AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR
Camera and lens reviews are 10 a penny online, and most will have a throwaway comment like ‘good for wildlife photography and sport’, but what does that actually mean?
In this article, I’d like to go over the pros and cons of the most common types of camera, lens and other accessories and show you a few practical examples in order to help you make up your mind about which kit to buy.
Cameras
DSLRs v Mirrorless
At the moment, this seems to be your biggest decision to make. Mirrorless cameras have been getting a lot of press recently, and that’s generally because they have improved so much in terms of their features and reliability.
However, there is still a basic trade-off between lighter weight (and higher frame rates) and the benefits of the optical viewfinder.
Yes, mirrorless cameras are lighter, and for some of you that will be the crucial argument.
There are many people - particularly women - who just don’t want to have to lug around a big, heavy DSLR on their travels. i totally understand that, and for those people I’d happily recommend a mirrorless camera.
However, for most people, the weight of a DSLR is not a ‘show-stopper’. It’s annoying, yes, but it’s just one factor.
Set against that are the advantages of the optical viewfinder.
Don’t get me wrong. There are advantages to having an electronic viewfinder in certain situations, for instance when you want to see a preview of negative exposure compensation or the effect of a different aperture on depth of field or when you need a particularly high frame rate.
There are also disadvantages with the DSLR’s optical viewfinder because - by definition - it can never show you the scene at the precise moment when you take the picture. That’s just how DSLRs work, and it’s particularly annoying when you’re taking a burst of shots or you’re using a low shutter speed.
However, when you’re taking wildlife shots, you generally want to be able to see what’s happening in real time through the viewfinder, and you can do that better with a DSLR.
The problem with a mirrorless camera is that you’re effectively watching a movie of what the world was like a fraction of a second beforehand!
That’s no good if you’re taking action shots.
A friend of mine used to use a DSLR but invested in a very good Sony mirrorless camera. He used it for a few years, but in the end he switched back to the DSLR because of the delay built in to the electronic viewfinder.
He still has both systems, but most people can’t afford to do that!
Cameras and lenses are expensive, so your very first purchase normally determines your choice of DSLR or mirrorless for a good few years.
Pros: DSLRs have an optical viewfinder that gives a real-time view of the world.
Cons: DSLRs are heavier, the viewfinder is always blacked out whenever you take a picture and frame rates will generally be much lower.
Recommendation: DSLR (unless the extra weight is really impossible for you to manage)
Nikon v Canon
I’m a Nikon user, but that’s not really for any good reason.
When I bought my first DSLR, I asked a friend of mine who was a professional photographer which make I should choose, and he told me either Canon or Nikon.
The only reason I chose Nikon was because I didn’t want to buy my first camera from a photocopier manufacturer!
Nikon and Canon are the two premium DSLR manufacturers, and they have similar product ranges with almost identical features.
Paul Goldstein is a wildlife photographer I travel with quite a lot, and he’s a Canon user, so he does his best to make me feel bad about having a Nikon!
I’ve always hankered after Canon’s EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x: it has a huge zoom range, and the built-in ‘extender’ (or teleconverter) is a fantastic feature, and it doesn’t appear on any Nikon lenses.
As Paul has often said to me, Nikon has been late to market with a few features that have been standard on Canon bodies for years, but there’s nothing much to separate them now apart from one thing: frame rates.
Canon bodies have a built-in motor drive, and their frame rates are generally much higher than those of Nikon cameras.
My Nikon D850 has a native maximum frame rate of only 7fps, and even the (very expensive!) MB-D18 battery pack only boosts that to 9fps.
By contrast, the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II offers 14fps!
To illustrate the difference, let’s take a situation where the frame rate is really important.
I went to Brooks Falls, Alaska, a few years ago to photograph bears catching salmon.
It was a kind of hommage to Thomas D Mangelsen and his famous ‘Catch of the Day’, showing a salmon just about to be gobbled up by a brown bear standing at the top of the waterfall.
At first, I set up my Nikon D810 on my tripod, framed the shot to include the whole bear and waited for a salmon to try and jump the waterfall.
I had my eye to the viewfinder the whole time, but I was focusing on the bear, and when the first salmon jumped into the frame I wasn’t quick enough to be able to take the shot.
That happened again and again, and if you think about it, it’s not really very surprising.
The Nikon D810 only offered 5fps, and that was nowhere near fast enough for what I was trying to do.
The only way I could make it work was by focusing my attention on the water rather than the bear: as soon as I saw a fish, I took a burst of four or five frames - but still I was usually only able to get one frame showing the fish.
I was there for a week, and I only managed to get two ‘money shots’ with the fish in mid-air and the bear with its mouth open.
That’s the importance of frame rates in wildlife photography.
If I’d been using the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II, I’d have been able to get almost five shots in by the time it took my Nikon D810 to take just one!
It’s too late for me to change my brand now (and way too expensive!), but let’s hope the replacement for the Nikon D850 has a much better frame rate.
On the plus side, Nikon at least seems committed to the DSLR format.
I’ve heard rumours that Canon is pushing its mirrorless cameras and might even drop its DSLR range in the long term, so that’s something to watch out for…
Pros: Nikon seems more committed to the DSLR format than Canon, which is pushing its mirrorless models.
Cons: Nikon has historically been slow to market with new features, and its cameras have relatively much slower frame rates.
Recommendation: Canon (although it hurts me to say it…!)
GoPro
I bought a GoPro HERO4 Silver video camera in 2015, but I’ve hardly ever used it for wildlife photography.
Part of the problem is that I’m rarely close enough to the animals to make it worthwhile.
The only time when I did have a chance to get up close and personal was when I visited the ‘gorillas in the mist’ in Rwanda.
There, I was literally a foot or two away from a whole family of gorillas, so I was able to use my GoPro.
In one particular sequence, I managed to capture a baby gorilla desperately trying to pull up a plant by the roots so that it could eat it. It tried a couple of times, but it was stuck fast. When it tried the third time, the plant came out of the ground so suddenly that the gorilla rolled backwards into the undergrowth!
Very amusing…
However, GoPros use very wide-angle lenses. In fact, they rely on them.
If they were any longer, then it would be impossible to get stable footage, and camera shake looks very unprofessional when it comes to video.
If you’re a mountain biker, then it’s easy enough to attach your GoPro to the handlebars so that you get a smoother result, but that’s not generally possible if you’re shooting wildlife.
Nobody wants to use a tripod, and ‘selfie sticks’ are banned in some places, so the only alternative is to hold the GoPro in your hands (or attach it to your head or body) and find a way to get close enough to the animals to make it work.
At the end of the day, the latest smartphones such as my iPhone 12 Pro Max offer high quality video, so I make do with that. The current specs are astonishing:
HDR video recording with Dolby Vision up to 60 fps
4K video recording at 24 fps, 25 fps, 30 fps or 60 fps
1080p HD video recording at 25 fps, 30 fps or 60 fps
720p HD video recording at 30 fps
Sensor-shift optical image stabilisation for video (Wide)
Optical image stabilisation for video (Wide and Telephoto)
2x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 4x optical zoom range (iPhone 12 Pro)
Digital zoom up to 6x (iPhone 12 Pro)
2.5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 5x optical zoom range (iPhone 12 Pro Max)
Digital zoom up to 7x (iPhone 12 Pro Max)
Audio zoom
With all that sitting in your pocket or in your handbag, why would you need a GoPro…?!
Pros: Handy if you can get close enough to the animals.
Cons: Unnecessary if you have a mobile.
Recommendation: Don’t bother unless you like mountain biking, white water rafting or bungee jumping…!
Mobile
When I taught photography in Africa, I’d often come across guests who would rather shamefacedly admit that the only camera they had was their iPhone.
That’s fine, and it didn’t bother me. It just meant that there was less that I could teach them.
Modern mobiles are technological marvels, and the iPhone seems to be very good at reproducing good sunsets. It’s also capable of producing high-quality video footage (see above), so it has its place.
However, the problem with all smartphones is that they don’t have the range you need to be a wildlife photographer.
On paper, my iPhone 12 Pro Max has the most impressive camera to date in the Apple range:
Primary: 12 MP sensor (1.7µ photo sites), 26 mm-equivalent f/1.6-aperture lens, sensor shift OIS, PDAF
Ultra-wide: 12 MP 1/3.6″ sensor, 13 mm-equivalent (14 mm measured) f/2.4-aperture lens
Tele: 12 MP 1/3.4″ sensor, 65 mm-equivalent f/2.2-aperture lens, PDAF, OIS
LiDAR depth sensing
LED flash
However, the sensor is tiny, and the focal length is so short that you’ll never have a hope of capturing a cheetah a hundred yards away!
That’s the point. By all means take your mobile with you on safari or wherever you go, but don’t expect it to take great pictures.
Pros: Good for sunsets and video
Cons: Short focal length makes it generally useless for wildlife shots
Recommendation: Buy yourself a proper camera!
Frame rate
Now that we’ve gone through the basic types of camera available, we can focus on the features that you need.
As I’ve mentioned above, the frame rate of your camera is very important.
It’s one of the three or four things that will determine whether a camera body can be used for wildlife photography or not (the others being type of camera, brand, back button focus capability and sensor size).
The gold standard for frame rates is Canon’s 14fps (although Nikon buyers will have to make do with much less).
If you want to become a wildlife photographer, you need at least 9fps, and even that might leave you feeling very frustrated on occasion!
Pros: A high frame rate is essential for wildlife photography, which often involves rapid and unpredictable action.
Cons: Cost (and maybe not being able to buy a Nikon!)
Recommendation: Essential
Buffer size
A camera’s buffer size is simply the number of frames it can manage in a burst before starting to slow down. This is obviously the product of the file size of the image and the read/write speed of your memory card amongst other things, but the camera itself is usually the limiting factor.
Buffer size is maybe not the first thing you think of when buying a camera, but I found out the hard way how important it is.
I was on a game drive in the Serengeti National Park a few years ago, and we saw four male lions take down a fully grown female Cape buffalo. It was definitely the highlight of my trip, but I couldn’t take as many shots as I wanted because my camera kept buffering.
When the frame rate started to slow down, I had to wait a few seconds, then take another burst until it slowed down again. And so on…
That’s very frustrating if you’re trying to capture shots of the most amazing wildlife spectacle you’ve ever seen!
It wasn’t helped by the fact that I happened to be using my Nikon D810 rather than my Nikon D850. That’s the older model, so the buffer was only 28 frames rather than 51 (using lossless 14-bit RAW files).
That means a burst with the Nikon D810 at the maximum frame rate of 5ps lasted just 5.6 seconds - not much better than if you were a Spitfire pilot during the war!
The Nikon D850 is a little better, but it’s still blown away by the latest Canon DSLR I saw demo’ed at a trade show a couple of years ago, which had no limit at all! The lady simply pressed the shutter and didn’t stop for about 30 seconds. Amazing…
Pros: Essential for serious wildlife work
Cons: Cost - inevitably. The latest Canon I saw at the trade show was selling for over £5,000…!
Recommendation: Try to make sure your camera has a buffer of at least 50 shots at the maximum file size you’re going to be using (eg lossless 14-bit RAW). Wealthy Canon buyers won’t have a problem…
Sensor size
Sensor size is to cameras what focal length is to lenses. Size isn’t everything, as they say, but it’s still very important in wildlife photography.
There are two aspects to sensor size:
physical dimensions
number of pixels.
A pixel is the basic unit of a photograph. It represents a particular colour and tone. Obviously, the more pixels you have, the more detailed your image will be. At the logical extreme, a single pixel will just be a single dot with no detail at all whereas a 20 megapixel (MP) image - around average for DSLRs - will give you a very detailed image with high colour fidelity and contrast.
In general, a larger sensor will allow you to fit more pixels on it, but there’s a trade-off. Sharpness is dependent on the number of pixels, but contrast and low light performance is dependent on the size of each individual pixel.
As a result, some camera manufacturers have decided to cut down the overall number of pixels in favour of larger pixels that improve the overall image quality. That’s what Apple has done, for example, in one or two of its iPhone sensors.
The physical size of a DSLR sensor will always be 24 x 36mm, and that’s what gives it one of its main advantages over other types of camera.
The larger the sensor, the more light falls on it, and that has a number of benefits, including sharpness and reduced noise.
The first time I went on safari, I’d bought a bridge camera (a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V) that had an amazing zoom range of up to 30x optically (or 60x digitally) and an 18 MP sensor.
That seemed just what I needed, and, it’s true, it did allow me to zoom in on animals that seemed miles away.
However, the sensor was only 6.17 x 4.55mm, which is tiny!
As a result, the images I took when I was fully zoomed in were really soft, and that was a huge disappointment.
I’m a big fan of sharpness in photography, so when I saw the results one of the other guests was getting with his Nikon DSLR, I immediately made up my mind to buy one for myself!
The one I bought was the Nikon D800, and one of the things I liked about it was the 36.3 MP sensor.
The greater the number of pixels, the greater the potential detail in the image, and that equates to sharpness.
However, having more pixels does put a premium on good camera technique - especially with a long lens.
The usual rule of thumb is that your shutter speed should be one over the focal length of your lens, eg 1/500 of a second for a 500mm lens.
That might be improved by Vibration Reduction (Nikon) or Image Stabilisation (Canon) technology, but it’s still a good yardstick: longer lenses multiply the image, which means they also multiply any errors, including motion blur and camera shake.
Those slight optical errors become more of a problem with a larger sensor.
Whereas a 20 MP image might be ‘acceptably sharp’, a 50 MP version might suddenly show up areas of blur that weren’t visible before.
That means you have to be really careful in order to make the most of all your newfound pixels!
Pros: A large sensor improves sharpness, detail, contrast, low-light performance and your ability to crop in.
Cons: Cost - again…
Recommendation: 20 MP is a reasonable minimum, but my Nikon D850 sensor is 45.7 MP, which allows much greater detail and the liberty of cropping in aggressively - as long as my camera technique holds up!
Continuous autofocus
As I say, sharpness is very important to me, particularly when it comes to action shots. There’s nothing more disappointing than finding what should’ve been a five-star image and then realising it was just too soft.
There are programs these days that can ‘rescue’ an image like that, such as Topaz Sharpen AI, but it’s still best to get it right in camera, and that means relying on the autofocus system.
For wildlife action shots, you’ll generally want to use AF-C (Nikon’s Continuous autofocus mode) or AI Servo (Canon’s Artificial intelligence Servo-assisted mode). That’s the only way to make sure that the camera constantly updates its focus while you’re shooting.
If you use the single point focus mode, for instance, you might half-press the shutter to lock on the eye of a Thomson’s gazelle and take a burst of shots.
The first shot is sharp, but then the gazelle runs off, and because you haven’t used AF-C or AI Servo mode, you then get a bunch of blurred shots that you have to delete.
In my case, I use back button focus (see next section) and keep my camera on AF-C at all times. There’s no downside, and it means that I’m always ready for the action!
Personally, I use the 3D version of AF-C, which means the camera can (in theory) follow a moving object in all three dimensions.
However, I haven’t had great luck using that mode during slow pans and cheetah hunts, so I’ve experimented more recently with the d25 or d9 setting, which doesn’t ‘follow’ the focus point around the frame but does at least give me a bigger margin for error.
Slow pans are always tricky, so it’s worth experimenting, but you need to make sure your camera has all these capabilities before you buy!
Pros: Essential for action shots
Cons: None
Recommendation: This is a show-stopper, so make sure your new camera has either AF-C or AI Servo.
Back button focus
This is a technique that almost all wildlife photographers use (apart from Paul Goldstein!). It involves decoupling the shutter from the autofocus.
The big advantage for wildlife photography is that it means better control over focus when you’re tracking a moving animal.
If you hold down the back button (AE Lock or AE/AF Lock) rather than the shutter release to activate the autofocus, you can keep a moving subject in focus all the time - even when you’re taking pictures.
If you try to use the shutter button, the camera stops focusing on the animal to take the shot. That means you’ve lost focus, and you might not get in back in time if you’re taking a burst of shots.
You can also use back button focusing to lock the focus by simply pressing it once and recomposing. This is particularly useful if the eye of the animal is outside the central focus point area in the viewfinder: there simply aren’t any focus points anywhere else, so the camera can’t follow the subject otherwise.
The only downside is that on certain cameras the AE or AE/AF Lock button might be very close to the nubbin used to redirect the focus point. You also only have one thumb, so you can’t easily do both.
However, I haven’t found it to be much of a problem, and anyway, the point is that the function should simply be available on the camera. I tried to explain back button focusing to a guest in Tanzania once, only to find that there wasn’t any button he could use for it…!
Pros: Essential for (almost!) all wildlife photographers in order to track moving subjects
Cons: May be confusing for those photographers who use the nubbin on the back of the camera to move the focus point around.
Recommendation: Make sure your camera has an AE or AE/AF lock button you can easily reach with your right thumb.
Auto ISO
My default exposure mode is Manual using Auto ISO. It’s so convenient that I’m amazed more photographers don’t use it.
All I have to do is set my aperture and shutter speed, and the camera takes care of the rest.
Admittedly, I do occasionally set the ISO manually, but that’s really only if I’m going to be doing a slow pan and need the ‘extended’ setting of 32 ISO that’s not available with Auto ISO.
Anyway, you should definitely make sure that your new camera has the ability to set the ISO automatically.
Again, I had another client in Africa who was very enthusiastic about learning how to use all my default settings…until we realised that he couldn’t use Auto ISO in Manual mode!
Pros: Makes life so much easier. You just need to worry about the important stuff - aperture and shutter speed.
Cons: None
Recommendation: Pretty much essential.
Shutter speed range
Most DSLRs these days allow you to set any shutter speed you like from 1/4000 or 1/8000 of a second all the way up to 30 seconds.
If you like to take pictures of the stars, it might be annoying that you have to use the ‘B’ (or Bulb) mode and set your shutter speed manually using a stopwatch for any longer than that, but that’s not a big deal.
In fact, the upper limit on shutter speed is not too important either unless there are very special circumstances.
The only time I’ve ever used 1/4000 of a second, I was deliberately underexposing a shot of a giraffe.
I probably should’ve changed the aperture instead, but it was just easier in the heat of the moment to flick the command dial to the right with my thumb.
There might be other occasions when you want to use an exceptionally fast shutter speed, such as when you’re shooting small birds in flight, but there aren’t many cameras out there that limit your shutter speed to only 1/1000 of a second.
Pros: High shutter speeds are useful for birds in flight, shutter speeds of more than 30 seconds are irrelevant for wildlife photography.
Cons: None
Recommendation: Important to check, but most cameras have similar shutter speed ranges these days.
Battery life
I always take one or two spare batteries with me on safari, but I hardly ever need them.
That’s because my Nikon D810 gets 1,200 shots out of a fully charged battery EN-EL15 battery (and more with the EN-EL15a), and my Nikon D850 with MB-D18 battery pack using an EN-EL18 battery gets 7,700 shots!
I usually take no more than 1,000 shots on a game drive, with two-thirds of those coming from my Nikon D850 fitted with an 800mm lens, so the real constraint is now memory card capacity rather than battery life…!
Pros: Handy so that you don’t have to swap batteries in the middle of a shoot.
Cons: None
Recommendation: Battery life is no longer an issue with most modern DSLRs, but just make sure that’s the case with yours.
Memory slots
Most modern DSLRs come with two memory slots, usually for an SD card and a CompactFlash (CF) card, but that’s starting to change.
In another outbreak of what you might call ‘The Format Wars’, different manufacturers are pushing their own proprietary memory cards.
The reason is clear enough: technology breakthroughs are happening all the time, and the new formats are offering better read/write speeds than ever.
Unfortunately, the downside of that is that you’ll just have to check which cards fit in your camera!
My Nikon D810 has slots for an SD card and a CF card, but my Nikon D850 has slots for an SD and an XQD card.
XQD cards are faster than CF cards, but I spent a lot of money on my CF cards, so it’s a bit annoying that they’re out-of-date already!
My general principle is to get the fastest cards I can afford with the highest capacity in order to help with buffering problems, speed up my Lightroom workflow and avoid having to switch cards in the middle of a game drive.
However, it’s worth checking which cards your camera supports, particularly if you can afford two camera bodies: you want as much of your equipment to be interchangeable as possible…!
Pros: The new format cards can be much quicker with higher capacity, which helps with buffering, uploading files and avoiding having to switch them out.
Cons: Incompatibility with old formats can cause problems, and buying a camera without the ability to slot in a new type of card might mean missing out on all the performance benefits.
Recommendation: Check the types of cards you can use with the camera and make sure you’re future-proofed.
Weight
Of all the photographers I’ve met who have chosen mirrorless cameras rather than DSLRs, by far the most common reason they’ve given is the reduced weight.
My Nikon D850 including batteries weighs 1005g (or 35.45 oz), but the new Nikon Z7 weighs only 675g (or 23.81 oz). That’s a big difference, and top quality mirrorless lenses also tend to be lighter than their DSLR equivalents.
If your preferred shoots involve lots of hiking or you just can’t be bothered to lug around a big, heavy camera, then I totally understand why mirrorless might be the way to go.
In my case, I spend a lot of time in a jeep, resting my cameras on beanbags either on the window sill or the roof, so weight is not really a problem.
However, it’s just physically impossible for me to handhold my Nikon D850 when it’s fitted with my 800mm lens, and that’s a problem.
I know it’s my own silly fault for buying such a long lens, but it works very well for the kind of photography I like, particularly for close-ups of distant animals or portraits of little birds.
There’s not much you can do about the weight of a DSLR, but you can at least get yourself a SpiderPro belt to hold one or two camera bodies comfortably while you’re walking around (or sitting down).
You can also check the weight beforehand, obviously, and doing that in person is by far the best way to do that. It’s all very well reading the numbers, but you really just need to know how it feels in your hands.
There are many moments in wildlife photography when you have to be able to handhold your camera, so it’s worth checking that’s going to be possible with the kind of lenses you want to use with it - particularly if you want to add a battery pack, too!
Pros: None - unless you’re a masochist…!
Cons: A real problem if you want to be able to carry around your gear on a shoot.
Recommendation: Have a think about where you’ll typically be shooting and under what circumstances. Will you be doing much walking? Which cameras and lenses will you have to carry with you?
Number of camera bodies
I bought my DSLR when I was 45, and I can honestly say that it was just about the first time in my life that I could have afforded something so expensive!
I didn’t even think about buying two camera bodies at that stage, and I was far more interested in getting a decent lens and a few accessories.
Fortunately, my financial position improved, and I was soon able to buy a Nikon D810 to go with my Nikon D800, and it was a revelation!
It was so much more convenient having two camera bodies: I hardly had to swap lenses any more, and that meant no more wasted time and missed opportunities!
It also meant less chance of dust spots on the sensors, which I was very happy about.
It’s always a pain having to clean your own sensors, and I was more than happy to know that I wouldn’t have to do it quite so often…!
The reason, of course, why more people don’t invest in a second camera body is simply cost.
My Nikon D850 cost £3,499, and most people won’t be able to afford to buy two of them just for the sake of convenience.
The alternative is to buy two cheaper camera bodies and make do.
It’s not ideal, but it depends on your particular circumstances. If you find yourself constantly swapping lenses, and you just can’t stand it, then it might be worth a go.
The camera body, after all, is less important to the quality of the image than the lens, so it’s worth bearing that in mind.
Pros: Convenience, less time spent swapping lenses (and therefore missing potential photographic opportunities)
Cons: Cost
Recommendation: I’d probably say that you should start off with just one camera body - as I did - and then buy the upgraded version when it comes out. That’s what I did with my Nikon D800, Nikon D810 and Nikon D850, and I’ll probably get the D880, too, when it finally comes out…!
Video
Almost all modern DSLRs are capable of HD or even 4K UHD video, and my Nikon D850 offers a variety of options:
4K UHD 3,840x2,160 / 30 fps @ 144Mbps
4K UHD 3,840x2,160 / 25 fps @ 144Mbps
4K UHD 3,840x2,160 / 24 fps @ 144Mbps
Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 60 fps @ 48 Mbps
Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 50 fps @ 48 Mbps
Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 30 fps @ 24 Mbps
Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 25 fps @ 24 Mbps
Full HD 1,920x1,080 / 24 fps @ 24 Mbps
HD 1,280x720 / 60 fps @ 24 Mbps
HD 1,280x720 / 50 fps @ 24 Mbps
Slow-motion: Full HD 1,920x1,080 30p (x4) @ 36 Mbps
Slow-motion: Full HD 1,920x1,080 25p (x4) @ 36 Mbps
Slow-motion: Full HD 1,920x1,080 24p (x5) @ 29 Mbps
I don’t actually use it for video very often, but that’s just because I don’t actually sell video footage.
I’m a still photographer, so the only reason I take video is if a client requests it or I want something to put on social media.
Having said that, it’s nice to have the option of recording a high-quality video of something.
Again, I’d have a think about your typical shoot and decide whether the particular video specs of your camera really matter that much.
There are obviously trade-offs between the ideal camera for video and the ideal camera for stills, so you just need to take a view on that and try to find the sweet spot.
Pros: Handy if the client requires video.
Cons: Unlikely, as most DSLRs offer HD or even 4K UHD video
Recommendation: Decide how important video is to you. If you don’t actually sell it as one of your products, then you’ll probably be able to put up with whatever video specs are available on the particular stills camera you choose.
Lenses
Prime v zoom
The traditional trade-off is between quality and convenience.
Prime lenses (with a fixed focal length) tend to be sharper and faster but more expensive; zoom lenses tend to be cheaper and more convenient but not quite as sharp.
That’s obviously a broad generalisation, but there’s a truth to it.
Again, cost comes into your choice as well. Your budget will help you decide what combination of zooms and primes you can afford, and - inevitably - that’s probably not the ideal combination you’d like in your bag!
I started out with zooms because they were cheaper and more convenient - I just didn’t feel comfortable being ‘trapped’ into having to use the same focal length for every single shot!
Over time, I realised that there were exceptions. Macro lenses, for instance, don’t need a zoom function, and I bought a 105mm one a few years ago.
That was my first prime lens.
After that, I rented a Nikon 800mm lens a few times from Lenses For Hire, and I realised immediately that prime lenses weren’t really limiting at all.
I got used to using that lens immediately, and I even ended up buying one for myself!
It was certainly expensive, but it’s a very high quality lens, and I love the sharpness and the creamy bokeh that I can get with it.
The other point to bear in mind is that there’s a healthy second-hand market in lenses.
If you buy a really good lens, you can always sell it without losing much money if you want to trade it in for a newer model (or you just need the cash).
It’s not like buying a car: lenses don’t lose a third of their value when you drive them off the lot!
Finally, it’s worthwhile shopping around.
These days, you can save an enormous amount of money on good glass by looking online. I eventually bought my 800mm lens for around £15,500, but I managed to find it online for only £11,000!
Unfortunately, it just wasn’t available in the end, but that gives an indication of how much you can save by shopping around.
Maybe those prime lenses are not too expensive after all…!
Pros: Prime lenses tend to be sharper and faster.
Cons: Cost, convenience of use (due to fixed focal length)
Recommendation: I’d try out a few prime lenses and see what you think. You can always buy it online later…!
Brand
Buying cheap lenses can often be a false economy.
Most people are budget-constrained to some extent when it comes to buying lenses, and it’s no surprise that they might be tempted into buying a Tamron or a Sigma lens rather than a Nikon or a Canon one just because it’s a bit cheaper.
The problem with that approach - as I found out myself! - is that there’s often a price to be paid in terms of quality.
Now, Tamron and Sigma are perfectly good companies, and I’m sure some of their lenses are perfectly good, but are they good enough?
Everybody will have a different view on this, but the general principle is that the best combinations of camera and lens come when they’re made by the same manufacturer.
I bought a Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM lens a few years ago, and then I replaced it with a Tamron SP AF 150-600mm f/5-6.3 VC USD lens.
I didn’t think I could afford Nikon lenses, but I regretted the decision in the end because I just wasn’t happy enough with the results I was getting.
I went to Spitsbergen in 2015 and ended up having to delete most of my shots of the polar bears because they were just too soft.
Admittedly, I hadn’t fine tuned the autofocus (which someone on board advised me to do), but I was still disappointed.
Eventually, a property deal I was involved in fell through, so I could suddenly afford to buy Nikon lenses - which I did.
I was immediately struck by how sharp the images were, particularly when I bought my 800mm monster.
Cashflow wasn’t an issue any more, so for the first time I was able to buy whichever lenses I wanted.
I haven’t used most of them as much as I thought I would, but I’ve definitely changed my view on brand: I’ll only ever buy Nikon lenses for Nikon cameras now.
Pros: Matching the brand of your camera body with your lenses is a good way of improving the technical quality of your images.
Cons: Cost (and there may be one or two lenses made by secondary brands that you might miss out on if you’re too much of a purist…)
Recommendation: It all depends on your financial position and what your ambitions are for your photography. Personally (and with the benefit of hindsight!), I’ve decided that buying cheaper lenses is a false economy, but I’d only buy top quality glass if you’re sure you can afford it and after you’ve properly calibrated your existing lenses!
Focal lengths
Lenses are generally very expensive, so it’s worthwhile thinking about which ones you really need.
These days, it’s perfectly possible to rent a lens from Fat Llama or Lenses For Hire, so you don’t necessarily have to own all your own glass.
In my own case, I spend most of my photography trips in Africa, and I generally only use two lenses: my 80-400mm zoom and my 800mm prime.
When I worked as a photographer at a few camps in Africa for four months in 2019, I took all my lenses:
I was full of ideas for all the pictures I was going to take, but in the end I didn’t follow through with any of them: no star trails, no interior shots, no food montages.
As a result, I ended up using my 80-400mm and 800mm lenses on game drives and my iPhone for a few other things.
On my latest trip to Africa, I went to the other extreme and didn’t even pack my wide-angle lens, which sent Paul Goldstein bananas!
I admitted to him that I’d probably made a mistake, but I just wasn’t used to taking wide-angle shots on safari.
I’m determined to change that, but that’ll have to wait until the end of lockdown…
The point is that you might be better off buying fewer, better lenses and renting anything else you might need now and then.
Pros: Fewer, better lenses will make your budget stretch further and provide you with higher quality images.
Cons: You might have to rent the odd lens here or there.
Recommendation: Decide which lenses are going to be your workhorses, buy the best versions you can afford and forget about the rest. You can always rent them if you need them.
Maximum aperture
The ‘speed’ of a lens is just another way of talking about its maximum aperture, so a ‘fast’ lens is one that has a relatively wide aperture (such as f/2.8 or f/4 for a telephoto), and a ‘slow’ lens is one that doesn’t.
The reason people want fast lenses is that they improve the quality of their photographs. By capturing more light,
they reduce the noise in the image (particularly in the shadows)
they allow you to keep shooting in low light conditions without pushing the ISO ridiculously high
they reduce the depth of field when shooting wide open, allowing the subject to stand out against the background.
Unfortunately, fast lenses tend to be much more expensive than the others.
The f-number is calculated by dividing the focal length by the diameter of the aperture (eg a 200mm lens whose aperture is 50mm wide will have a maximum aperture of 200 divided by 50, which is f/4).
To improve on that is simply very hard, so that’s why fast lenses are so much more expensive.
As an example, my 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens is currently available on Amazon for £1,879.50, but a Nikon 400mm f/2.8 lens would cost £11,999.00 from Park Cameras!
To be honest, the light in Africa is usually good enough that I don’t really have to worry about the odd stop or two of light, but that doesn’t stop me dreaming…!
Pros: Fast lenses bring reduced noise and a pleasing reduction in depth of field while allowing you to shoot comfortably in low light conditions.
Cons: Cost
Recommendation: Again, this one is totally dependent on your budget, but doing what I’ve done and gradually working your way up the league table as finances permit is not a bad way of going about it…!
Sharpness
Everyone loves sharp images, so it’s no surprise that sharpness is a key measure of the quality of a lens.
Sadly, you generally get what you pay for when it comes to lenses, so there’s no shortcut to finding a bargain.
There are a lot of different ways of measuring the sharpness of images (and therefore lenses).
If you’re trying to compare different lenses, the best way of doing it is probably to go to a site that uses a standard format, such as the MTF chart.
On Photography Life, for example, there’s a review of my 800mm lens, and it shows an almost perfect MTF curve with only slight fall-off in the corners of the image.
They also do comparisons of similar lenses for you, so there are a pair of charts to compare Nikon’s 600mm and 400mm lenses.
The units aren’t really important, but at least you can use the Imatest score as a benchmark.
Plenty of websites illustrate their camera and lens reviews with sample images, but I prefer a number that I can straightforwardly compare against others: it’s far more objective.
Pros: Sharpness (duh!)
Cons: Cost
Recommendation: The sharpness of your images will obviously be a product of many factors, but the lens is probably the most important. Buying a good lens is quite an investment, but if you’re like me and you love an image that’s so sharp you could cut your finger on it, then it’ll be well worth the money.
Autofocus speed
The speed with which your camera locks focus is important in wildlife photography as it saves time.
That’s all there is too it.
Opportunities for great wildlife shots are usually all too fleeting, so the last thing you want is to for your lens to be forlornly ‘hunting’ back and forth.
Speed of acquisition is obviously partly determined by your camera body, but the lens is the major factor.
I bought a new lens once, and I was so excited I immediately went outside to try it out.
I wasn’t very happy.
Every time I pressed the back button to focus on something, I heard a whirring sound, and then, a fraction of a second later, the image would resolve itself in the viewfinder.
If you take wildlife photography seriously - as I do - then focus needs to be pretty much instantaneous.
I always remember the great shots I miss more than the great shots I get, so it’s important that my equipment doesn’t let me down.
I guess I could help myself out by ‘pre-focusing’ on something a similar distance away before my subject appears, but I don’t want to have to do that.
Fortunately, Nikon’s autofocus system is pretty quick, and my 80-400mm and 800mm perform very well on that measure.
Pros: Saves time (and avoids a lot of the frustration involved in missed shots!)
Cons: There may be a cost implication, but it’s not as simple as that.
Recommendation: Read lens (and camera) reviews and try kit out for yourself, either in a retailer or at a trade show.
Build quality
The build quality of modern cameras and lenses is pretty good at the top end, but every now and then you realise how catastrophic it can be when things go wrong.
In my case, I was on a game drive in Tanzania trying to take a shot with my 800mm lens when it suddenly malfunctioned: the aperture shown in the viewfinder was f/1.8, which was impossible for an f/5.6 lens, and the autofocus refused to work.
That was a moment I wouldn’t wish on anybody.
I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I racked my brains to try and think of what was going wrong.
After switching the camera off and on and then taking out the battery for a good minute in order to drain the camera of all electric charge, I realised that there must simply be a loose connection between the camera body and the lens itself.
I carefully twisted the lens in order to ‘tighten’ it, and the problem went away.
Phew…
It was only later that I discovered that all six of the screws in the lens mount plate were loose!
That’s not the kind of thing you expect to happen with a £15,500 lens, so I wasn’t very impressed. I’d expect that from an Apple accessory (because they pride themselves on being ‘cool’ rather than ‘durable’), but not from a Nikon lens.
Admittedly, it had been sitting for nine hours a day on the back seat of a jeep bouncing around on dreadful Kenyan dirt tracks in the Serengeti, but still…!
In the end, I was able to tighten the screws every now and then to solve the problem, but it never completely went away.
I guess that’s yet another reason to buy Nikon lenses. Oh, wait. Hang on a minute…!
Pros: Build quality only really matters when something goes wrong, but there’s nothing like peace of mind when you’re in the middle of the savannah and your camera just keeps on working properly.
Cons: Cost (and even Nikon lenses go wrong after a few months in Africa…)
Recommendation: All you can do is buy the best lenses you can afford made by recognised manufacturers.
Weight
Wildlife photography inevitably involves using long lenses, and they tend to be very heavy.
My 800mm lens weighs 10.1 pounds or 161.6 oz. (4,590 g), so it’s impossible to handhold for more than a few seconds at a time.
It’s also pretty hard to manoeuvre even if it’s resting on a beanbag in a jeep window sill.
There’s a trade-off here, though, because good lenses have to be heavy.
A lens usually has a number of different elements within it, each one compensating for a particular optical fault, and all that glass is just plain heavy.
Great lenses may not be easy to lug around, but that’s just the price you pay, I’m afraid.
Yes, you could cut down the focal length a bit, but the weight of lenses suddenly seems to shoot up above 400mm, and that’s just not long enough for wildlife work.
And besides, what about the artistic cost/ How many shots would you miss by not having a long enough lens?
That’s for you to decide.
Pros: None - although better lenses tend to be heavier as they have more elements in them.
Cons: Extra weight to carry around and very unwieldy to operate.
Recommendation: Mix and match. My 80-400mm hits the sweet spot as it’s quite long but still very light, just 52.8 oz. (1,480.0 g) without the tripod collar, but my 800mm is so heavy it can only be used on a beanbag or a tripod. I accept that, so it’s horses for courses.
Accessories
Computer
I’m a great fan of technology, and my laptop is an indispensable part of my photography equipment:
Apple MacBook Pro 16”
Processor: 2.3GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9
Memory: 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
Graphics: AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB
Hard drive: 4 Terabytes
I take it with me on all my photography trips, and I can usually be found editing my pictures with it any time I’m not eating, sleeping or on a game drive!
The most frustrating thing is when it slows down when I’m using Lightroom.
The program is a crucial part of my workflow, and it was getting so bad last year that I ended up replacing my laptop for £3,829 rather than put up with it on one more trip!
Lightroom performance has got a lot better in recent years, and Topaz has also just released new versions of Sharpen and DeNoise that are a lot faster in rendering and saving images.
However, it never hurts to have the best possible equipment, so i was happy to pay the money. I reckon I spend around an hour processing my images for every hour I spend taking them, so any time I can save through better performance is well worth the price.
When I’m at home, I generally plug my laptop into a 27” Thunderbolt display, and the extra space is great for working on my images in Lightroom - although I did have problems with it slowing down performance for a while.
At the end of the day, your computer is almost as important as your camera, so it’s well worth getting a good one.
Pros: Speed, speed and more speed.
Cons: Cost
Recommendation: Whether you’re used to using Macs or PCs, it’s worth getting the best one you can afford in terms of processor speed, hard drive capacity, graphics card and RAM.
Camera bag
Now this is a tricky one. I’ve been through about five camera bags in the time I’ve been a photographer, and yet all my kit never seems to fit!
I currently have a Tenba Roadie II Hybrid Rolling Case.
The fact that it’s a Rollaboard means it does the job pretty well, and it even has a slot for a tripod, but it’s still not big enough.
I can squeeze in my laptop, two camera bodies, my 800mm and 80-400mm lenses and a couple of battery chargers, but that leaves hardly any room for anything else!
Unfortunately, it’s the largest I can get that will still count as hand luggage, so there’s nowhere to go from here.
If I want to take any clothes with me - which I usually do! - I have to stuff them in my rain jacket. It has a pocket that goes all the way round the back, so that leaves plenty of room for the soft stuff.
I do look a bit like the Michelin man when I go through security, but I don’t mind that…
Just to be clear, this is the bag I use to transport my equipment, but I don’t really use a ‘daypack’ when I’m on game drives. I only need my two cameras, a lens cloth and a couple of spare batteries and memory cards, so it’s not really worth it.
The Roadie does convert into a rucksack, so I sometimes use it in that way, but it’s not ideal if I’m on a walking safari, say, and I need quick and easy access to my cameras and lenses.
That’s why I have my SpiderPro belt and holsters (see below).
Pros: A good camera bag that you can take with you on board the plane makes life so much easier, and it helps if it’s on wheels!
Cons: It takes a while to find the right one, but don’t be tempted to put any electronic equipment in the hold. I did that once with my laptop, and it wrecked the motherboard…! Never again.
Recommendation: Find a good Rollaboard that you can take with you on the plane.
Day pack
I don’t use one when I’m on a game drive or some other shoot, but I do have one tucked away somewhere. In fact, I’ve kept all my old camera bags, and this is just one of them that happens to be a rucksack.
The only problem with it is that it doesn’t give me easy access to my camera in an emergency.
You never know when you’ll get a great photographic opportunity, so you need something that won’t slow you down.
Many companies have invented their own patented versions of what you might call ‘courier’ bags that are big enough to hold a camera and a couple of lenses, but I haven’t really been convinced by any of them.
Many are called, but few are chosen…
The other thing that distinguishes camera bags from any other sort of bags is the number of pockets.
You need ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’, so it’s important that there are lots of little pockets and sections where you can stow your equipment in a predictable and efficiently organised way.
The one thing you mustn’t forget is how you’re going to pack your tripod (or monopod).
That’s generally your biggest item of equipment on a wildlife shoot, and it can be awkward.
Just make sure your day pack is either big enough to hold it in the main pocket or has a couple of suitable straps on the back so that you can tie it on securely.
Pros: The value of your day pack depends entirely on the types of shoot you go on, but it’s always handy to have something that will hold all the absolute essentials and that won’t slow you down when you’re walking or driving. It beats having 15 pieces of equipment and only two hands!
Cons: None, really, although I guess it’s one more thing you’ll have to pack.
Recommendation: Do a bit of research online and find something that’s comfortable to wear while you’re hiking and allows you quick and easy access to your camera. (Easier said than done…!)
Belt and holster
When I was in my glorious first flush of enthusiasm for photography, I went on a shopping spree for all kinds of accessories that I thought I might need.
In the end, almost all of them ended up gathering dust in my bedroom, but one of the successes was my SpiderPro Dual Camera System.
This is a belt that has a couple of ‘holsters’ that hold my two cameras - rather like a gun belt in the Wild West.
All you do is attach a special screw-in plate to each of the camera bodies and then slot them into the specially designed attachment on each side.
It’s very easy to walk with a camera on each hip (although my 800mm lens is a bit too big!), and you can happily sit down and stand up without worrying about them.
You can even lock the camera in place if you want to be on the safe side, and I regularly do that when I’m boarding a boat.
Pros: Easy and secure access to one or two cameras
Cons: One more thing to carry, and it costs around £239!
Recommendation: I admit that I went a little bit crazy buying photographic gear, but the SpiderPro belt is a great tool. There might be other brands out there that do something similar, but this one’s the original and best.
Tripod v monopod
You can’t really use either a tripod or monopod on safari, but I do have one of each, and they do come in handy sometimes.
When I went to Spitsbergen, I was surprised to see both Paul Goldstein and Mark Carwardine lugging their cameras and tripods around with them, but I soon got used to it.
You don’t realise how difficult it is to keep a long lens steady until you compare shots taken with and without a tripod.
It’s a very useful tool (if there’s space for it), particularly when it comes to slow pans.
Taking slow pan shots is very difficult, and you need all the help you can get!
It helps if you get a gimbal head, which allows you to pan smoothly while holding your camera and lens in perfect balance, but that does cost quite a lot.
I have a damped panning head made by Manfrotto, and it’s good enough for my purposes.
It proved its worth when I worked at Gabus Game Ranch in Namibia in October 2020.
The staff wanted to do a shoot in the early morning, but the weather was a bit miserable, so I suggested taking some slow pan shots of the girls on horseback.
I asked them to gallop past, and I got a few shots that I thought looked quite good on the back of the camera.
Unfortunately, they were all too blurred to use.
I’d been using my Nikon D810 (with the very low frame rate of 5fps), and I hadn’t used my tripod.
The next day, I swapped camera bodies and set up my tripod, and the results were a lot better.
It just goes to show…
Just make sure the tripod (or monopod) you choose is rugged enough to survive extreme temperatures.
I went to the Ice Hotel in Sweden once and got up early to take pictures of the rising sun in -25°C, but my tripod couldn’t take the cold and broke when I tightened one of the knobs!
Fortunately, I was able to borrow another one to take a few pictures of the Northern Lights, but I learned my lesson…!
Pros: Tripods are a great help in reducing camera shake and providing the perfect platform for the slow pan.
Cons: They are a pain to carry around, and a sturdy one by Manfrotto, say, with a Wimberley gimbal head will set you back hundreds of pounds.
Recommendation: Ask yourself if you need a tripod and/or monopod or if you could simply borrow or rent one as needed. The screw-in attachment plate works with all DSLRs, so at least you don’t have to worry about compatibility issues. The alternative is spending an awful lot of money that you’ll rarely use…
Filters
Filters are some of the other things I wasted my money on in the early days.
I was just so excited about photography that I wanted to buy anything and everything that I thought could help me.
In fact, filters are pretty useless for wildlife photography.
The only time I’ve used a filter to shoot animals is when I was on a cruise in Spitsbergen, and we had nothing to do all day apart from take slow pans of kittiwakes and guillemots.
My screw-in polarising filter was essential then to reduce the glare from the water, but that was a pretty unique situation - certainly in my own career.
Pros: A screw-in polarising filter can be handy for taking the glare off bodies of water (and improving colour saturation etc)
Cons: Wildlife photography can be very fast-moving, so you don’t want to spend too much time faffing about with filters! And a good polarising filter can cost over £100…!
Recommendation: Ask yourself if you need one. If so, can you borrow one from a friend? In my view, filters are a pretty low priority unless you spend a lot of time on the water…
Cleaning kit
It’s important to be able to clean your lenses, your sensors and the external parts of the cameras.
To do that, you’ll need specialist tools for each job:
a lens cloth and/or blower (for the glass)
a sensor cleaning kit, including swabs and the special cleaning liquid (for the sensor)
microfibre or other cloths (for external parts of the camera)
It’s easy to forget how dirty your equipment gets, so it pays to have the right tools for the job just in case.
I once spent a couple of hours on a game drive thinking that my camera was fine, but when I checked by rubbing a cloth over the lens, I noticed it was covered in red dust!
It’s often hard enough to see the dust accumulate on the outside of the camera, let alone the inside, so it pays to set up a regular cleaning schedule.
The most difficult part to clean is the sensor itself.
It’s a very sensitive part of the camera, and you’d be more than justified in sending it off to somewhere like CameraCal to do the cleaning for you.
However, that doesn’t help you when you’re in the middle of the Serengeti or the Pantanal, and you have dozens of sensor spots all over your images!
All you need to do is buy the right equipment and then practise - carefully!
There’s probably a YouTube video out there that might help, and it would be useful if you had a friend to show you how.
Pros: Cleaning keeps your camera equipment working and avoids annoyances like sensor spots.
Cons: It takes time, and you need the right tools. Cleaning the sensor yourself is risky as you might end up scratching it.
Recommendation: Yes, in an ideal world, we might want to farm out all our photographic cleaning tasks to a third party, but that won’t help us much on the ground. We need to be able to clean our kit in an emergency, so it’s important that we have the right gear and skills to be able to do that.
Motor drive
Canon DSLRs come with a built-in motor drive, but Nikon ones don’t.
I don’t know why that is, but it’s a pain if you’re a Nikon user and you want fast frame rates.
I was one of those people until I invested a few hundred pounds in an MB-D18 battery pack and an EN-EL18 battery and holder.
The MB-D18 is frighteningly expensive. It’s currently selling for £499 on Amazon - and that’s before you’ve even considered the battery or the holder!
You could save yourself some money by buying a third party brand, but I genuinely believe it’s worth it.
There’s just too much of a risk that you’ll miss the perfect shot if your frame rate is too low.
I guess the easy way out would be to buy Canon. Ouch…
Pros: The MB-D18 improves the frame rate on the Nikon D850 from 7 to 9fps. (It will obviously vary for other cameras and manufacturers.)
Cons: The cost of the upgrade is significant, and it’s complicated to find exactly the right parts.
Recommendation: If your camera has a low frame rate has a low frame rate that can be improved by buying a battery pack, then I’m afraid it has to be done.
There. Is. No. Alternative.
Lens hoods
A hood obviously come with each lens, so there’s no purchase decision to be made. My only point here is that they serve a useful function: they protect the lens from sun and rain, and they’re helpful in reducing flare when taking backlit shots.
They also help to protect your lens if you accidentally drop it!
I keep mine attached at all times in the field (unless I’m shooting through a glass window at a zoo, for example).
Pros: Lens protection from both sun and rain (and impact!)
Cons: It makes your lenses a bit more unwieldy, and they can be expensive to replace. Mine fell off when I was taking pictures of a bear at the safari park in Cabárceno, and it ended up wearing it on its nose. Lenses For Hire threatened to charge me over £100 for the missing hood, but then they let me off…
Recommendation: Mount your lens hood at all times in the field - even if you’re not using your camera at the time.
Binoculars
It’s easy to be lazy and let the guides do all the spotting when you’re on a game drive, and I have to say I’ve been guilty of that a few times by not taking my binoculars with me.
Yes, I’ll always be on the lookout for wildlife (and let everyone else know if I see something), but I drew the line at using binoculars.
That’s a mistake.
There’s so much more you can see with a pair of binoculars, and it takes the pressure off all the other people in your vehicle.
At the end of the day, you’re there to take the best pictures you possibly can, so it’s the responsibility of all the guests to play their parts by coming prepared with the right equipment and keeping a proper lookout.
Pros: More sightings, better pictures
Cons: You can’t nod off on the back seat any more…!
Recommendation: Buy a decent pair of binoculars (if you don’t have one already) and take them with you on your shoots.
Rain covers
This is another item that’s often forgotten, but rain covers can be very useful - and not just in the rain!
I generally keep ‘rain covers’ on my cameras and lenses just to protect them from the elements.
It might be rain, but it might also be dust or snow or hail.
It’s very tempting to get lazy and just assume the game drive won’t go ahead in bad weather, but that’s not always the case, and there are plenty of occasions when rain can literally come out of the blue.
I was on a tiger drive in India once, and it was 47°C in the sunshine. Except, a couple of hours later, it wasn’t.
It suddenly started to rain, and the rainstorm was so unexpected that we had no way to protect ourselves and our equipment.
The vehicles were open-topped, and there were no tarpaulins or anything else we could use for cover, so for 10 minutes we just had to do the best we could to keep our precious equipment from getting soaked.
After a while, one of the staff started coming round to collect all the cameras and put them in the boot of one of the vehicles. but then, fortunately, the rain finally stopped.
If only I’d had my rain covers with me…!
Pros: Peace of mind in bad weather. You don’t want to lose thousands of pounds worth of equipment by not bothering to buy a cheap rain cover.
Cons: Something else to remember, and the cover can get in the way of the knobs and buttons on the camera sometimes and prevent the zoom or focus rings on the lens from turning properly.
Recommendation: Buy a couple of cheap rain covers for your cameras. They’ve very cheap online. Just make sure you get the right sizes for your lenses.
Insurance
I don’t believe in insurance, and the only policy I ever bought for years and years was my car insurance.
However, photography changed all that.
I now have so much money tied up in cameras, lenses and other equipment that it’s too much of a risk to do without insurance.
Fortunately, I managed to find a good broker called Infocus, and they sorted out a policy for me just before I went on my big trip to Africa in 2019.
I was glad I did, too, when a few things went wrong with my cameras, lenses and laptop.
In the end, I made claims totalling around £2,500, so I think I made the right decision!
Finding a broker to cover my trip wasn’t easy - especially when I explained that I had £25,000 of equipment that would be kept in a tent for four months!
However, Infocus were very good in settling my claims.
The process was pretty simple and straightforward, and I had the money in my account in only. a few days.
Unfortunately, that meant a big increase in my premium, but that’s another story…
Pros: Peace of mind again - especially if you have a lot of valuable equipment.
Cons: Cost, bureaucracy
Recommendation: Find yourself a good insurance broker and take out whatever policy you need. You won’t regret it…
If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.
If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.