Camera Lens Dilemma
 

The dilemma is as follows. We are about to buy a camera for our safari but do we go with...a Canon D30 and...
1 Lens: Sigma 18-200mm
Pros: Flexibility, and Less switching
lenses
Cons: May not be as good for capturing the
animals compared to 300mm

OR do we go with

2 Lenses: 18-55mm and 70-300mm
Pros: Captures farther shots
Cons: Means more weight, and switching
lenses constantly

My dilemma is as follows: I'm worried that if I go with a 200mm lens, I may not be able to capture the close up shots I want (maybe this is not a concern...I need your feedback on this), but then if I go with a 300mm I'll need to keep switching lenses

What do you think? 1 Lens or 2 Lenses

I have a 30D and took a Canon 100-400 IS lens on safari and it was perfect. Instead of switching lens while on game drive (which I strongly discourage you from due to the dust), I took a point and shoot digital for the few shots where my 100-400 was too close. I also took my 17-85 but never once used it (or wish I had it) on game drive; I only used it in Cape Town or around the lodge. My mom took a 70-200, but was disappointed that she couldn't get the close ups I got.

If you don't want to spend the money on such an expensive lens, you can rent one. There have been several threads on where you can rent them.

Of your choices, I think #2 is the better one. Not only do you need the extra reach of the 300mm, but it is also faster than the Sigma 18-200 if my memory is correct, and the reviews on the image quality suggest to me that the 70-300 is better in that regard as well.

Having said that, I totally agree with hills27 that renting or buying a 100-400 will be even better. More reach, good image quality, and excellent flexibility. The image stabilization works really well too. I cannot imagine you wanting to switch to a shorter lens on a game drive -- the only time in a real-life shooting situation that my 100-400 was too long was on a gorilla trek in Rwanda when we were taking gorilla pictures from 5-6 feet away. That won't happen on a game drive, I don't think.

Also, if you are pushed with respect to your budget I think you would be better served to get a Rebel XTi and 100-400 rather than a 30D and 70-300. The 30D is a better body, but I think the XTi with better glass would give you better results overall.

Chris
www.pbase.com/cwillis

jit, I think you have good advice from both posters, 100-400mm L IS is a wonderful solution. Buy a good lens, if you find you don't need it once you return, the reseale will be very easy. By the way, did you know that Canon just introduced a new camera body to replace the 30D. The new body is named 40D and has a lot of nice features. Among these features is a higher frame rate (6.5 frames/second) but even more interesting is a dust shaker and a program to delete dust from your images (a very common problem on safari). It has a host of other imaging quality improvements as well and the cost is only slightly more than the 30D.
Cheers-Chuck

I too recommend 100-400L. Based on my personal experience, I used my 28-70 zero times for safari. If you plan on visiting cities and other stuff in South Africa, the wide angle might be nice, but in a safari setting, its not too practical. I would not worry about changing lenses to it very often. At a minimum, the 70-300 IS would fit your minimum needs.

Mike

Option 2 would definitely be my choice ... you'll find that you won't change lenses that much while in the jeep because the 70-300 will be what you use for most of the wildlife shots, and maybe the 18-55 for 'around camp' or landscape shots, so you can change when it's not dusty. Actually it would make a lot of sense to bring TWO cameras (yeah, I know ... cha-ching) in case one breaks, that way you can keep a lens on each body.

The image quality of the Sigma 18-200 simply isn't as good as the other zooms (it's much harder to make a 10:1 zoom than a 3:1 or 4:1 zoom) and you'll really appreciate having 300 mm instead of 200 mm for many of your animal shots.

If you haven't bought the body yet I hear the 40D is a big improvement over the 30D at about the same price.

Bill

Thanks so much for all the wisdom!
The 40D is a dream at this point (many other expenses)
Chris interesting point about the rebel having a better glass!
I'm convinced that I need a 300 mm now. Is the CANON EF 70-300MM F4-5.6 IS USM LENS a good option? Is the kit lens sufficient for the wide angle 18-55mm? The L series is a bit out of my budget.
jit

by the way, amazing pics Chris!

I don't have any personal experience with the 70-300, but comments I have seen from others suggest it is a good lens. You can see users' opinions of all Canon (and third party) lenses at www.fredmiranda.com/reviews. See what others who have the lens have to say about it there.
With respect to the 18-55, I also have not used it, but there is a useful comparison test of that lens versus other general-purpose lenses for Canon crop-sensor cameras at www.cameralabs.com (it's called the Canon 400D/XTi kit lens upgrade comparison test or something like that).
I also think you misunderstood my comment about the Rebel XTi. It does not have superior glass to the 30D. When I made that comment, what I meant was that you could spend less money on the camera body with a Rebel and then take that money and spend it on "better glass," by which I meant better lenses. I was merely saying that if your budget permitted it, I think you would get better results with an XTi and 100-400 as compared to a 30D and 70-300. A straight-up comparison of camera bodies would, I believe, reveal the 30D to be the superior camera in a number of respects.

Chris
www.pbase.com/cwillis

And thank you for the comment on the pictures!

Chris

I did some research a few months back and if I remember correctly, the Canon 70-300 IS got some pretty bad reviews while the 70-200 IS got good reviews. You could always buy the 70-200 and add a 1.4 extender.

Given your dilemna and my awful experience with dust, I think I'd spend my money on the 40D (assuming it has good reviews, I haven't looked at them yet) and rent the Canon 100-400 IS. Just my two cents.

Also, buy a waterproof pillowcase to keep your camera in while not in use while on game drives. It really helps with the dust and doesn't flap around and make a lot of noise.

Btw, here are some of my pics taken with a 30D and the 100-400 IS.

Note, they are unedited, unprocessed, just the straight out of the camera JPEG versions. And they are not necessarily the best pictures from the trip but more of an indication of what we saw (because everybody was bugging me incessantly). It will take me months to edit/process the RAW versions. I took over 3,000 photos!

Would help if I posted the link, huh?

www.pbase.com/hills27/sa2007

(Been working too late....I should be asleep instead of posting, but I'm wired after work).

Option no. 2 all the way. 200mm is too short, and that sigma's AF speed is so slow you're not going to be able to focus on ANYTHING moving.

If I may give you a tip; go for the kitlens (like 2nd hand 50$, but perfect for landscapes, don't worry), and a 35-350L. This is a lens that is no longer produced, but can be found 2nd hand for like 700-800$. It's L-quality, has an enormous zoom range (no lens switches needed during the safari, for any animal, but only for landscapes), and it has a VERY fast AF.
We've been able to test it on safari, and IMHO if your budget is limited, there is no better lens for a safari. Compared to a Sigma 50-500, it has one stop more light and an AF that is much faster. Compared Compared to an 100-400 it is much cheaper, and apparently the last 50mm on that 100-400 is not that great. Compared to any other non-L or non-Canon lens of the same price, it gives better results.
When you buy one, make sure to have a good one: no worn connections, and intact lens coatings -> apparently there's one serie that have an internal lens coating problem but you can easily spot it by looking through the rear glass element.

Have fun!

I am going next month. I have the XTi and a 70-300, however just to be safe I am renting a 100-400. Great prices and good service at http://www.lensrentals.com.

I'm going to echo the recommendation for the longer lens -- 200mm isn't enough for most shots from a vehicle.

I used Sigma's 170-400mm. I don't know that I'd recommend that particular lens, but the reach is great.

I would like to add that it depends entirely on where you will conduct your safari.

If you are headed for the Sabi Sands a 70 - 200 type zoom would be ideal. Your decision should be governed by the F stop as the best photography is arguably in the early morning and late afternoon. In addition with a wide open aperture you will isolate the game from the background.

The D30 is super and if you go with a lesser lens the ISO setting will enable you to compensate for the low light condition, however giving you a grainier image, which in itself can be artistic.

I recommend a short lens and a longer lens in the kit bag. 1.5 x extender, nice to have for the range, but it compromises f stops etc.

300mm or 400mm? I haven't made an actual comparison of image sizes using both lengths but can't be a huge difference. No difference so great that a little cropping in PS wouldn't take care of. I would bet that a good sharp 300mm image could be cropped into a very good 600mm equivalent image. In fact, I'd rather not have such a "tight" image but wait until PS to crop and make minor changes to composition. But it is a habit I find hard to break being left over from 35mm chrome days. You birders, you know you crop a lot, what are your experiences?

regards - tom

Tom, my experience with cropping in the context of wildlife photography has convinced me that it is not an adequate substitute for focal length. I get much better pictures, for example, with my 100-400 of a subject that occupies much of the sensor frame than I could with my 70-200/2.8 cropped down, even though the 70-200 is unquestionably sharper.

Also, ability to crop is highly dependent on lens quality and a good technical execution of the shot (i.e., absolutely no camera shake or subject motion blur, focus right on). Particularly since the context of this thread is a discussion of the consumer-level 70-300 zoom, I don't think cropping is a reliable alternative to having more focal length. If the lens under consideration was the 300/4L, I think it would be more viable, but even then I think the results with a 1.4xTC would still be better than cropping. The TC isn't an option with the 70-300, of course, since it is too slow.
All of that is a long-winded way of saying that I think the difference between 300mm and 400mm is significant, especially if the lenses being discused are the 70-300 and 100-400.

Chris
www.pbase.com/cwillis

Chris is right, cropping is not a substitute, Tom. Mostly, only wildlife enthusiasts (such as birders) who are merely looking for adequate 'record' shots would crop. I crop if I need a shot of a species or an activity (such as my one and only image of a cheetah bringing its prey down) I haven't recorded before, but keep cropping to a bare minimum because of its adverse effect on image quality.

John

Whether cropping is acceptable or not really depends on the final use of the image, does it not? I would submit that if the resultant image is an 8x10 print (or smaller)or a 300KB web image then extreme cropping can not be seen.

regards - tom

<b>300mm or 400mm? I haven't made an actual comparison of image sizes using both lengths but can't be a huge difference</b>

Proportional to the squares, so 16:9 or almost 2x ... but as some have pointed out, in brushy areas 300 is often enough, and remember that on the 1.6x crop d-SLRs the field-of-view of a 300 mm is equivalent to 480 mm in full-frame or 35 mm cameras ...

You asked for our experiences, Tom. You got them.

John

bump

I think this sidebar on crop is interesteing. Still, I have always understood that the &quot;bottom line&quot; went to Pixel Density&quot;. In other words, the number of photosites per unit area. One could make an analogy to film, i.e., fine grain is to resolution as higher pixel density is to resolution. So for example, a 21 megapixel sensor would provide an image that was capable of being croped far more severely than a 10 or 16 megapixel image. In a sense, you would be doing your own croping later in photoshop. I have seen some reports of how the megapixel differences between crop and no crop sensors translate into resolution, but I'm not sure I beleive the calculation. Thoughts?
Regards-Chuck

Chuck, I will give you my view on the question you just posed. I believe that the photosite density on pretty much every recent-model DSLR is so high that the limiting factor on cropping will be the lens, not the pixel density. The Canon Digital Rebel XTi and 40D have 10.1 megapixels on a 1.6x crop sensor, the Nikon D80 and D40X the same pixel count on a 1.5x sensor. The 1DIII has more pixels but a larger (1.3x) sensor. And so on.

At these densities, I believe cropping is far more likely to be limited either by less than absolutely perfect shooting (i.e., a tiny amount of motion blur or camera shake not visible in an uncropped image) or by the inherent ability of the lens to make a sharp image down to 100% on a pixel-dense sensor. I really do wonder what lens will withstand significant cropping on the new 1DsIII, and other previews of that camera I have read express the same question.

So, overall, I think the issue of pixel density may have been valid when DSLRs had lower pixel counts, but now I think they all have enough resolution to exhaust the limits of pretty much any lens.

That's just my two cents.

Chris
www.pbase.com/cwillis

I was in the same boat as you. I ended up buying he Nikon D40X with the kit lens 18-55 and also the 70-300mm with IS. The Nikon 70-300 IS received excellent reviews. I think the Canon is comparable. I also am taking my point and shoot as a back up.

I just used the Nikon 70-300 VR on safari and it is an excellent lens. Used it for 90% of my safari photos (on D200). The other 10% I used the 18-200 on a D40X. You've got this range covered. I never felt a need for anything longer than 300mm except for an occasional birdie.

regards - tom

jit,
I can't tell from you post above where in Africa you will be on safari. In East Africa you can always use more lens while in Botswana (and perhaps Zambia) you need less. Why is this? Are the animals bigger in Southern Africa? No, it's just that you are more likely to go &quot;off road&quot; and so be closer to your subjects. No kidding, I had heard that was the case but I seldom even put my 1.4X TC on my 300mm 2.8 lens. In fact, the next time I go to Bots (next summer) I'll be bringing along a 70-200mm 2.8 L IS Canon lens instead of my trusty 100-400mm lens. In Tanzania, it a different story. In East Africa you are more limited in not driving off into the bush but the terrain is different as well. Wide open grasslands rather than mopani brush require longer lenses. I would try to build a flexible kit if you intend on repeat safaris. Even non birders become interested in Africas diverse bird species. Much of lens choice should depend on what you are interested in (birds vs mammals) and where in Africa you are going. That accounts for the wide diversity of opinion on the best lens choice.
Regards-Chuck

Well said Chuck.

regards - tom

Hi Chuck, you make a really good point! We will be mostly gaming in East Africa and visiting the gorillas in Rwanda! I'm proud to say we are the owners of a Canon 30D : )