Tanzania and Kenya (20 pics)

Dee

I love the lighting on the elephants. You were so lucky to have two good cameras to bring on your trip. (Sorry to hear that one of them failed on you, what a bummer!) It sure is different seeing the animals in their natural habitat isn't it?

kgarrett11

Dee wrote:

I love the lighting on the elephants. You were so lucky to have two good cameras to bring on your trip. (Sorry to hear that one of them failed on you, what a bummer!) It sure is different seeing the animals in their natural habitat isn't it?

Thanks Dee for your comments. I don't think that I will ever look at a zoo the same way again.

m8o

kgarrett11 wrote:

If you are going to Ngorngoro crater make sure that you take a jacket and long pants. We would always leave on a game drive at 6am before sunrise and I froze my little tush off. Also make sure that you have a backup camera with you. I did and it saved me a suicide attempt.

Thanx! Ya, I decided to bring out point & shoot after hearing that a bunch of times. Would love to have another D-SLR back-up, but spent was WAY too much already.

ltdesignphotovideo

I'll be in Kenya and Tanzania for three weeks in December and January for the Great Migration so seeing these photos excites me. I love'em. Too bad your D200 went bad on ya. I'm a Canon shooter myself but it still sucks that your cam went bad. Take care and God bless.

-Lindsay T

Van Isle

What was your most used lens? I'll be in Africa February through May shooting with a D70s.

(and I just wanna try and copy all of your shots! Good job )

VI

kgarrett11

Van Isle wrote:

What was your most used lens? I'll be in Africa February through May shooting with a D70s.

(and I just wanna try and copy all of your shots! Good job )

VI

Wow, you are going to be there for 4 months? I hope that you are going to take a laptop with you and a backup camera. Believe me just hold the camera out and push the shutter release and if you don't get a good picture of an animal you will have a good picture of scenery.
When I was on a game drive I only used my 80-400mm VR. I didn't want to take a chance on changing my lens in the field because it is very dusty. I had originally planned to put the 80-400 on my D200 and my 18-200mm on my D100, but since the D200 went bad on me I stayed with the 80-400mm on the D100.

m8o

And if I may ask ... what % of the time was your zoom at 400mm and what % at 100 or 200mm? I have a 300mm f/2.8 prime, I plan on using a TC, and am wondering how much I'll be taking it on and off? I have a 'slow' 70-300mm Tamron and wasn't going to bring it; was only going to bring my fast 28-75mm and 12-24mm f/4 (oh, and 50mm f/1.4 for candid lowlight dinner shots). Wondering if I'd really ever need the 100 - 200mm range. Thanx very very much for the added detail!

kgarrett11

m8o wrote:

And if I may ask ... what % of the time was your zoom at 400mm and what % at 100 or 200mm? I have a 300mm f/2.8 prime, I plan on using a TC, and am wondering how much I'll be taking it on and off? I have a 'slow' 70-300mm Tamron and wasn't going to bring it; was only going to bring my fast 28-75mm and 12-24mm f/4 (oh, and 50mm f/1.4 for candid lowlight dinner shots). Wondering if I'd really ever need the 100 - 200mm range. Thanx very very much for the added detail!

I would say that the vast majority of the time I was between 300 and 400. There was one guy with a Cannon Mark-III using a 100-500 (I think) with a 2x. There were times when I wished that I had a lens that I could use a TC with and still have the auto-focus. I would suggest that you take as long a lens as you can. The 70-300 will probably work fine in the middle of the day. You might have some problems early in the morning and late in the afternoon. Another thing that you might look into is if you are going to be in vans with pop tops go to kgear.com and order a beanbag. When you get there fill it with corn and use it on the edge of the van to lay your camera on. It works as good as a tripod.

pathfinder

Really nice work!

I am flat envious!:D

PhotoSmithography

They Look So Familiar
Very nice shots Keith. I'm not sure how we will follow this trip up. Becky and I are considering Alaska next year. Hope you get Nikon to take care of you. Oh, by the way, Canon cleaned my Mark III and 5D for me at no charge when I returned

David

kgarrett11

PhotoSmithography wrote:

Very nice shots Keith. I'm not sure how we will follow this trip up. Becky and I are considering Alaska next year. Hope you get Nikon to take care of you. Oh, by the way, Canon cleaned my Mark III and 5D for me at no charge when I returned

David

Thanks David. Your pictures are great too. I've passed your smugmug link to several people here at work and have gotten nothing but raves about it. I am hoping to go to Yellowstone and Grand Teton next year.

Sylar

The best place of world
Hey my friend your photos are amazing, lovely all them and sorry for you D200, in the next february i will go to Kenya and Tanzinia Too. Can you help me with what's lenses did you most use or any another help.

Take care

kgarrett11

Sylar wrote:

Hey my friend your photos are amazing, lovely all them and sorry for you D200, in the next february i will go to Kenya and Tanzinia Too. Can you help me with what's lenses did you most use or any another help.

Take care

For the wildlife I used my 80-400mm almost exclusively. The problem with that lens is that I couldn't use a TC on it and still keep the auto-focus. I think that the minimum that you would want is 300mm. Most of my shots were between 300mm and 400mm and it seemed to work out fairly well. My biggest problem was that my D100 doesn't focus fast enough or buffer enough pictures so I missed some shots that I would have gotten with my D200 and that the guys who had that other "brand" got.

Sylar

re-Kenya
Thanks my friend, My cam is Canon 5D and have the lense canon 70-200 f/2.8 and Canon 100-400 f4, if i need more can i use my TC 2X in both lenses. You told about 5000 photos have snake,scorpions pictures too. in my trip two special places in my opinion is the best Massai Mara reserve and Serengeti. Post any picture from Kilimanjaro Too

kgarrett11

Sylar wrote:

Thanks my friend, My cam is Canon 5D and have the lense canon 70-200 f/2.8 and Canon 100-400 f4, if i need more can i use my TC 2X in both lenses. You told about 5000 photos have snake,scorpions pictures too. in my trip two special places in my opinion is the best Massai Mara reserve and Serengeti. Post any picture from Kilimanjaro Too

We went to 6 different parks in Tanzania and Kenya. I felt that the Masai Mara and Ngorongoro Crater were the best. Two of the people that were with me had Mark III's and they took over 8000 pics. That's what 10fps will do. Actually, what they told us is the Serengeti and Masai Mara are all one big park. It's the Serengeti in Tanzania and Masai Mara in Kenya. I hope that you enjoy it at least half as much as I did and you'll have a trip that you will never forget.

Sylar

Massai Mara
Ngorongoro Crater is pretty cool too, i saw many about in Animal Planet Channel , i hope enjoy this trip and take so many great shot, one special place is Kilimanjaro views our Serengeti from ballon. Mark III it's a great cam and i lovely change my 5D for a 1D MARK III hows know's ate December.

kgarrett11

Sylar wrote:

Ngorongoro Crater is pretty cool too, i saw many about in Animal Planet Channel , i hope enjoy this trip and take so many great shot, one special place is Kilimanjaro views our Serengeti from ballon. Mark III it's a great cam and i lovely change my 5D for a 1D MARK III hows know's ate December.

Yea the 1D Mark III was a good camera up until today when Cannon announced the 1Ds Mark III with a full sized sensor. Nikon take notice!

m8o

I just came back from 10 days in Tanzania visiting 3 parks. I envy you for the Leopard and Cheetah contacts you had! All mine were fleeting and/or distance glimpses... I have about 4000 RAW shots I need to go through and process; expect about 10% keepers.

My one wish is the 300mm f/2.8 Sigma I bought for the trip that I used 1st 1/2 of the trip with the 1.4x TC then 2nd 1/2 of the trip exclusively with the 2x TC was a 100-300 zoom. But alas, it's not available for the Pentax mount...

Sylar

hey m8o
Hey m8o how are you my friend... wow pretty cool trip i will lovely to know everything about this travel....

kgarrett11

m8o wrote:

I just came back from 10 days in Tanzania visiting 3 parks. I envy you for the Leopard and Cheetah contacts you had! All mine were fleeting and/or distance glimpses... I have about 4000 RAW shots I need to go through and process; expect about 10% keepers.

My one wish is the 300mm f/2.8 Sigma I bought for the trip that I used 1st 1/2 of the trip with the 1.4x TC then 2nd 1/2 of the trip exclusively with the 2x TC was a 100-300 zoom. But alas, it's not available for the Pentax mount...

I had about 14 days of shooting. I ended up with over 5200 RAW shots (mostly with my D100/80-400mm VR). Like you I was hoping to get about 10% but after a couple of weeks of looking at them I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of the keepers were near duplicates but I am still amazed at how easy it is to get good shots over there. I want to go to Yellowstone and Grand Teton next year and see if it is as easy. (maybe I will have a new D3 for that trip).

m8o

Sylar wrote:

Hey m8o how are you my friend... wow pretty cool trip i will lovely to know everything about this travel....

I finally got through 1.5 days of actual wildlife viewing to make a posting here on DGRIN. Here ya go m8o in Northern Tanzania '07 (serious d/l warning!) There's about 7.5 more days of shooting of 2500 RAWs to get through... ugh!