Picking the Right Camera for Safari

Because of the ubiquity of smartphones, virtually everyone is able to take a picture whenever the mood strikes. However, while the camera on your phone is probably good enough for your everyday photography needs, taking pictures on a safari is much different.

On safari, you will see sights that you can’t find anywhere else in the world, and if you want to remember your trip, it’s important that you always have a high-quality camera at the ready. If you’re interested in buying a camera for your safari, there are several factors to consider that will help you pick the device that meets your needs. Here are some tips for purchasing a camera for safari that will let you pick an option that will help you capture the best pictures possible.

Start with Price

When you’re investing in a piece of equipment such as a camera, there are several factors to consider. However, if you’re like the majority of travelers, your biggest concern is probably cost. The great thing about purchasing a camera for safari is that you can easily find a camera that meets your budget as long as you do your research and shop around.

Although you don’t want to spend too much money, you should also make sure that you’re getting a quality option. Look for a mid range camera that will allow you to take excellent pictures without ballooning your travel budget.

Easy to Carry

The main benefit of using your phone to take pictures is that these devices are meant to be ultra-portable, meaning you don’t need to think about how much space they’ll take up in your travel luggage. You should keep this same issue in mind when you’re picking a camera to take with you on your safari.

Packing light is of the utmost importance when going on safari, which means you want to make sure that your camera is portable and doesn’t require excess equipment. For instance, some high-end cameras may require a tripod to be used effectively, which can make it harder for you to pack. When you’re shopping for your camera, try to look for a lightweight option that won’t require you to bring along a large number of accessories.

Ease of Use

When you’re taking photographs on safari, almost nothing is more frustrating than missing the perfect shot because you’re fiddling with the settings of your camera. The ideal camera will allow you to take a high-quality photo at a moment’s notice, which is why you need to think about ease of use when buying your camera.

Although some people prefer to invest in a camera that includes a variety of settings, the much better idea for most is to pick a point in click camera that can be used whenever needed. With an easy to use camera, you’ll never have to worry about missing an animal, sunset, or anything else that you wish to photograph on your trip.

After you’ve done your research, purchasing a camera for safari should be quick and easy. Once you’ve invested in your camera, you should be sure to book a safari that will allow you to photograph some of the world’s most interesting sights.

 

Hippo Facts to Know Before an African Safari

Seeing exotic animals in the wild is one of the best reasons to make your next vacation an African safari. While there are a variety of species that you may encounter while traveling through Africa, one of the most interesting is the hippopotamus.

Most people have seen these animals at some point in their life, whether at a zoo or on television. However, encountering a hippo in the wild is a much different experience than viewing these creatures behind glass, making it a smart idea to learn a little more about hippos before your trip. Here are a few interesting hippo facts that you should keep in mind if you plan to see these animals on your African safari.

Hippos Can Be Dangerous

If you’ve ever seen a hippo in a zoo, then you’ve likely only seen these animals floating lazily in the water, possibly leading you to believe that they are gentle creatures. While hippos would prefer not to interact with people, they can be extremely dangerous animals, particularly if they feel threatened.

Hippos are very large and powerful and have been known to attack without unprovoked. What makes hippos more dangerous than other creatures is that that can attack in both the land and the water, meaning you need to be careful if you find yourself near these creatures.

Hippos Are Fast

There are several surprising hippo facts that you should know before leaving on your African safari, but perhaps the most surprising is these large animals can move quickly. Because of their appearance, many travelers assume that hippos are slow, but this is simply not the case.

On land, hippos have been seen running at speeds close to twenty miles per hour, and it’s not unusual for hippos to travel multiple miles a day when searching for food. So, if you find yourself a good distance from a hippo, be prepared, as they may be able to make up the ground much quicker than you might imagine.

Hippos and Water

Hippos and water go hand in hand, making it a good idea to learn about some of the aquatic facts related to these African animals.

First, hippos, while they do venture on land from time to time, will spend the majority of the day in the water. Two-thirds of a hippo’s day—sixteen hours—is spent in the water, and this includes sleeping. While they are sleeping, the will automatically surface for air every five minutes or so and won’t wake up when doing so. Because hippos are pensive to sunlight, they must frequently return to the water to protect their skin.

Second, hippos are actually closely related to whales instead of other land mammals. Studies have shown that whales and hippos once shared a common ancestor, which is likely the reason that hippos are so drawn to water. At one time, it was thought that hippos were related to pigs, but DNA evidence corrected this misconception.

After learning these interesting hippo facts, you’re probably ready to see these animals in their natural habitat, which means you need to start booking your next African safari today.

Wildlife Photography Camera Tips – Part 3

In Camera Tips – Part 1 and 2 we discussed the move from analogue to digital photography, basics of camera functions and different formats aka sensor sizes, advantages and disadvantages of modern camera systems and cameras with mirrors versus mirrorless cameras. In Part 3 we will concentrate on video and the importance of image stabilization.

 

Video with Modern Digital Camera Systems

It was around 2008 when the first serious video capabilities were introduced in modern digital cameras. The first to offer full high definition (Full HD) video was the Canon 5Dmark2 introduced in late 2008. This camera should change video and cinematography completely as it allowed not only to shoot high quality video footage but also offered the usage of the complete lens arsenal of Canon EF lenses without any restrictions. That offered many benefits as instant availability of focal length for extreme wide angle to extreme telephoto and allowed to record either camera internal or to an external recorder. You could view the image on the rear LCD and if you wanted to have better than that either use the LCD of the external recorder or even connect an external EVF.

This started a new trend and today there is no modern digital camera lacking the function of video. But there is one big caveat and this is in a DSLR like the 5D2 you have to lock the mirror up in order to allow the light rays coming through the lens to reach the sensor permanently that is required for video shooting. Soon camera vendors came to a solution with mirrorless cameras, we discussed the differences been mirror based and mirrorless cameras in Part 2 of this series.

In a mirrorless system light rays coming through the lens can always reach the sensor and on top of that there is the built in EVF that can be used for exact viewing of the scene without the need to connect an external EVF. Everyone who already has worked with external components for a camera like recorders and EVFs that are either directly connected to the camera or all the components are maybe mounted to a rig knows how big and relatively cumbersome this whole setup can easily become. For professional filmmakers that is usually not a problem, but for us who want to take some great footage during safaris or in our leisure time it can definitely be much simpler and convenient to work with a mirrorless system.

Almost all of the modern digital cameras today support not only full HD video, but also 4K video with different frame rates that delivers 4 times the resolution of full HD but in most cases only uses a part of the image sensor for recording that results in some crop factor of the final footage. That means the focal length of a lens needs to be multiplied with that crop factor that can usually range from 1.1 to 1.7. This leads on one side to more telephoto reach with a certain lens that is in general something welcome for wildlife and telephoto work, but on the downside also each wide-angle lens becomes longer limiting the range on the wide side for what it was designed for.

If you are really looking to work with 4K you should also consider that you end up with much more data even if there are compression mechanisms and also computing all of these data takes a lot of processing power during recording in camera and during editing. The first is the reason why there are often limitations for the duration of video footage in order to limit overheating and the second means you probably need a faster computer for editing 4K footage.

 

Image Stabilization

We so far did not discuss that a video usually looks only good if it is not shaky. There are systems out on the market that are called gimbals and help significantly minimize camera shake resulting in stable footage. Of course you also can use a tripod, but that is rather complicated to handle and not the easiest solution for Safari, especially if you consider taking your videos out of a small and shaky safari vehicle.

Another solution is to rely on the optical image stabilisation (OIS) that is available today in many lenses, especially telephoto lenses. But be careful because OIS only helps to a certain degree to compensate for camera shake and if camera movement becomes too much you again will finally see camera shake.

In the recent years there was also the development of in body image stabilisation (IBIS) that in some cases even works together with OIS. IBIS moves the sensor in the camera usually in a magnetic field in order to compensate for any camera movement. There are some DSLRs as well as CSCs available offering this systems and I myself have only the best experiences with IBIS. Another advantage of IBIS is the fact that also un-stabilized lenses can be stabilized, opening this enhancement for many old lenses.

The conclusion is that with most of the available modern camera systems shooting video became a pretty simple thing and one can nicely improve the experience of recording memories by adding video footage to still images.

Learn more about cameras and wildlife photography with our Specialist Safaris.

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa

Wildlife Photography Camera Tips – Part 2

In Camera Tips – Part 1 we discussed the move from analogue to digital photography, camera function basics and different formats aka sensor sizes. In Part 2 we will describe the advantages and disadvantages (if any) of modern digital camera systems and compare cameras with mirrors and mirrorless cameras.

 

Different Digital Camera Systems

What does different digital camera systems mean? Today we are in the lucky situation that we can find complete systems built around all different sensor sizes we discussed in Part 1 like 1”-, 43-, m43 (micro 43)-, APSC-, FF-, and MF (medium format)-sensors. We will get into some more details about these systems soon, but what are the major decision criteria for a specific system or better sensor size?

We already got out of the way in Part 1 that sensor size should not be the major determining factor when it comes to decent image quality even in low light situations. Sensor and processing technology have come a long way and that means that even smaller sensors can achieve great IQ today for the average shooter, that is more than enough for most of the photographic situations we can find ourselves in.

Sure enough there will always be arguments for professional usage like resolution combined with best high ISO capabilities that would make the choice of larger sensors preferable. But I can tell you from my experiences that even with the prior generation of m43 sensor based cameras I was already able to master the most demanding situations and get great results and with the latest incarnations of these cameras it is only getting better.

While we see that final IQ will not necessarily get noticeably better with bigger sensors the significant advantages of a smaller sensor based systems are generally lower price and smaller cameras and lenses. Again 43 or today m43 (micro four third, that is using the 43-sensor but without the mirror) allows cameras and lenses to be built smaller delivers today 20MP resolution with stunning low noise at high sensitivity up to ISO6400 and even sometimes ISO12800.

So why choose a FF camera system, if already an m43-based system can deliver what we want with the benefit of lower weight, smaller size and considerably lower price? The true answer besides higher resolution is how the system (sensor and lenses) renders out of focus areas in our images often also referred to as bokeh that is the visual quality of the out-of-focus areas of a photographic image, especially as rendered by a particular lens. Now to make even this argument melt away it is worth to mention that all modern smaller than FF camera systems offer at least one or most times even more very fast lenses that are delivering beautiful and dreamy-soft bokeh.

I am using primarily an APSC as well as an m43 system besides my FF system and especially when travelling for example on safari a smaller and lighter camera system is a real advantage. Just think about carry on luggage in airplanes or also the weight you constantly have to lug around with a FF system. And on top of that a smaller sensor based system becomes increasingly cheaper compared to what you would have to invest in a FF system. Finally also updating cameras to the ever-newest models is reasonably cheaper whenever you need or desire to do so.

 

DSLR (Mirror) versus CSC (Mirrorless)

What is now the big hype about a mirrorless based on a so-called CSC (Compact System Camera) versus a mirror systems based on a so-called DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex)? If you consider that there is a senor in each digital camera that produces the final image (or video) one of the big benefits is that the final image can be visualized in real time during the photographic process. It is a be big benefit for the photographer to view the image in the viewfinder exactly the same way as the final image would look like – exposure, exposure compensation, colour (what white balance you use), how good one can see the shadows and highlights (controlling the dynamic range), any black and white setting etc. already before taking the final image.

This is only possible when using a screen that shows the image the camera and sensor sees in real time. This screen could be the back screen of the digital camera, but we all know how cumbersome this can become when you have to work in bright sunlight. But the screen is put into the viewfinder, the disturbing influence of external light is gone and you can view a high-resolution image in the so-called Electronic View Finder (EVF). Today EVFs have become so good that many photographers including myself prefer them compared to the old-school Optical View Finders (OVFs) of DSLRs.

But there is another big benefit of mirrorless and this is the lack of the mirror. This allows not only to build the camera much smaller, as you do no longer need the mirror and mirrorbox, but you also get rid of any shake introduced by the swinging mirror during the picture taking process. And this is actually the most sensible part of the whole photographic process, as any camera shake should be avoided during that phase as good as possible.

While all this pros and cons can easily result in religious discussions about the benefits of one concept over the other I would recommend you just try it yourself if you can live with an EVF or not. I definitely can and now use all the advantages of seeing any of my dialled in parameters already before and while I take the picture. This means I have to do much less control after the shot in reviewing the result on the camera back screen. That is a huge advantage especially in dynamic situations like safaris can easily become.

Learn more about cameras and wildlife photography with our Specialist Safaris.

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa

Wildlife Photography Camera Tips – Part 1

There are more camera choices than ever since the begin of digital photography around 2000 and we by far have not reached the end of that evolution. The ever-increasing number of smartphones has its fair part in camera manufacturers steadily seeking new niches, which again accelerates the introduction of new camera systems and cameras. In Part 1 about Camera Tips I will discuss the evolution from analogue to digital photography as well as digital sensor sizes and their advantages and disadvantages.

Photography Developed as Analogue

I am one of the photographers who grew up with analogue cameras, my first serious camera being a Minolta SRT-101, a SLR (Single Lens Reflex) using a mirror to show exactly the picture as the lens was projecting on the focusing screen via this mirror. For taking the photo the mirror had to go out of the way, the shutter had to open and then the light could be projected by the lens onto a film surface for a certain amount of time (determined by the shutter speed), imposing the picture seen through the lens and finally using chemical reactions to produce the picture either as negative or positive on this film.

While discussing that simple principle of analogue photography it is worth mentioning the other 2 parameters determining the final picture and its right exposure. This were and still are today in the digital age the aperture of the lens (wide open, low aperture value means more light as opposed to closed down, high aperture value means less light) and the sensitivity of film, usually measured in ISO, where low ISO means less sensitivity as opposed to high ISO means high sensitivity.

Analogue cameras already offered several possibilities to automatically control shutter speed (called A for aperture priority mode because you preselect the aperture value), automatically control aperture (called S for shutter priority mode because you preselect the shutter speed) or control both automatically (called P for program mode).

There is of course another parameter of photography that needs to be controlled and this is the focus of the lens. In the mid 1980’s camera vendors started to implement autofocus mechanisms and these have improved over the last 4 decades significantly. Especially for the dynamic requirements you often find in wildlife photography it is very helpful to chose a camera system that supports reliable and exact autofocus even when photographing fast moving animals. We will discuss autofocus and autofocus settings later in a separate post.

Basically analogue cameras offered most of the features we know from today’s digital cameras. The big disruption in photography started to happen, when digital sensors replaced film. Film had different formats, the majority of film used was 36mm x 24mm (today often referred to as full frame or FF) that became famous some 100 years ago when Oskar Barnack developed the first Leica using cinema film. Over time also smaller formats (APSC: 23.6mm x 15.5mm) and larger formats often called medium format  (MF 6×6: 60mm x 60mm or MF 645: 60mm x 45mm) evolved and there still exist some even larger film formats.

 

Digital Photography and Different Sensor Formats

It took some time before digital sensors increased to FF size, the first incarnations in serious cameras around 2000 were using APSC size sensors, followed by four-third sensors (4/3: 17.3mm x 13.0mm) or even smaller 1-inch sensors (1”: 12.8mm x 9.6mm). When the digital sensors are installed in an SLR this is called now DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex). Actually everything stays the same as in an SLR, but now instead of film the sensor surface is used to cerate the final picture.

One major change of modern digital cameras is that now we also can choose a different  sensitivity (ISO value) for every exposure if we decide so that was not possible when using film, as you had to replace film to get to a different sensitivity. Today all modern cameras allow not only changing ISO sensitivity on the fly, but also offer automatic ISO, that means the camera would automatically choose a proper sensitivity as necessary. Or in other words we can now give the camera the freedom of automatically adjusting sensitivity if we desire so that can be quite handsome in certain situations, but should always be used with care.

Why should we care? Well usually increasing sensitivity means also more noise in the final picture that can be what we want in some situations (for artificial effects) but in general lower noise images are preferable. Sensor size of course has some other major impacts on cameras and camera systems. First a larger sensor area allows for larger pixels, that is good for low noise and second larger sensors allow putting more of these pixels on the sensor surface and hence increase resolution or also called megapixel (MP)-count.

Let me make the story short, today at the end of 2016 even 1” sensors with 20MP are already capable of producing low noise images up to ISO6400 and sometimes even ISO12800, whereas FF-sensors can achieve up to 50MP with excellent ISO6400 and above. In between you find all different kind of great digital camera system solutions from all the different vendors.

The conclusion from these ramblings so far is that you hardly can go wrong choosing a modern digital camera of any sensor size with regards to the final image quality and possibility of using high ISO if needed.

Learn more about cameras and wildlife photography with our Specialist Safaris.

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa

 

 

Magic Masai Mara, Kenya

The Maasai Mara in the south-west of Kenya is contiguous plain with the Serengeti in Tanzania and is part of the greater Mara ecosystem.  The Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) is a small fraction of this ecosystem, but fraction is kind of relative as the MMNR still measures 1500 square kilometres. The landscape is dominated by open grasslands with numerous seasonal creeks and the famous acacia trees in some areas.

If you can remember the 1980’s movie “Out of Africa” with Meryl Streep and Robert Redford that plays in the Masai Mara for the most part, this is exactly the landscape you will find when visiting today. And yes, it is even much more impressive when you are there in person as compared to the film.

The Mara is mainly at an altitude of 1600 meters where you have the rain season from November till May and the dry season from June till November. This climate change is also responsible for what is known as the great migration, where over 1.5 million wildebeest arrive in July and leave again in November, one of the most impressive spectacles repeating itself on earth annually and the perfect background for stunning wildlife photography and cinematography.

This makes the Mara to one of the finest wildlife destinations where you almost have the guarantee to see the big five but also cheetah, hyena, jackal, hippo, crocodile and for sure vulture whenever there was a kill.

Vultures are one of the easiest and safest ways to find kills with sometimes even some lions around still eating, as the birds are waiting in the trees till the lions or other predators have finished their meal and leave the rest of the kill for them.

If you are lucky you can even see some rhinos that are slowly coming back to this part of Africa.

There are many lodges and camps to be found and you have a rich choice from very luxurious places to ones where you stay as close as possible to the animals and the nature, the tented camps, that do actually not lack too much luxury as well. We were staying in the Sand River Camp as well as the Elephant Pepper Camp and I can recommend both as being extremely friendly, authentic and as close to nature as possible, while offering all you need to feel perfect and rest between the numerous game drives.

There is nothing like the Mara morning sky before sunrise, these are colours that cannot be described, you have to see and feel them yourself.

This scenery evolves during the early morning hours, when you can find all kind of animals out on the grasslands like these zebras that enjoyed the green and did not seem to be scared about predators.

But this can fool you as predators are always around, like this young male lion we found nearby sleeping in the morning sun. This male was approximately 4 to 5 years old and you can see this by the colour of the nose that is still pink but starts already getting black around the corners.

He will be grown up with 5 to 6 years, but he is already a perfect killing machine at this age. He was roaring during the previous night in our camp close to our tent and I can tell you this sound goes through and through – you will never forget that!

But now he sometimes is still playful at least if he is no longer hungry as he showed when welcoming his brother a few minutes later.

You want to have adventures like this in magnificent landscape and stunning places? You want to photograph all this or take videos and want to get guidance for how to do this best and in an optimal way? Well then join me on one of the many safaris organized by Roho Ya Chui and you will have the adventure of your lifetime that you will never forget!

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa

 

 

Peter’s African Safari Travel Diary

Some who have read my previous travel diary blog posts may ask why this continues with the 7^th day of our adventure trip to Tanzania and Kenia and one day is missing. Well easy answer I unfortunately got sick on day 6 and was pretty much out of order and definitely not up to photograph, but the good news is that on our 7^th day I had already recovered and so this post is from our last, but also one of the most beautiful days.

We meanwhile had arrived at the Sand River Mara camp that takes its name from the Sand River Masai Mara. This camp replicates very nicely the heydays of exclusive permanent tented camps that were so popular in the 1920s.

On our morning game drive we immediately found a group of vultures, that is always a sign of some kill around and then very likely to still see some lions there. This time we were not so lucky, as the lions were already gone, but this could not minimize our enthusiasm to find some great sights.

Soon we were lucky to see a rhino that was grazing in the morning sun and started to move away as it recognized our approach. Nevertheless we got some stunning shots.

On that same location we found a group of zebras peacefully taking their breakfast from the juicy greens of the Masai Mara.

But then we were lucky as our guide spotted a young male lion resting in the upcoming sun and obviously cleaning his claws from his last kill. We had heard this lion roaring close at the camp last night and this sound will be unforgettable to me as it was pretty intense, just like he would stand besides me.

Our guide gave us some brief update on how to read the age of lions and this one he estimated to be around 4 years as he still had a pink nose but already starting to get black. Male lions are fully grown up with 5 to 6 years and then they in most cases start looking for their own territory. But this one was still playful and after a while he started walking in order to find his brother that was away only a few hundred meters.  The two immediately started rubbing their heads together, that means a very warm welcome.

These are just touching scenes, especially if you are lucky to be as close as we were. The lions were completely quiet and did feel save in our presence. Driving on we found another group of vultures around a left over kill from last night.

A herd of wildebeest was crossing our road and this was already kind of a little migration. What I learned that there is not just one migration, but migration is an on-going thing as the animals try to follow the greens and water all the year in the Serengeti and the Masai Mara (the northern part of the Serengeti).

We headed to our last camp later this afternoon, the Elephant Pepper Camp located in the Mara North Conservancy. The speciality about this camp is that it is designed in a way that it can be completely removed to leave a virgin site once this is desired. We had a very restful night and next morning was our day of departure via Nairobi that is a 50min flight away from this camp.

A last sunrise, well I think you can tell I love to photograph sunrises and the light is always very special in Africa!

And a farewell photo of our small group Peter, Ute and Joel from left to right. We have had a stunning and beautiful week and were all looking forward to another experience like this as soon as possible.

If you would like more information on planning your African safari vacation, visit our safari tours page or contact a representative with Roho Ya Chui today.

Peter Tomsu for Roho Ya Chui, Travel Africa