Behind the scenes
Finally some general observations and advice.
It was not as hot, as I expected, usually like a normal summer day here in Sweden. In the early morning hours you sometimes needed a sweater. It wasn’t as dusty as I expected – although I had plastic bags covering my equipment inside the camera bag. And there were less mosquitoes and insects, than I expected (of course we took malaria pills, had insects repellents and had all the recommended vaccinations). I have also read that during the migration the big herds bring lots of flies with them. The roads are sometimes incredibly bumpy – you need a well padded camera bag.
The crime rate in Nairobi is very high. We stayed at the hotel, relaxing by the pool, during the hours we spent in Nairobi.
I had little experience of wildlife photography before. I had been working as a photojournalist in the 80s, mostly doing news and sports photography. Once I did a story about wildlife in the city, chasing rabbits and reebooks with a 300 2.8 lens and a 2x converter, but that’s about it. I started to prepare myself by looking on on-line galleries from safaris, reading about equipment. I finally decided on bringing a Nikon d200, a 70-200 2.8 VR lens, a TC17 teleconverter, and a second body, a Nikon d50 with an 18-70 lens. I also brought a very small digicam, a Canon Ixus i.
How long lenses do you need? The 70-200 plus TC17 converter I used on my Nikon D200, which gave 120-340 mm focal length (same field of view as an 180-510 on a 35 mm film camera or a full frame DSLR) was enough most of the time, and when it wasn’t, in most cases we got a closer opportunity on another drive. I do recommend a lens with optical stabilization. We never used any monopod or any beanbags.
The light levels was generally good, and since the drives took place either in the mornings or the afternoons the angle of the sun were usually low, giving a pleasant light.
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