Central Serengeti & Photo Tips
The central Serengeti provides amazing opportunities for predator viewing. It’s the place to see Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs, Hyenas, and Hippos. We were lucky enough to see almost everything we wanted which meant I had to try and keep up with each scene. My primary camera/lens was the Nikon Z7ii with the Nikkor Z 100-400mm. This was a powerful combo that was great about 90% of the time. 5% of the time I wish I had a longer prime lens and 5% of the time I found myself grabbing my secondary setup, a Nikon Z6 with the native Z 24-200 (mainly for the wide angle ability). For this post, I’d like to share some of the photography fails/lessons learned!
Lesson #1: Being too “punched in”
We often got quite close with the wildlife, providing lots of opportunities to zoom in and fill the full frame with an animals face or even a body part! Of course this yielded some impressive results, but you also need to think about the scenario you’re shooting in. Is the target completely stationary or is there an opportunity for movement? What’s the potential range of movement and speed of the target? How predictable is this situation - do you know the animal body language enough to predict movement like a bird diving or a lion pouncing? I missed some action shots because I was just too zoomed in for the scenario - particularly during a lioness’ hunt. We spent ~45 minutes observing her stalk closer and closer to a small group of gazelle. But at the moment she sprang into action, my reaction time and tracking ability weren’t enough to keep her in frame. In hindsight I should have zoomed out to capture more of the scene rather than try to track an unpredictable, fast moving, and quickly finished event.
Lesson #2: Shooting with both eyes open
Adding to the above lesson about just zooming out sometimes - learning to shoot with both eyes open is a very useful skill that I underutilized while on the trip. Especially since modern electronic viewfinders (EVFs) currently introduce an element of delay, tracking a fast moving subject can be made easier by having one eye look through the viewfinder while the other eye is open to the larger scene outside the camera. With practice you can use the inputs from both your eyes to try to ensure the target you’re tracking with the “open” eye (in my case my left eye) is center to the aim of the camera that you can track with your EVF eye (my right eye). In my experience this technique puts a lot of trust into the autofocusing system as well, since it’s hard enough consolidating two separate visual inputs. But if done correctly, it helps overcome the delay challenges of modern EVFs. Newer EVFs seem to making great progress in this area, so maybe this won’t be an issue in the next decade, but for now it’s something I use (and should use more) for tracking anything relatively fast-moving.
Lesson #2: Coordinating call-outs
If you’re with a group, or even just a guide, and your objective is photography - it’s worth talking upfront about how to communicate while taking photos. It doesn’t mean you have to assign someone as a “spotter” role, although the guide will usually do this as a default. There are generally three directions you could be shooting from - the front, left and right of the vehicle. And on more than one occasion we were surrounded on multiple sides by wildlife and photo ops. So if someone calls out “look at that elephant on the left!” but they’re looking out the right side of the 4x4, what elephant are they talking about? The one in front of the vehicle? the one on the right side next to what they’re looking at? Communication is key. I suggest using the vehicle’s orientation as a base for call-outs. And when you’re stationary and all shooting in the same direction, for example a river crossing, it helps to establish some points of interest in the scene. A rocky outcrop, remarkable tree, or termite mound are all good markers to establish so you can call-out with more specificity than just “near” or “far.” If you have the luxury of going with a group, team-work can make all the difference in capturing awesome moments in chaotic scenes.
Lesson #3: Packing up early
Picture this, the sun has just set so the light is fading fast. Your driver has announced that you’re heading to the campsite for the night since vehicles are generally not supposed to be on the roads at night (without night game-drive permission). So you pack up your camera thinking that’s it for the day. But is it? I learned this lesson while shooting the Firefall phenomenon in Yosemite - Don’t pack it up unless you’re truly certain you’re done for the day. An example during our time in the Serengeti was on our first day. We had a wonderful first game drive, with lions, a leopard, and much more. But Cheetahs were a no-show for us. That is until a lone adult Cheetah sprang and crossed the road right in front of us as we were headed to our camp for the night. It was just past sunset so the light was very dim, but even so - in black and white the picture is still something worth it if even just for the memory.
Lesson #4: More memory cards vs. uploading at the end of the day
This one is a toss-up for me. For our trip I went with the memory card approach. I had more than enough memory/cards to not have to upload/overwrite. At the end of my trip my overall shutter count was ~13k, so that comes out to about 1600 shots a safari day. On one hand that made it easy to just move onto the next card once one ran out. I’m also certain I didn’t have the energy to do significant photo uploading and reviews after each day given our aggressive schedule (it was basically: check-in, eat, wash-up, sleep) But once I got home, that meant uploading and sorting 13k+ photos. I think for my next trip like this, I would like to find a balance of having more down time to do uploads/review to a computer/tablet/external hard drive while also having ample card memory to cover multiple days of shooting. The instant gratification of seeing your favorite shots from the day on a screen bigger than just the back of the camera would have been nice!
