How many photos did you take on safari?
 

I'm leaving for safari in December and I'm trying to figure out how much memory to bring for my new camera (Panasonic FZ18 - 8MP and 18xs zoom lens). We'll be on safari for 8 days, plus a day of sightseeing in Nairobi.

I know there are a lot of photo enthusiasts on this board who take 500 pictures per day, but I can't imagine myself shooting that much. I'm wondering if there are any other point and shoot type, vacation-only photographers out there. If so, on average, how many pictures per day did you shoot on safari?

Thanks.

I am sure you will get a variety of answers on this one.!

I am one of those people that can control and limit the amount of pictures I take.

However, some people are terrific Safari photographers.
Not to single anyone out but BillH has put out some terrific pictures on this Forum

Percy

I took about 1000 pictures in 8 days using a canon s3. Deleted some along the way, could have deleted more. Used up 3 1 GB cards and part of a 2 GB card. I believe this is your first safari and you will want to take pictures of everything, but remember to put the camera down every so often and see what you are seeing through your eyes, not the camera. Enjoy the sightings!

cool question. I brought two small wolverine hard drives with me, something I learned about on this forum. I brought them for backup; each time I finished a card I just dumped it onto each of them so I would have 2 copies for safety, then I erased the card. As a result, because each of them has 40gigs of storage, I never had to worry about taking too many shots, and I took 4000 pictures. Most of them suck!! But it was nice to never have to worry about taking pics or deleting pics. My father in law did a great job being selective and deleting stuff as we went, but eventually he dumped his card onto my wolverines to make more space for himself. He ended up with about 1000pics, shooting on a lower quality setting to better fit more pics. I liked the freedom of shooting whatever and whenever I wanted, and when I was done with the 4000, I probably only ended up with a couple of hundred decent ones, and they were not always the ones I thought were going to be good, so having a lot of memory enabled me to end up with a decent amount of quality stuff at the end. We were away for a month though, so maybe you can do the math to downsize to 8 days...I have been out drinking all night, so there will be no math coming from here....

yes!

i am an average point and shoot type. if you are asking in terms of storage, i would bring two cards that hold 2 gig each. if your camera has a pixel size selector, read the owner's manual and decide if you really need maximum pixel size for every single shot. i mean are you going to enlarge your safari tent picture to 11x 17, or whatever?

i often reduced the image size to get more on my card.

never sorry as they all look great on the computer and are much easier to email to friends and family.

all but the lowest pixel size on my camera allows you to print beautiful regular photo sized prints.

i would say 300 pictures total for the whole safari would not be unheard of, even for a non photographer. the scenery is very pretty and it's no cost to click away!
kerikeri :)

<b>Not to single anyone out but BillH has put out some terrific pictures on this Forum</b>

Gee thanks Percy!

In April 06 (2nd safari) I shot 3,302 frames in 10 days, in January 07 (3rd safari) I shot 4,035 frames in 12 days so about 330 shots/day (I thought it would be higher since the camera will take 8 frames/sec if properly stimulated).

I'm pretty sure I shot more on the first safari, when every zebra, every starling, heck almost every bush and rock seemed unique :)

Bill

I took 3,500 over 10 days and did some selective deleting along the way, but not a lot. Like Jenack, I was often surprised at what ended up turning out well when I looked at it on a bigger screen back home. If I had deleted those along the way, I would have lost out.

My mom who is a point-and-shoot, vacation-only photographer shot close to 2,000.

Given the cheap cost of memory these days, I don't think you should use a lower setting to get more on a card. You never know when you'll get a great shot from far away that you'll need to crop a lot. That's the only way we got a good shot of some 4-week old cheetah cubs. We were one of only two groups that got to see them, and my mom got the only shot. If she had been shooting at a lower res (like she usually does), the cropped version would not have been nearly as good.

I also highly recommend you backup as you go. You never know when a card might go bad, and there are no do-overs on safari.

Also, make sure you reformat the card instead of just erasing it. Otherwise, you are more likely to end up with a corrupt card.

Btw, I met at least three point-and-shoot types who were kicking themselves for not bringing enough memory. For one, I downloaded her pictures onto my hyperdisk, and we gave her two extra cards. So don't cheat yourself.

We were in Africa for 19 days, and between my wife and I we shot over 3000 photos. This is the &quot;net&quot; number - we delted quite a few after reviewing on Epson P-3000 and my laptop. Including movies as well (our cameras could take movies), we used 17 GB worth of cards. We thought that would be way more than enough - as it was it was kind of tight, just about perfect.

Bill_H

can you please give some links to your photos

as for the Topic of this thread:
Unfortunately, i do not own a D camera, so the number of slides i take is of no interest...
however, since my 30th safari or so, i no longer take my camera/s out of the bag unless i like the lighting (or there's a special behaviour going on),BINOCULARS are the best &quot;weapon&quot; to use in Africa

aby

Fifteeen days in Botswana generated 12,000+ photos. I'm still photoshopping my June safari. Now that the cost of flash memory has fallen so much, I think I'll be less inhibited on my next trip.
Regards-Chuck

I should add that 11,500 of these were the result of my attempt to get the perfect &quot;10&quot; Lilac Breasted Roller. I have much to learn. :-)
Chuck

Traveler07

We are P&amp;S, pictures-of-the-kids types who decided to go to Africa and bought a Canon S3 to take along. I took approx 3000 photos during our 9-day Northern Circuit TZ safari last January. Culled this in the field and in the evening (using the camera) to about 1100 which we brought home. Used Photoshop Elements (first-time) to bring it down to 400 photos to save and share with others.


We used 3.5 MB in the end. We are returning to TZ and Kenya next year (August 2008), will probably take 5 or 6 MB. Memory is cheap now, consider what you are spending on everything else.

Free advice (from an amateur):
- Set the camera on maximum size and pixels. Don't risk having the camera on a lesser setting when you really need the pixels for later editing.
- Don't obsess about taking photos: you can't match the pros. Capture your experience, but put down the camera and take it in as much as possible.
- I didn't have PC or iPo to download or backup to, and worried about that. Didn't have any problems in the end. I would liked to have had a PC for viewing and backup, but don't intend to fuss with it. See previous comment.
- Worry about protecting your camera from damage and dirt, spare batt's and charging, and using your new camera before you go. Learning how to operate it in the back of a rocking landcruiser is a bad move.
- Get an editing tool for your commputer and have someone with some skills get you started. Its easy to do and will save some amazing photos that need help.

Hilton's web address is below. We go there and cruise their photo's when we need an East Africa fix.

http://www.hiltonphotography.net/index.htm

Enjoy your trip, you will be amazed.

Jim

Correction to last post. I meant GB, not MB. Duh. (but you all knew that)

Even in the day of film, on our first safari where you take a pic of anything, between two of us we didn't have 800/pics. About two-thirds were worth keeping. The whole thing going thru all of these was a pain and time consuming.

Since then, a few more visits with film and the numbers remained the same.

On first safari with digital, with two different cameras, we maybe had 1000 pics, of which I trimmed the good ones down to 600. And, some of these were from a friend's film camera.

Recent visits, with only my camera, using a 256 &amp; 512 chip, I barely fill them up. I ended up with about 300-400 acceptable pics. Yes, I have a 1Gb chip, but haven't used it.

None of my trips have been less than 2/weeks... some even 3/weeks.

It'll all come down to your own shooting patterns, what's worth clicking, and being prepared to take the time on return to weed thru whatever you've clicked during your visit.

<b>Bill_H - can you please give some links to your photos</b>

Hi aby, here are illustrated trip write-ups ...

http://www.hiltonphotography.net/africa/

Just started a Pbase account where I'll put up some Africa shots by topic, like &quot;Serengeti Lions&quot; or &quot;Tanzania Birds&quot;, not organized by trip ... half the lions are up at

http://www.pbase.com/hilton_photography

Bill

Too many to count. Always take extra point and shoot camera as backup as well as laptop computer or photo ipod to backup photos, as well as lots of memory cards for each camera.

The extra camera is a must for us. We have been on trips were people's cameras become inoperable, are dropped in water or they don't bring extra batteries and then they have no backup for taking photos.

Also suggest becoming familiar with your new camera before getting to Africa.

-GrannyJoan

In Africa, I take about 100-150 a day and delete at least 20% by before I get home. I feel like that is lots and lots of photos. By comparison it is hardly any.

On our first safari in 2003, before we switched to a digital SLR, we took a total of 3300 pictures in 18 days. That seemed like taking a LOT of pictures at the time, and every other trip we took with a point &amp; shoot, we took about that number.

Having switched to a DSLR, we shoot far more, last two trips were 11,000 and 14,000 respectively. To give you an example, when we went gorilla trekking in Rwanda and Uganda, we shot 300-500 pictures in each one-hour session with the gorillas. But that is a unique circumstance where there are subjects all around, with at least one doing something interesting at all times.

Bill -- glad to see your lions on PBase, I've left you a message over there.

Chris
www.pbase.com/cwillis

I saw a piece of advice I liked a lot: put down the camera every now and again.

I was there in South Africa for three weeks. I had over 600 pcitures and I thought that was insane. Of course, you want to capture what you saw on film (or, uh, whatever) but remember that the real value is going to be seeing not the perfect still frame, but the whole scene.

Chris, I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one obsessed. Still, I would have a difficult time holding myself to only 500 gorilla pictures/hour.
Regards-Chuck