumba! Rafki! Simba! It was a highlight of the whole trip. Well, this Pumba was posing perfectly by a tree with his hair smoothed back like he was getting ready to go on a date.
Cape Buffalo crossing the road in Kruger National Park. (ISO 800, f/810 at 1/800)
At Kruger National Park, you can self-drive the entire park or pay for guided safari drives. Either way, you have to stick to the roads (paved and unpaved), but there’s always going to be a wildlife crossing. We had tons of crossings with giraffes, elephants, impala and even a rhino (not in Kruger). This shows the reality of driving through any national park in Africa. Even if you self-drive, I recommend at least doing one guided safari drive because the guides know the best spots to go and have radios to tell each other about animal sightings.
Brown hyena at Okonjima Nature Reserve and a zebra at Etosha National Park in Namibia. (Left: ISO 3200, f/5.6 at 1/200; Right: ISO 400, f/8 at 1/1600)
Brown hyenas are the rarest of the species, and we lucked out with a sighting at the private game reserve. It was coming to investigate two leopards lounging on the ground together at sunset. It was getting so dark that I wasn’t sure I’d get an image, which is why I bumped the ISO up to 3200. (Sony has very little noise at a high ISO!) The second image was a zebra with a funny face at Etosha National Park. The park is a salt pan with some very flat areas, making it easy to get clean wildlife shots with a nice blurred foreground of grass. (Fun fact: Etosha only has four of the Big Five. It’s too salty for the Cape Buffalo.)
Giraffes in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. (ISO 400, f/7.1 at 1/640)
We lucked out with cloudy skies for our time in the Okavango Delta, which helped with both the heat and the light for photography. I loved being able to shoot without any harsh shadows. I also loved how the tone of the giraffes matches the landscape. Safari photography is tricky because you have to stay in the jeep for safety and can’t change angles very easily.
Cape Buffalo in Kruger National Park (left) and a zebra with a rainbow in Etosha National Park in Namibia (right). Left: (ISO 640, f/6.3 at 1/1000); Right: (ISO 400, f/10 at 1/1000)
The light and composition worked out in my favor in this shot of the Cape Buffalo. I struggled to get a clean shot of their faces on previous encounters due to branches and grass. Getting the two lined up together was a dream!
We spent a while chasing this full rainbow in Etosha National Park but had trouble finding anything great for the foreground composition until we found a few zebras grazing. We kept backing the car up a bit to frame the shot with the zebra under the rainbow.
Lions napping after a kill in Chobe National Park. (ISO 400, f/7.1 at 1/500)
A young male lion naps with a pride of female lions in Chobe National Park in Botswana along the banks of the Chobe River. There was a carcass of a Cape Buffalo underneath a nearby tree, with one lion still licking the bones clean. These lions didn’t even care that we were nearby. The male lion looked at us curiously, but the lions are all used to the safari jeeps. You just have to be careful not to lean out the side of the jeep!
A hippo walking across an island in Chobe National Park along the Chobe River in Botswana. (ISO 800, f/5.6 at 1/400)
Hippos can spend up to 16 hours a day in the water but come out to graze around sunset. We saw this guy wandering through an area along the Chobe River in Botswana around dusk. Since hippos are very territorial, we kept a safe distance—all of my hippo shots were with a 100-400mm lens. I liked the idea of framing him with the landscape in the background.
Male lions in Kruger National Park (left) and Etosha National Park (right). (Left:ISO 800, f/7.1 at 1/640; Right: ISO 6400, f/5.6 at 1/160)
In Kruger National Park, we came across two lions mating in a field. Afterward, I got this shot of the male yawning big. The photo on the left is of two young males walking together along the roadside in Namibia’s Etosha National Park. (This image was shot at a high ISO because it very dark at sunrise.) The key to these shots is just waiting for the moment and composition to appear. Again, I was limited on my angles because we were confined to the jeep, so I did the best I could. I’d love to have had a lower angle on the yawning shot, but it wasn’t possible due to safety.
Elephants in Kruger National Park, South Africa. (ISO 400, f/5.6 at 1/3200)
These two elephants put on quite a show for us in Kruger National Park. We were photographing one when the other walked out of the bushes. It looked like they might fight, but they just walked around each other. When they overlapped, I snapped this frame because I loved the juxtaposition of their tusk lengths. The one with the longer tusks is older and has a broken tusk, which doesn’t grow back. (I’m laughing that I accidentally shot this at ISO 3200, but that’s what happens when you get excited in the moment!)
Painted dog in Kruger National Park. (ISO 640, f/6.3 at 1/800)
Painted dogs, also known as African wild dogs, are a very rare sighting in Kruger National Park. We lucked out and drove up on a pack of at least 15, including some pups. It was our only sighting but a very special one. This image really shows their unique fur pattern.
Giraffe and an impala at Kruger National Park, South Africa. (Left: ISO 500, f/5.6 at 1/640; Right: ISO 500, f/7.1 at 1/1000)
This giraffe image is one of my favorites because I love how its spots almost blend in with the tree branches at the bottom of the frame. I love the texture of the trees and the wonky look on its face. Giraffes are the best at posing for photos. Impalas (right image) are one of my most common animals we saw on a safari. Anytime we saw a jeep stopping to photograph them, we always joked that it must be their first day in the park. Regardless, they are beautiful creatures who deserve some love!
An elephant taking a mud bath to cool off in Kruger National Park. (ISO 500, f/7.1 at 1/500)
I loved watching the elephants find ways to cool off in the heat at Kruger National Park. We visited in early October right before the rainy season started. This one was using his truck to lather up with mud to cool off. I loved the curve of its trunk and the patches of mud across its body. Others were dipping their trunks into water reservoirs. You always find elephants where there is water!
