What do you give the photographer who’s seen everything? Less…

If you want to go somewhere that looks like the Palace of Versailles where you can see rhinos from a hide and they have oat milk, almond milk and five different kinds of tonic water, Kings Camp is the place for you!

The Camp

I arrived on 13 June and left on 15 June, so I was only there for a couple of nights, but it left a big impression. Oh, my God! I had a plunge pool outside with an enormous deck, and my rooms were amazing! They reminded me of Ol Jogi, where you pay $4,000 per person per night!

The managers were Warren and Lisha, who were very friendly and helpful. Nothing was too much trouble, and Warren was very proactive in helping me get settled in, arranging a private vehicle for me and showing me to the hide—although I was a bit miffed when he boasted that his son had managed to land the resident photographer gig I’d wanted with Alex Walker’s Serian!

All the other staff were just as helpful, and they didn’t appear to have the word ‘no’ in their vocabulary! That’s so typical of Africa that it’s easy to forget how unusual it is—until you get back home…!

As a small example, there was a choice between a mousse and a smoothie for dessert one lunchtime. I couldn’t make up my mind, so, after much soul-searching, I asked for both. And I got both!

On another occasion, there were so many sightings at the hide that I didn’t want to have to eat dinner in the main building. No problem at all. Cynet simply brought my dinner to the hide!

The only real problem was finding my way around—which wasn’t as easy as you might think. With the lounge, the bar, the terrace, the boma, the hide, the toilet and my room in several different buildings, it took me a good 24 hours to stop getting lost!

At one point, I tried to make a list of all the things that were wrong with Kings Camp. I didn’t get very far:

• The hide had a very low ceiling, which meant I kept bumping my head

• The door to the outdoor shower stuck a bit.

• The butter at lunch was slightly hard.

• The Wi-Fi signal in the dining area was only two bars.

• My Coke came with ice.

• The ‘double bed’ was two singles pushed together.

And that was it…!

Daily Routine

The routine was similar to all the other South African lodges, but it was complicated enough that a handy printout was provided for me!

• 0530 Wake-up call

• 0545 Ring reception to ask for escort to main area for tea and coffee

• 0600-0930 Morning game drive in a Land Rover with Cynet (I know…!)

• 0930-1100 Breakfast on the terrace

• 1330-1445 Lunch on the terrace

• 1445-1500 Drinks in the lounge

• 1500-1830 Afternoon game drive with Cynet in his Land Rover

• 1900-2000 Dinner in the boma or in the hide

And when I wasn’t busy, I could spend as many hours as I wanted in the hide. This was a very luxurious underground facility located at eye level beside an artificial waterhole. It was the main reason I’d come to Kings Camp, and I was determined to make the most of it.

There were around six padded bar stools by the window, and they all had an excellent, eye-level view of the waterhole, which was around 15-20 yards square.

In addition, there were beanbags for my cameras and a power supply (with UK-type outlets) that meant I could work on my laptop whenever there wasn’t anything to photograph.

Game drives

As I’d come to expect during the previous couple of weeks, I didn’t get many wildlife sightings during game drives, and I saw fewer bird species than animal species, which is almost unheard of. However, it was a question of quality over quantity. Yes, there were long periods when I didn’t see anything, but what I did see was usually very good.

As I told my guide, Cynet, I was there for rhinos, cats and dogs—and I got the first two, at least. On my first game drive, we spotted five white rhinos grazing among the bushes at sunset. It was great to see rhinos with their horns intact—and Clement was there, too! He’d been my guide at Simbavati River Lodge, just down the road. It’s a small world…

The following morning, we saw three white rhinos, but it was too dark to take pictures. Much, much later (!), we found a male lion, a lioness and three 10- or 11-month-old cubs in the bushes.

We saw other animals, too, but whenever Cynet wanted to stop, I just said, “Rhinos, cats and dogs.” That’s all I was interested in, and we did see the rhinos again. There were only four of them this time, but they’d moved to an open area to have a nap—which was very sweet…

After lunch, we saw a female leopard in the bushes with a carcase and then two lilac-breasted rollers, but they took off in the wrong direction. We then saw six white rhinos at sunset, including two calves. There was a bit of a confrontation between one of the mothers and a male, which I captured on video.

When the sun finally set, I asked to go straight back to the lodge. Getting back to the hide was more important than having a sundowner…!

On my final morning, it was very quiet. We eventually saw a male lion patrolling his territory, but then he lay down beside a bush. Cynet called him a ‘flat cat’. 

We then spotted a lilac-breasted roller perched in a tree. It flew off, but we tried again. There was very little wind, but it was coming from the opposite direction to the sun, so I thought it was a no-win scenario, but then it flew right towards us just as I was taking a burst! Happy days…

The Hide

Shooting from hides is something I’ve been trying to do recently to expand my portfolio. The types of shots you get are very different from the ones you get on game drives, and there’s the added opportunity to work at night. There is a danger that they all look a bit ‘samey’, but there wasn’t much I could do about that in such a short space of time…

I spent a few hours in the hide at Kambaku River Lodge, and I was lucky enough to get a great sighting of a female elephant at night. The place was kitted out very well with comfy seating, power outlets and proper gimbals to put your camera on.

However, the Kings Camp experience was much better. It didn’t have the gimbals, but there was a steady procession of giraffes, impalas, nyalas, Cape buffaloes and white rhinos—plus a grey duiker, a scrub hare and various birds, including the grey go-away-bird and the Cape glossy starling.

The appearance of the rhinos was the stand-out moment. I’d seen them on my morning game drive, and Cynet had told me they’d go to the waterhole in the afternoon. They didn’t, but I didn’t have to wait too long as they eventually appeared after dark.

White rhinos are iconic animals wherever you spot them, but it was particularly special to see four of them looming out of the darkness around the waterhole! There was a couple sitting next to me at the time, so it was nice to be able to share the moment, and Vivien was very grateful for my tips on camera settings!

Despite the floodlights, it was a bit of a struggle to photograph the animals, but that just made it all the more important to experiment. I started out shooting wide open in manual with auto ISO at 1/125 with a couple of stops of negative exposure compensation. However, I quickly realised I could get away with much lower shutter speeds when the animals were standing like statues.

The trick was to follow the doubling rule. Every time I halved my shutter speed, I doubled the length of the burst, giving me the best chance of sharp results—even at 1/25 of a second!

Looking back over my images in reverse order, I could then look for the first sharp image, which would be the one with the lowest ISO—and therefore the least noise.

My best shot was probably the one at the top of this article, but I took it at 1/60 of a second, which meant that one of the rhino’s feet was slightly blurred. I guess that’s the risk you take when you’re desperately trying to keep your ISO down!

Verdict

All in all, I enjoyed my trip to Kings Camp and South Africa in general. Despite the annoyance of my flight being cancelled, it worked out rather well. Evans was very helpful in booking all the lodges and driving me to the Kruger region and back, and it was useful to find out how things worked in South Africa.

Despite the lack of sightings on my game drives, I learned the benefit of quality over quantity and came to appreciate the value of wildlife hides. I was happy with the pictures I’d taken, and I met the usual collection of smart, interesting people who appreciate the outdoors and the chance to see wild animals in their natural environment.

Species

Animals

African bush elephant 

Banded mongoose

Blue wildebeest 

Cape buffalo

Chacma baboon

Common warthog

Common waterbuck

Greater kudu 

Hinged terrapin

Impala

Insect-eating bats 

Nyala

Plains zebra 

Scrub hare

Slender mongoose 

Southern giraffe

Steenbok

Tree squirrel 

Vervet monkey 

White rhino

Birds

Burchell’s starling 

Cape starling

Green wood hoopoe

Grey go-away-bird

Lilac-breasted roller 

Little bee-eater 

Magpie shrike 

Red-billed oxpecker

Ring-necked dove

Southern red-billed hornbill

Southern yellow-billed hornbill 

White-crowned shrike

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.