Kaziranga - With a dead lens

The last stop of the extremely long and fun trip was Kaziranga. My Sigma 150-500 had a dead auto focus motor. It had given up towards the end of the last trek in Pakke. I was still in two minds as to which lens to use. The 70-300 was great but no reach while the sigma would have the reach but would I be able to manage the focus manually was a scary thought. Finally I decided to go with the Sigma hoping I would at most lose a few flight shots but the reach was more important.

Six safaris later, things had not gone too bad. We had hit the first safari to the central zone, which had a fantastic sunset. The next two days were spent with east in the morning for the birds (mainly raptors) while the evenings were spent in the west for the rhinos, elephants and buffalos. The last day was spent in Burra Pahad, for the hoolock gibbons. None of the trips disappointed with adjutants, grey headed and Pallas' fish eagles, peregrine falcons, spotted eagles, a malkoha, loads of deer, rhinos, elephants and buffalos and finally even hoolock gibbons on the way to Burra pahad.

In the end manual focus on the Sigma worked better than I had hoped. And although my return train was delayed by 12 hours, the trip was something that really completed an year of some fantastic trips. Will be holding off on trips for a while now. Have had a few things changing, but that is a story for a different blog.