Camera
A nature photography tour of Madagascar, Part 3: Kirindy Forest
In the last two articles in this series, I wrote about my visits to Andasibe National Park, where I photographed lemurs and chameleons, and Tsingy Rouge National Park, where I saw beautiful erosion-formed formations. This time, I’d like to write about my visit to Kirindy Forest.
Kirindy Forest (or Kirindy Private Reserve) is a private nature reserve located in the west of Madagascar. The forest is home to a wide variety of animals, from many species of lemurs to fossas (a very weird-looking predator) to geckos and chameleons. Numerous species of plants and trees are also found in the region, the most famous and iconic of which is the baobab tree.
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Baobab trees under post-sunset glow. The gaps between the trees made it easier to compose without creating overlap.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Canon 70-300mm F4-5.6 |
From a photographic point of view, Kirindy is nothing less than a paradise and was one of my favorite locations on my month-long Madagascar trip. The wildlife is surprisingly easy to find and photograph (with many highly skilled and cheerful guides available on the premises), the baobabs are easy to get to, and there are comfortable accommodation options close by. The only bad thing is the Wi-Fi connection.
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Lemurs are one family of primates Kirindy has no shortage of. There are no less than eight lemur species here, from the tiny Madame Berthe’s Mouse Lemur (the smallest primate in the world, weighing 30 grams) to red-fronted lemurs, sportive lemurs and sifakas. I photographed all of Kirindy’s diurnal species in three days, which shows how easy they are to find with a good guide. As to being easy to photograph, that’s a different story.
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Red-fronted lemur
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
The easiest species to find in Kirindy is the red-fronted lemur. They are small and relatively common, so one could say they’re also the least exciting of the local lemur species, but I found them to be very cute and expressive subjects.
Unfortunately due to massive deforestation and climate change, Madagascar’s lemurs are losing their ability to migrate and access water. Authorities are trying to help them by giving them water. The red-fronted lemurs are, therefore, much less averse to getting close to humans. I really hope this doesn’t hurt them in the long run.
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A red-fronted lemur is feeding in a tree. Its interaction with its environment is what makes this image. These animals are cathemeral, meaning that they are active during the day and at night, especially during the full moon.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
The interestingly named sportive lemurs appear not to be sportive at all. Most of the time, they rest in the trees to digest the plants they have eaten. But during the mating season, male sportive lemurs have been observed to box with each other, which gave them their unusual name.
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This sportive lemur looked like it had one too many drinks the previous night!
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
The crown jewel of Kirindy’s wildlife selection (in my opinion) is the Verreaux’s sifaka, a beautiful, medium-sized lemur. Its thick and silky fur is mostly white, other than dark brown patches on the top of the head, face and arms. Like all sifakas, it has a long tail that it uses as a balance when leaping from tree to tree, where they are capable of making remarkable leaps. Distances of 9–10m (30ft) are not uncommon.
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A Verreaux’s sifaka lemur, beautifully framed between tree branches. Those eyes are to die for!
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, , Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
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As a rule, the better composed the jumping shots I got, the worse the sharpness was on them. These guys are notoriously hard to catch when jumping. Here’s an effort, with the sifaka showing its trademark Superman-style jump.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
Unfortunately, sifakas are very hard to photograph. They tend to stay very high up in the trees, which keeps them both far away and at awkward angles. This forces the photographer to use longer lenses, which becomes surprisingly tiresome when hand-holding the camera. I wanted to shoot at eye level but ended up shooting upward the vast majority of the time. They also just love hopping from tree to tree exactly when a photographer has finally found a good composition.
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This sifaka looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Note the shooting angle is less than optimal here, due to the height of the tree it was sitting on.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
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As beautiful as they are shy. A lucky eye-level shot.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
My visit to Madagascar was during baby season for lemurs, which was wonderful. I ended up seeing many species carrying very young and impossibly cute baby lemurs, and the sifakas were no different.
Again, the challenge was the distance and their tendency to move around all the time, probably even more so when carrying babies. Unfortunately, about 30% of infants are lost to predators like the fossa, a cat-like mammal, and a smaller number to raptors such as the Madagascar harrier-hawk.
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For the first 6-8 weeks, the infant clings to the mother’s stomach, but for the following 19 weeks, it clings to her back. During my trip, I saw infants up to 8 weeks old. I guess the signature eyes are there from birth!
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
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A lucky closer-range, eye-level shot of a baby sifaka in its mother’s fur.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
I’m not much of a bird photographer, but several beautiful owl species are in Kirindy, and they were relatively easy to find.
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Madagascar scops owl
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
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White-browed owl
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 |
Finally, the Kirindy area was once home to a huge forest of baobabs. Not many remain, but those that are still there are huge and impressive. It was fun photographing a group of baobabs in the late afternoon and early evening, under direct light and during post-sunset glow.
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The more baobabs close together in one location, the harder they are to compose, but if you manage to combine multiple elements into one shot in a satisfying way, then perhaps you’ve achieved something.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Canon 11-24mm |
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Here, I used the gaps between the foreground trees to frame the background trees.
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Canon 70-300mm F4-5.6 |
I highly recommend visiting Kirindy Forest if you’re interested in Madagascar’s wildlife. The concentration of fascinating species and relaxed atmosphere are unmatched.
In the next article in this series, I will write about my journey from Tsingy De Bemaraha National Park to Isalo.
Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer, photography guide and traveler based in Israel. You can follow Erez’s work on Instagram and Facebook, and subscribe to his mailing list for updates and to his YouTube channel.
If you’d like to experience and shoot some of the world’s most fascinating landscapes with Erez as your guide, take a look at his unique photography workshops in Madagascar, Greenland, the Lofoten Islands, Namibia and Vietnam.
Erez also offers video tutorials discussing his images and explaining how he achieved them.
More in this Series:
Selected Articles by Erez Marom:
| Photo: Richard Butler |
Sony has released a firmware update that brings its Content Authenticity Solution to the a7 IV. The company announced a similar update for the a1 II, a1 and a9 III in January. However, this is the first time the tool to authenticate images will be available on something other than high-end, professional-grade cameras.
Software Ver. 5.00 for the Sony a7 IV adds support for the “Write Digital Signature” function for still images. This function allows photographers to add an electronic signature to their images to prove that they were taken with that camera. Authenticity tools such as this are becoming increasingly important with the growing prevalence of generative AI-created imagery and, as a result, the spread of fake images.
Of course, as with the update for the three pro-grade cameras in January, there are some caveats involved. The Digital Signature function requires a paid license and is only available for certain media outlets, not the general public. Unfortunately, Sony still hasn’t provided any additional information on if or when it will be available for general consumers. On the firmware update page, Sony simply says that the “timing for the provision of paid licenses to customers other than certain media outlets is yet to be determined.”
Even though the current usability is limited, Sony rolling this out to consumer models is a step in the right direction. The Content Authenticity information page also says that “more camera models will be supported in due course,” so it sounds like we should see additional cameras with the tool at some point. If Sony makes the feature more widely available beyond media outlets, the Digital Signature feature will already be on cameras and ready for use.
If you want to be prepared, or happen to work for one of the select media outlets, the Sony a7 IV firmware update Ver. 5.00 is now available for download.
Fujifilm took to some of its social media channels to announce that its next X Summit will take place in just two weeks. The March 20 event will be hosted in Prague, supposedly at 10 am GMT (5am ET), according to some posts. “The wait is almost over. Mark your calendars for March 20 and get ready to witness something extraordinary. Stay tuned for more updates,” teased the Fujifilm X India YouTube channel.
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A screenshot from the YouTube video announcing the X Summit and teasing a new camera.
Image: Fujifilm |
Fujifilm is clearly aiming to build excitement, and the announcement video included a very brief flash of a camera at the end. The camera is shrouded in shadow, so it doesn’t reveal much. A closer examination of a screenshot reveals a compact-looking lens with text that says “Fujinon Aspherical Lens” on the front. That’s really all that’s visible, though it does seem like the camera may be larger than standard compacts like the X100VI.
The company’s post certainly leaves more questions than answers about the upcoming camera announcement. Luckily, though, two weeks isn’t terribly long to wait.
| Rendering: Nubia |
We live in a time when camera brands (well, at least one) are stripping down controls while smartphone brands are ramping up physical camera controls. Indeed, the quest to bring a camera-like shooting experience to smartphones is going strong, as we’ve seen on full display at MWC 2025 in Barcelona. Brands like Xiaomi and RealMe have even gone so far as adding lens mounts to prototype smartphones.
On the less dramatic side are features like Apple’s iPhone Camera Control button, which provides quick access to the camera and various settings like zoom. You can also find grips from the likes of Belkin, ShiftCam and even Leica that add shutter buttons and a more camera-like form factor. Now, a lesser-known smartphone brand is getting into the mix with an innovation on the camera itself.
Nubia, which also sells phones under the name Redmagic, opted for a simple control ring on its new Focus 2 Ultra smartphone. According to Notebook Check, the distinctive rotating ring allows users to control zoom or select filters. Such a feature should feel more natural and familiar for zooming in or out, especially for those who use dedicated cameras. Plus, you don’t have to remember if you double press, long press, or tap your head three times to get to certain settings. A control ring also means there’s no fiddling with getting your finger placed just right to zoom in or out, as is necessary on Apple’s Camera Control Button.
Adding to the camera-like experience, the Focus 2 Ultra has a dedicated button that acts as a shutter release when you have the camera app open.
The camera system itself on the Nubia Focus 2 Ultra doesn’t seem like anything to write home about; the company says the main shooter uses a Type 1/1.55 (8.3 x 6.2mm) sensor with 2μm pixels and an F1.47 lens, but doesn’t provide further details about it or the phone’s other cameras. However, it’s exciting to see how phone makers are experimenting with physical camera controls on their devices. Especially as phone camera technology improves, it certainly would be nice to have more tactile controls when I leave my dedicated cameras behind.
The company hasn’t announced exactly when the Focus 2 Ultra will be available, but Notebook Check reports it’ll cost around 300 Euros.
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