Page 25 - Cape-Camera-September-2025

Cape Camera September-October 2025

Winner PDI – Open (Proficient) Pod of hippos by Heiko Denker (13 COM).
Wendy Freer commented: This is an exceptional image, During a Photoshop course by Martin Barber his year I
depicting four well positioned hippos out of the water. took the opportunity to hone my skills in post-process-
All the animals are clear and sharp and well exposed. The ing. Firstly, I made adjustments in Lightroom, then ex-
dark and cloudy sky adds to the overall feel of the scene. ported the image to Photoshop, removed some small
Heiko Denker explains: The photo was taken in Janu- annoyances (hence entered in Open), then created ad-
ary 2025 around 9:00 in the morning whilst on a photo justment layers to darken and lighten and adjusted Hue/
safari with Pangolin Photo Safaris (on their off season Saturation on 3 colours.
special). It was a moody morning with a lot of clouds and Finally, I used the Camera Raw filter to slightly tune it to
fog over the water. We were on the Chobe River and as my liking!
it was overcast we were lucky to have hippos out of the Camera: Nikon D750; Lens: AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm
water. I have quite a few shots, some up close taken with 1:2.8 GII ED; Focal length102mm; ISO 250; Exposure
a 300mm lens, but the one with more space and four 1/4000; F 2.8.
hippos in the frame is my favourite.

Winner PDI – Open (Intermediate) Honey Badger Reward by Tom Wendy Freer commented:
Gosh (11). Such an excellent story-telling
image of a rarely seen animal! It
seems as if the tortoise is still in
its shell, which adds to the ac-
tion portrayed in the scene. What
lets the image down, is the time
of the day it was shot, where the
shadows are too deep around
the face, and particularly the
eyes, which could be slightly rec-
tified in post-processing.
Tom Gosh explains: I was in
the Kgalagadi – where July typi-
cally has warm days and very
cold evenings. I made an early
start and about 9am I met a Na-
tional Geographic videographer
who was on a look out for a
honey badger. I stuck around but
we couldn’t find one. After few
hours he came out of nowhere
with a tortoise in his mouth.
What a fantastic sighting!

Cape Town Photographic Society 25