Note the word “portable” in the title. The goal here isn’t to make the “best” safari kit, it’s to make one that travels easily and still performs well. That starts with fitting into restrictive airline carry-on bag restrictions but also means not taking up a lot of room in the vehicle you’re on safari in.
On some package tours you could be packed as many as nine people to a vehicle (my workshops max out at three, but we’re catering to “best”, not “portable”). Vehicle crowding alone is a gating element that will make you want to stay portable. You can’t swing a big camera with a 600mm f/4 around with three other people in the same seat row as you.
The goal here is to come up with something that isn’t going to get you in trouble with the airlines or other tourists on your trip, but still manages to capture some great images.
Let’s start our portable kit planning, unfortunately, with another set of realities: no matter where you travel in Africa and what you bring to take photos with you’ll never have enough lens for something that happens, and you’re not going to want to change lenses while out on safari (maybe not in camp or your lodge room, either).
That means we have two maxims to consider:
- You want a flexible lens/camera with “reach”
- You will need two cameras, minimum
In the Serengeti and other parks where you can’t leave the road (which includes most of the Masai Mara now), you tend to need longer lenses than in the places where you can go off-road (e.g. the private reserves in South Africa). I’m going to assume that you’re not going to one of the latter places, as the lens needs there are far less extreme and easier to meet. We’re going to assume the worst case here, and that you’re bouncing around the Serengeti in search of animals.
Sometimes you get lucky and the animal is right by the road. Much of the time you’re not so lucky and there’s no road that gets you near to the animal.
Thus, we need flexibility and reach. Flexibility means a zoom lens; reach means pixel density and a long focal length maximum.
Pixel density: the number of pixels captured on your subject. If we frame an animal so that it fills the frame on an APS-C/DX (crop) camera that has 24mp, we will have more pixels on the subject than if we photograph from the same position with the same lens on a full frame/FX body that’s 45mp (24mp captures on the DX camera versus 19mp captures on the FX body in this example).
Since we’re looking for pixel density, we’ll tend to pick smaller sensor cameras for a truly portable kit. For a while I was favoring APS-C/DX cameras over full frame/FX cameras on safari, and sometimes when things are extreme (e.g. walking safaris) I’d move down further to m4/3. So I have a lot of experience in the smaller camera range.
Let’s look at simple, portable kits for Nikon DX (or RF-S in the Canon world):
- two crop sensor bodies (typically D7500 or D500 in the Nikon F-mount realm, a Z50II in the Nikon Z-mount, or the R7 or R10 in the current Canon world)
- 80-400mm f/4-5.6 lens (Nikon F-mount), 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 (Nikon Z-mount) or 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 (Canon RF); this is our flexible “reach” lens
- 16-80mm f/2.8-4 lens (Nikon F-mount), 16-50mm f/2.8 (Nikon Z-mount), or 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 (Canon)
Thing is, you can find better bodies (typically full frame) and better lenses (typically longer focal length or faster aperture or both) than these choices. Yes, I know that. But the point here, again, is not to make the best possible kit, but to build a system that’s smaller and more portable and going to be less of a problem during travel.
Let’s address what you’re giving up:
- By picking a crop sensor body (APS-C/DX) instead of a full frame one (FX), you’re losing about one stop worth of low light ability, all else equal.
- By picking those long variable aperture lenses, you’re giving up some optical quality versus the big primes, plus you’re giving up perhaps another stop to two stops of low light ability compared to what’s possible.
Now what you’re gaining:
- A D7500 or Z50II has 1.5x the pixel density on a distant subject of a D6, for example (all are 20mp cameras). More pixels on the subject, all else equal. Both also have more pixel density than using a D850 or Z8 in DX crop mode (20mp versus 19mp).
- Those lenses I specified are smaller and lighter than the larger, faster alternatives.
So, to be clear, our portable kit operates less well in low light (dawn/dusk) and perhaps doesn’t have as much edge acuity as we could get from a maxed out system, but it’s smaller, lighter, and simpler.
You may have noted that I didn’t put the usual 70-200mm choice as the lens on my second body in the APS-C/DX kits. Why? Well, the Nikon F-mount lens I chose already gets to 80mm, and the Canon to 100mm, and our long lens goes down to those focal lengths, so we’re not gaining a lot of flexibility by putting a 70-200mm f/4 on the second body. Yes, the Z50II with the two lenses I suggest has a focal length gap from 50-100mm, but you can finesse that in the field. That said, there is something to be said for backup on safari. If you’re concerned about that, sure, stick a 70-200mm f/4 or 70-180mm f/2.8 and a teleconverter for it in your bag, so that if something happens to your 80-400mm you can still get to 280mm (1.4x) or 400mm (2x) with the 70-200mm.
We could “quibble” a lot about what is and isn’t portable. For instance, on the Nikon side we now have the 200-500mm f/5.6 (F-mount) and 180-600mm f/4.5-6.3 (Z-mount), both of which are excellent lenses and work fine for safari. But thing is, once you get beyond the 80-400mm or 100-400mm, you’re starting to gain weight and size very, very rapidly. For example, the 80-400mm is 8” (203mm) long and 56 ounces (1560g). The 200-500mm is 10.5” (267mm) and a whopping 81.2 ounces (2300g). All to gain 100mm at the long end and lose more than that at the short end. We’re starting to lose our goal of truly portable by going longer.
I mentioned m4/3 earlier. We can give up almost another stop in the sensor capability and get to another excellent portable system ("almost" because the m4/3 cameras use a 4:3 aspect ratio and the APS-C/DX cameras use a 3:2 aspect, which impacts the overall measured dynamic range across the entire frame).
With m4/3 we just use some faster lenses to grab some of that light back. Moreover, we can get far more reach for about the same weight. Consider this:
- two OM-5 or OM-1 bodies
- Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8
- Olympus 300mm f/4
We’ve lost our wide angle to modest telephoto range here, requiring us to carry a pocket camera of some sort for that (e.g. Leica D-Lux8, Sony RX-100). But we’ve increased our reach out to a fast 600mm equivalent (full frame). This is a very similar kit to what I use on walking safaris: lots of reach in a very hike friendly weight.
So let’s see where we are:
- Nikon DX camera with 80-400mm or 100-400mm: 20mp at 600mm equivalent
- Canon EF-S/RF-S camera with 100-400mm: 18 or 33mp at 640mm equivalent
- m4/3 camera with 300mm: 20mp at 600mm equivalent
All three options give us plenty of pixel density with more distant subjects, which is one of the things we’re looking for in these kits. All three options can be packed into even some of the most restrictive airline carry-on requirements, though you might have to fudge a bit if you hit one with a 7kg limit.
Have I put my money where my mouth is? (Wait, isn’t it "my practice where my writing is?" ;~). Yes, I’ve done so many times (article links):
- For DX, I did it in 2015 with the D7200 and 80-400mm. (I now do the same with a Z50II and a Tamron 50-400mm.)
- For m4/3, I did it in late 2014 with the OM-1 and 50-150mm.
Note: nothing's really changed in the years since, other than the cameras got better.
So, yes, it is possible to create interesting and excellent images using these smaller, lighter packages. Are these the way I prefer to photograph on safari? No. My general preference is a full frame body with the big, exotic telephoto lenses. But here’s the thing: don’t get overly obsessive about the gear if the situation doesn’t dictate it. A good, simple kit can take you a long way photographically. It can also free you from lugging an excess of gear around when you want to be nimble.