Eland and Elephants

I recently returned from my latest trip to southern Africa. Among the highlights for our group was a visit to the famous underground hide at Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana. I was simply hoping for some opportunities to shoot elephants close up using a wide angle lens, but we got a bonus during our first encounter.

An hour or so into our first session at the hide, we had not yet seen any elephants, but did spy an eland cautiously making its way to the water. Despite being the world's largest antelope, eland are notoriously shy, so we had to keep still in hopes of not giving it a fright. Slowly but surely, it came in... and of course that is when the elephants decided to show up.

Soon we had elephants drinking on either side with the eland standing for a few brief moments in between. Before long, some of the younger pachyderms decided to chase the eland off, and then the herd left the watering hole soon after. The eland did eventually return to drink without further interruption.

Though the lighting isn't perfect (obviously two front-lit groups of ellies would've been ideal), I loved the symmetry created by both species in this shot. I struggled with the decision whether to include more of foreground, which included the muddy bank of the watering hole, but since the full reflection of the elephants wasn't visible anyway, I felt this was a cleaner composition.

Canon 1DX
Canon 17-40mm
ISO 400
1/800th
f/9
(Included the larger version since the pano crop makes this one rather tiny.)

Max