Going to Africa, what lenses should I take?

[Kryten]

Space will be at somewhat of a premium, so I'll probably be limited to one telephoto and one or two short lenses.

How big of a lens do I need to be able to get some decent wildlife shots? We'll be going on a bunch of safaris, but I have no idea how close we'll be to anything. Also visiting several historical sites in Capetown and Johannesburg as well as Victoria falls.

I have a Canon T1i and currently have the 18-55 kit lens and a 55-250 zoom. Please offer some suggestions of other lenses you would replace these with for a trip like this. I would like to stay under $400 for any given lens at this point, new or used.

[gturner]

Hi
I would strongly suggest the 100-400 L for wildlife. Rent it... you will not regret it. Just dont drag it around the cities. Leave the 250mm behind.

The 18-55 will do most of your city work just fine.
A 35mm would also work well if you want a prime.

PM me if you are looking for any travel / photo in any of those areas, I know them all well.

[oldwolf]

How about the Canon 70-300L? You could get a teleconverter with that and get some decent shots. There was an article floating around the web about a guy that took that lens and a teleconverter on safari and he got some great images. It turned me on to the brand of teleconverter he bought too.

You'd have to rent the lens if you want to stay in budget though.

EF 70-300 f/4-5.6L IS Canon Rumors

[andrewdt]

Bottom line in Africa is that most of the time you want telephoto is in the parks during the day, so you dont need an almighty 2.8 lens that will weigh you down. I would go with a 70-300 where with 4-5.6 they are so lightweight and small. But night time though is different - go as wide open as possible over campfire lights etc with a nice wide angle portrait lens.

[gturner]

Originally Posted by oldwolf

How about the Canon 70-300L? You could get a teleconverter with that and get some decent shots. There was an article floating around the web about a guy that took that lens and a teleconverter on safari and he got some great images. It turned me on to the brand of teleconverter he bought too.

You'd have to rent the lens if you want to stay in budget though.

EF 70-300 f/4-5.6L IS Canon Rumors

for the same money the 100-400 will give you far sharper shots and MUCH faster AF.

The 1.4 TC will only take the lens to 420mm and TC 2x will not autofocus on that body.

300mm is not enough on safari IMO.

[oldwolf]

Originally Posted by gturner

for the same money the 100-400 will give you far sharper shots and MUCH faster AF.

The 1.4 TC will only take the lens to 420mm and TC 2x will not autofocus on that body.

300mm is not enough on safari IMO.

He's shooting on a crop sensor camera so with the 1.4 TC he's getting 672mm out of the 70-300L lens. Without the TC he's getting 480mm if you account for the crop factor. Will he need more than 672mm? No one knows but if he has the budget and can hire someone to carry around Sigma's 200-500mm f/2.8 then that would be great.

FIL has the 100-400L lens and wife has the 70-300L lens. The 70-300L is much lighter and the autofocus is just as fast if not faster than the 100-400L. If space is a concern then the 70-300L is smaller and lighter. If it's not then the 100-400L is a nice focal length to have.

The worse thing you can do is to not have fun when you go. Enjoy life while you can.

Make sure you post some pics when you get back though.

[gturner]

Wolf - we are going to get into the zoom vs field of view discussion here.

with the 100-400 he doesnt need the TC, which means he gets better IQ, and better AF. If he then wants to add the TC 1.4 then he has something extremely useful for added reach if needed.
I find TC ok at best, but a little soft when you don't want them to be.

Just relaying my own experience on safari. You can NEVER has too much reach.

Remember to take some sort of tripod for the sunsets.

[nathanbarlow]

i did a trip to South Africa as a 20 yr old and as a student. Most of my money was going towards getting there and doing the stuff. At the point, I had a second hand Canon D60 (6mp) and a 28-80mm f/4.3-5.6 kitlens. I really wanted fast lenses (for small DoF) but didnt have the money to buy modern lenses.

So what I did was bought older manual lenses and adapted them to fit my Canon dSLR, and spent a far bit of time getting familiar with focusing manually.

Bonus of safari, is often the animals dont move much and very slowly - due to the heat/effort. The manual lenses I took were a 200mm f3.5 prime with a 1.85x teleconverter, which basically meant i had option of 200mm at f3.5 for the small DoF effect, or a 370mm with f5.6 or f4 (lose a stop with teleconverters). Thats not even accounting for the 1.6 crop factor effect - which makes it a lot longer.

Coupled that with a 50mm f/1.8 and the kit lens I mentioned earlier

Really happy with my photos from that trip, and most of the ones that I get people going 'wow' on are taken with that old school 200mm with 1.85x converter

Feel free to PM me if you want more info

[Kryten]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far everyone. So I guess the EF 70-300mm F4.0-5.6 IS is NOT the same as the 70-300L you are talking about? There is a used one up for sale in my area asking $375. Also a EF 75-300mm F4-5.6 II for only $100, and a Tamron 28-300mm f3.5-6.3 for $275. What does the 'L' mean, is it just a faster lens?

There are also a few EFS 17-85mm f/4-5.6's in the $200-300 range and a Sigma AF 10-20mm F4.0-5.6 EX DC for $350 that have my interest.

Or would it make sense to just keep my 55-250 and put a TC on it. So many different options....

[gturner]

No, your image quality will degrade badly with a tc on your 250.
I do heaps of safari trips and promise you that the 400mm is the way to go. Go and rent one at home and test it vs your other options.