Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons; Number Eight...

Do your research. 
Safaris can be very expensive. To me, too expensive to go purely on a guess and a hope. The internet is an amazing tool! The first time we went to Africa, I researched ahead of time for months. My first priority was to photograph leopards. Most of the people I have spoken to who have gone to Africa were lucky if they got even a glimpse of a leopard. 

Mother and son leopards in Mala Mala

A quick internet search and I found out that the most dense population of leopards in Africa are in an area called the Sabi Sands. From there, I narrowed it down to the game reserves that most appealed to what I wanted to get out of my safari experience. Some people like pampering, amazing food and fancy rooms. Personally, as a wildlife photographer, I was just interested in the best wildlife game viewing experience I could find within my price range. A great tool is trip advisor. I searched and looked up questions on this site for months and when I was ready to book my trip, I was confident in my decisions. The trip was amazing. It was such a great trip, that we will be going back to the same spots in South Africa and some of the same game reserves in Masai Mara in Kenya in 2012. South Africa was amazing for leopard viewing, while Little Governors' camp in the Masai Mara was fantastic for viewing lions.

Little baby; big yawn!

 In 2012, we are hoping to experience the best of both worlds.

I have spoken to a lot of people who have been to Africa and most of them seem to be at the mercy of what ever their travel agent chooses. When we were in South Africa, we saw leopards almost every day. In fact one day we saw 5 different leopards in one day! I was so grateful for my homework. Most travel agents wouldn't know about the specifics of what kind of animals you will see on safari, just that you will see lots of wildlife. Safaris can be very expensive, not to mention that you don't go to Africa every day. My lesson today is to do the research. Think about what kind of wildlife you would like to see, research it and then book accordingly. Sure, hire a travel agent if you like, but my advice would be to at least research what your travel agent recommends and make sure that the trip that is being designed for you is the sort of trip that will be the ideal trip for you.

To recap:

1. Decide which wildlife you are most interested in seeing on safari.
2. Research which area will provide the best viewing for those animals.
3. Go to trip advisor then to individual websites and research the safari camps in that area that would best suit your needs and your budget.
4. Hire a travel agent and share your information or book it yourself.

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons; Number Nine...

Be aware of people when you are trying to photograph wildlife
In National Parks, it is common to see signs that say "Be aware of wildlife". I think the signs should also warn photographers of people who scare wildlife :) 


In Jasper a few years ago, I was on a highway when I noticed an osprey in a tree with a fish in his talons. I was so excited. I pulled over in the ditch, got my camera and lens ready and quietly got in range of the bird as he enjoyed his meal. Tourists noticed me with my camera and pulled up beside me. I was so excited as I don't have any pictures of ospreys. They asked me what I was up to, so I pointed out the creature and whispered "osprey". I figured the whispering would be a dead give away that they could quietly enjoy the sighting from their car. The next thing I knew, four doors slammed and of course the bird flew away instantly. I still don't have a picture of an osprey. Lesson number one: If you have a great wildlife sighting and a tourist asks you what you are looking at, remember this phrase "pretty flowers". If you don't I can almost guarantee that most tourists will scare the animal away. They will get out of their car and attempt to get closer with their point and shoot cameras. Many people will even attempt to get closer (too close) even if that animal is a bear or an elk during the rut, so if they don't see the animal, the safest thing for many tourists is to know that you are looking at pretty flowers or something else boring.


Beware of people on safaris. When we hire a guide on safaris, we save longer and pay extra to have a private guide when ever possible. Several years ago we were on a grizzly bear safari. At $500 per person, we got in a boat with a guide and another family with two small children. We boated out two and a half hours to the estuary where the grizzlies were. We got within 150 meters of them when the mother panicked and insisted that we leave. She figured the grizzlies were going to attack the boat. I suppose it would have been a terrible photo shoot anyway because the children were bored and fidgety, so any pictures that day would have been very challenging anyway. The guide obliged, my ten pictures were terrible and for a thousand dollars, we got to spend about ten minutes 150 meters away from grizzlies on shore. What a waste of a day and money!


The next year we went out to the coast again. We tried again, but this time photographed them from the tree stands. Thankfully, our second experience was much more successful. No children, only a group of adults who actually wanted to see the grizzlies. We went with Tide Rip Grizzly Tours. Our grizzly pictures this time were much more successful. We watched 17 grizzlies as they fished, played, ate and had the occasional play fight. It was a lot of fun.


I am delighted that I learned this lesson before we went to Africa. It is one thing to have a bad photo day or two when you are a two hour flight from home. It is another thing to learn this lesson after you have saved up for a year to fly half way around the world, only to sit in a land rover with fidgety tourists who may want to go back to the camp early so they can have drinks and a massage. 


Long story short: Most people enjoy a quick view of wildlife, but aren't necessarily interested in trying to get a great image. The average tourist and the average photographer are interested in getting very different things out of the safari experience. Be aware of people while on safari and be very aware of the people who you are on safari with!

Ten Biggest Safari Mistakes and Lessons...

I have been going on wildlife safaris for the past 12 years two or three times per year. Some safaris I have been alone, while on other safaris there have been a group of us up to as many as 15 photographers. Over that time I learned lessons on every one of those safaris. Sometimes I learned from the other photographers, but too often I learned some hard lessons myself that still plague me today. The good news is I try not to make the same mistakes too often. In theory I wouldn't learn the same mistake twice, but unfortunately I can't give myself that much credit.


I don't want to bore you with all ten mistakes and lessons on the same blog, so I will start with my mistake that I would rank at number ten and we'll count back. Hopefully this information will be helpful to those who are just starting out in wildlife photography and looking for some direction and answers...


Mistake Number Ten:
Thankfully I am not alone on this one. I have seen many photographers make this mistake. "Don't cheap out on equipment." Wildlife safaris are often quite expensive. If you can afford to pay two to thirty or forty grand for a safari, you can afford appropriate equipment.


Years ago, I was on a kayak off Vancouver Island. My dream at the time was to photograph an eagle catching a fish. I craved to capture the image of a wide wing span, the splash on the water, the animal interaction, the attack, the talons and the action. All of these aspects of this kind of picture intrigued me then and still catch my attention today. It sounded like a long shot, but on the off chance I had the opportunity to capture this sort of image, I would go home a happy camper. Well, we kayaked around for a couple hours, then came to a quiet eddy in the ocean. We stopped to watch a fidgety bald eagle in a tree. I got out my camera and he swooped down right in front of us. He was facing us as his talons hit the water. His wings were spread, he made a great splash and missed the fish, but it was still a spectacular "in the right place at the right time" moment. To this day, I still remember that exact moment. Unfortunately for me, I was using a cheap lens and my memory of that event is still much clearer than the picture was. 


My lesson? I skimped on the price of the lens and ended up with a fuzzy image. Now I can't guarantee that my picture would have been crystal clear if I was using one of the lenses that I use today. Many of my pictures today aren't crystal clear either. The difference is that there was no way that picture could have  turned out as I would have liked. I just didn't have the right tool for the job. The lens wasn't fast enough, images it produced weren't clear enough and it had no image stabilization capabilities and I was in a kayak!


What lens should you be using for wildlife photography? People ask me that a lot. Go for a lens with image stabilization and reach.People often skimp on camera equipment, suggesting that it isn't in the budget and yet will spend thousands on the safari. These people come home with fuzzy images of tiny little specs on pictures that represent bears, whales and other exciting wildlife. I am not trying to be critical. I have spent thousands on wildlife safaris years ago only to come home with yucky pictures. I also have friends who went to Africa a few years ago and spent an absolute fortune on a three week safari. They had a good camera, but neglected to buy or rent a good lens. Although they rave about their vacation, admittedly, their one regret is that they should have spent another 1700.00 for a great lens! This coming from people who don't claim to be photographers and don't want to be photographers, but experienced such amazing wildlife in Africa, that today they still regret not bringing a good telephoto lens.


My suggestion? Research the lens first. I am a canon guy myself. I love the IS L series white lenses and won't use anything else, but that is just me. Research the glass, then choose the camera that fits the glass. The lens is the most important investment of a photographer's arsenal. The camera is second. Now you may tell me that you can't afford it, but I would suggest that if wildlife safaris are what you enjoy and you enjoy wildlife photography, then I would suggest that you can't afford not to buy the appropriate equipment. I started with an EF 100-400mm IS f4.5-5.6 lens. Again, I am not suggesting that is what you should get, just that is what I bought several years ago. I love that lens and still use it regularly on safaris today. If you already have a good DSLR, and can't afford to buy the glass, then consider renting a great lens for a couple weeks while on safari.


I had much less money then than I do now, so I scrimped and saved and bought my lens one year and a great camera the next. In the meantime, I went on safaris that were inexpensive so I could afford the camera equipment. If you feel that you can't afford a good lens, there are lots of places I can recommend that people go in Alberta where you can camp at night and find bears, deer, deer fawns, coyotes, elk and a host of other exciting wildlife during the day. That way you can still save up for the good glass...but that blog will have to wait for another day...


Next blog from Lessons that I have learned. Mistakes and Lesson Number Nine: Be aware of people when you are trying to photograph wildlife!

Fun With Photos; Photography That Tells A Story.

Part of the enjoyment that I get from going on safari comes long after the trip is over. From sorting through the ten or twenty thousand pictures to cleaning up the good ones (sharpening, slight colour corrections here and there and a little cropping) to posting them on the websites, creating greeting cards, printing, displaying and selling them are all fun and a lot of work! It takes up to six months after I get back to finish this process. That is part of the reason that I only go on two safaris a year. I wouldn't be able to run my businesses and keep up with the photo process otherwise.My latest fun I have been having is with GIFs. I like telling a story when I take pictures. At 5 to 8 frames per second (depending upon which camera I am using), scrolling through the pictures is sometimes an interesting way of telling a short story of what is going on without taking a video. I really enjoy looking at my pictures this way as it brings back the fond memories of what was going on with the animals that day.

For the first GIF I made, I chose a picture of three zebras. They noticed a lion off in the distance and immediately perked up and started wagging their tails. Each picture is interesting as they seem to be wagging their tails in unison. Unfortunately just one picture doesn't display the anxiety that I could imagine that the zebras were feeling at the time (especially the pregnant one on the left), so it was fun to make a gif showing a little bit of movement in that brief second of time illustrating a little more of a story behind the image.

Click on the picture to see a larger gif of the zebras wagging their tails.

Lion on the Horizon- Click on image to see animation

The next one that I had fun with is 14 pictures of two male lions in the Masai Mara. This one was much more difficult. I didn't know that the lion was going to yawn. My camera was hand held and I certainly didn't know at the time that I would try to make a gif out of it, thereby telling a more of a story about the image. Without a stable surface when taking the pictures, they were difficult to line up, but it still turned out pretty good in the end.

Click here to see the lion animation

Four Months Post Africa...

Four months after we returned home from Africa and I am finally finishing up with the pictures. As soon as we returned home, I started printing and framing pictures for our Christmas exhibit. It took months to set up, but was worth it as it was really well received. I had animals Mostly consisting of North America on one wall and animals from Africa on the other.

My next delightful surprise was winning the Governors' Camp's 2010 photo contest with this shot.

Gotcha!

I just finished updating my pictures from our African adventure to the websites. If you are curious, you can find the galleries here:

Lions, cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, zebras and miscellaneous African animals.

We also have one website dedicated just to animals from South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya.

Sadly, I am mostly done with the pictures from our Kenya and Tanzania safari. Our next African Safari will be  South Africa and Kenya in 2012. My next safari will be polar bears in March of 2011. I am looking forward to blogging about the polar bears It is an interesting experience at 45 below with no running water and three    roommates who I haven't met before. And yet, if it will be anything like last year's polar bear experience, it will be incredible.

Our main website can be found here: Harvey Wildlife Photography

My next big project with these pictures now is to create greeting cards. Another huge undertaking, but one that is really rewarding. That should pretty much take me the next few months to finish. I'll have to post pictures of Harvey Wildlife Photography greeting cards on one of these blogs. In the meantime, I have a few of them here.

The Right Tools for a Great Safari

I have been on safaris around the world. After each safari I inevitably examine what I did and how I could have done it better. A big part of this equation is the equipment that you bring. If you don't do your homework and the wildlife viewing isn't very good, then your images are going to be limited. At the same token, if you bring the wrong equipment for the light, or lenses without enough reach in an area where the guides aren't allowed to drive off road, your images will be equally limited.

On our safari to South Africa, I brought all the equipment that I could get my hands on. I would have brought the kitchen sink too if I thought it would have helped in some way. On that trip, I was traveling with Gaye and my step daughter, so I had a litte more room for carry on as I assigned a camera bag to each of them each flight as a carry on. This satisfied the airlines as I wasn't traveling with three camera bags. Instead, three people were flying with one bag each. The issue of "carry on" is a big part of how I decide what to bring or not to bring. The last thing I need is to put 35 grand in camera equipment in with the luggage and get to my destination in Africa only to disover that my equipment is in Spain, or it has arrived but is broken to bits or stolen. I am very protective of my equipment!


I came back home after our first African first trip realizing that I needed to pack lighter. For example, I realize I need extra hard drives, so this past trip, I bought small external hard drives. You can now buy a terabyte hard drive that is the size of a deck of cards. I brought two. One to store the pictures and one for back up. On our past trip to Kenya and Tanzania I scaled back considerably. I normally have two full camera bags full of equipment plus a 600mm lens. On this trip, I managed to fit all of the camera equipment into one think tank camera bag. I would highly recommend these bags. Think Tank literally thinks of everyhing a photographer needs in a camera bag. They are sturdy, practical and they don't look like they contain camera equipment. They just look like a regular carry on bag.


Here is a list of what I brought on safari to Kenya and Tanzania:
Canon EOS Mark III 1Ds
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EOS 7D
Canon Powershot- a point and shoot camera for videos and snapshots that I kept in my pocket.
I bought the 7D for this trip and really enjoyed it. I bought it because it shoots 8 frames per second and I figured it would help with the action shots. It was fantastic for catching the action. It shoots about three more frames in raw in a burst than my Mark III shoots (approximately, I can't remember exactly), I think it focuses quicker and crop sensor really helped in Tanzania where they don't drive off road and the animals in the Ngorongoro crater are 100 meters away...at least! They aren't always that far away, but more often than not, they certainly seemed to be. Needless to say, I got much better photo opportunities in the Masai Mara.

ISO 800 7D 600mm IS- I didn't think the
7D performed very well in low light

Where I thought the 7D was quite weak was shooting with higher ISO's. Don't quote me, I am not a camera analyst or anything, but it seems to me that the Mark III 1Ds performs much better in the lower light scenarios.


In regards to lenses, I brought a 24-70 wide angle lens for my 5D Mark II, a 70-200 IS, 2.8 (which I never used once), a 100-400mm for my 5D Mark II and I put the 600mm, f4 on my Mark III 1Ds. The idea being that Africa can be very very dusty in September and you do not want to change lenses. The last thing you need is dust and gunk on your sensor. The other reason is because if you see a pretty sunrise, but have to change lenses to get the shot, you may not bother as it might just be too much effort. For those reasons, my system worked extremely well. I think people probably thought I was nuts, but I didn't care. I was there to get the best images that I could get, not to fit in. On a side note, if you do decide to try this system out, make sure that you ask to book a private guide and landrover. If you don't, you won't have room for your equipment. It will get bumped around and will constantly be in everyone's way.


I thought my system worked really well until I got back home and started thinking about it. In 2012, I will be going back to South Africa and the Masai Mara. In learning from my past experiences, I have decided that I can improve upon my current system in a few ways:

1. I will still use my 7D on my 600mm lens. That was my bread and butter in Kenya and Tanzania and worked like a charm.
2. I will put my 70-200 IS. 2.8 on my 5D Mark II. Interestingly enough in Africa, the use of a wide angle lens seems pointless to me. I took better pictures of the sunrises and sunsets in the Masai Mara and Tarangire National Park with my 100-400mm lens than I did with my wide angle lens.

Sunrise taken with canon
100-400 IS

1. I will buy a 400mm IS, 2.8 for my Mark III 1Ds. Most of the pictures I took in both South Africa and Kenya and Tanzania with the 100-400mm lens, the lens is almost always extended out to 400mm anyway. My biggest issues were around ligthing. Either early in the morning or late afternoon, having to use high ISO's. When considering why my shots weren't better, I would say part of it was high ISO's, due to a lens that is f5.6 rather than f2.8. I think the 400 2.8 would take care of a lot of those issues.
2. I picked up two 32 gig memory cards for my cameras which were aweome! Even at that, one day the light was good, the lions were playing and I took 3900 pictures and almost ran out of space. Once the morning safari was over I had to rush to try to download and back up the pictures so I could format the cards. I didn't really have enough time to finish and so was flustered not wanting to erase anything. Next time, I go to Africa will be two years from now. Hopefully the 64 gig cards will come down in price and I will pick up a couple of them. Having two 32 gig cards and two 16 gig cards was nice and only put me in a pinch a couple times, but I need more space.
3. Solar charger. I was just introduced to solar chargers that are big enough to charge a laptop. I think that is ingenious! I don't know how big or heavy they are off hand, but it is definitely something that I am going to look into. When we were in Tanzania, the only chargers were in the vehicle. The vehicle had a difficult time charging my laptop. Without a charged laptop, I couldn't download my pictures. If I couldn't download the pictures, I couldn't back up my shots, then format the cards and start again. The ability to be able to always have a charged laptop is essential! The idea with these chargers is you take them out on safari with you  and let them charge all day, then they should be able to charge your laptop for a few hours and that is all you need. The other problem I have run into in the past is bringing the wrong adaptors in foriegn countries. Sometimes it is only a minor inconvenience until you get things sorted out, but bringing a solar charger would just be a nice back up just in case. For that matter, if you are really roughing it and absolutely have no access to any sort of power source, then these chargers might be essential to your sanity while on safari. When you think of it, charging is pretty essential. Three camera bodies, a laptop, picture viewer and an ipod or two, they all need charging and your trip is screwed if for some reason you can't keep these things charged.

That is all I can think of right now that I would and will do differently on the next trip. I am always looking for better photographic opportunities; thus better prints. Boring for most, but for me it is the ultimate pursuit.

Check out our main wildlife photography website and our Kenya/Tanzania blog.

I Miss Africa!!!

Well, we have been back from Africa for a week now and I am trying to figure out how soon and when we can get back again. Our blog from our Kenya/Tanzania trip is now done. I set it up so I would learn from my mistakes and repeat my successes from this trip. I tried to be as specific as possible listing what camera equipment I brought, which gear I used and more importantly, which gear I could have gone without.




Elephant taking a dust bath in
Tarangire National Park


I listed how we needed to dress to be comfortable and reviewed the hotels and tour companies that took care of us. I logged three days at Giraffe Manor, two days at Tarangire National Park, two days at Ngorongoro Crater, five days at Little Governors' Camp, along with a few travel days.


Now, after having been to Africa twice and having some really great experiences and some not so great experiences, we are planning on combining the great experiences from 2008 in South Africa with our best experiences in 2010 in Kenya and Tanzania to hopefully create our best trip to date...2012 South Africa and Kenya.

Check out our main wildlife photography website and our Kenya/Tanzania blog.