Caption: Young lioness (Panthera leo) bares her fangs in trepidation as she prepares to swim across a river to join her mother and brother on the other side, Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia.

Camera: Canon EOS 1D Mk II; Lens: Canon EF 400mm L f/5.6 USM; Focal Length: 400mm; Shutter speed: 1/400; Aperture: f/5.6; ISO: 400.

Did You Know: Lion cubs are weaned at seven to nine months, but are unable to fend for themselves before they’re 16 months old, although they start to eat meat at about three months.

Cubs stay with their mothers for about two years, at which stage they’re old enough to join the pride on hunting excursions. While young males are expelled from the pride when they’re 2½ to 3 years old, females usually remain with the pride for their whole lives.

Male lion siblings often stay together after being forced to leave the pride by the resident dominant males and will then live a nomadic life as young bachelors until old and strong enough to compete for a territory of their own, where they will have the benefit of working as a team in challenging a pride’s resident male or males.

For more about lions and their social structure, breeding, and hunting habits, see our new article, Lion Facts and Information.

Before we set off on our recent Africa road trip from South Africa to Tanzania, I looked around for a compact digital camera. I wanted a small, inexpensive camera for casual “grab” shots when we stopped in villages and towns.

I knew we’d be in bright sunlight most the time, so wanted an optical viewfinder as find it almost impossible using the rear LCD screen to compose and frame pictures in bright light — all I see is my own reflection (not a pretty sight!). As it turned out, I couldn’t find anything at short notice that suited my needs.

Most the cameras I looked at had no optical viewfinder and had no, or very limited, manual controls. I guess you get what you’re prepared to pay for.

But this did get me thinking about the millions of people who use digital compact cameras that are almost entirely automatic. Of course the cameras do a remarkable job within these confines and most users seem quite happy with them.

However, with a fully auto camera you’re never going to learn the fundamentals of photography as you have no control over aperture or shutter speed — and such control is critical if you want to experiment and learn how to be more creative with your picture taking.

My Recommendation?

So what would I recommend as a good learner camera? My first instinct is to recommend an old-fashioned 35mm SLR film camera with a standard 50mm lens where you have to do everything yourself, from focusing to setting aperture and shutter speed. But I’m old school and that’s the way I learnt, so maybe I’d better ditch that suggestion and find something more current for a modern generation.

I believe that if someone is keen to learn photography, then they’ll continue improving and probably become more demanding of their equipment, so it’s worth investing a reasonable amount at the outset.

Canon’s PowerShot G11 has all the attributes of a camera that’s suited to learning photography — while also providing superb image quality plus many advanced features like spot metering, exposure compensation dial, and RAW image capture that the learner photographer will appreciate once the basics have been mastered.

However, to learn those basics, it’s essential you have a camera where you can override full auto and the G11 certainly allows that.

Optical Viewfinder

I’d also recommend an optical viewfinder similar to that in the G11 so you can hold the camera steady against your face. This way you’ll minimise camera shake and, more importantly, learn to compose and frame your shots.

It’s easier when you have a camera to your eye to notice how small positional changes affect the composition — for example by rocking side to side, dropping to your haunches, moving a yard forwards or backwards.

When you’re holding a camera at arm’s length, trying to keep it steady, you’ll simply be less inclined to try moving around. And, as experienced photographers will tell you, it’s by moving your position that you change perspective and hence the relationship between subjects within the picture, not simply by zooming in or out.

While the number of megapixels and features like face recognition and even the camera’s zoom range are irrelevant for learning photography, you must be able to:
* select both aperture and shutter priority modes
* select manual exposure mode
* change ISO.

This will allow you to learn how aperture, shutter-speed and ISO work together to influence exposure.

Using aperture priority mode, you can learn how different apertures affect depth of field, while in shutter priority you can learn what’s necessary to freeze action, create motion blur, and avoid camera shake. In full manual mode, you can learn how aperture and shutter-speed work together and their reciprocal relationship.

Useful Zoom Range

The PowerShot G11 is certainly not a budget camera and is quite large for a compact, but is still smaller than a digital SLR. You also won’t have to buy additional lenses as it’s fitted with a 5x zoom lens, offering the equivalent of a 28-140mm lens on a 35mm camera. That’s a useful range, from a reasonably wide 28mm for interiors, landscapes and group shots, to 140mm at the long end for portraits, discreet street photography, and action shots of the kids.

The camera also has a hot-shoe for fitting an external flash, giving you a much wider range of lighting options — and hence more to learn. But, after all, that’s what we’re wanting — a compact digital camera that will not only produce outstanding images for years to come, but will also be a pleasure to use while teaching you how to become a better photographer.

By the way, if you’re looking to buy a new camera, whether to learn more about photography or simply to capture special moments, Vouchercodes.co.uk regularly offer worthwhile “money-off” deals on electronics at Comet.

For a more controversial post on improving your photography, see The Leica as Teacher.

Safari guide Roddy Smith, when taking guests for a bush walk in “Big Five” country, says he’s often asked “What would you do if ….?” His usual answer: “Panic!”



Roddy says guests think he’s joking, but adds that it’s a reasonable question.

After all, the term Big Five was originally coined by hunters to refer to the five African game species most likely to kill you if you messed up.

Two of the big five – lion and leopard – are shown here as one would not want to encounter them when out on a bush walk.

The others are the African elephant, African buffalo, and black rhino, although nowdays the less agressive but bigger white rhino is also regarded as one of the Big Five.

Roddy goes on to say that there’s no definitive answer to the “what if..” question because every situation is different, but there are a few basic principles to observe when faced by dangerous animals.

See his full article, Africa’s Dangerous Animals … What If? for more – and to find out which of Africa’s animals he fears most.

Caption: Lion cub (Panthera leo), eager to play, paws and prods dozing lioness, Mashatu Game Reserve, Tuli Block, Botswana.

Camera: Canon EOS 400D (EOS Digital Rebel XTi); Lens: Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 IS USM Telephoto Zoom; Focal Length: 210mm; Aperture: F5.6; Shutter Speed: 1/500; ISO: 400

Additional Info: The lioness above, in a show of maternal tolerance, was unfazed by the playful cub clambering over her and pawing her in the face. Although we assumed this was a mother and her cub, it’s possible that the cub wasn’t hers, as females within the same pride will often have cubs at more or less the same time.

This allows some females to go out to hunting while other mothers care for the babies. Cubs have the best chance of survival when a number of litters are born almost simutaneously as such cubs can be cared for communally.

When it’s time to give birth, a lioness leaves the pride and has her cubs in thick cover where she keeps them hidden until she introduces them to the rest of the pride when they’re about two months old. From this point it’s possible they can be suckled by any lactating females (called allo-suckling) as pride females suckle one another’s cubs with no bias towards their own. Thus one lioness may be seen suckling cubs of differents sizes and ages.

For more information about baby lions and their relationship with other members of the pride, see our new gallery of Baby Lion Pictures.

Caption: Wildebeest gather in their thousands on the grass plains of Grumeti Reserves, bordering the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.

Camera: Canon EOS 1D Mk II; Lens: Canon EF70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM; Focal Length: 130mm; Shutter speed: 1/640; Aperture: f/7.1; ISO: 400; Date: 29/06/2010, 5.01pm

Additional Info: The main objective of our recent road trip from South Africa to Tanzania was to see the great wildebeest migration and we were not disappointed!

For three days we lucky enough to be in Grumeti Reserves, the 340,000 acre (140,000 Ha) safari destination located on the western boundary of Serengeti National Park.

Grumeti is a privately owned concession and since its establishment in 2003, strict conservation management and control of bush fires has revitalized the area. The abundant grasslands that now cover the plains act as a magnet to the wildlife, including the wildebeest masses as they trek towards the Mara in Kenya.

As has been noted numerous times in the past, it’s almost impossible to capture the magnitude of the migration in a photograph — at least from ground level — particularly in a digital image 600 pixels wide!

On the open plains, the animals are seldom bunched together; instead they’re spread over vast areas, their distinctive shapes gradually diminishing into small specks in the distance — thousands upon thousands of dark dots, as far as the eye can see.

While the above picture can’t attempt to convey this magnitude, fortunately the late-afternoon light was dramatic, the slanting rays adding a golden glow to the winter grass, accentuated by the dark, stormy sky in the background.

On Monday 14 June I leave with four companions to travel by road from South Africa to Tanzania in East Africa.

The main objective of the trip is to see the great wildebeest migration in the Serengeti area of Tanzania, and also to experience the vast open plains with their abundance of wildlife that are such a renowned feature of East Africa.

To reach our destination, we will travel through Botswana and Zambia, staying overnight at campsites along the way. Our party is not in the luxury lodge league, so we’ll be roughing it most the time, keeping to a tight budget, particularly as entry to national parks in Tanzania is expensive, payable only in US dollars.

In addition to Serengeti National Park, we plan to visit Ruaha National Park and possibly also Tangarire and Lake Manyara Parks in Tanzania, plus South Luanga in Zambia, depending on the time available.

The trip will take from four to five weeks, during which time we’ll have no or limted internet access, so it’s unlikely I’ll be able to add any posts to the blog before I get back.