[Jay S]

Hi all,

My wife and I are leaving for Botswana and Capetown on Friday for our honeymoon.  We'll be spending 9 days in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, including the area where National Geographic films on big cats have been shot.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip and so we want to capture as much of it in photos.  

Would you guys have advice on the best way to shoot wildlife?  

We recently bought a Canon Digital Rebel (300D) digital SLR.  It came with an 18-55mm telephoto zoom lens.  A friend has lent us a Canon 75-300mm IS telephoto zoom.  With digital, the focal length is effectively 60% longer since the CCD sensor is smaller than the image area of 35mm film, e.g. a 75mm lens is effectively 120mm.  

I tend to shoot with the White Balance set to Cloudy, and Exposure Compensation set to -1.  We use a UV filter on the lens.  I tend to shoot with the camera in "P" mode, though will experiment with Av and Tv, e.g. use Tv and set shutter speed to something like 1/250 to freeze action.  We are hoping to see and take pictures of chases, esp cheetahs and lions.

I set the camera to record images in JPEG Large Fine, so each 6.3 mega-pixel shot takes about 2-3 Mb.  We have 3 512 Mb CF cards (each holds over 150 pictures), and will be downloading the pics to a laptop in between game drives.  

I'm actually quite new to photography, so any tips and rules of thumb would be very helpful!  

Thanks!

- Jay

[rosconey]

shoot it till its dead then shoot it some more

[navi]

Jay,
set your camera to sports mode (the stick figure man) that way the autofocus will track the subject even if it's moving.

try it out brfore you go by standing on the side of the road . point at a car driving towards you from a distance, hold down the shutter button- and it should continue focusing as the car moves.

use it on animals that are moving.

i usally shoot with AV (ap priority) set at around f4-5.6 that way you get a out of focus background.
- shutter 250+ is good.

but experiment with slower shutter speeds with moving objects -you can create interesting motion blur backgrounds- when you move with the object.



But the best advice i can give you is....experiment.

Navi
Melbourne.AUST.

[lo mein]

Use a tripod. Or at least a monopod.

If your camera can take interchangable lenses. Use a 500mm mirrow reflect lens, or better yet, a 1000mm+ telephoto lens.

A wide angle lens around 21 - 35mm is excellent for landscapes too.

[Jay S]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the advice.  We look over 2k pictures and had a great time.  We have chosen our top 200 and will post them online.  I can post the links if anyone is interested.  My favorite shot is of 3 cheetah brothers with their tails up in the air scent marking a tree!

We were lent a Canon 75-300IS F4.5-5.6, which we used for over 95% of the shots while on safari.  All the shots were handheld, though I did try to rest the camera on the safety bar in front of our seats for sunset shots.  I used "P" mode for almost all shots, though I did play with exposure compensation.  I wish I had used Av more so as to blur the background.  

Now that we are back, we've been bitten by the photography bug!  We are probably going to get a 24-70L F2.8 for general purpose use, and a 70-200L F4 as a medium-range telephoto zoom.  A friend is selling us his 100-400L IS lens but we don't think we'd have much use for it.  If we go on safari again, we may just get a 1.4x teleconverter for use with the 70-200 (though on our recent trip we did wish for more zoom than 300mm...).

- Jay