African Safari Photo Equipment

Sunday May 21, 2006 (09:49) | Equipment Tips

Last month (April 2006), my wife and I went to South Africa and Zambia on safari for the very first time. If you haven’t been to that part of the world – just go there, it is amazing. We spent about 8 days in South Africa at Thornybush Private Game Reserve (it borders Kruger NP) and 3 days in Zambia visiting Victoria Falls.

You may see some of the images I created in Africa here.

Many of you have asked me what worked for me on this trip and what did not. I am very grateful for all of the useful info I found on the web before I left and it is my wish that what I present here may benefit you somehow if you decide to visit this lovely continent.

Equipment List

Tamrac Expedition 7 backpack
Nikon D2X and D2Hs
Sigma 10-20mm f/4~5.6D
Nikon AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8G
Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G VR
Nikon AF-S 200-400mm f/4G VR
Nikon TC-14E
Nikon SB-800 (1)
Canon 500D Closeup Lens
Better Beamer Flash Extender
spare AA & EN-EL4 batteries
Epson P-2000 & Compact Drive PD70X
16GB of Compact Flash (CF)
Arctic Butterfly & battery chargers

First Thoughts

I didn’t bring my whole kit and I had a lot of stuff with me on this trip – I don’t need to go to the gym for a while now since I got a lot of weight training in Africa carrying my gear. I actually couldn’t get everything in the Tamrac Expedition 7, so my wife put the Sigma 10-20mm, the Epson P-2000 and the chargers in her camera bag.

Airport Security (Toronto, Atlanta, Johannesburg, Hoedspruit, Livingstone) did not give me any hassles with the equipment and I was able to take everything as carry on baggage – even on the smaller aircraft within Africa. In fact, they would ask me, “Are you a professional photographer?” After I said, “yes”, they would just routinely inspect my bag and let me move on. Nice.

What Worked

The 70-200/2.8 VR and the 200-400/4 VR were my main workhorse lenses – I had each of those lenses attached to a different body depending on the light available. I used these two lenses for 75-80% of my shots. Once in a while an animal would get close enough to our Land Rover so that I would need my 17-55/2.8, but the two long zooms usually did the trick.

These lenses are superb optically and VR was a lifesaver at times. Since I could not use a tripod in the vehicle (I didn’t bother to bring one), I would rest the lens where ever I could and shoot (our guides had bean bags which I used once in a while). VR on the 200-400/4 VR really works and it works well. I have shots at 400mm, 1/15 sec @ f/4 that are sharp. Impressive!

The TC-14E came in handy – no loss of AF speed and once stopped down (by a stop), my images were very sharp. I did not use this as much I thought I would as our guides got us reasonably close to the larger game. But for birds and hippos (we were in a 17 foot metal boat on the Zambezi River and did not want to get too close to the hippos – they were very skittish and would attack us in a matter of seconds if they chose to do so), the TC provided the extra reach I needed.

The D2X and D2Hs performed flawlessly. If I had any OOF shots, etc, it was due to operator error. The AF system on the D2 bodies is amazing – especially in low light. I shot compressed NEF exclusively and backed up my data each night to the Epson P-2000 and PD70X. Also, even with a full day of shooting, the EN-EL4’s in my cameras never dropped below 45% and that is with a lot of chimping. I never had to put a spare battery in either body.

The SB-800 and the Better Beamer Flash Extender came in handy for lifting the shadows in certain shots, mostly the birds. You need to be careful with the fresnel lens as with sunny skies, you could start a fire with this thing (I’m not joking). Also, I had to dial in -2EV to -3EV flash compensation a lot of time or I would blow out the shot – even in TTL BL mode on the SB-800.

What Did Not Work

Let’s start off with what failed. My PD70X on day 5 failed. My wife’s Fuji s9000 has a video mode and she used it to make a couple videos. She filled up one of her CF cards so I decided to back it up for her. The Epson P-2000 backed everything up and worked perfectly… the PD70X stopped writing after file #177. File #177 was an AVI (video) file and it turned out to be corrupted. The PD70X would power on and I could verify the exisiting files, but I could not copy CF cards anymore even though there was over 35GB in free storage left. Upon returning home, I reset the unit by re-applying a firmware upgrade after contacting the manufacturer. They confirmed that a corrupted AVI file could re-write the contents of the firmware.

I thought dust would be a problem – it wasn’t. It was the end of rainy season so dust was minimal. I suspect that dust might be a problem at other times of the year. Rain was actually more of a concern during our safari… it would rain lightly during the day for 30 minutes or so, but that was it. Bring plastic bags (garbage and ziploc bags) with you to keep your gear dry whilst in the vehicle. I did not end up using the Arctic Butterfly to clean up dust bunnies as (1) I could not find it in my suitcase after day 5 and (2) dust was never a problem for me.

What I Learned From This Trip

Less is more – there were a few items such as the ultra wide zoom and Canon 500D that I would not have missed at all if I did not bring it. It would have been nice to have some fast primes for my low light work, but that would have added to the bulk of my kit and I got along just fine without them. There were times that I wish I had my 80-400 VR because of the convenient range and the fact that it is lightweight. I love fast glass but it gets quite heavy after a while and the 80-400 VR would perform well in strong light when stopped down. Whether it would have focussed accurately in low light with its f/5.6 aperature – well – I don’t know and probably won’t (I sold my 80-400 VR after using the 200-400/4 VR).

Backup your critical equipment – having two bodies was indispensable… rarely did I have to do lens changes. I read about people who went on safari with only one camera body only to have it fail. Having two PSD’s to backup image data was critical given that one of them failed on me in the field. Even my wife’s iPod charger failed over there… I am lucky none of my battery chargers failed too. Next time, I will bring a backup Nikon/Epson charger.

Don’t be afraid of using high ISO – I would see the perfect shot and the light was really low, so I would have to crank up the ISO really high to get a decent shot. At first, I asked myself, “Do I want a lot of noise in the image or should I just forget it?” I immediately cranked up the ISO. Some of my best images are taken at ISO 800 and 1600 – with both the D2Hs and D2X. With the D2Hs, I can comfortably shoot at ISO 1600 – there is virtually no noise, and what noise there is looks like film grain in print. I used the D2X at HI-1 (ISO 1600) a couple times (the leopard in the tree at night) and was surprised how well it printed. So, use the higher ISO’s if you have to and expose them properly. Don’t listen to the noise about noise!

Hire a private guide/vehicle – we were not informed that we could (for as little as $USD 100.00 per day) have a private game viewing vehicle and guide. That way, we could stay in one spot for as long as we wanted – viewing what we wanted. As to vehicle itself and other guests – there was ample room for my gear and in general, most of the people we met were very accomodating in letting me have the “good” seats (near the front).