A serious hippo

My major frustration with shooting in Africa is the safari vehicles have a high profile. When you are sitting and shooting, the camera and lens are about 5 or 6 feet above the ground. The low perspective that makes such compelling portraits is difficult to achieve unless an animal is positioned on a small rise. The only thing you can do to mitigate the problem is to use a long lens. That helps simulate a low angle when the animal is fairly far away. In this shot I took in Botswana at the Chobe River, I used a 700mm focal length. That gives the impression I was much lower than I actually was. The camera settings were 1/800, f/10, and 640 ISO, and my lens combination was a 500mm f/4 telephoto plus a 1.4x telecoverter. Look at the expression on this guy. Hippos are a no nonsense kind of animal. More people die in Africa from hippos than any other animal.