by Caroline Galliani, of University of Vermont
Ah, the Okavango Delta. Southern Africa’s largest wetland ecosystem, home to 1,300 plant, 71 fish, 33 amphibian, 64 reptile, 444 bird, and 122 different mammal species (Ramberg et. all 2006). The Okavango has uplifted arches, depressions, grasslands, salt flats, Mopane forests, vast floodplains—the list could go on and on. I’m thinking all of this while my friends are snapping away on their cameras and I’m standing there with my iPhone trying to get a photo of a baby hippo from 50 meters away. On their cameras, you can literally see the steel-melting smile of this adorable tiny baby nestled between its parents. On mine, it looks like a grainy photo of a wet, gray swim cap.
I feel like an idiot.
“I worked all summer, why wouldn’t I have put some money towards a cheap digital camera?” I think to myself as I’m reaching across my friends in the back to compensate for my faulty zoom feature.
Well, too late now.
Suddenly, I turn to my left and see my instructor, Eli, using her binoculars in addition to her iPhone. She has ingeniously (granted, she definitely didn’t invent this tactic) lined up the iPhone camera to the binocular eye-scope so that the camera gets the magnified photo. At first, I’m skeptical. We are sitting inside an 80’s Toyota Land Cruiser on a bumpy, dusty road, trying to line up these two devices for a perfectly clear shot of a hippo across the river. It looks janky and seems unrealistic, but naturally I’m going to give it a shot.
And…
HARK!
A world of documented baby hippos, warthog warts, elephant wrinkles, leopard muscles, and kudu horns for all of my reminiscent and blogging purposes. I’m seriously getting excited just thinking about it. As a result of the Okavango Delta’s plethora of incredible wildlife, I’ve gotten great practice at binocular photography over the past few months. I know that in this blog I make it sound like my first try was a success, but anyone who has tried it knows that it’s quite difficult. The lenses on the binoculars have a smaller field of vision than the iPhone camera, so the photo usually has a black circle around it. Also, both devices have to be perfectly aligned for enough time to get the photo. With sweaty hands (it’s at least 100 everyday, 116 has been the max), and bumpy roads, lots of times the photo is just blackness.
Eli and I (the only people on this trip who didn’t bring real cameras) are working everyday to practice our new skill. When we are in the car together, sometimes we work together; she holds the binoculars and iPhone while I focus the photo and press the “capture” button.
You know what they say; teamwork makes the dream work, folks.
Now, without further ado, I present to you: Caroline Galliani’s portfolio of binocular-iPhone photography.
Elephant, giraffe, and warthog captured with binoculars.