I\'m guessing you\'re spending $6,000-8,000 for this safari trip. Most of your time will be spent in remote areas, with no way to repair or resupply gear and with an unstable power supply. What if the one camera body you take breaks down? Another question is how will you balance the dual track of capturing landscapes or near object with capturing wildlife? The answer to both is having two bodies, plenty of batteries and even lens redundancy if possible.
While it\'s probably tempting to use the trip as an excuse to buy the latest gear, you\'ll be much better served with a pair of inexpensive low-use used bodies, like maybe a D300 plus a D80. Buying those should leave you around $2,200 for lenses, which is a whole other discussion, but is enough for a versatile set with enough redundancy. Here\'s one example. All used gear.
300/4 + 1.4x or 80-400/VR ($1,200-1,400)
70-300/VR ($400)
17-50/2.8 Tamron ($300)
18-70/3.5-4.5 ($150)
50/1.8G (new) or Sigma 50/2.8 macro ($200)
Thom Hogan has several good writeups about safari trips; capturing the photos you want, camera and gear to take, dealing with dust and other conditions, backup regiments, power issues, etc. Read his site. It will change your outlook.
Nov 18, 2012 at 11:23 AM
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