james love thanks James you too!! Although I bet you are a lot colder :) ps I’ve recently made it a rule to have two Xmases (a cold one in July with a tree and presents) why not :)
Hey buddy, this video really got me excited - dinokeng has been on my mind a lot recently. Looking forward to more video footage of this place. Btw, I always hit the like button at the start of your vids cos I know its going to be awesome, love the crisp photos too. Thanks man!!
Hi thanks for the likes and for watching it’s greatly appreciated! Dinokeng is difficult for photography - at least the general areas that I have visited so far. There are some private lodges that might be better. It’s very dense bush with lots of twisty roads. You can get nice sightings but can be hard to generate photos from them For example, I have an unpublished visit where I saw brown hyena and 3 cheetah but barely got a shot
Mate, I’ve watched most of your videos, found your channel couple of days ago, gotta say excellent content 👌 you gotta have more subscribers than what you’ve got atm. And gotta say you’re so lucky to have all these parks around the your neck of the woods 🤙🏼 Keep up the good work ✌🏼
Appreciate your encouragement and thank you for the views! I only really started these videos in January and never intended to make so many so this channel is a bit of an accident, but as long as I enjoy making them I'll carry on. Yeah, it's great to have all these wild places, I actually moved to SA in 2008 to be closer to them. Unfortunately all the videos are recent and just local spots - I can't wait to take a trip with a video cam out to the wildernesses in Zambia or up into the Kaokoveld in Namibia :)
Lovely video Will, really enjoy watching your African adventures. Now I’ve finally got my 100-400mm lens I too can get out and shoot some great wildlife. Your review finally swayed me to take the plunge!! Thanks! 👍🏻😀
An excellent drive you had there Will, a good variety of wildlife. Your video footage was great and a fantastic set of stills, I love how one can see the personality of the animals in your shots, especially the warthog, what a great image! Guinea fowl have the most amazing feathers! Enjoyed this very much :)
Thank you again Liesl - that warthog was very disinterested until someone rang my phone (I forgot to turn it off) I don't think he'd heard that ringtone before ! :) Luck break.
Superb content mate! as usual! I really enjoy this channel: your knowledge of wildlife.. behavior but also technique without the "noise" of silliness as all You-tubers do, it is simply refreshing. I am addicted to your channel! ;) Learning plenty! Thanks! keep up the mazing work!
Thanks Gabriel, great to hear. Just hope I can keep the videos coming quick enough :) really appreciating your support on the channel and all the kind comments. I’m behind in answering because I’m preparing a presentation and that’s got all my attention at the moment. Keep well !
So enjoyable Will, loving your vlogs, what an amazing continent, the vegetation is often similar to much of Australia but the wildlife is very different
Yes! So glad you've made this video, as I've been intrigued by Dinokeng for a while now. Definitely gonna head out there soon after seeing this. What condition are the roads in? Suitable for a non-4x4?
Alistair Routledge the roads are good for the most part. There are a few rocky bits that suit high clearance but most is fine in a car. There are some 4x4 only marked tracks but These can be done in high clearance if you ask me.
Drive, track, spot, photo, film, narrate to camera.... surely you have a hand spare for a mic boom? As for music choice, it is one of the many things that is great about your videos.
Just discover you today and really enjoyed it , gave me some confidence in doing my FGASA practical there in a few months so Thank You for the lovely video
I just got a glimpse of a banded mongoose in SA but didnt get a chance to stake the area out, thanks for sharing this day with us I dont feel so cheated i never got a pic after seeing them here lol 😂
Hi Will, thanks for another nice video. I am flying into Johannesburg tomorrow for work and one of my colleagues has been nice enough to take me to Dinokeng Sunday and Monday. Would you have tips? One challenge I have is what lens to take. I have the option of taking a 200-400 f/4 or a 500 f/5.6. I struggle to take both and not too much looking forward to keep changing lenses in a dusty environment, but I just don't know what I can expect in the park. I will be using a full frame camera.
Hi, Sounds fun! Dinokeng is a tricky place for photography. It's rehabilitated farmland, and some farms did not join the park and have created islands within the reserve. So driving around it is a bit of a maze. The park is dense thorn veld, very bushy with (most likely) very tall grass at the end of the rainy season. You are likely to run into small birds, larger antelope (wildebeest, zebra, waterbuck, Kudu, Giraffe). It can be quite hard work to photograph there. There are private areas that apparently offer more chance of sighting the elephants and lions in the reserve but I am not familiar with them. A zoom is probably useful, although the 200-400 is a big lens! (Are we talking Nikon - no built in converter?) The 500 PF may be easier to swing around the interior of the car and is a good focal length for many of the animals. The risk is that you may want to pull back a little more on some occasions, but it general 500 should be ok for most things except the smaller and more distant birds.
@@WillGoodlet Thanks Will, Yes, it's all Nikon and unfortunately I have nothing with a built in TC (yet...). Those do look awesome lenses though. Guess I will take the risk of taking only the 500pf. I love it, but wasn't too sure because of the extra stop.....
Final question... promise ;-) If I add a TC, I will have 280 - 560 mm at f/5.6 on my zoom, versus a 700 mm at f/8 on the 500p. Would you then still go for the 500pf for that extra reach, even at f/8, or would you prefer the flexibility of the zoom and would the 560 maximum be enough?
@@hrv-nl most of the time my drive around focal length is 560mm F4. I am not so worried about low light, once the sun gets up it is bright here and the periods around dawn and dusk are short because in these parks you cannot go out between sunset and sunrise. F8 is unlikely to be a huge problem unless you want to photograph fast birds in flight - this is highly unlikely at dinokeng. Your subjects are likely to be antelope species grazing and browsing. You will also encounter some birds where focal length will be key. Additionally, you will not be able to move off road - so you will be reach limited 70% of the time. 500 should be excellent for general photography you are very unlikely to need less than 300mm unless it’s a landscape or wide shot of some kind. 700 will allow you to photograph some of the smaller birds that you may come across. BUT like all African photography you may come around a corner and see an elephant, go around the next and see a tiny waxbill - here the zoom is valuable! But I think you will be unlikely to want to shoot at less than 500mm for Most of the time. The requirement for 200mm is only where a safari vehicle can pull up right next to a sighting off road. Not likely in dinokeng. Of course you never know when something happens fast and close and that’s why I always have a short zoom next to me as well - but this is super rare. You know like a leopard suddenly walks by the car….less than 3 m away. Most of the time the animal is further away than that. Sorry I can’t be more precise. Avoid having too much stuff and clutter if possible - most of the tome it’s unnecessary.
Thanks! Hope you wouldn't have to suffer a leg break to get in - although for some reason there's always so much stuff there is is never any room inside ;)
The smaller size doesn't bother me although I prefer larger bodies generally. I like the R5 and grip, although as a landscaper as well the grip can be unhelpful when you want to use an L bracket.
@@longrider9551 I use electronic almost exclusively now for the frame rate. The animals almost never react to shutter sounds (even loud ones from 1D cameras) but I think they are more used to us than in other places? Obviously, they often hear the car coming first too. I find, most often, it's when I talk to camera (whisper to camera) that they turn their backs and move off - but only certain species - mainly antelope.
Hi Kurtis, do you mean photographing at a high frame rate? Or Continuous autofocus? I shoot almost exclusively with both. I think maybe you hear the slow shots from the Canon 5D mark iii (5 or 6 Frames per second) and that I am just squeezing off shots. I don't like having to wade through tons of the same image later on! Also, if something happens, I like to have the high frame rate available. I have been burned too many times setting a slower frame rate and then forgetting to switch back to high speed.
@@WillGoodlet I meant high frame rate. I swear, the harder I try to just squeeze off one frame the more likely I am to get two or three. A quick finger usually gets me a camera shake blur. When nature/wildlife shooting I'm nearly always in high rate and continuous focus. So I'm resolved to the two or three I get when I don't need them. Megapixels are free.
Will I fly to South Africa on the 26 June 2021 for a month I will land in Cape Town and will spend two days then from there will drive to the Kgalagadi and spend about 5 days there and from there will drive to Johannesburg. From there will drive to Kruger and spend 6 days there maybe we can meet at the park?
Hi Felix, great to hear that you are due here in 2021! You sound like you have a lot planned. Those are some big drives - 2,500km! I live in Johannesburg, so if you come through here, I'll buy you a beer you will need one :)
@@WillGoodlet Soun likes a plan. I have been watching your videos and think the least I could do is to at least try to take advantage of all the groundwork you done. Now is just time to continue my preparation and research. I hope to complete this trip and be able to return to Africa in October to cover Namibia and Botswana alone this time.
Love your videos, i wrote to you earlier about i went to Balule reserve, going to Krüger on a one day trip, i just got home to Denmark from that trip saturday, we were in Krüger on sunday 11 Aug. what a place i hope i can return some day, but tell me do you live of your photo or do you have a day time job? or won the lottery so you can do what pleases you ;)
Howzit Stephan good to hear from you! Glad you liked Kruger - you HAVE to go back for longer and then try out the Kgalagadi (which is amazing)...Nope, unfortunately, I haven't won the lottery. I came to SA in 2008 to try to live and work out here, one reason was so I could be closer to the wildlife for photography. I work for a large Safari and tour operator and I'm based in an office at the moment :( So the photography is a massive part of my life but I don't earn a living directly from it.
