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 Reflections on my Recent Trip to Southern Africa | |
When we committed to going to southern Africa for a safari, I posted here asking for advice on equipment to take, since there is surprisingly little relevant information readily available. I thought I’d post here my experience, in the hope that it might help someone else.
At the time, I owned (all Canon) a full-frame body and a crop body, along with a variety of fine lenses, including: 500 f/4L IS; 70-200 f/2.8L IS II; 16-35 f/4 L II, 24-104 f/4L IS, 1.4xIII and 2xIII. I was inclined to replace the 7D/crop body with a second FF body (I did, with a 5DSR), and I was hoping that using the 70-200 with the doubler would be fine.
As one might expect on a Web forum, advice was all over the lot. But a consistent theme was that I would do much better with the new Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L IS II than the 70-200 with a doubler. So I bought a used 100-400 II off the for sale forum here.
I finally settled on taking this kit with me: 5D Mark III; 5DSR; 24-104; 500 (and 1.4x); 100-400 II, 50 f/1.4 and 16-35. In addition, I took my little Sony RX100 II, which fits in the pocket well and is a fine camera (I didn’t want to be changing lenses in the wind and dust, and the little Sony would be useful for when animals were very close, and for wide angle landscapes). And I also brought along a Lensbaby Composer Pro II Sweet 35, to play with and learn about.
Another question I had was how much “film” I should take, for 9 days in the bush and another 7 days in the area. Again, advice was all over the lot. So I took ten 64GB CF cards, just to be sure (keep in mind that each time I snap the shutter release on the 5DSR, it costs 60mb +/-). I felt pretty good about that choice, part way in, when I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to run out of card space before the end of the trip, and some other people at the camps were fretting about that issue. In the end, I had three unused cards, but I can sell them easily for close to what I paid for them, so cheap insurance.
I also brought a large external hard drive, and my little laptop, so that I could back up my photos twice a day.
All in all, I am very, very happy with my choices. I sat in the vehicle with the two large cameras on my lap: I put the 500 + 1.4xIII on the 5DSR, and the 100-400 on the 5D3. That gave me pretty instant ability to adjust to almost any situation, which turned out to be handy many times.
I took about 9600 photos, the vast majority while out on the vehicles in the bush; so it amounted to almost 1000 photos per day in the bush. I also took a lot of photos at Victoria Falls, both on the ground and in the helicopter. And a smattering in Johannesburg and Cape Town. 60% of the photos were with the 5DSR/500+1.4x combination, and 40% were with the 5D3/100-400 combination.
After getting rid of duplicates and lousy photos, I am left with 5523 photos. 2533 were taken with the 5D3 (mostly with the 100-400); 2848 were taken with the 5DSR (mostly with the 500+1.4x), and 142 were taken with the little Sony. As for lenses, I only took 22 photos with the 50 (all in Dubai, on a layover, as we walked around the city at night); 211 with the 16-35 (all either milky way photos, or Victoria Falls); 142 with the 24-105; 2518 with the 100-400, and 2399 with the 500+1.4x. And I took 89 photos with the Lensbaby that I’ve kept.
I had been told by a number of people that the animals are so close that I wouldn’t need a really long lens. Not correct, in my experience. Between the birds and the large animals a long way away, I was very, very glad to have 700mm of focal length, with a high-density sensor, to bring to bear!
But I also was very glad to have the 100-400; the 100 allowed me to zoom out when animals were fairly close, and to take animalscapes (I think a photo of a whole bunch of zebras and elephants, showing entire trees and landscape, is highly evocative of our trip), while the 400 was really useful many, many times, when the 700 was too long. Also, it’s much easier to do BIF with a light lens like the 100-400 that the behemoth 500+1.4x.
Here are the “lessons” I would pass on to others. These are based entirely on my own experience, my own desires for what to photograph, the animals we saw, and the camps we visited. Others may have a different take-away.
1. You can never have too much storage. You’re spending a lot of money on this trip, and you may well never have the opportunity again. Don’t scrimp on memory cards.
2. The little airplanes have serious storage restrictions. We had to by an extra seat on all small airplanes to get the photography gear on them (my wife brought her Fujifilm X-T2, with the normal lens, a 50-14 f/2.8, and a doubler). Expensive, but obviously necessary.
3. Speaking of my wife’s gear, she had long been a bit envious of my gear, but had no interest in lugging such large equipment around. We solved that by buying her the Fuji mirrorless equipment in preparation for the trip; she enjoyed the trip far more for being able to take nice photos of her own (yes, the Fuji is a very capable camera, with excellent autofocus).
3. Yes, length matters. I love the detail I was able to capture with the 50mp 5DSR wearing a very good 700mm optic. Sure, I could have taken those photos with the 22mp 5D3 wearing the 100-400, but many of the photos would not have the same impact to me. Many animals are relatively small, and many animals are a long way away.
4. It’s amazing how many people—the clear majority—were taking their photos only with their cell phones or tablets. Of the 100 or so people who came and went at the three camps we visited, nobody else had a 500mm lens (or longer), and very few even had something as long as a 70-200. I was (and am) astonished that people would come all that distance, and pay all that money, settling for tiny images of magnificent beasts.
5. The animals (yes, even the lions and leopards) will come very, very close to the vehicles. Having something with relatively short focal length for those opportunities is very useful. I really enjoyed having 100-700 mm at my fingertips, with the Sony in my pocket.
6. The experience in indescribably fabulous; if you’re tempted, find a way to do it!
Mark
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