This is not the greatest shot of Rhinos I ever took, but it is evidence of a baby Black Rhino on Thanda.
Black Rhinos are very shy and they are usually not hanging around to get their picture taken. A mother with a young calf is even more nervous than solitary animals.
So I am glad that I got this – marginal quality – image of mother and child.
The Thanda guests on my vehicle had a very good game drive that evening. First four White Rhino, then a Black-backed Jackal, then two male Cheetahs and at the end four Black Rhinos (this picture shows two of them)!
For the photographers among you: The picture was taken on a Canon 1D Mark IV with a Canon f4/500mm L lens at ISO 12800 in extremely low light conditions. No camera support was possible because there were only a few seconds when they were out of the high grass. I took this freehand while standing up on my vehicle. The image was enhanced with Paintshop Pro.
Wonderful to see a black ba by rhino on Thanda
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom – let your email find you!
From one of your old photography students at the Nashville zoo: Very impressive for handheld in such low light conditions. One never likes to hit that 12800 mark, but when you need it, you need it! Just curious, did you have auto ISO on for situations like this, or did you have time to dial that in?
Thanks for your comment/question – I never use auto ISO – I did change ISO to 12800 manually.
Sounds like you made the best of unbelievably bad conditions. What a great sighting.