Kenya safari - last minute tips

phil_b

phil_b

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As per title, i'm heading off this friday on my honeymoon to kenya. 4 days on safari in tsavo east, west and amboseili parks and 10 days on the beach. I havnt any experience of this, only bought my first dslr 6 months ago, so any quick tips much appreciated. I have been reading up on as much as i can.

Many thanks

Phil
 
Take plenty of memory cards and spare batteries as depending where you're staying may not be able to charge them everyday.
Make sure you have some cleaning kit for your camera as it can be very dusty.
Nothing to do with photography but everytime I've been we took things like sweets,pens,paper, etc as the local kids really appreciated them,also things like old footy shirts cos they're mad on beckham & rooney !

Have a fantastic time it's a wonderful country.
 
Interesting point about pens as gifts for kids. They go crazy for them, at first we thought they were waving at us in a funny kind of way but really they're making a scribbling motion in the air, at least according to our driver/ranger.

We took loads with us but gave them to our marvellous driver who distributed them fairly amongst the children.

It's a great place, you'll love it.
 
Don't forget to fully protect SD cards from airport X ray machines, friends of mine returned from Kenya 3 weeks ago and 2 or 3 cards were ruined as they went through about 8 machines, have a great trip. also a bean bag may be useful if you have room for one to help keep shots steady.
 
chunky monkey said:
Don't forget to fully protect SD cards from airport X ray machines, friends of mine returned from Kenya 3 weeks ago and 2 or 3 cards were ruined as they went through about 8 machines, have a great trip. also a bean bag may be useful if you have room for one to help keep shots steady.
Click to expand...

Hi Steve....can the cards not be left in the camera?
 
Thanks guys. X ray machines? I have 7 or 8 cards ready to go and i was just going to put them in my camera bag in my hand luggage. If that was the case they would be going through machines in Belfast and again in Gatwick.
 
I've had the same cards go to Mexico and back
Sri Lanka and back
Italy and back
Maldives and back
All been through hand luggage and cargo And they are still going strong
I am using sandisk CF cards
Sandisk sd cards
png sd cards
The whole hype about x ray machines messing with memory cards, in my mind is bunkum.
I got talkin to a guy who has traveled the world with both film and digital cameras and he said in all his years the only time he ever had a problem was when he had some infrared film put through the x ray, once! X rays are light waves after all!
Magnets on the other hand can cause problems, i think sometimes stuff gets checked this way but i am not sure but don't worry about your memory cards.
I would put money on most travelers cards failing through constant change in temperature, humidity and misuse.
If your still worried then the Samsung plus range of memory cards seem pretty hardcore
 
The game rides are likely to be at sunrise and sunset - so lighting will be a little low. If you plan for that you will be ok.
 
cheers guys.
Did a quick search and dont think i have anything to worry about ref memory cards, some of the manufacturers web sites even say x-ray machines don't affect them.
I'm also bringing a smaller bridge camera for trips into the city where i am worried about my nikon.
 
If you can take a couple of different lenses then definately advisable, as a lot of the time the game is quite a distance from you or you are shooting small animals or birds, so a 300mm+ lens is great...But also take a standard lens as well for scenery, sunsets, people shots etc..enjoy..
 
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