At some point in our photography journey we all feel the need to buy a long telephoto lens. The reasons for this sometimes irrational compulsion are not always the same, but whatever they may be, we should consider our options carefully when deciding what lens to buy. In the realm of telephoto lenses things get very expensive, very quickly. Take a look at the list prices for OEM super telephoto lenses that go above 300mm and be sure to have the defibrillator handy. Small used cars are often cheaper.

There are less expensive options to consider however, and Sigma Corporation have been making fairly decent super telephoto lenses (including zoom lenses) for quite some time, one of which is the subject of this review, namely the 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM.

This lens replaced the older 170-500mm Sigma which enjoyed a lot of success amongst amateur photographers. The new lens brings a couple of new features which improve the overall package substantially.

OPTICAL STABILISER
Optical stabilising is in my opinion an essential feature for any telephoto lens above 200mm. If you don’t have it in your lens you are going to have to combat lens blur by employing an alternative means of stabilising, usually in the form of a really good tripod and head. In many instances a tripod might not be feasible, especially if you are going on a long hike and want to keep weight to a minimum, so having a built-in stabiliser in your lens is a big plus, particularly one where you are able to gain 3-4 stops of shutter speed.

The performance of the OS in this Sigma lens is outstanding. I’ll be honest, I never imagined being able to hand hold a fairly big lens at 500mm at night and being able to get an image even remotely sharp, yet there I was, casually taking pictures of the city lights at night with my D700’s ISO set to 3,200 and my exposure compensation dialled down 2.5 stops. The result, once fiddled with a little in processing, is something you could actually use.

I did find that the lens made a fairly audible click whenever the OS is activated and de-activated, which is something I haven’t heard on either Canon or Nikon equivalents.

HYPER-SONIC MOTOR
The HSM in this lens works pretty well. It’s so quiet that you won’t hear the lens focussing at all. I found it relatively snappy to find autofocus in daylight, but bear in mind this is a consumer level lens, so you’re not going to experience anything like the AF performance of an OEM prime if you’re wanting to track birds in flight. For daylight sports like soccer and other forms of football you’ll be OK.

The lens tracks AF pretty well on a D700, but I suspect that this might be compromised on bodies that don’t have quite the same AF abilities. Having said that, Sigma have played a smart move by making this lens an HSM because it means you can use it on every Nikon DSLR, including the little D3000. Big market of potential users there.

BUILD QUALITY & FINISH
I must admit, I am not a big fan of Sigma finishes. I have two other Sigma lenses (15-30mm & 24-60mm) and whilst they are good optically, the paint finish on them is rubbish. The 150-500mm has the same dark grey, matt, metallic paint job on it as my other lenses and after only a couple of days in my bag it began to lose its lustre. The edges seem to get lighter and I wager it won’t take very long for the paint to begin peeling off, just like it has done on my 24-60mm lens.

The build quality is OK. I found the zoom ring to be nice and fluid. My biggest issue with it was that it zoomed the opposite way to Nikon’s lenses, which is curious because not all Sigmas seem to follow that convention. My two zoom in opposite directions to one another. Weird.

There is a lock button you can use to stop the zoom from creeping out while at 150mm. I didn’t really experience zoom creep with the “out-the-box” copy I was loaned though, so I have no comment on the usefulness of that feature.

Something I did notice about the lens is that it is a lot lighter than you’d expect it to be. OK, so it does weigh almost 2 kilos, but if you think about what you’re getting in terms of zoom range, it’s not very heavy at all. It fit nicely into my Lowepro Mini-trekker bag with the hood reversed.

TRIPOD MOUNT
The removable tripod mount is pretty big and is designed much the same as the handle-type mount you’d expect to find on a big pro tele. I only used the lens on a monopod as I don’t have a big enough plate for it to fit on my Kirk tripod head, so no comment on the effectiveness of the mount. I will say though that because the OS works so well, the only real need for a tripod would be to relieve your arms from hand holding.

OTHER FEATURES
As with all the other Sigmas I have tried and owned, you will get a nice nylon carry case for the lens. I don’t have much use for these, but I suppose that if you are keeping the lens in storage it doesn’t hurt to protect it in a case designed to fit its form. You’ll also find a spare strap for the lens itself inside the box, so when you are carrying the lens you can shoulder its own strap as opposed to the strap on your camera.

FILTERS
Forget about using C-PL (or any other) filters with this lens! The front element is a massive 86mm and if you have the hood in place getting to the filter ring is not possible unless you have really long, rubber like fingers. There is no drop in filter slot either. Personally I don’t think that most amateur photographers who are considering buying this lens will be particularly devastated by this.

OPTICAL PERFORMANCE
What do you hope to get out of a lens like this? Would you be happy with decent sharpness, good contrast, acceptable bokeh and publishable images? If so, I think you’ll be a happy owner. I found myself using it mostly at the maximum zoom range of 500mm and was pleasantly surprised by the sharpness found there. Contrast was OK, but you may have to work a little in post processing to eke out a little more.

Most of the time I had the lens set to f/8 or f/11 and the images are perky at that aperture. Shooting wide open at f/6.3 you will definitely notice a drop in sharpness and contrast, so rather sacrifice the ISO and shoot with it at smaller apertures.

Here are some photos I made with the lens on my D700 (click to enlarge):

shot at 500mm f/8 ISO 400	100% crop
shot at 150mm f/11 ISO 1600	shot at 500mm f/11 ISO 1600
shot at 380mm f/16 ISO 800	100% crop

CONCLUSION

At $1,000 it’s not a ‘cheap” lens, by any account, but it’s also not anywhere near the kind of money being asked for the rather ancient Nikon 80-400mm VR ($1,650). Given the choice between the two I’d definitely opt for the Sigma. You’re getting the latest in optical stabiliser technology, an HSM auto focus motor and an extra 100mm on the long end. This lens will prove very useful for photographers who are confident in their abilities and are looking to add a bit of reach for when they need it. If I was to buy it I could see myself using it for many things, including sports, birding and even safaris.

Many thanks to Tudor Photographic, Cape Town for supplying the sample lens. I must add that the lens I received was brand new, sealed in the box, so it was a random sample.

If you have used this lens yourself you can add your comments in our official Experiences thread for it.

Introduction

David Birdsong recently made a post here on Nikongear.com about how he used his iPhone to capture a self-portrait from his Nikon D90 using a live preview of what the camera was seeing… on the iPhone screen.

Naturally I was very curious, because ever since getting into the realm of iPhone/iPod apps I have felt a little bit like Harry Potter every time I wave around my iPod Touch - it’s a truly magical device. My entire family think I have gone bonkers and to a certain degree I suppose I am slightly obsessed with the things you can do using an iPod touch. Investigating the ability to use it as a remote controller for my D700 was too great a temptation, so I bought the onOne Remote DSLR Pro Edition from the iTunes store for $19.99 and set about exploring how it works and where I could actually find it useful.

Getting it working

To use this program you will need:

a) a laptop with wi-fi capability
b) a DSLR
c) an iPhone or iPod touch (I’ll refer to them collectively as an iDevice for the rest of the article)
d) a tripod and
e) something safe to rest your laptop on

As with any Apple iDevice application you buy it from the iTunes store and sync it to the iDevice. You also have to download the DSLR Remote server software directly from onOne’s website and install that the usual way on your laptop. Once you have it running your iDevice will find it when you run the DSLR remote application, and provided you have the camera turned on everything is golden. It really couldn’t be any simpler to get it working.

What can it control?

I can control my D700 quite a bit using the Pro Edition, including all the exposure variables. For instance, if I am in A mode, I can select the aperture that I want to shoot at, or if I am in M mode I can change both aperture and shutter speed by simply tapping on their values on my iDevice. I can also change the white balance, exposure compensation, ISO and size/quality of the recorded image. I can’t, however, change the AE mode that the camera is in (P,A,S,M), or any of the autofocus settings (AF-C, AF-S). Those have to be done on the camera itself.

Here’s a true Harry Potter feature: if I tap the Settings icon on my iPod for this application I see an option to switch on Live View. Once it’s switched on it feeds the video signal coming through the lens, onto the sensor and across the wi-fi network directly onto my iDevice screen! Sacre bleu! Tres amazing! So, if you’re prepared to leave your laptop and DSLR somewhere unattended, you could effectively use it as a surveillance camera. I think I’ll stick to using it in my studio…

Usability

Tethered shooting is usually useful in situations where your camera is stationary and where you need to get an immediate review of the picture you just took on a bigger screen than the one on the back of the camera. onOne DSLR remote offers you not only the ability to see the shot you just took on the computer screen, but as mentioned it also gives you a live view on the iDevice, so for product & still life photography it’s pretty useful to frame with Live View and then review immediately on the laptop using whatever program you usually use for that. The server software doesn’t come with a built-in image browser - it would be really cool if it did.

If you’re shooting macro or find yourself in a position where looking into the viewfinder is nearly impossible you’re going to be rather pleased with onOne’s DSLR Remote, especially as it offers you a Live View of whatever the camera is seeing. It’s also very useful in the creation of self portraits, or in studio shooting situations where you don’t have a model and are trying to set up lighting using yourself as the subject.

Auto Focus Issues

One of the things I found particularly irritating is trying to use Tripod mode in Live View. Now this is not a short-coming of the software, it’s a short-coming of the camera’s actual hardware. Unless you have a particularly brightly lit subject the tripod method of AF in Live View (contrast detection) is really useless. Forget about using it in low light - you’ll go batty. I suggest using the hand-held live view AF instead (phase detection). The difference is huge. It’s much faster and far more accurate. All you do is tap the screen and the camera flips down the mirror, achieves focus and then flips it back up to restore your Live View. Press Fire and your camera takes a picture immediately. You can switch between the two LV modes from the iDevice instead of having to dig into the Nikon custom function menu system to find it on the camera.

A short-coming of the software is that it doesn’t allow you to select an AF point on your iDevice. That would have been a really cool feature. I suppose that if it were possible to select an AF point when you are in Tripod mode with LV it would also make using phase detection AF a lot better as you’d be able to select any part of the view as a focus point, even outside of the 51 points found on the D3/700 series.

In Practise

Here’s a shot I have just taken showing the iPod’s Live View and the laptop’s previous image preview (I’m using View NX, but this could just as easily be something like Bridge or Irfan View). This illustrates perfectly the need to be able to select your AF point from the remote. If I had this feature I could have tapped the image of my hand and made that the subject of the image, rather than the laptop. Under the current system I would have to select that AF point from the camera itself, which is not possible once you have the system up and running in remote mode. BTW, I only have the iPod plugged into my laptop because I had literally run its battery flat with a few hours of testing.

Reviewing Images

Assuming you’re not reviewing the images on the laptop you can use your iDevice for this purpose. If LV is switched off the iDevice screen shows the last image taken. You can flip through all the shots taken in a session by swiping your finger across the screen and in typical iDevice fashion you only have to turn the screen in the direction you want it to view landscape or portrait orientation shots. That’s neat.

Something I found a little bit counter intuitive to the iDevice way of doing things is zooming in and panning around on your images. If you’re reviewing on the iDevice you have to double tap the section you want to zoom into in order to get a 100% view of it. You double tap again to zoom out. Panning around isn’t possible once you’re zoomed in. I’d really like it if I could zoom in at any percentage by using a two-finger stretch or pinch on the screen and then being able to pan my view from there.

If this application works on the iPad then reviewing images on the iDevice will be a lot better. For now I’ll stick to critical reviewing on the laptop since it’s never going to be that far away from where I am.

Overall Impression

I think that for the money you have an absolute bargain with onOne’s DSLR Remote Pro Ed. if you want to shoot tethered AND enjoy a few other useful features. It works with most DSLR’ s and it only costs $19.99. Compare that to the ridiculous sum of $180 being asked by Nikon for Camera Control 2 and you have to ask some serious questions of Nikon.

There are some areas of the software that could be improved, but on the whole I can recommend it without reservation. Good job onOne!

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Nikon announces new D3s

The early birds already posted their intro threads, but in case you don’t already know, there’s a new Nikon D3s in town and apparently it goes to ISO 102,400! Supposedly the 12,800 level is now as good as ISO 800 was about 5 years ago, so I guess this is very good news for photographers who shoot in barely any light at all.

As is tradition on Nikongear we have dedicated a forum board to the new model here (merged with the D3X board), so this is a great place to discuss the new machine. Our technical guru Bjørn Rørslett will hopefully be picking up a sample soon, but I must ask members to please be patient as Bjørn has been unwell of late - so try to keep the requests for info down to a dull roar.

I expect that with this announcement there will be the usual influx of new members and guests looking for information on the camera, so I will be monitoring the load on the server closely. If things get out of hand the D3s board will be only be made visible to Subscribers. For now though it is open to all.

Whilst we are on the subject of subscriptions, there are many of you who signed up for the original $10 subscription who have not updated your card details with 2Checkout. This is resulting in the renewal being declined. If you wish to re-subscribe you will have to do so at the new price of $25 a year. To avoid this please update your card details with 2Checkout when you receive the notice from them to do so.

Travel Africa with Nikongear

We have re-priced our budget safari for Kruger Park and will only keep this one open for bookings until the end of January 2010. This trip is suitable for photographers who would like to get to see and photograph wildlife in one of Africa’s legendary game parks without all the luxury and at an affordable price. For all the details and pricing take a look here.

We are still planning a safari to Namibia to do landscapes with Carolyn Guild as our instructor for next year too, so if you are interested in that please get in touch with me ASAP so that we can formulate some dates and do a bit more planning of the logistics. This trip won’t be about wildlife, but rather about landscapes and culture. Our intrepid guide Pepe Jones leaves for a two week trip to Namibia today and will be scouting various locations for us while she is there.

Also there will be an upmarket safari in September or October 2010 to one of the top private game reserves within the Kruger Park, namely Sabi-Sabi. This one will be for serious wildlife photographers who want to get off road and really close to the game, both on foot and in a vehicle. How close? Just take a look here! Ann Shelbourne did an optional extension to our last safari and went to stay in a couple of the private reserves in KNP. In her own words:

“For photographers, I think that these private reserves are something that they really should not miss. You don’t take your own vehicles off-road, you go in theirs. The Rangers and their Trackers know both their territory and the animals who live there intimately; and have a pretty clear idea of where any group of animals can be found at any given time so you often get up-close views of all of the “Big Five” in a single drive. If you are choosing Private Reserves, go for the smaller ones which take no more than 20 guests at a time — but you need to get your reservations in very early because those places fill up very fast.”

I’m pulling out all the stops for that trip and will hopefully have a full itinerary and pricing available for Nikongear members closer to December. The place we will be staying at only allows for 12 people and we will be booking out the entire camp for 4 nights! If you are interested in this trip and September or October 2010 agrees with your travel schedule, you need to get in touch with me pretty quickly because this is one trip that you will not want to miss. As mentioned there will only be 12 shared seats available or 6 single seats and I expect that these will go fast. Drop me a line if you want to pre-book this one.

If the Kruger Park and South Africa doesn’t appeal to you I can put you in touch with another professional photographer who does safaris to Tanzania and has a few places to fill on those. Full details on request.

Take it easy!

A blog series by afx & millirehm

Case study 2 Developing a DIY bird-photography safari

This is the story of a dream that has not yet been concluded. There was a dream, to go to the Romanian Danube Delta. This largest European wetland area (5000 square kilometers) offers the option of photographing birds similar to an African safari.

But there are special things to consider.

Most of the Danube delta is covered by reed and water. There are settlements, of course, but while shooting you rarely can rely on solid ground. You need a boat, and you need a guide who knows the delta otherwise you are lost.

You can’t rely on a tripod as you are used to in other regions. In case of our travel group we had chosen May for our trip because it is an attractive time of the year and we wanted to avoid the inhuman hot and humid summer temperatures. There had been a lot of rain and consequent floods so there was even less opportunity to get solid ground beneath my feet.

So far I have made stage 1 the year 2005, the  reconnaissance trip. Standard prearranged Danube Delta trips are shorter. I did 10 days. We were traveling around on a small motorized vessel, and I tried to get an overview where to find what. Whereas there are species you can find everywhere in the Delta it appears that some of them only live in specific regions.

My equipment was rather minimal. A Nikon F4 body, a 28 mm and a 105 mm f/2.8 Micro for general purposes and my 400 mm f/5,6 Nikkor together with a TC14B converter served as the workhorse for bird photography. A Rimowa Ultralight case-bag which is waterproof and floats appears to be a necessary piece of equipment for the Danube delta environment. Having sufficient protection against water is a mandatory requirement and makes one much less nervous.

I made the decision to use 35 mm Film for the following reasons: digital SLR photography was early in its development curve and market success. The digital Nikon bodies were way too expensive for me. (Now I am well equipped but this was before my partial shift to the digital photography world.) And most important - the power supply. I was making a 10 days trip and switching the place to spend the night often. I did not know what I exactly had to expect,

Batteries require recharging often. There was no guarantee that there would be the required continuous power supply for the short charging intervals of a digital camera body.

Lessons learned:

The reconnaissance mission was successful for giving me initial knowledge about the delta and where to find what. The estimation that I will be way off the usual infrastructural standards was proven right.

On the downside I heavily underestimated what the vibrations of the boats engine will cause. There was only one opportunity to get on a rowing boat, most of the time we were spending on the motor vessel. Even though I tried everything not to hard-link equipment to boats parts and use my body for vibration reduction it was not sufficient. Having VR would promise some improvement for the delta conditions, but still would not be sufficient. I guess I’d need a Gyro-Stabilizer, but these are expensive, energy consuming and you can’t call them silent and as well so I don’t see this as a solution.

For the next time I am planning to have more time, stay longer at one place (which was impossible within the framework of the guided tour last time), use a motor vessel only for the intermediate long distance transfers and rely on rowing boats, and a guide with better support for photographers needs. They can also use the small channels which are outside reach for the bigger boats.

Actually it was a rather small motor- boat but its draft was too deep for a lot of channels (and its not easy to stop and go like you can with a car and would have required a more flexible crew)

I need a home base with the required infrastructure enabling me to go digital.

I would need a local guide that is more flexible than the last one (it was a very individual kind of travel but not what you really would need for photography -i.e. using the golden hours in the morning.

Getting basic skills in Romanian language would be advantageous for the required communication with the guide. Be warned: Taking a boat, and going on your own is by no way an option. Due to the size and structure of the Delta you will almost certainly get lost.

For the next time I will get waterproof bags like kayak-drivers are using to protect bigger lenses and equipment. Before my last trip I just had acquired the 600 mm f/4 MF. As it is more than 6kg I decided to leave it at home due to the uncertainty in what travel conditions I would end up. I was right I - could not have made proper use of this lens on the conditions of this trip but a range of 600 mm and  the faster f/4 would have come handy.

For the next time I’d take my AF-S 500 mm with me, (in this special case a 600 VR could make sense, but I simply don’t have it and won’t afford another 600) and a 200-400 f/4 VR zoom which I currently don’t own. Together with a DX and an FX body this would be the perfect combination for a Danube delta bird safari.

Monopod and Bean bag, some hide improvisation will complete the equipment

Swimming Hide usually is a revolutionary idea, but it requires that you move inside the water and as the delta is full of bloodsucking creatures, this is not recommended.

I don’t know when I will be ready to go for the next time but it is a long term project but there will be a stage 2.

Case study 3 The “home-safari” as the most simple approach

For some people safaris in more distant/exotic countries may not be an option due to resource or  time constraints, or different considerations. But even in this case all hope is not lost, a kind of “home-safari” may be the option of choice, and it’s the easiest thing to plan a safari in your home environment.

If it’s o.K. for your view and imagination, you might get similar excitement than in a real safari even when sometimes wild-life conditions (like in Europe) require to using a hide and a lot of waiting. But even Europe is not that bad, there are options for wildlife photography while moving around , including car-based safaris as well.

As there is always a benefit. These “small scale” safaris may not be the big thing but they are cheaper than flying to exotic destinations, it is also a good way to get familiar with your gear so that you know how to use it instinctively through training. Usually it is easier to get sufficient power supply and your equipment has not be compromised by the requirements of long-distance travels.

An extended discussion by other Nikongear members on ’safari’ issues may be read at this thread

A blog series by afx & millirehm

Misc On-Safari Information

Non photographer gear that I found helpful:

Inflatable seat cushions can make bumpy rides in open safari vehicles much more enjoyable - especially if you have a weak back. Using trousers with zip off legs, known as ‘convertibles’ in the catalogs - will make it easier to adjust to temperature changes during the day.

Safari shirts with inside pockets are useful to keep your papers and money always on you. Liquid soap from a small hotel bottle does not take up much space in your pocket and can come in handy on the road. Brimmed hats are essential if you are without sunshade for hours during the day (baseball caps leave your ears exposed and lead to nicely roasted ears).

Organizational Things

By the time you have enough gear collected to call this a photo safari, you will have quite a bit of money invested in your gear. Make sure you have insurance with world wide coverage that covers theft from vehicles and on the street (and not just secure hotel rooms) as well as your own silliness like inadvertently dropping a lens down deep gorges.  Sometimes there is an option to attach photo gear to other insurance. This option usually costs less than dedicated photo insurance.

Depending on where you go to, make sure you have all the right immunizations.

Medical insurance and other documentation

If you are traveling a long distance from your home and especially to a country that has, perhaps, less than your standard health care, it would be advisable to consider medical insurance with evacuation protection. That will allow you, if injured or ill, to be evacuated to your home country or a region with adequate health care. Evacuation with a serious injury can easily cost $100,000 and, while rare, is a definite consideration. Read the policies carefully.

Check the validity of your passport and visa requirements. Beyond the normal visas, many countries have odd requirements; for example that your passport not expire for some number of months past your trip or that there be some number of additional blank pages in your passport.

Make sure any connection flights leave enough room to actually reach the connecting flight when planning the trip. It is no fun jogging though an airport with several security check points carrying a heavy photo backpack when your Munich - Zurich flight is half an hour late and you only had 45 minutes to begin with to catch the plane to Dar es Salam. This is crucial when you change airlines or when you book all the legs by yourself and separately.

Booking rental cars in advance via an international agency is usually the better method to get a car from an agency that has lots of support throughout the country. Depending on where you go to a 4WD might be necessary or not (I never had one). Places like Krueger or Etosha are easy in that respect. If you drive in places where gas stations are far apart, also arrange for a petrol can and a second spare tire in advance. It’s no fun sitting 50Km outside Walfish Bay without gas when the sun sets and you don’t even have camping gear with you (I was stupid enough to trust the gas gauge)…..

In most African countries it is better to exchange money in the country then at home. So bring Euros, Dollars or whatever and exchange it there.

International Travel

Hopefully this is not your first international trip and you know what to bring along for yourself in general….

Make sure you have carry photocopies of copies of your passport, tickets and your gear insurance list with the serial numbers in various pieces of luggage.

A good medical kit is essential. Especially anti inflammatory stuff, painkillers, anti diarrhea medicine, and whatever you usually use to handle sprained ankles. The further away from cities you are, the more you are dependent on yourself. (I’ve been on a trip with a macho man that did not bring anything, even laughed about my preparations and then had to grudgingly admit that our kit saved his butt.). Of course sunscreen and mosquito repellent are a must. If you travel in a malaria area, stay away from Resorchin and Lariam, a lot of people do get interesting side effects. Malarone is much more friendly to your stomach and mind.

Spread your gear into sensitive essentials for the hand luggage and the other stuff in the checked luggage. Bring clothing that fits the area and is easy to wash.

I’d rather bring less clothing and wash on the trip than leave other essentials at home. In many camps in the parks you can get your laundry done easily and cheaply.

Heavy stuff that is replaceable or not mandatory should be always in checked luggage.

Even if you’ve booked fully equipped huts in the big parks in southern Africa, bring one sharp knife and a basic camper cutlery set. You never know… If you are a coffee addict like me, be prepared for a shock. In the parks and even in hotels depending on country, the standard coffee is instant (and the milk is white powder). Having a plastic Bodum travel presspott and our own coffee supply can get you through this (and you might make friends quickly with other travels if you share).

A good multitool with pliers is always handy. On out first trip to South Africa the fastener for the hood of the rented VW Jetta vibrated loose while driving at 80Kph along a gravel road. Apart from this being an interesting experience in itself, we had to wait ’till someone showed up with tools to fix it. If I’d had my Swisstool already then, that break would have been much shorter.

Travel Itself

On your travel day, make sure you have comfortable clothes with lots of (inside) pockets to store your papers and money. A photo vest can hold gear if your camera backpack looks already overweight. Wear your heaviest boots on the flight instead of putting them into your checked luggage (bring extra socks to walk around in the cabin). Side pockets of trousers can be useful for storing glasses, reading material for the trip etc..

Once you arrive, get some money changed at the airport. In some countries paying with Dollars or now also Euro is preferred over the local currency, so check in advance on how much you’ll need. Some places will charge credit card fees on top if you want to pay by credit card, again, check in advance (I ran into that problem in our hotel in Zanzibar).

If you are on a trip with self accommodation and self catering, inquire for the next shopping center. In South Africa we usually picked up some Styrofoam insulation boxes to keep our stuff fresh and bought some plastic dishes before setting out for Krueger. Why bother putting it in your limited airline luggage if it can be bought cheap locally (and someone will make good use of it when you return the car). Part of the fun experience is stopping at local markets and buying fresh produce and fruits. This depends a bit on the country though. Namibia for example is quite dry, so the choices there are not as abundant as in South Africa.

Generally make sure you get gas when you can and do not trust the gas gauge (see the example above about being stranded outside Walfish bay…). If you are taking small planes to the parks, make sure you have a camera and something in the range 28-100mm ready. Even shooting through dirty airplane windows will give you at least memory shots for yourself.

Shooting

If you are in camps in public parks, you will probably have regulations that govern when you can access the park, something like gates open at 6:30 in the morning and close at 18:00 at night. Combine that with sunrise/sunset and you’ll have your schedule set out.

Be among the first to be through the gate in the morning (On our first trip to Krueger I was traveling with friends in several groups and we had a competition going who was the first to line up at the gate in the morning). Use the next two to three hours for shooting, then turn in for brunch, rest etc. Get out again at 3 hours before the gates close.

Most parks do not allow you to get out of the vehicle on the road. So plan your rest stops accordingly. Of course you can drive around all day and see more. But the light will be not very pleasing and you will tire much more while usually not gaining much in photo opportunities.

In Krueger we tried to be at a camp always before the restaurants close for breakfast to grab a big brunch.

If you stay outside a park, you might be even further restricted and not be able to enter long after sunrise and you’ll have to be out before sunset. This of course is not desirable, so check in advance.

Paying higher fees for staying inside can quickly pay off with better photo opportunities. In Namibia I did not plan for self catering. So we had to stay in the hotel outside the Sossuvlei park. If we’d had stayed inside on the campground, we could have gotten to the vlei much earlier with much more interesting light.

If you are self driving in a regular car, and you are two people, spread to front and back row instead of sitting side by side. This allows each of you to get to each side of the car quickly.

If you have a driver from the camp, make sure he knows what you are interested in. A knowledgeable driver/guide can make a huge difference for the trip. Make sure you engage him in your activities. Show what you are shooting. If you develop a good interaction with your driver,  you and he will have a more pleasurable day and you will get what you want more easily. Tipping is another good way of keeping your driver happy.

Our driver in Tanzania was exceptional. He already knew our travel companion and his desires. So we spend little time on things that did not interest us photographically but went straight for action.

As you will be usually shooting from a car you need to think about how you support your long glass in the vehicle. Tripods are usually too big unless you are in an open car with few passengers (A tripod works well in an open Landrover with only two people). I found monopods work well in open cars if there is not enough space for a tripod.

Clamps on the windows/doors can be used or just beanbags over the windows. I once used pipe insulation material to rest the lens on the window. The more people there are in the car the more unwanted movements will happen. Bolting a lens to a window clamp can be quite cumbersome then. On the other hand, if you only lean your lens on a beanbag, you constantly need to hold it. Use all the long lens techniques you hopefully trained in advance.

Keep in mind that a car window leads to a specific camera position in relation to your subject. It might be too high or low. In open vehicles, crouching down and shooting below the railing might give you a more interesting angle. Or for shorter focal lengths, attach the camera to a monopod, prefocus it, lower it to the ground and use a cable release to get a different angle

Getting low in a boat as close to the waterline as possible is also quite useful. I still don’t own any VR lenses, so I can’t offer specific advice here. Theoretically, they should be very useful in your typical safari shooting situation.

While driving around make sure no gear is unattached. Lens caps and other small items easily get lost on bumpy rides (I did mention to bring spares, did I?) and flying cameras are not something you want to see. A photo vest helps to quickly store and retrieve the smaller stuff.

If you can get out of the car for shooting, watch your environment. Boots and long pants help to protect your feet and legs from various thorny things and hungry insects, being alert helps against being surprised by wildlife. When you are outside of the car, a beanbag can help you getting shots at ground level. A few rolled up t-shirts will do as well.

Typically you will drive up to some interesting animal and start shooting. Now instead of just blasting away, make good use of the RGB histogram after the first few shots and check your exposure. There is no excuse for having series of under or over exposures anymore with digital cameras. Zooming in occasionally will show you whether your current setting will yield sharp images.

If you have not scared off the animal by now work on your composition. Think about what you are shooting. Instead of the usually full frame centered animal shots, try to get some that include the environment or go for details.

On my Tanzania trip I initially tried to work with a fixed sunny or shady WB but quickly gave up and went back to auto WB with a slight warm shift as adjusting the WB constantly proved to be quite annoying and inefficient while not giving me any better results than auto  anyway. Standard exposure setting was center weighted with a -0.7 compensation.

If this is your first safari, make sure you trained in wildlife parks at home first. I have a year pass for a local pace 15min from home and go there quite often. Most of the time the shots are nothing new. But it allows me to train with my gear and commit thinks to muscle memory so that I can react faster once I need to get the shot.

Daily Routine

When coming back to camp, copy your CF cards to your storage devices. I usually copy from CF to laptop first, then to an external backup disk. Then I start culling on the laptop. The images on the external disk never get culled, just in case I mess up.

During or after the first culling start to caption your images while your memory is fresh. You can’t have enough notes….

You will have a crowd around you quickly if you do your culling/captioning at the camp bar. For me the funniest things where the complaints about the shots that I deleted. Most onlookers  claimed that they would have been happy to get the shots that I nuked.

Always make sure your batteries are charging while in camp. Bringing your own power strip is helpful when trying to run battery chargers and a laptop at the same time (and you’ll need only one plug converter).

Check your lenses for dust and examine your sensor (shoot a bright sky at F22). A good blower should be sufficient to get rid of most of the daily dust.

A blog series by afx & Millirehm

Case study1: Planning An African Wildlife photo Safari

So you want to go on a photo safari. Great! Here are some practical tips that hopefully can help you with preparation and execution.

While this text has a focus on the classic African wildlife destinations (based on my experience in South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania), it can be applied to other forms of photo travel and and other continents as well.

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Scouting out the Destination

On our Tanzania trip in 2007 the only thing given initially was the camp at Selous and the dates because of the arrangements of our travel companion. The hotel in Dar es Salaam was found by Googling (we found quite a few trip reports that recommended specific places) and cross referencing that with the tour guides. The hotel on Zanzibar was also the result of similar research coupled with the desire to have sunsets over the ocean (which translates to a west coast accommodation in contrast to the major tourist resorts on the east coast). Here we hoped to make a day trip from the hotel to an island to shoot tree crabs. Well, this is also a place where we should have booked ahead so we missed that opportunity (a good incentive to come back).

On South Africa safaris in the ’90s we only booked the parks and the first night after arrival in advance and then we did everything else via local bed and breakfast guides obtained at the AA (the local auto mobile club) and only called one day ahead (of course that was not during the main South African holiday seasons).

Once you found your destination, use Google to find out about as much as you can. This includes seasonal information, accommodation and travel information, airlines fares, local security considerations, etc. Buy several of the usual travel guides and check them for advance information that helps your planning. Check the local tourist boards and see what they have to offer. As some destinations have strict limits you might need to book more than a year in advance (for example various wilderness trails in South Africa). So start checking and planning early.

Checking about your destination online will help you find comments from other travelers which should make it easier to decide on accommodation, choice of locations and operators and other details.

My trips were mostly self organized but I asked friends who have been there already for their advice beforehand. The trip to Namibia in 2000 was the only one where I relied heavily on an (unfortunately no longer operating) travel agency. I only gave them some cornerstones and they arranged the whole trip. Those guys where an exception. Most travel agencies where I asked about Safaris where either horrendously expensive or totally clueless.

In general, you have the choice between three types of safaris: you can either book a completely ready made packages for photo safaris, hop onto a regular tour, or organize it all on your own (potentially with the help of a travel agency). How you do this depends on your budget (the more ready made, the more expensive), your level of adventure and your willingness on spending time on preparations. While ready made photo trips are probably the most convenient especially for first time safari travelers, they are also the most expensive form. Using regular travel packages will usually be slightly cheaper but have the huge inconvenience that they are not geared towards photographers which means the schedule does not take into account the needs of a photographer for light and time to prepare good shots. You will also share a vehicle with people that probably do not understand your need to move about in the vehicle to position your lens properly or to be perfectly still while shooting. And you still pay much more than you would if you organized it yourself (I usually squeeze 30% more time at the destination out of DIY organization vs. ready made packages). So if you are on a budget, DIY is usually the best way to go. And that means investing time in planning and finding out as much as you can in advance.

A typical trap people fall into when going on such a trip is to cram too much into too short a time. Visiting Krueger park, the Cape and the garden Route in South Africa within a week is a typical nonsense trip that people end up doing. You’ll spend at least as much time in travel within the country as you spend really seeing and shooting things if you cram too much into your schedule. So try to set up trips of at least two weeks and try not to cover to many things and too much miles while you’re there. A place like Kruger National Park needs at least 5 days. And as you are doing this on your vacation time, rushing from place to place is not really helpful to get relaxed and comfortable, which is a prime reason to go on vacation. For all our Kruger park trips we had one night between arrival in Johannesburg and arriving in Kruger. That gave us enough time to shop for provisions and getting there without wrecking the car. And we stayed in Kruger for ten or more days, only covering less then half of the park each trip. After all, you’re there to see things, not to tick them off on a shopping list.

A good way to structure things is to plan a few nights in an initial location where you get accustomed to the country, just take it easy and get attuned to your surroundings while spending more time at the pool than chasing images. Then go off to your core safari destinations and at the end, see that you find a comfortable place to hang out a few more days taking it easy and winding down. That type of schedule is also more compatible with spouses traveling along. For example on my 2007 Tanzania trip we spent a few days near Dar es Salam in a hotel, did a simple city trip and just tried to mentally arrive before we went off to the Selous. Winding down was on the beach in Zanzibar for a few days (which also included photo opportunities of course, but also lots of hanging out at the beach).

Another thing to keep in mind when planning the trip is the season you will travel into. Being stuck in heavy rain all time does not make sense even though rain can add quite a bit to the mood. So check whether your planned schedule fits with the local season.

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Equipment

What to bring on a photo safari is often asked in photography forums and there is a wide range of answers. Some annoying wisecracks maintain that Africa has lots of sun, so don’t bother bringing fast lenses. This of course is crap as the most interesting light is in the morning and evening. Also, African wildlife is smart enough to not move much during the heat of the day. Shooting snoring lions in a mid day blaze is not too exciting. It is much more interesting to capture animals in action in nice light.

So after you have read about the long glass above, here are some safari specific recommendations:

On DX I found the 300/2.8 with the TCs to be near perfect, though not as versatile as a 200-400VR, leading occasionally to lost opportunities due to the time needed to add or remove a TC.

Unless you are a macro buff, using a simple Canon 500D in front of the 80-200/2.8 is a good light weight travel solution.

So should you bring an FX or a DX body? I’d say both if you can. A D300 or any of the other DX sensors will give you reach which is always useful for wildlife . On the other hand a big pixel FX (D700, D3) will give you a better chance to capture furry and feathered creatures when the light is low without killing details in fur and feather (it gives you at least one stop).

So a perfect kit would be 14-24/2.8, 24-70/2.8, 70-200/2.8, 200-400/4 plus TC 14 and TC17 with D300+MBD10 and a D3 or D700+MBD10. Add the 500D and maybe a 50/1.8 and you’re all set (ok, that is the pricey option, but the earlier generic lens section should give you enough hints on how to adjust to your budget).

Whatever body you end up choosing, do not travel with one body only. If your collection does not have two bodies, rent one or buy a used one before the trip that you sell afterwards. On half of my trips so far I had a problem with a body. A second body not only helps you to continue if there are problems in the first one, but it also reduces the number of lens changes and therefore the risk of getting dust on the sensor. Plus you can react quicker when not needing to change lenses.

Should you bring a flash? I’d say yes. There are occasions in the camp or even with wildlife where a flash comes in handy. In some parks (Etosha for example) you can sit at waterholes during the night. The light there is often not sufficient for shooting, so a flash helps. Using a “Better Beamer” to focus the beam of the flash can be quite useful (never used one myself though, I just added another flash, triggered by the first one via an SU-4 trigger).

Of course the usual assortment of lens and sensor cleaning kits, micro fiber cloth, blower, remote release, spare caps is implicit.

One advantage of using a D700 with an MBD10 over a D3 is that you can use AA batteries, so even a lost charger will not hold you up.

Bring binoculars. Especially when traveling with non photographers. They do not have your long lens to see through, so giving them binoculars keeps them busy while you are getting the shot. The last time I forgot that rule and I paid dearly for it…..

Unless you have a body with a voice recorder, a small digital dicta-phone can be quite useful for recording meta information while on the trip. Or if you are proficient enough, bring along audio recording gear to capture live sound that you can later on add to image slide shows (high on my to-do list for the next trip as I do have my personal radio journalist with me and that will keep her busy ;-)).

Bring a tripod, monopod and other forms of camera support. What to bring exactly, depends on your environment. See the shooting section. In general, make sure all support systems use the same clamping mechanism (preferably Arca-Swiss style) so that switching around is easy.

Also an assortment of Velcro tape, cable binders and small clamps can be quite useful especially when shooting in camp or with macro work. A big piece of cloth to cover the gear while driving can help in dusty environments. On my Namibia trip I was so paranoid about dust, that I set out with each lens in a ziplock bag. Looking back, I’d say this was overkill.

If you plan on hiking, make sure your backpack fits your back. Test in advance. My 2m frame absolutely disagrees with Tamrac Expedition backpacks. But I only learned that after I bought one and I had to buy different type on short notice.

Apart from that any rugged bag or backpack will do, some are more airline friendly and efficient than others. My preferences are Tamrac for shoulder bags, LowePro for serious backpacks and ThinkTank Photo for efficient travel gear.

Although modern big lenses and cameras don’t fit very well in photo vests, I still use them to keep caps, memory cards and other titbits in reach.

For the digital shooter one of the biggest questions is where to store the images. Typical options are to bring enough cards for the whole trip, use an image tank or bring a (sub)notebook. Cards is usually not the best option as you will need many of them. Image tanks are the best to use if power is absolutely limited. The most comfortable solution is to use a small laptop if you are in camps with electricity. Add an external disk for backup and a card-reader and you’re ready to go. I used an old Thinkpad T30, small enough, no commercial value anymore and good enough for a first screening. If you bring a laptop, bring a second USB/firewire attached disk for backup. And any Linux boot CD. That saved my butt in Hungary once when the laptop’s disk went dead. I could boot from the Linux CD, mount CF cards and external backup disk and copy my shots over. If you are not familiar with Linux, train this first while at home (and yes, that also works on Macs, even the PowerPC based ones with the right Linux Distro).

A blog series by afx & Millirehm

Miscellaneous knowledge (pre-safari)

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Metering

The history of photography has brought us a lot of methods or gadgets to determine the desired exposure, the sunny f/16 rule, using hand-held light meters, using the camera’s measuring and  exposure modes, check against the display.

Choosing your cameras metering mode

Centre weighted and Spot metering serves as your a stable basis for your own correction, whereas multi-pattern metering (aka matrix metering) gives more control to the camera and although the results often are very sophisticated, it has more of a black box approach from the photographers viewpoint.

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In Flight Action

When doing action photography of birds in flight you frequently need to deal with a rapidly changing background . In these situations,  especially when photographing against the sky, automatics will not give you reliable exposure any more.

There are two workarounds to deal with that. Set the camera to M, measure some neutral object, set aperture and shutter speed and then leave it as it is and shoot (under sunny conditions in middle Europe I often end up with f/4 and 1/500 at ISO 100).

Spot metering gives the possibility just to measure the target. In former days this was more for the slow approach and unusable for action. In modern cameras, the option of hard linking spot metering to the active AF field range theoretically offers the possibility of tracking the main subject to measure it while at the same time staying on automatic settings. This approach shows promise but how valuable it really is still to be tested out.

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Knowledge about animals with special focus on birds

Biological/ecological knowledge and insight of the environment your living objects of interest are to be found is at least as important as having the best gear you can find. You can improve your chances of success if you know when animals are active and what the typical ecosystems they prefer are. And don’t forget acoustics. A lot of animals (especially birds) create unique sounds. Knowing their voices enables you to locate them, even when you don’t see them first hand. If you can hear a bird approaching his nest this makes you more alert and better prepared for upcoming photo opportunities.

A positive side effect of increased knowledge: it enables you to treat your objects of interest respectfully and stay outside of their critical distance. In protected areas appropriate behaviour is a must for peaceful coexistence with national park rangers, etc.

In many world regions wildlife has adapted to landscape formed by mankind’s culture, animals have moved into urban and suburban regions. They are still wildlife, but maybe less shy, thus increasing the chance of a good shot.

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A few words about “digi-scoping”

The availability of compact digital cameras caused the evolution of a new branch of photography. Birdwatchers are making extended use of the telescopes in their mandatory equipment by using digital cameras to capture their eyepiece’s image. Coupling devices were developed and are available on the market (sometimes for ridiculous prices). The promise: get good bird shots without carrying too much stuff.

Brief summary: I have seen digiscoped images (small birds at rather large distance) you simply can’t get with SLR-equipment, and despite the disadvantage in using this method, the image quality was not bad. But my personal experience is that the success rate is rather low - the shutter delays are long so you can’t snap a shot and do fast action, to avoid vibration is difficult.

I have used both, there is no comparison if you once have seen what you can do with a fast and modern SLR and a supertele, but there remains an interesting niche.

Supporting needs: tripods, monopod and heads

One thing should be very clear, “Big glass” superteles are mainly not for free-hand use, but require some support. Whereas a 400 f/3,5 or a 300 f/2,8  can be used free hand this   becomes futile with longer ones. Whereas I still can use my 500 like that, but rarely find it making sense,  it is impossible to use a 6+kg 600mm manual focus lens. I can hold it but not hold and focus it at the same time, because it is unbalanced. Most of the weight is concentrated on the front element. the focusing ring is way behind. The modern 600 VR is lighter (at the price of a poor collar) but against all advertisement (cite Nikon Pro) not really a free-hander.

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Monopod

is always a compromise but can be very helpful in just supporting the lens so you don’t need to hold its full weight. A monopod extends the time range of handling big glass superteles significantly. Burzynski and others (Kirk, RRS) offers a nice piece of gear to support a monopod head (a tuned Manfrotto XXX). Whereas a head is not required on a monopod, this special gives additional degrees of freedom in nature photography.

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Tripod

is the main supporting gear of supertele use, and the most comfortable (after you have brought it in position). It should be a stable tripod/head combination. The best are Sachtlers, but I am afraid they are not compact enough for flight travel.

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Ballheads

Ballheads are good for a vast range of opportunities but are not the proper heads for Superteles. They still may be the best compromise for travel. Tilting is the main issue. There is the FLM-centerball series that enables an additional tilt control knob, but Its hard to imagine that this could be sufficient for 6 kg lens plus power-driven camera (worse FLMs are reported to suffer from flawed design (afx: I can attest to that, FLM, never again…)).

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Gimbal heads

The best for using superteles are Gimbal type heads

There are epigones now but nothing comes near the legendary Wimberley head ( now available in the enhanced Mark II version). Its absolutely great. You can adjust it in a way that you don’t feel the weight of the lens at all. With most of the common camera lens combinations it enables the combo to stay in every given position if you let it loose (some of the completely faulty constructed Nikkors require a replacement of their tripod connector otherwise it wont work because the distance is too high). It’s a dream for action photography, for following birds in flight. For the latter you can easily get down on your knees and bring the combo in steep angles to capture birds right above you. You can’t do that with any other tool. What you get is nearly free-hand flexibility with tripod support.

The downsides: Expensive, heavy, not compact (so it does not travel very easy), and as it offers more surface and leverage to wind it is more subject to wind generated vibrations (Especially side winds) than the Burzynski head described below.

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Wimberley sidekick

I have no personal experience with that tool , but the sidekick is more of a traveler than its bigger sister. Together with a strong ballhead it offers a Wimberley type comfort - lacking the possibility that everything stays in position. No personal experience.

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Video heads

(like the sachtlers) are reported to be a good solution. Heavy and very expensive, and not as flexible as a gimbal head like the Wimberley

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Burzynski head

It’s a ballhead and it is not. It’s a 2D and it has a broad basis and narrow heights and therefore offers a unique height/diameter ratio, which gives it incredible stability. In terms of stability and vibration but also craftsmanship it is the best tripod-head I ever had in my hands, full-stop. But even with the friction control of this you cant avoid the tilting problem. For static situations it is ok but not for pursuing birds in flight, here the Wimberley has its domain. Depending on what I want to do I decide which head I take. All of my heads are equipped with Arca-type coupling mechanism, and all the lenses have Burzynski plates (the way their corners are shaped makes it easier to sneak in the plate into the rail)

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Mounting consideration

Super-teles have a lot of momentum and leverage. Protecting all (ideally) connections to ensure that only your lens is panning (doing so only when it is not fixed) and nothing else is a must. For your lens mount you need that means you need at least two mounting points for the quick release plate. My 500mm and 600mm offer 3 /2 threads so this is not a problem here. For lenses only providing one mount point, I recommend drilling an additional hole and put in an additional special screw or provisionally just take the screw to put additional pressure (for my 80-200 that appears to be sufficient so far).

I have not used VR lenses myself so far. They might enhance your options, but they don’t make a tripod useless.

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Special “big glass” requirements for shooting technique

Evidently your physical shape is more important when working with super-teles than it is in any other type of photography using a 35mm like format. To say it short, you need muscles! :-). Carrying them around, holding them (free hand) can make you tired earlier both physically and mentally. As a consequence agility and concentration are reduced, that may have an effect on reaction time and creativity.

Two consequences: be prepared for the additional power drain and train as much as you can, plus use all means of support you can get your hands on.

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Camera bodies

There was a time when the camera was just a film holder, well not  in terms of speed and features, but given somewhat accurate shutter speed steering the IQ was determined by optics and the film only and it was easy to upgrade older or even ancient cameras with better film. The digital era has removed this equality, the sensor and the algorithms behind them have become of crucial importance. Based on current experience we would recommend a two-fold way. Taking an FX body for making use of its high ISO reduced noise in low light and even more important their superior dynamic range. The main reason a DX body is still favourable  is the additional range you get at at superior resolution over cropping DX out of an FX body.

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Binoculars

In addition to other useful side effects described in the African safari section below, binoculars extend the range of your perception, makes you detect approaching animals earlier, and can bring additional joy even if observed animals don’t enter your photographic range.

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Power supplies

Mechanical cameras were the perfect candidates for expeditions. Cameras like the F4 or F5 were more energy consuming. Besides some advantages the digital camera era brought increased dependencies. Better batteries like the EN-EL4 appeared to have mitigated this problem a little bit. But this is a crucial point to consider when planning your trip - especially if it is a round trip. Check out the charging opportunities. Be sure to have enough batteries with you and a backup charger if possible. Although it may sound trivial beware that when you travel to different countries you may face not only different grid voltage/frequencies but also different types of plugs. You may need adapters. Depending on the situation a 12V car adapter might be useful too.

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Editor’s footnote: Nikongear would like to thank afx and Millirehm for so kindly allowing us to publish this 4 part series here on Nikongear. We hope that this guide to the gear used on safaris will be helpful to all our members and hopefully one day we’ll see you on one of our African Safaris! Also, please note that there has been an addition to part III in the form of commentary on the 200-400mm f/4 super tele.

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Super Telephoto - Experiences with “big glass” 600mm f/4, 500mm f/4, 400mm f/3.5, 300mm f/2.8

by afx & millirehm

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600mm f/4 AI-S

There are several versions of this lens. Here we refer to the very first one. With a weight of 6.3 kg, it belongs to the heaviest group of lenses Nikon ever produced. Using a lens like that forces a more static use just by its momentum. On the other hand, as a benefit, this series includes a massive and sturdy tripod mount and still can serve as an example how a solid mount can look like. Newer series decrease the quality of this essential element with each iteration. Usage with Teleconverters: TC14B works ok, on film TC301 no advantage over using a TC201 , but heavy vignetting issues with using TC301 with a DX body, at least with a D200. (modified TCXXE no experience.) The build in lens hood offers a very solid construction and would be the theoretically the best principle, but unfortunately this built-in approach leads to the consequence that it is not long and therefore effective enough. Later constructions saw Nikon resolving this issues at the price of unwieldy lens shades that required reverse mounting for transport purposes.

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500mm f/4  AF-S

An absolute dream lens –full stop. One of the advantages of Af-S lenses is that you can do manual override over AF. As action—photography requires continuous AF settings you often end up with AF overriding your manual focusing. This is the reason why AF-S telephoto lenses offer AF-stop buttons on the lens barrel. Well I for one am not satisfied with this solution. Compared to my other AF-S teles the stop button appears to be responding less reliable to my pressing fingers. I don’t know whether all 500s are suffering on this effect or just my specimen. To avoid AF-stop buttons there is yet another approach: not to use the shutter release but rather the AF-ON button (if provided by the camera) for triggering/deactivating AF. In the moment I find this the better option, but switching requires some training against old habit. Good combination with TC14EII, AF still works with TC20E though  the resulting aperture  is f/8 but very slow and loses reliability Not the best tripod mount (I am in the process of exchanging it for a product by a different manufacturer) but form factor is not as bad as the new 400/2,8 and 600/4 designs (it is mandatory to replace it before using it with a Wimberley head). Comes with a smaller replacement foot that only has one screw mounting thread, which to my impression is useless. Comes with very long lens hood unwieldy but effectively keeps light off the front lens element.

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400mm f/3.5 AI-S

This lens was well renowned in the sphere of Nature photographers. Optical construction may be outdated, and it lacks AF of course. It is very handy, has the best range/speed/size/weight combination of all the Superteles I could get my hands on so far. One would wish for an AF-S Version of that, but wont’t ever see because Nikon wants to sell the 400/2.8 and more recently the 200-400/4 came out which adds additional usability if affordable. If you can get one, hold on to a lens like that. Keep in mind that nature-photographers were able to get astonishing results before AF ( and later VR) was invented. Better to have a lens like the 400/3,5, than no Supertele at all. The 400 perfectly balances on a Wimberley head –together with an F2AS MD2 combo (which was the state of the art in the 1970s when the lens was released), with lightweight cameras you either add weight to the body or you have a hard time making full benefit of the wimberley It performs significantly better with TC 301 than with TC 14B Built in lens hood is nice and stable but what has been said in the context of the first version of the 600 f/4 is even more valid here – the lens hood is way too short.

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300mm f/2.8 AF-S

Fast, and the best bokeh of all, Focusses faster than the 500. Good combination with TC 14 E II and TC20E II. Don’t own the TC 17E because never found out which additional sense this interim size converter should make. (afx: I own the AFX300/2.8 first edition, built like a tank and my wildlife workhorse. With the TC14E it can be used wide open. With the TC20E you need to stop down so f8 is the lowest aperture).

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Why a 200-400 mm is considered to add versatility to nature photographers equipment

The zoom era we are living in now created different paradigms compared to the times when photography was prime-dominated. There appears to be the impression that all focal ranges have to be fully covered (this “need” made nikon change the 80-200 to a 70-200 to fill the gap the 28-70 has left although it can hardly be called essential). The same paradigm may be the reason why the 200-400 telezoom lens raised a lot of attraction. But even without this consideration a zoom like that has always been wished for by nature photographers, and after it was released commanded great attention (and triggered photographers comeback to nikon who had left towards canon gear before). This has certain reasons. Assumed your goal is to picture a specific species or several species (of different sizes) with the desired range.  In conventional photography you can move back and forth and easily solve crop and size requirements with a prime. In wildlife photography often your position is fixed because you have to hide, or there are obstacles (the bank of a river wile photographing water birds comes to mind) that forbid to approach.  And your creatures of interests are approaching and moving away just as they want. You can help yourself with teleconverters but that is time consuming, and even if you are well drilled and quick, this may result in lost opportunities.

Imagine you are just trying to capture a small water hen and have set up your gear for this task and at that moment a swan starts with dynamic action and the only thing you can do is a cropped portrait instead of a more promising action shot. Having  two lens camera combinations ready is a workaround . It means more stuff to carry and to handle. Still not as flexible as having a telezoom that enables you to make a very fast adjustment of your crop. With 35mm/FX it is still a bit short, but together with DX you get a the range equivalent of 300 to 600mm which makes it possible to consider it as the one and only long lens.

General Equipment Section

(by afx & millirehm)

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Once you’ve clarified your motivation that will, to some degree, direct your equipment load. Photographic equipment is expensive and not every ‘vital’ gem is easily available. Most potential wildlife photography maniacs won’t be wealthy enough to buy everything at once and brand-new; additionally, some gear has been out of production and is only available on the second-hand market.

Long term planning to develop your equipment is highly recommended and a virtual necessity. You can save yourself a lot of money - and nerves - basing your hunt for bargains on some kind of master plan and avoid the selling and rebuying equipment just because you don’t know what you want or need.

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LENSES

General considerations

So, depending on your budget and willingness, to carry heavy stuff, here are some recommendations:

Ultrawides

are not that much in need, but I still would take one (12-24 on DX for example).

The standard zooms in the 24-70 range are very useful shooting anything from landscape to candids in the camp, don’t leave home without it.

A 70-200 or 80-200

is usually a must and most of the time the second most often used lens on a photo safari.

Then there is the long glass. Here you have to make your choice between weight, price and versatility, quality, missed chances, …..

Ideally you should be able to get up to a reach of about 600mm on a DX or about 800 on an FX. Anything more is usually impractical unless you are really good at handling long focal lengths. During daytime you can easily run into air movement that will blur images, so shooting stuff far away becomes a moot point. That leaves the use of the ultra long ones for getting small subjects like birds. If you only reach up to 300mm on DX you still will have enough focal length for many safaris (unless you are a birder).

Zooms are versatile and often allow you to get a shot quicker if you do not need to fiddle with teleconverters. But good zooms are expensive and heavy. The top choice is the 200-400VR. Especially on DX and with a TC14 or TC17 it has an excellent coverage.

The old 80-400 is much cheaper and lighter but can not be used with TCs and is very slow to focus. The 70-300VR is a bit short on the long end but might be a good budget alternative to the 70-200. The old Bigma (Sigma 50-500) can be useful as well if you are tight on budget.

A 300/4 can still be used with TCs (at least the 1.4) and might e a good budget lens. It is also quite light and therefore a favorite lens for birds in flight (if they are big enough or close enough).

Using the top end primes 300/2.8, 400/2.8, 500/4 and 600/4 is not an option for everyone as the prices are quite high. Still, of you can get the older non VR version, they might be in your reach. They can all be coupled with the teleconverters, though when using the TC20 you should stop down one stop.

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Avoiding errors on the way to tele-photography

After starting photography with a Nikkormat FTN and a 50 mm lens it did not take me long: Soon I was sure that I needed a tele lens. A friend of mine exchanged his 200 f/4 against a portrait lens and here it was my first tele lens. Nice to begin with, but I thought that it was still not long enough for what I wanted to achieve. Adding a 2x tele-converter brought the usual problems (slow combination, insufficient IQ of the lens, difficult to focus), and the impression that even at 400mm (the most common range bird photographers use ) you have to get very close to achieve the desired magnification ratios. The logical consequence given my available budget then seemed to be a 500 mm mirror lens, promising long range, lightweight, compact and short relatively cheap but for me still very expensive. I bought a brand new Nikon and the greatest disappointment in my lens acquisition history.

The reasons: A slow lens (the f/8 only in theory, low transmission of the two mirrors made it a de facto f/11) no aperture diaphragm (so you have to calculate the proper ISO setting to get shutter speeds short enough for your moving subjects, often enough I ended up with 800/1600 slide film, a catastrophe in grainyness, contrast and colors, today we have fast digital sensors but that does not really solve these problems), relatively slow to focus (no AF of course) which is exacerbated by the dark viewfinder image resulting from the slow lens, poor tripod support, and last but by far not least an inferior bokeh (some times it may be OK, but you hardly know before what you will get). Finally I ended up in buying a used 400 mm f/5,6 IF-ED, which was my real arrival in the range of superteles. If I could restart again I would make a shortcut up to here.

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Second hand - How to make bargains - The “four for the price of one” story

I wanted to have a real long range fast lens. The 800 mm f/5,6 that first came into my mind faded away from my consideration, as I wanted AF and the longest AF lens was 600 mm. While growing older and living “ascetic”, avoiding to spend money for a car or other expensive things like that, I managed to save enough money over the years for buying a new 600mm lens.

After years of waiting I was ready, but Nikon was not ready for me. Nikon was delayed with bringing Silent Wave Motors, then delayed equipping them with VR, the tripod collars decreased their quality as a consequence of the weight reduction policy and finally new lenses were only released as G-type which did not amuse F4 users like I was then.

I was not sure whether a 600 mm/f4 or the shorter but more versatile 500 mm/f4 was the right thing for me which exacerbated decision making. Seeing a MF 600 AI-S in an auction house where they were mostly selling low-end category stuff and making my decision to go for it was one - there were no other bids. That cleared the 600/500 mm issue as the next step would be an 500 mm AF-S I and I was searching for a used one. in the meantime the direct comparison showed that the 400/5,6 was not an equivalent partner to the 600 and the 400/3,5 well recommended amongst nature photographers came to my mind again.

After finding a cheap specimen in a second hand shop yet another lens found its way in my bag. Waiting for second-hand bargains leads to unexpected results because soon after the 400, Ebay enabled myself to acquire a 500 mm AF-S – a rare item there as well, I took the chance and won it at a (relatively) decent price.

My long term plans included a 300 mm f /2,8. A faster lens, for bigger animals. Approximately one year later I found an offer on Ebay. The fact that it included a Nikon drop in polarizer which fits both the 300 and 500 mm made it easier to decide and brought the lens acquisition program to an end. In the end I got four superteles for the money I originally had reserved of one. So I can choose “a la carte” what to take –at the downside I am always forced to think about what is the proper decision.

This story should show everybody that –although second-hand superteles are still in the range of one to several thousand Euros and hardly can be called cheap - it is easier to get at least one of these lenses than you might think of, and should encourage you to make your long lens dreams reality. Online auctions created possibilities that simply weren’t available some 10-15 years ago (though one has to be cautious).

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Part III of this series will be published on 20 June 2009.