Prime or Zoom

Redkite3

Redkite3

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Paul
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I'm going on Safarii later in the year and want to buy a new lens before I go.
I have a Canon 60D and am thinking of about a 300 mm with a 1.4 teleconverter. The question is do I by prime or zoom? What are your views?
 
Redkite3 said:
I'm going on Safarii later in the year and want to buy a new lens before I go.
I have a Canon 60D and am thinking of about a 300 mm with a 1.4 teleconverter. The question is do I by prime or zoom? What are your views?
Click to expand...

What's ur budget?
I would opt for
Tamron 70-300 VC
Sigma 150-500
Sigma 50-500
 
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I know zero about wildlife photography.....but, how useful will a 300mm with tc be if a rhino/elephant/etc is only around 30ft away? wouldn't Sigma's 50-500mm "bigma" be more useful?
 
Also take into account the weight of the lens (& case) if by Safari you mean Africa and air travel.
 
Redkite3 said:
I'm going on Safarii later in the year and want to buy a new lens before I go.
I have a Canon 60D and am thinking of about a 300 mm with a 1.4 teleconverter. The question is do I by prime or zoom? What are your views?
Click to expand...

For a safari, a Canon 100-400 zoom would be very handy choice
 
Hi. Im only back from Kenya a couple of weeks and we had elephant, lion, baboon, zebra and giraffe only a matter of yards from us. My 70-300 was almost too long for some of those shots so i would avoid a fixed prime if you could. Also my 300 max was too short on a few occasions so if you can, try to get something in the 400 to 500 range.
Enjoy safari, it is class!

Phil.
 
zoom would be my choice, you don't want to change lenses in the middle of the action, unless you have a spare body.
 
Thanks for all the comments I will go for a zoom upto 300mm + 1.4 converter. My budget is upto £3k
 
Alternatively for that budget, you could still get the 100-400 or Sigma 50-500, but also another camera and lens that could act as a backup to your current one and could have another lens on it eg 15-85 for any wildlife that appears close up. Saves you swapping lenses when time might not allow and or what may be dusty conditions + gives you a backup. If you bought the second camera and lens second hand you could probably sell them for virtually the same when you got back.

Of course you might not want to lug two cameras over etc - unless you are travelling with someone without an SLR....
 
Where are you going? Is this savannah - open country - or bushveld? It makes a big difference to the distances you're likely to shoot at. Will you be in a vehicle, on foot, or a bit of both? The best opportunities are often in the first hour or two after dawn and again in the evening, and big zooms tend to be slow, so you may need to keep the ISO up to maintain good shutter speeds.
 
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