Safari Decision... leave the Oly 40-150 Pro behind?

drmarkf wrote:

I've just had a quick look at my lens use from 9 days varied game drives in Botswana in September: I did quite a lot of bird photography this time compared to my earlier trips, I'm sure because I now have the 300 +/- the 1.4.

I don't have an accurate breakdown for shots with and without the 1.4 on the two lenses, but overall it worked out 50% 40-150, 40% 300 and 10% 12-100.

Thank you very much Mark for the break down. Even though I have now decided to take the 40-150 along with the 12-40 and the 100-400, it is still good to hear about your experience.

With the 40-150 I mainly used it around 60-90mm plus quite a lot at 150mm.

I had the 40-150 on one body and the 300 on the other at the beginning of morning drives and at the end of afternoon ones, and certainly valued the 2.8 aperture of the zoom at those times, I sometimes (but not always) put the 1.4tc on one or other of the lenses when the light was better, depending on the terrain we were in and how much bird life was around.

Only once on the whole trip did I feel I'd entirely missed some really good shots because I'd got the wrong lenses on (although sometimes I did feel I could have got marginally better ones with a different lens on).

This was when a huge male elephant came suddenly really close to us on a photo boat one early evening on the bank of the Chobe - he was suddenly towering over us, sniffing our scent.

Only one person in the boat had got a suitable lens on (24 - 105 on full frame) and she got a few wonderful images at 24mm. I'd got the 40-150 on, and frankly was so transfixed by the experience that I didn't even think to swap to the 12-100!

This could definitely happen to me too, if my 12-40 sits in my bag.

Obviously this experience isn't Tanzania, nor with the 100-400, but it might be some use to you. I would certainly have missed the 40-150 for a lot of shots, even if I might have got that menacing elephant image!

I see that you use the EM10 mk2 as your 2nd camera (based on the info below your signature). Is that so? The EM10 mk2 would be my second camera and I hope that it will be ok despite the fact that it is not weather sealed. What are your thoughts on that?