Equipment - General information
Tuesday, 30 March 2010 18:07 | 
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For most people a safari in Africa is a once in a lifetime experience, while for others it might be a thing that they will experience more than once. In this section I've made a short summary of photographic equipment you'll 'need' on a safari if you're serious about your photography. For serious wildlife photography you'll need to buy a camera system which is extendible. What this means is that the brand you choose should offer a range of camera bodies, interchangable lenses, flash units and accessories. If you think that wildlife photography could become a serious hobby (or profession) then buy a brand which offers quality telephoto lenses like a 400mm f/2.8 and 500 f/4. The brands which you should basically consider are Canon, Nikon and Sony. I use Canon myself so all the examples I've given below are based on the Canon system. Nikon and Sony offer comparable cameras and lenses.
Basic equipment for wildlife photography
| Camera body | 8mp or better DSLR (for instance 450D, 40D, 1D Mark III) + remote release |
| Camera batteries | Two or more in reserve |
| Long telephoto lens | 300mm f/4 or f2.8, 400 f/5.6, 100-400mm |
| Medium/long telephoto | 70-200 f/4 or f2.8 |
| Medium to wide zoom | 24-70 f/2.8 |
| Wide angle | 16-35 f/2.8, 17-40 f/4 |
| Teleconverter | 1.4x |
| Flash unit | get a powerfull one |
| Portable hard drive | get one that allows you to change the harddrive. Get 2x80GB hard drive |
| Camera support | Beanbag (the bigger the better) |
| Memory | 2x2GB card |
| Batteries + charger | 8xAA batteries for the flash. Use a speed charger |
| Camera cleaning | Artic butterfly, Visible dust pen, Copperfield method |
Optional equipment:
| Extra camera body | 8mp or better DSLR (for instance 450D, 40D, 1D Mark III, 1D Mark IV) |
| Super telephoto lens | 500 f/4, 600 f/4 |
| Macro lens | 100mm f/2.8 |
| Camera support | Window mount, Gimball head or ballhead + Wimberley Sidekick |
| Quick release plates for all cameras and lenses | |
| Portable hard drive | Extra portable hard drive casing and 2x80GB hard drive |
| Chargers | Car chargers for all your equipment |
| Flash accessories | flash bracket + off camera cord |
| Telephoto flash extender |
My photo equipment
| Camera bodies | 1D Mark IV and 1D Mark III |
| Camera batteries | Four 1D batteries |
| Long telephoto lens | EF500 f/4 L IS and EF300mm f/2.8 L IS |
| Medium/long telephoto | EF70-200 f/2.8 L IS |
| Medium to wide zoom | EF24-70 f/2.8 L |
| Wide angle | EF17-40 f/4 L |
| Macro | EF100 f/2.8 |
| Teleconverter | EF1.4x and EF2x |
| Flash setup | EX580, Wimberley F-1 bracket, PIXEL External Flash Battery Pack, Yongnuo OC-E3 off-camera shoe cord, |
| Flash extender | Better Beamer |
| Cable release | RS-80N3 and Yongnuo TC-80 |
| Portable hard drive | Nexto eXtreme and Nexto OTG XPress |
| Camera support | Double beanbag, Camstedi window mount + Arca Swiss B1 ballhead and Wimberley Sidekick |
| Memory | for Mark IV: 16GB CF (Transcend 600x UDMA 6) and 8GB SDHC (SanDisk Extreme III Class 6) for Mark III: 4GB CF (SanDisk Extreme Ducati Edition) and 2GB SD (Sandisk Extreme III) plus various CF and SD cards as backup |
| Batteries + charger | Flash: 4xAA batteries for the flash, 8xAA for flash battery pack, AA speed charger + car charger Camera: Canon charger + Canon CB570 Car Battery Cable Nexto: Standard adapters and car chargers |
| CCD cleaning | Copperfield method |
Last Updated (Wednesday, 05 May 2010 06:13)