Mariska Bartlett is a South African wildlife cinematographer and Director of Photography based in Wilderness, on the Garden Route - a location that doubles as a home filming territory bordering the Wilderness Lakes Ramsar wetland, host to more than 300 bird species.
Her documentary credit includes Elephant Alone (Black Bean Productions), and she holds Gold Tier contributor status with NatureFootage.
Mariska's primary field destinations are Botswana - Moremi, the Okavango Delta, the Kalahari, and Chobe - and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou. Her work is built around extended time in the field: waiting for behaviour rather than staging it, and capturing sequences - a leopard cub finding its way back to its mother after a hyena ambush, an African Harrier Hawk raiding a drongo nest, a lion pride at golden hour - that only reveal themselves to patience.
She shoots on a Canon EOS R1 and R6 Mark II with RF 600mm f/4L and RF 24-70mm f/2.8L lenses, recording 4K Canon Log 2 and 3 footage that she grades herself through a DaVinci Resolve Wide Gamut pipeline.
She began her DOP work 5 years ago and moved into filming 4K wildlife two years ago after an earlier career rooted in stills photography, and is currently building toward a submission to the Wildscreen Panda Awards in 2027.