Camera 200mm-300mm?
 

We, my DH, myself and 2 friends, all who have traveled and worked around the world, Italy, Turkey, Thailand, Mexico, and others, are going to Tanzania and Kenya 6/6/08-06/23-08 on an OAT "Safari Serengeti" extension to Masai Mara.

All of the posts that I have read about cameras have been adamant about having at least a 300mm lens.

I have talked to my "camera guru" and he says that the Canon S5 (432mm) is a great buy and what I need at this point in my life.

Can anyone give me their thoughts/directions as to this matter. I bought our daughter & her DH a Nikon D40x with 18-55mm zoom & 55-200mm for Christmas, as that is what they wanted.

I am going to go from a Minolta 7000 and a Canon Power Shot A70, both of which I have taken on all of our adventures. However, I don't want to take rolls and rolls of film anymore and I need more telephoto length.

Most of my photos in the 2 past years have been my grandson but after middle July of this year will expand to be of him and his 2 siblings, yes, twins. Are we going to have fun???

Anyway if you all could share with me your thoughts, I would so appreciate them.

Without knowing your level of expectation it is difficult to give an unqualified thumbs up to any of the small to medium sized point and shoot cameras. But as a representative of this class of digital camera, the S5Is is one of the best. The earlier models in this series (S2Is & S3Is) were very popular and used by many on this forum and I recomended them several friends (one took it on safari) all have been very happy. I hesitate telling you that your results will equal those of a SLR with a high qualtiy telephoto lens but you will certainly bring home lots of pictures you will be proud of and the learning curve is not nearly as steep as with digital SLR's. Two stron recommendations 1) practice a lot and 2) take along lots of memory storage. Memory storage (what you record your images on) has fallen in price and now it is possible to take along enough memory so that you will not have to worry about downloading while on safari. I beleive the S5 even does video clips at something like 3-4 megapixels so you should try that as well. On another note, are you aware of the situation in Kenya right now?
Cheers-Chuck

My experience with the Canon S2 and S3 cameras over three years has been excellent. Unless you are a pro or VERY serious amateur the S5 will give you better pictures than you can take. (Yes, it knows more about photography than you do). Similar type cameras from Sony and Panasonic will do just as good. The lens zoom range is perfect for safari.

One thing I think the S5 has over the others is its movie/video format. It takes excellent videos, although, they have to be rather short due to memory card size limitations. A 2 gig SD memory card will record only 15 minutes of high quality video. But that is enough for us. Most video clips are best if short, 1 minute or even less. Watch closely a real movie and notice how long the scenes are.

Find the cameras in a store and try them. And don't let the sales person (if there is one) talk you into a DSLR or something else.

regards - tom

Thanks Chuck & Tom for your replys they helped a lot.

Yes, I have been keeping up on the situation in Kenya.

llorear, previous posters give great advice. Have been very pleased with the Canon S3 so I can only imagine what the more recent versions can do. Point I would like to reinfoce is the one about practicing. A game drive is not the place not time to learn how to use the new camera. Go to a zoo or even the backyard and shoot like you might in East Africa. Wish I had done more before hand particularly in regards to shooting birds up in a tree against the sky. Or, using flash to fill in shadows when the sun is behind my subject (in this case wife and guide). Have a great safari and be sure to give us a report and pictures when you get home. Dick

I was really happy with my Canon S3, but wish to reiterate the suggestions about practicing beforehand. Frankly, the auto settings work beautifully in many situations, but the camera also has some neat options where you can do something in-between fully automatic and fully manual, and you need familiar enough to be able to make use of them.

For example, you can set it to automatic exposure bracketing. This is great in case there is an animal in shadow on a bright day -- a fully automatic setting will leave the shadow too dark to see the animal. Automatic exposure bracketing will take 3 shots with various exposures.

You will definitely use and enjoy the long zoom.

p.s. Enjoy your trip. I took the OAT trip to Kenya and Tanzania.

Ann,
Thanks for the photo tips. I am making note of them all.
Linda