A few tips for wildlife photography in Africa please

Flare · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:28

On Sunday i'm heading off to Africa for 3 months to carry out some environmental and conservational work with the following itinerary:
May: Mozambique whale shark conservation
June: Conservation work at the Kruger National Park in South Africa
July: Environmental and cheetah and leaopard conservation work in Namibia.

I don't have much in the way of kit but it will suffice, my SLR is an Olympus E-500 with an Olympus 14.5-45mm F3.5-5.6 lens and a Olympus Zuiko 40mm-150mm f3.5-4.5 lens and a host of compact flash cards

I have never really done any sort of wildlife photography to any extent so it would be massively helpfull if you brilliant photographers of OcUK could give me a few tips about recommended settings and just general tips i could use to take some good pictures.

Thank you in advance,
Flare

bigredshark · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:36

If you have a search back there's a decent thread on this, you'll struggle for safari stuff without a longer lens though...

DoubleCheese · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:57

I'm not sure how much reach you'll need, I've heard you don't need the same sort of kit as you would if you were doing an East African Safari due to the different landscape/terrain/environment.
Have you considered:
Lens cloth
Rocket blower
Bean bag or pillow
More batteries
More memory cards - I went through 24Gb of CF cards in 2 weeks safari, each file was 10Mb. The last thing you want to do is run out as finding CF or xD cards there could be hit and mis and expensive.

Tips wise:
Shoot in RAW.
Get out early and stay out late if you can. This is when the light will be more interesting and you'll get to see crepuscular animals that would otherwise be missed. Get a Southern Africa bird and animal book and read up on their habits so you get an understanding of what they are doing or likely to be doing.
Take your time, approach and keep quiet while observing the animals. You are more likely to get good shots if the animals are at ease in your presence.
Take a hat and water! It may get hot.
Have a blast and post pics when you get back

p0ss3s3d · 29 Apr 2010 at 19:58

150mm will be fine on the m4/3rds & if your hiring/buying/buying then selling get something like the 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5. Fast which is good in low light. It's got loads of reach. (400mm in 'real' terms) and the wide aperture will throw backgrounds into a nice creamy blur and it's pretty inexpensive.

Photo wise - generally leave space infront of the animal not behind. Aperture wide-open most of the time. Don't be scared of the ISO. Get yourself up at at least 1/640th to freeze any action that might occur.

Flare · 30 Apr 2010 at 16:13

DoubleCheese said:
I'm not sure how much reach you'll need, I've heard you don't need the same sort of kit as you would if you were doing an East African Safari due to the different landscape/terrain/environment.
Have you considered:
Lens cloth
Rocket blower
Bean bag or pillow
More batteries
More memory cards - I went through 24Gb of CF cards in 2 weeks safari, each file was 10Mb. The last thing you want to do is run out as finding CF or xD cards there could be hit and mis and expensive.

Tips wise:
Shoot in RAW.
Get out early and stay out late if you can. This is when the light will be more interesting and you'll get to see crepuscular animals that would otherwise be missed. Get a Southern Africa bird and animal book and read up on their habits so you get an understanding of what they are doing or likely to be doing.
Take your time, approach and keep quiet while observing the animals. You are more likely to get good shots if the animals are at ease in your presence.
Take a hat and water! It may get hot.
Have a blast and post pics when you get back

Lots of usefull tips here, thanks a lot

Thanks for the list, i have most of these but will need to stock up on a few more things, i just got 2x 16gb cards. Also i will have access to computers so i am going to take a couple of pen drives so when a card is full i can transfer them all to a pen drive.
A lot of what i will be doing will be hands on work with animals such as orphan lion cubs, elephants etc. so getting close to them shouldn't be too hard

p0ss3s3d said:
150mm will be fine on the m4/3rds & if your hiring/buying/buying then selling get something like the 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5. Fast which is good in low light. It's got loads of reach. (400mm in 'real' terms) and the wide aperture will throw backgrounds into a nice creamy blur and it's pretty inexpensive.

Photo wise - generally leave space infront of the animal not behind. Aperture wide-open most of the time. Don't be scared of the ISO. Get yourself up at at least 1/640th to freeze any action that might occur.

Unfortuantely i don't have the money for another lens, i was looking at a 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 Lens but i really can't afford the £300

Thanks a lot for the tips, i will make sure i print this page off so i don't forget about anything

petriodet · 30 Apr 2010 at 16:31

Flare said:
Lots of usefull tips here, thanks a lot
Thanks for the list, i have most of these but will need to stock up on a few more things, i just got 2x 16gb cards. Also i will have access to computers so i am going to take a couple of pen drives so when a card is full i can transfer them all to a pen drive.
A lot of what i will be doing will be hands on work with animals such as orphan lion cubs, elephants etc. so getting close to them shouldn't be too hard

Unfortuantely i don't have the money for another lens, i was looking at a 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 Lens but i really can't afford the £300
Thanks a lot for the tips, i will make sure i print this page off so i don't forget about anything

thats what credit cards are for