An epic fight, and how to shoot it
Canon 7D 70-200 F2.8
F5,0 ISO 800
This was one of those weekends where we had one awesome sighting after the other one. It is difficult to explain to people that this is not normal, hey I am not complaining the photographic opportunities were endless. Off course we would have a sighting like the following one without any sun to work with….. two words HIGH ISO 
Saturday we stumbled upon these two white rhino bulls fighting , at first it started out as play fighting but got more serious by the minute. Ten minutes into the fight it got loud , dusty and uncertain on what was going to happen next.
The one kept on chasing the other one around the vehicle and tried to get him of balance and of his feet. Both of them had quite a few puncture marks on the chest and legs. These animals are tough and will recover quickly.
The one bull was a bit older then the other one and he succeeded in showing his dominance to the younger one. It is great to share this with people who is also passionate about photography.
How to successful photograph a moving sighting like this, not so easy because you deal with moving subjects and big angry animals:
- Position the vehicle in such a way that the animals have enough space to move in
- Move with the animals and try determine in which direction they will move into
- In most cases you will probably be with a guide who knows what to do
- Get away from them if they are not comfortable with the vehicle
- Spend as much time with the animals and don’t just try and get that winning shot
This is all guidelines and remember to respect these animals at all time.
That was what to do in your vehicle now for the settings I used:
- I used a 70-200 lens , in a sighting like this you want to be versatile because they are moving around a lot.
- I was shooting on AV with a F 5,0 because of the busy back ground and moving animals
- ISO of 800, don’t be scared of high ISO’s
- Remember that in wildlife photography your subjects are mostly moving so using a higher ISO pushes up your shutter speed as well.
You can’t always predict what the animal is going to do , but there are body language signs you can look for to try and determine what they are going to do next, for example when a bird of prey is perched and he poops then 99% of the time he will fly and you can plan your shot , but you have to be quick
It was an epic fight and both survived with a few scratches and bruises
Cheers
Grant
