The Best Camera Lens to Take On your Safari
Feb 5th, 2010 by admin
So you’ve booked your once in a lifetime safari trip to Africa and now your thoughts turn towards photographing all the wildlife you are going to encounter on your adventure.
It would be a great shame to come across your first African pride of lions and not have some decent pictures of the memorable event to show your friends and family back home.
Unfortunately many people who go on safari don’t realize that the camera lens you take with you will be the deciding factor between getting wildlife photos where the subject is an unrecognizable blob in a sea of vegetation compared to a crisp, tightly framed image of that black maned leader of the lion pride.
I’ve been practicing wildlife photography on safari for over twenty years now and I’ve learnt which are the best lenses to arm yourself with when you go into the African bush to capture lasting, quality images you will be proud to display to anyone.
My recommendations here are for the occasional wildlife photographer such as someone going on an african safari and not for professional wildlife photographers as they have different needs when it comes to camera lenses because they take photographs for a living.
To help you choose a lens to take with you on safari, here is a list of the factors you need to take into account before putting your money down…
1. Size Of The Lens
Anything less than a 300mm lens for the big game you will encounter on safari like lion, rhino, elephant etc will be too small. A 400mm lens will allow you to get good pictures of the smaller animals like bushbuck, vervet monkey and the like. If you are aiming for bird photographs then a 600 mm lens will do the trick.
2. Your Budget
It’s very easy to find lenses that cost thousands of dollars but if you are primarily going to be using it for your safari trip and maybe a smattering of wildlife photography after that, you shouldn’t be spending more than a few hundred dollars. It is possible to get a lens of high enough quality for your purpose in that price range.
3. Image Stabilization
It’s not imperative but if you can get a lens with an image stabilizer it’s a huge advantage on a safari because you can handhold the lens without too much fear of blurring in good light which is especially useful if you are not next to a window in the safari vehicle or don’t have enough space to position your beanbag or tripod.
4. Zoom Ability
On safari one lens is better than two because of the nature of your subject. When you come across a leopard you won’t have time to switch lenses on your camera body because they tend not to stick around for too long so one lens with a good zoom is a big advantage to capture the very shy wildlife you will encounter. Another reason not to change lenses is that dust that is prevalent on an African safari can cause the camera mechanisms to clog up.
So keep these four factors in mind before you make your purchase and if you can find a lens that conforms to all the above requirements than you have a winner.
Bruce Whittaker
http://www.articlesbase.com/photography-articles/the-best-camera-lens-to-take-on-your-safari-62014.html
Camera Quetions– Safari– How big should the lens?
I’m going to Kruger National Park in South Africa, how be should my zoom lens be for it? I have a 300mm one. Do I need a 500mm? I have no idea how close they get to animals…… Also the bigger the lens, does shaking affect it more/ Do people use a tripod with the 500mm and 300mm
Obviously the size lens depends on how close you will be able to get to them, if you want full body shots and/or head shots.
I think you will get to be pretty close to them.
The 300 should be a good choice.
I would recommend a tripod to keep things still when you have the time to set up and wait, otherwise you can always use it as a mono-pod without folding the legs out if you need it in a hurry for that shot of a lifetime.
Good luck and good shooting.
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It would be nice to get a 500mm or even longer (that way, you’re farther away from the animals.. especially the dangerous ones).
What is really important though is the speed of the lens. Ideally, the faster the better. Look at the fStop of the camera. If you can, get a 500mm (or 300mm) with an fStop of 2.8 (or even lower).
Unfortunately, the faster the lens, the higher the price. I think a 500mm lens 2.8 would cost anywhere between $2000-5000 est.
Solution: Find a camera store that rents equipment. You can probably find a lens that fast for a relatively low rental fee.
Oh, and with a 300/500mm f2.8 you’re gonna need a mono/tripod for it.
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300 will work well. You will need a tripod or be able to stabilize your camera in someway – the slightest movement will amplify with that lense and you will lose your shot.
If you don’t think that the 300 is good enough, get a zoom that will cover from 200-500mm. In many cases, lenses that long will have the tripod mount on the lens, leaving your camera hanging off the lens, but that is OK. It would depend on the quality of the lens and the weight of it.
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The problem of shaking as you know is amplified by several factors. The first as you mentioned is longer telephoto lenses. The next factor would be the size of aperture, the smaller your apertures the slower your shutter speeds will be i.e., smaller apertures = less light and longer exposures. The last thing that can amplify your shaking is what ISO film or setting you choose. The lower your ISO the longer your exposures will be simply due to the fact that lower ISO films don’t react as quickly to light. Of course in many cases it is more ideal to use a lower ISO film because of the grain, and lack there of, however with some action photography this just might not be appropriate and you may have to go with a higher ISO film or setting especially when lighting conditions are poor and the use of a flash is just not effective because your subject is too far away.
So as you learned from the previous post fixed focal length 500mm lenses are not cheap and can run several thousands of dollars. Of course you can go for off-brand fixed focals or zoom lenses but quality is always a concern and especially with these long focal lengths you may run into things like chromatic abberation. However I have to say that with most of your major non-mfg lenses this isn’t the case.
I am not sure if you are on a budget or not but if you are then my solution is this, buy yourself a 2x converter for your lens which would make your 300mm lens a 600mm lens. Check with the manufacturer of your lens to make sure this is possible. The only drawback of course is that these 2x converters will affectively reduce your minimum aperture, usually by 1 stop or so, so that if your minimum aperture is 5.6 then it will be 8. This of course can be offset by using a higher ISO setting. I would suggest that you take a look at keh.com if you are considering purchasing a lens or lens converter. Furthermore if you are worried about stability and shake, then purchase yourself a monopod as tripods are too much of a pain in the field when you are photographing nature and have to move a lot.
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