Two Eyes Are Better Than One
Immersed in a game rich concession, one of the many things you’ll notice on a Tasimba African safari, is the inherent differences between species. Some animals for example, have eyes on the side of their head while others have eyes that are forward facing.
With eyes on the side of their head, giraffes for example, have almost 360o vision. A pretty helpful attribute when you’re browsing the treetops and can spot predators even when your back is turned!
Lions on the other hand have forward facing eyes, which gives them a 3-D ‘rangefinder’ ability to measure exactly how close they need to get before launching themselves at their intended prey.
Humans have the same 3-D advantage with the added benefit of peripheral vision. Our eyes can pick up movement more than 90o on either side of the center of our gaze. That’s a huge advantage on safari as it allows us to notice so much more of what’s going on than if we only had straight-ahead ‘tunnel vision’.
What we are capable of seeing, is a big reason why we gently encourage our guests to spend less time looking through the single ‘glass eye’ of the viewfinder of their camera and more time using our God-given 3-D and peripheral sight!
Digital photography allows us to merrily shoot away, hoping to catch, in one of a thousand frames, that perfect, iconic image from our many close encounters with breathtaking wildlife. As a bonus we get the instant reward of being able to review every shot.
In the old days of Kodachrome, with a limited number of exposures per roll, we had to be so much more judicious about when to press the shutter. We wouldn’t even know until long after the safari was over, what sort of images we’d captured.
But we have seen how digital photography can actually detract from the total game viewing experience for many people:
- While looking through their viewfinder at one subject, they are often literally ‘missing the bigger picture’ of the intriguing interactions of all the animals around them;
- Too much time is spent looking at the shots they’ve already just taken, rather than at what may be happening just outside the 4X4 vehicle;
- With so many gadgets and options on even the simplest cameras, guests spend more time looking down at settings than looking out at the nature of Africa!
Everyone wants to capture everything they see on safari so they have a rich tapestry of images to remind them of their incredible safari in Africa. That’s perfectly natural.
We just encourage you to put the camera down more often to engrave all the sights and sounds forever in your memory.
We’ve learned that our hearts and minds capture way better indelible memories than any number of pixels ever can.
