Survival – Saved by a pocket camera

As an ex Air force member I was selected to work in the South African Embassy in Bern, Switzerland from 2007 to 2009. During that time I bought a small Pentax pocket camera. During that time my ex-wife and I got caught in a point of no return situation deep in the mountains when I tried to take some photos during fall of 2009 of the beautiful trees and colours deep in the mountains. Those photos nearly cost us our lives. We ran out of time and got caught in the dark which ended up that we had to prepare ourselves for the worst. It started to snow heavily and we hid under a rock with just jeans, “tekkies” and thin windbreakers against the cold wet and snow. We have already said goodbye and prayed etc. when late that night I heard a vehicle somewhere. It turned out that it was three brothers who hunt together every three years in that area. I ran and saw them driving far away in a valley towards our mountain area. As an ex-military member I immediately made a plan and ran to my wife who had that small camera in her jacket pocket, but due to the extreme cold we could not feel or open the small zip, when I decides to tear the pocket open and ran to the side where they might see me. Needless to say, I could not get the camera to work as my fingers were frozen etc. after which I eventually pressed the buttons with my front teeth and got the flashlight working. I sent three flashes towards them and saw the vehicle stop. They flashed back three times. We did the same once more and I saw them returning to the small towns direction where we came from. Not long after that I heard a helicopter in the distance and again used the flash to guide the pilot to our position.

All went well saving our lives on the mountain and the pilot showed me the outside temperature was minus 22 degrees. With that background you can understand why I am interested in photography and am so glad that I have found a club like CCC.

A few years ago I bought a cheap Sony compact camera and took these two photos which I entered, in the “manual” mode with that camera. I have very little knowledge of camera settings, but am working on that.

The photo of the lion attacking the leopard was taken at Afsaal water point in the Krugerpark. I had to zoom in past the optical zoom to electronic zoom and took the photo with no tripod aid. It was a wonderful experience and I saw the splashing of the water for the first time, when I placed it on my PC.

Photo no 2 was also taken a few years ago during our visit to Yosemite National Park in California. With the angle of the lake from our car I saw no reflections. I stopped and walked down the valley until I saw this wonderful reflection and was very lucky that there was no wind blowing at that time. That photo was also taken in the “manual” mode

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Focus Greetings

Jackie Bosch
(1* Centurion Camera Club)

	EXIF Data
Description	Photo 1	Photo 2
Make	Eastman Kodak	Casio
Model	Z740	EX-Z750
F-stop	f/3.7	f/4
Exposure time	1/500 s	1/320 s
Focal Lenght	63 mm (380 equiv 35mm)	8 mm (38 equiv 35mm)
ISO	80	-
Club Competition Feb 2012	COM - 1* Winner	COM