Safari photography

[Manfred M]

...and the trailer it goes with

No - this is Africa. You hire a couple of porters like they do in the movies. Cheaper than a trailer.

[davidedric]

I heard that if you hire three there's no need to pack a tripod

Hope no-one is offended!

Dave

[Geranium]

Grumpy diver. How lucky you are to have a photographer partner to travel with it must solve a lot of your carry on luggage weight problems. I am about to go back to Africa for the second time and again I am suffering anxiety attacks about how to manage my gear. carry on luggage is apparently now 7kg instead of 8kg on all international flights and on internal flights in Africa only 5kg. I still cant find out for sure if a handbag is allowed as well. much of my gear will need to be stowed in my checked in case. I have bought a hard case because I constantly worried about my gear last time but the case itself weighs 3.5 kg.I will only be able to put in my best camera and my 100-400 lense.

[Manfred M]

Grumpy diver. How lucky you are to have a photographer partner to travel with it must solve a lot of your carry on luggage weight problems. I am about to go back to Africa for the second time and again I am suffering anxiety attacks about how to manage my gear. carry on luggage is apparently now 7kg instead of 8kg on all international flights and on internal flights in Africa only 5kg. I still cant find out for sure if a handbag is allowed as well. much of my gear will need to be stowed in my checked in case. I have bought a hard case because I constantly worried about my gear last time but the case itself weighs 3.5 kg.I will only be able to put in my best camera and my 100-400 lense.

Denise - she carries almost as much gear as I do, so no real advantage there. The last time I did a wildlife oriented trip to Africa was just over four years ago, before the airlines started playing games with baggage fees, although we did visit National Parks where we did some more limited wildlife photography several times since.

I've been lucky and have never had any major photographic equipment lost, stolen or broken. I've broken filters (due to my own stupidity), dropped a camera (it worked on the trip, but definitely had to go in for repairs after we got back) and lost lens caps. Nothing has ever gone awry in either the in-cabin storage areas or in my checked luggage.

I limit myself to 3 lenses per trip (although I might include a long lens for wildlife shooting on the type of trip you are planning) and the gear all fits in a single (and ancient) Kata backpack. Kata was bought out by Manfrotto so I will have to look elsewhere when it finally dies. I've been lucky and have only ever had it weighed once (and showing the person at check-in that it is full of expensive gear has let me get away with being overweight). I have heard from others that backpacks are often not weighed by airline staff. I use the camera with the longest and heaviest lens as my second piece of luggage, so that gets the weight in the backpack down the allowable limit. I wear cargo pants and a shirt with large pockets and stick the heavy stuff in them during check in when the hand luggage is inspected and weighed and repack it back in the camera bag afterwards..

My wife will ditch her purse for the flight (it goes into a suitcase) to make room for the essentials which includes a laptop to download the files and we always have two portable hard drives for secondary backup storage.

I started shooting a mFT (Panasonic GX7) rather than the larger Nikons on some trips. With the 14-140mm lens the camera and lens weigh a bit over 1 kg and the second lens (a 100-300mm) gives me good range. I also have a small travel carbon fiber tripod along. This is what I had along during our 2-month backpacking trip through South Asia about 18 months ago and had the same gear (again because of weight) for a 6 week trip to India (we just got back this week).

The internal flights can be a pain and we did pay for excess weight on one of the flights in India. Given the cost of the trip, this seems to be a reasonable compromise...

[rpcrowe]

If you are sticking with Canon Lenses and considering renting, then the EF 100 to 400 F/4.5~5.6 L IS USM makes the best sense to me. WW

This is an older thread... I have just purchased a 100-400mm f/4L IS II lens and I suspect that this lens (along with the 80-400mm Nikon) might be the very best general purpose lens for safari photography especially on a 1.6x DSLR. The upgrdes to the original 100-400L lens which make this lens better for wildlife are: upgraded IS and closer MFD. The replacement of the push-pull zoom with the ring zoom is also easier for me to use...

Although fairly heavy, this lens is very hand-holdable and the excellent Image Stabilization makes up for the relatively smaller aperture. OTOH, long lenses of a greater aperture are very heavy and expensive. Granted, the IS cannot stop subject movement but, it can allow a slower shutter speed to achieve sharp imagery of a still subject at shutter speeds which would be impossible without IS and difficult with older IS. As an example, here is a quickie hand-held test shot using 1/20 second at 220mm focal length on a 1.6x camera which is an advantage of about 3-f/stops...


If you are shooting with a newer camera, such as the 5DIII or the 7DII, I would include a 1.4x TC JUST IN CASE you need some extra reach... These cameras will allow AF at f/8 using the center focus spot...

A photo vest can hold a lot of excess equipment which you can remove from your carry-on bag during check in and then repacked for the flight after your gear is weighed. This is not usually counted against your total weight of carry-on. Except in the case of light planes. The Alaskan bush flights I have flown on were, rightfully, extremely concerned with total weight of passenger and all gear...

Different airlines have different rules. The Chinese internal flights had a maximum carry-on weight of 5 kg but, my Manfrotto Mini Trekker AW backpack was never weighed. OTOH, I did see them weighing all wheeled, carry on luggage. BTW: Some backpacks are a LOT heavier than others. I selected the Mini Trekker because it was lightest in its class at the time I purchased it. I don't shoot with a backpack but, rather with a Domke F-2 bag which I pack empty, in my checked on luggage. The Mini Trekker is just to carry my gear on flights. It has plenty of packing since, I am the one who handles the pack - it is not left to this airline worker to handle my gear..

[Geranium]

Thanks Manfred. Your experiences and information is really helpful and interesting. I am surprised you have time to make these replies with all your own travel to arrange etc. Thanks again.

[Geranium]

thanks Richard. what a shot . Yes I have that Nikon 80 - 400 IS II Lens and it is fabulous isnt it. Thanks for your reply .