Safari advice: Oly 40-150 Pro, Pany 100-400 or Oly 50-200?

My preference is for the 40-150 Pro with a 300 (I have the f4.0) for most safari shooting with 2 bodies. I sometimes add the mc1.4 to whichever lens feels appropriate when the light is better, but a f2.8 aperture is really useful at the beginning and end of the day.

A lot of lens choice depends on the environment and vegetation density: I’ve not been on safaris in India, but I have in the Kruger and there it is usually fairly scrubby, so 840mm isn’t much needed unless you’re really in to birds. Things are different in Tanzania, where you need every mm, and it’s also relevant whether you can go off road to follow/approach sightings in your particular area.

We recently returned from Botswana and I’m still working through my images. I had 2 E-M1ii bodies and 300/1.4tc/40-150 and the 12-100. The latter I used fairly rarely, but occasionally it’s the only way to get a particular shot. The 300 is wonderful for details, of course, if you are close (and frankly the best safari photographers just adapt to make the best use of whatever kit they happen to have with them). The landscape varied a lot, from scrub to open flood plains.

You have to be really careful changing lenses depending on the amount of dust in the air, although the Pro Oly gear is wonderful at keeping it out - despite dense, fine dust throughout our time in Savute and Moremi I had absolutely no sensor dust issues. Probably a factor in pushing you towards dust-sealed choices, though.

My first blog posts from Botswana, and all the images on these are with the 300 or 40-150:

https://www.microcontrast.com/new-blog/2018/11/30/panthera-pardus-the-leopard

https://www.microcontrast.com/new-blog/2018/11/2/patience-rewarded

https://www.microcontrast.com/new-blog/2018/11/8/rehabilitating-the-hyena