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 p.75 #20 · African safari talk...recommendations? | |
vbnut wrote:
Can I get recommendations for the "best" place to go for a first (hopefully of many) African photography safari?
I'm interested in pretty much all kinds of animals, although Hyenas and Wild dogs are pretty low on my list. Certainly the cats, elephants, ungulates, and primates are particularly attractive, and I have no objection to birds (that's what I normally shoot most frequently because they are easiest to find).
I'm leaning towards going with Pangolin, which would "limit" me to the locations they go, but if some other place would be much better for the first trip, I'm open to looking for a different operator....Show more →
I can't tell you how many times I've heard the saying, "A week in East Africa is like a month in South Africa" - referring to the density of animals and amount of action you experience in front of your lens. With that said, if you want the absolute most out of your Safari from a photography perspective then pick any one of the camps in the Mara conservancies. Primus mentioned Expert Africa and you can see the top 30 camps they rated on their website below. Pick one of these and the animals will be nearly jumping in your vehicle like all of my cell phone screen shots above. I'm sure there might be more wallet friendly ways to go on safari, but it's unlikley to figure it out unless you've been there many times. From my experience of hustling all over Kenya, you get what you pay for on Safari. You do not need to go on a "photo group" safari to maximize your photographic experience. Every one of these camps has experienced guides to put you in front of the action from sun up to sun down. These are the exact same local guides that all the photography based safari tours use to find the same animals when they host groups of photographers. So unless you are not confident in your photography skills or maybe just learning photography and wanting assistance then I would suggest just going on your own and booking with a camp directly through a tour operator. No professoinal photographer host or photgraphic tour is going to find you more magic vs going on your own. A lot of it comes down to luck and how much you want to hustle.
You will see everything there except wild dogs and rhinos (possible but very rare). Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, Zebra, Wildebeest, Buffalo, Elephants, Topi, Impala, Giraffe, Hyena, Jackal, Hippo, birds, plus many more will all be very plentiful in the Mara. As for hyenas, I actually fell in love with them when i learned how intelligent they are and how sophisticated their social structures are. They rank higher than some primates in complex problem solving skills. Their pups are very cute too. If you are lucky enough to photograph a striped hyena in good lighting then consider yourself very lucky. I've only seen a couple of them and they were not in good lighting. Also, wild dogs are harder to find in East Africa so if you see them there that's a great find too. So you can basically expect to come home with tons and tons of great photos of everything I listed above except for Leopard, Wild Dogs, and Rhino. Leopard is likely, but not guaranteed like everythting else. Leopard is what you usually put in the most time looking for.
Pick one of these camps below and you are guaranteed to score. You just need to decide which season you want to go in (wet/green or dry/golden yellow and tan)
Scroll down and click "View all Places" to see all the camps:
https://www.expertafrica.com/kenya/maasai-mara-conservancies
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