Caption: A pair of Yellowbilled Hornbills (Tockus flavirostris), wide angle view, Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Picture Details: I took this photograph of a pair of yellowbilled hornbills in Letaba Camp in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The birds in the camp are habituated to people, and will often hang around the bungalows in hopes of being fed a few scraps.

I scattered a handful of bread crumbs among some attractive winter leaves lying on the ground near our bungalow and waited for the birds to find these. Once a few starlings started snacking on the crumbs, other birds soon followed.

I placed my camera, a Canon 450D with Canon EF-S 18-55mm lens, on the ground facing towards the leaves with some trees in the background. After some experimentation, I used manual exposure to avoid the meter being fooled by the overcast but bright sky and set auto focus to all focus points. The lens was at 18mm, its widest, which is equivalent to around 28mm on a full-frame camera.

Using a wireless remote shutter release, I was able to stand a few meters away, partly behind a tree stump, to avoid intimidating the birds. After the glossy starlings had pecked around for a while, I was delighted when these two hornbills arrived. With their huge yellow bills and big eyes, they provided ideal subjects for the experiment.

I took a number of shots of the two of them and was very happy with the results – most were pretty sharp and the images gave a delightfully different view of the birds. In fact the prominent bills were sometimes exaggerated to near ridiculous proportions because of the wide angle of view and the subjects’ closeness to the lens.

I’ve digitally manipulated the above image, using software to remove some of the extraneous detail and “simplify” the picture, giving a more painterly effect.

To find out more about how the pics were taken and view other examples without the “arty” look, see Taking Wide Angle Bird Photos.

Hornbill Art Print:


A Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill Sits Perched on a Branch; Photographic Print
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Caption: Front-on view of a Burchells' zebra (Equus quagga), Kruger National Park, South Africa.

Camera: Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi); Lens: Canon 70-300 F4-5.6 IS USM; Focal Length: 210mm; Shutter speed: 1/2000; Aperture: f5; ISO: 400.

Zebra Photography: One of the more descriptive collective nouns for a group of zebras is a “dazzle” of zebras. Others are a “zeal”, a “cohort” and, of course, the common “herd” of zebras. “Dazzle” is very apt as it accurately describes the constantly shifting view that’s designed to confuse predators such as lions and leopards.

This visual juxtaposition can also bewilder and confuse the human brain as the animals mingle and move around, which of course provides both a challenge and an opportunity for photographers capturing zebra images. The challenge is to produce a picture that's not a jumbled blur of stripes with no point of interest or focus, while the opportunities allow experimentation as the photographer tries to blend or juxtapose the stripes to best effect.

Zebra Prints:


Herd of Zebras Photographic Print
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Burchell’s Zebra pattern of stripes, Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania; Photographic Print
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Caption: Male leopard (Panthera pardus) is the epitomy of feline stealth as it stalks silently through dense vegetation, Elephant Plains Game Lodge, Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa.

The above photograph is unusual in that it’s a more abstract portrayal of this magnificent Big Cat, emphasising the leopard’s camouflage and predator behavior rather than the more conventional full-figure portrait of a leopard lounging languidly in a tree or lying gracefully on a rocky outcrop.

Camera: Canon EOS 400D (Digital Rebel XTi); Lens: Canon EF70-200mm F2.8 IS USM; Focal Length: 70mm; Shutter speed: 1/4000; Aperture: f4; ISO: 400.

Location: Elephant Plains Game Lodge is a private, family-owned lodge situated within the 65,000-ha Sabi Sand Game Reserve.

Sabi Sand, adjacent to South Africa’s flagship reserve, the Kruger National Park, is possibly best known as home to a handful of the most luxurious private game reserves in southern Africa, including Mala Mala, Singita, and Londolozi.

There are no dividing fences between Sabi Sand and Kruger, allowing the prolific wildlife to roam freely between the two. The Sabi Sand area – and Elephant Plains in particular – has earned a reputation as one of the top spots in the world for viewing and photographing leopards in the wild.

Caption: Impala fawns (Aepyceros melampus) rub noses as they nuzzle each other, Kruger National Park, South Africa. The two were part of a nursery of about a dozen impala babies, born shortly before a visit to the Kruger Park during December.

Camera: Canon EOS 400D; Lens: Canon 100-400 IS Zoom; Focal Length: 320mm; Shutter speed: 1/400; Aperture: f5.6; ISO: 400.

Did you know? The Kruger National Park is the largest wildlife sanctuary in South Africa, covering an area of 18,989 square km (7,332 sq miles). Check your safari knowledge by taking this light-hearted African Safari Quiz. If you prefer, you can first go through the questions and answers with accompanying information by reading the Safari Quiz Answers.

Running Zebras Stretched Canvas Print

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There is nothing more exciting than decorating or taking time to rearrange your home to give a new feeling to a home you have been living in for awhile. Although it can cost a lot for artwork, few things are as nice as fine art nature photography to personalize your home .

It doesn’t matter whether you want a country and comfortable feel or something high class and elegant, nature photography can be used to get exactly what you want from every room of your home .

Experiment with Colors
Fine art photography that features imagery of nature can vary from bright bursts of color to muted shades of gray, black, white, and brown . This give you a method of versatile décor if you enjoy experimenting with different colors for interesting effects.

If you’re decorating a room with just a couple primary colors, you will likely need some sort of accent color to complete the decor. Fine art photos of nature can help add those accents of color, or can bring out accents that are include in the room .

Fine art photos of nature can also be picked that compliment that primary colors in the room, or for a room that has dull colors, you can go with photos that have bright colors . When you choose the perfect colors and place them perfectly , these photos can complete your home design.

Use Themes
In some rooms in your house, it can be fun to use themes, particularly in the play room or even a child’s bedroom. Rooms that you use for hobbies or recreation, such as an art studio can work well with exciting themes .

Fine art nature photography allows you to easily pull together a theme. Actually, some prints can completely set the theme for the entire room, allowing you to play with the color patterns in the photos pulling everything in the room together.

For example, a photo of a fawn in grass can be the basis for an adorable and rather unique bedroom for a growing child . It may bring to mind Bambi and other Disney features that kids today love .

Water is another theme that can be incorporated for an elegant feel . Fine art nature photography featuring oceans, rivers, or water calmly running over pebbles or smooth stones can really give you a great effect when in the same room you use fountains and fish tanks.

Create a Focal Point

Choosing the perfect piece of photography of nature and going with a framed print that is large can create a point of focus that catches everyone’s eye . If you want to draw the eye to one particular part of the room this is a great idea, or if there are other areas of the room that you need to distract attention away from .

When your focal point is a fine art photo, it should really grab attention. It should be extraordinarily beautiful, or odd enough that people can’t look away.

Bringing fine art nature photography in a room is fun and costs much less than paints and other types of art. Fine art photos can be combined with other art forms for an incredible effect , including sculptures and watercolor prints .

NB: Don’t forget to browse our awesome selection of Animal Posters and Fine Art Prints to find ideal home decor items.

Here’s a selection of interesting articles and blog posts about photo gear and techniques:

1. Leopard Photographed at Night — example of wildlife photography at night without flash, relying on available light from a spotlight and the fast maximum aperture that’s available on today’s top-of-the-range telephoto zoom lenses like the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM.

2. Telephoto Lenses are Essential for Wildlife Photography — sounds a bit like stating the obvious, but this is in fact a good overview of the types of telephoto lenses one should consider for wildlife photography and their main advantages and drawbacks.

3. A Wide Angle Lens is Indispensable — while you can sometimes get away without a telephoto lens in situations where it would be useful to have one, there are usually no workarounds in the case of wide angle lenses. Shots that require wide angle, because of the geographical features or space constraints, can’t be fudged using any other techniques. Is this sufficient justification to claim that a wide angle lens is “indispensable”? — you decide after reading the blog post.

4. Canon SLR Lenses and Deciphering Lens Codes — there are more than 60 Canon lenses available for Canon EOS digital SLR cameras. Which is right for your needs? It’s a daunting task trying to decipher the various letters and codes that Canon uses to differentiate the attributes of each of its lenses. This article is aimed at taking the mystery out of Canon’s identifying codes.

If you’re a photographer using a digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera, then you’ll certainly want to make sure you have a wide angle lens in your arsenal of photographic tools.

And if Canon is your chosen brand, then it’s a Canon wide angle lens that needs to be in your camera bag. Why, you ask? Because it’s generally accepted that the wide angle is the most indispensable of all your lenses.

In circumstances where a telephoto lens would make life easier but you don’t have one, you can usually change position and move closer to the subject to fill the frame. Or you could even crop the image in PhotoShop or other image editing software.

Unfortunately there is no comparable solution if you don’t possess a wide angle lens. If you’d like your landscape to include foreground flowers plus distant mountains, you’ll need to move back a long, long way to fit in the entire scene with a standard 50mm lens on your camera.

Similarly, when photographing interiors, space is usually limited, so you can’t move further back to fit in more of the scene. In such cases, a wide angle lens is the only option.

If you use a Canon digital SLR camera such as one of the Canon Digital Rebels (Canon EOS 400D, 450D, 500D) or a Canon 40D or 50D, then it’s important to understand that these cameras are fitted with APS-C sensors that are smaller than a full-frame sensor or 35mm negative.

This has the effect of magnifying the image and produces the same result as fitting 1.6x converter to the lens.

While this is a bonus for photographers using telephoto lenses, it works against wide angle lenses, effectively making them longer — so your 24mm wide angle on a Digital Rebel becomes a 38mm (24 x 1.6), i.e. close to a standard lens rather than a wide angle.

Fortunately Canon has produced a range of lenses, with the EF-S designation, to counter the crop factor of sub full-frame cameras with APS-C format sensors. Two of the top lenses offering wide angle capability within the range of EF-S lenses are:
* Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
* Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

When shooting wildlife pictures, a telephoto lens is essential as you can’t normally get close enough to the animals to use a standard lens. You wouldn’t want to try getting too close anyway, not only for your own safety, but also for the wellbeing of the animals.

In the picture above, a Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM telephoto zoom lens was used at its maximum focal length of 300mm. As the lens was fitted to a Canon EOS 400D digital SLR camera, the equivalent focal length was in fact 480mm because of the 1.6x crop factor resulting from the smaller, APS-C size sensor in the camera (See Canon Crop Factor for an explanation of this).

It’s extremely difficult to get sharp pictures when hand-holding a lens of 480mm focal length and for the above shot, the camera was placed on a beanbag resting on the side of the game drive vehicle for additional support. However, what has made a huge differerence for wildlife photographers using long lenses in situations where it’s not possible to use a tripod is image stabilization (IS).

IS lenses help combat camera shake, making it possible to hand-hold tele lenses at slower shutter speeds than is possible with non-IS lenses. To find out more about image stabilization, its benefits and how it works, see Canon IS Lenses and for the full range of Canon lenses fitted with this technology, see Canon IS Lens Lineup.