THANDA – Page 89 – Christian Sperka Photography

2017-07-24

The Montagues and Capulets

As in Romeo and Juliet this Lioness has no way to get united with her Romeo. As one can see in the video the young female is in esterous and is keen to mate, but the fences between two game reserve prevent the males from getting to here (the roars in the background are from the males on the neighboring reserve).

The lady is obviously not interested in the perfectly good dominant male on her side of the reserve. The grass seems always greener on the other side of the fence.

Enjoy the video and your week!

Video by Christian Sperka, Resident Wildlife Photographer Thanda Safari

2017-06-26

May and June

In the last weeks I did not have a lot of time to blog. But over the last few days I worked on a lot of images (sorting/filing/deleting/editing a few thousand) and I thought you might like to see some of my favorite shots from May and June 2017 which I took at Thanda Safari.

The Big Five, Cheetah, Hyena and more …

Enjoy them!

Almost no light, but still very special indeed …

Me and The Green Mamba 1 – More information at https://sperka.info/gm/

Pictures information for the photographers among you:

10 June – Small Elephant – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 300mm
11 May – Large Elephant – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 85mm (DoF-PP)
30 May – Small Lion – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 85mm
28 May – Me (Mirror) and Hyena – iPhone 7 Plus
9 June – Vulture – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 270mm
30 May – Pride of Lions – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 105mm
2 June – Cheetah – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 250mm (DoF-PP)
5 June – Bark Spider – iPhone 7 Plus
28 May – Hyena on Kill – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 90mm (DoF-PP)
28 May – Giraffes fighting – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 235mm
12 May – Leopard with Nyala kill – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 300mm
20 May – White Rhino with new-born calf – Canon 1D Mark IV with 28-300L at 105mm
8 June – Cape Buffalo bull – iPhone 7 Plus (2x magnification)
28 May Me with my Canon 1D Mark IV and the Canon 28-300L lens sitting in the Green Mamba 1 – iPhone 7 Plus

Note: DoF-PP = depth of field change in post processing

2017-06-20

A Look

I came across this shot as I was filing pictures this afternoon. ‘Deer in the headlight look’ comes to mind 🙂

2017-04-022017-04-02

SUNday

One of Thanda’s Lionesses in the most beautiful morning light. Have a good SUNday 🙂

Picture details: African Lion | Location: Thanda Safari, South Africa
Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon EF500 f4L | AV | ISO 200 | 1/500s | f/4 | 0eV | WB 6500K – post processing corrected | free-hand

2017-03-18

Dugga Boy

Dugga means mud!

Dugga Boy is a nickname given to older Buffalo males who have passed their prime breeding age and spend their days wallowing in mud pools. Dugga boys occur in small bachelor herds or as individuals. They are quite vulnerable and therefore more aggressive than animals in a large herd. This Thanda Dugga Boy had a good stretch before he left the Ubomvu waterhole. Ubomvu means red in the local Zulu language – a very good name considering the red soil in this area!

Picture details: Cape Buffalo | Location: Thanda Safari, South Africa
Canon 1D Mark IV | Canon EF28-300 f3.5-5.6L at 200mm | AV | ISO 2500 | 1/500s | f/5.6 | 1.0eV | WB 6500K | free-hand

2017-03-12

Bird’s views!

I am currently learning how to fly a new DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone. These are two of my first aerial images I took with the ‘new toy’. With the new 4K camera it is actually anything else but a toy. The image quality for video and stills is amazing. More to come soon …

A morning view of the western part of Thanda Safari …

And an afternoon view of my home on Thanda. Can anyone spot the Elephant in the picture 🙂

2017-03-08

Elephants and Clouds

This week we had some amazing sunsets. I really enjoyed this particular evening as I was watching a few Elephant bulls in front of Thanda House. They grazed around the house for over an hour. As I was watching them the most amazing cloud formations passed by. I captured them with my iPhone 7 Plus. Enjoy these African skies!

2017-03-042017-03-04

Lion+

I have just uploaded a few more Lion images taken between 2006 and 2017. Have a look at http://www.sperka.biz/sg1 (total 76 images).

This is one of many species gallery available online at http://www.sperka.biz/sg

Please contact me at info@sperka.com in case you are interested in publishing any of these images or if you would like to license any image for printing (for personal or commercial use).

These are some of the newly uploaded images!

2017-02-13

Lions …

I am currently working on an update of my online Lion picture gallery (http://www.sperka.biz/sg1).

This is one of the images which will soon appear with many others on my gallery site.

Have a good week! Stay tuned for more updates …

20160116-cs2_4558-e

2017-01-27

From the archives …

I have just uploaded 74 more Cheetah images taken between 2004 and early 2017. Have a look at http://www.sperka.biz/sg3 (total 189 images).

This is one of many species gallery available online at http://www.sperka.biz/sg

Please contact me at info@sperka.com in case you are interested in publishing any of these images or if you would like to license any image for printing (for personal or commercial use).

These are a few of these new images!