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 p.83 #7 · African safari talk...recommendations? | |
cambyses wrote:
We just returned from our very first trip to South Africa! We spent a total of 12 nights in the country: 2 nights in Johannesburg, 4 in Cape Town, and 6 in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve.
A bit about the lodges we stayed at:
We split our 6 nights in Sabi Sands between Inyati Game Lodge (4 nights) and Umkumbe Bush Lodge (2 nights). Looking back, we felt incredibly fortunate with our time at Inyati. Over the course of 8 game drives, we managed to see all of the Magnificent Seven—lion, leopard, elephant, African buffalo, rhino, cheetah, and African wild dog—up close, besides all other more common wildlife. With the exception of wild dogs, cheetahs, and one male lion sighting (which we saw only once), we encountered the rest of the Big 5 multiple times during different drives.
In contrast, our luck didn’t carry over to Umkumbe. Aside from a brief glimpse of a leopard during one drive, most of our sightings there were limited to elephants and more common wildlife like impalas. In hindsight, I wish we had spent all six nights at Inyati—even though it was more than twice the cost of Umkumbe. The difference in experience was quite noticeable: Umkumbe’s traversing area is relatively small, and they don’t share traversing rights with the neighboring luxury lodges. Their guides, while incredibly kind and friendly, were younger and seemed less experienced. They also didn’t go as aggressively off-road as we’d expected.
In contrast, our guide at Inyati had 17 years of experience, and guiding clearly ran in the family—his father had worked at Mala Mala, and his brother (still guiding at Inyati) has over 40 years of experience. The level of tracking and off-roading he did to get us into great positions—driving through sand, over rocks, even across rivers—was simply outstanding.
Now for a bit on our gear:
I brought three main setups. I still need to go through and process the images, but so far, here’s our photo count by setup:
A1 II + 200–600mm: 3949 shots
A1 + 600mm f/4 GM: 2515 shots
A7R V + 35–150mm: 2757 shots
As expected, the 200–600mm saw the most action, but I’m so glad I didn’t listen to those who said the 600mm f/4 isn’t needed in Sabi Sands. Yes, we got quite close to the wildlife most of the time—but I still made great use of the 600mm, not just for birds but also for close-up portraits. The image quality and rendering from that lens are just on another level.
I’ll likely be sharing some photos in the Nature and Wildlife forum once I’ve had time to edit, but for now, I just wanted to give a quick summary of our time in Sabi Sands in case it’s helpful to others planning a trip....Show more →
Happy to hear you had a great time! Great insight as well. It really does come down to guiding, doesn't it.
I appreciate your data on lenses used, that's always a topic in this thread so it's good to have some real world experience. Great images!
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