Safari in Kenya.

[migloprom23]

All,

I am planning a holidays in Kenya in September at Maasai Mara national park.

I wonder if any of you have some tips for equipment and hiring a camera/lens in Nairobi.

I own a Nikon d810 with 24-70 and sigma 150-600 but I am thinking in hiring a d850 with 500 f4 just for the safaris and leave my sigma here..

Any suggestions or places to hire equipment in there?

Many thanks

 

[StewartR]

I'm not aware of any. I own and run Lenses For Hire Ltd in the UK, and I have many customers taking kit to Kenya. I've never heard from any of them about any opportunities to hire whilst out there, and if there were any I think I would have heard. Standard procedure is for people to hire before leaving their home country (UK, USA, Oz, wherever) and take it with them. To be honest I think that's likely to be safer too, even if hiring from Nairobi is possible. If anything goes wrong with the hire in the UK before departure (e.g. lens delivery goes astray), you have lots of opportunity to get it put right. If anything goes wrong with the hire in Kenya, you're pretty much stuffed.

 

[Unicronatron]

I'm not aware of any. I own and run Lenses For Hire Ltd in the UK, and I have many customers taking kit to Kenya. I've never heard from any of them about any opportunities to hire whilst out there, and if there were any I think I would have heard. Standard procedure is for people to hire before leaving their home country (UK, USA, Oz, wherever) and take it with them. To be honest I think that's likely to be safer too, even if hiring from Nairobi is possible. If anything goes wrong with the hire in the UK before departure (e.g. lens delivery goes astray), you have lots of opportunity to get it put right. If anything goes wrong with the hire in Kenya, you're pretty much stuffed.

Small world. I am one of those customers! I borrowed a 100-400 from lenses for hire in Uk and took it to Kenya. Absolutely no problems, great service.

I agree trying to hire out there is maybe not the best approach as if you have any issues or get messed around its going to be difficult to resolve. Also Nairobi is not the safest place so you might want to be descreet about the equipment you have with you until you are out of the city.

Whats the rationale for leaving the sigma at home? I actually found that you get reasonably close to a lot of the animals, and was thankful to have the wider end of the zoom. Obviously depends what images you are planning to capture but you may find the prime a tad limiting in capturing some of the scenes.

 

[migloprom23]

Many thanks for your comments, I think I will be bringing my sigma lens and another body with the 24-70. As you mentioned I think the 500mm will be a bit limited as I would loose 70 to 500...

 

[mikeyt]

Some lodges have lenses you can hire, but I've never found a decent local company to hire from. I don't hire any more though, it's cheaper to buy 2nd hand and then sell afterwards, it also gives me time to practice before I get there!

(I'm off to Masai Mara in July too, I'm taking a 300 2.8 with a couple of extenders, a 70-200 and 24-70. I've done a lot of trips with a 100-400 as my longest lens and it's been awesome - you should be fine with the big sigma!)