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

Hi,

I'll be going on many safaris in central India in February 2019. These will include the regular daytime drives, but also walking safaris and night safaris. My primary lenses have been a Canon FD 300mm prime (f4, now f2.8L) and the Oly 40-150mm f4-5.6

For context, the terrain in central India is a lot like South Africa: thick foliage interspersed with grassy meadows. There are large & medium-sized animals (tigers, leopards, wild dogs, wild cattle), as well as birds. In the past, I have missed many shots because either the Oly was too slow (and too short) in fading light, or I lacked autofocus on my Canon teleprime.

So I'm looking for a lens that would pair with the 300mm f2.8 on game drives. My budget only allows me to buy one lens around $1000 - $1500.

Here are some options I'm considering:
- Oly 40-150 Pro with 1.4x TC (optional). This will pair nicely with the 300mm prime, but I'll hardly ever use it at the short end (I've found that my environmental shots are 70 - 100mm).

- Pany 100-400mm. I like the idea of this lens because it can allow for photos from many perspectives (environment, portrait, details of the fur etc.). It's slow, but I have my 300mm f2.8 for low light. On the flip side, since I already have the 300mm prime, I'm concerned about spending all that money, only to decide that I could have gotten away with an Oly 75-300 / Pany 100-300.

- My third option is the Oly 50-200 f2.8-3.5 SWD + a used E-M1 body. It's brighter than Oly 40-150+ TC, and I can have it + a new body for less than the price of the other lenses. But the photos I've seen look a tad soft (Lenstip agrees). Also, is the autofocus fast enough for moving wildlife?

- My fourth option is to save the money, stick with my cheap but awesome 40-150mm f4-5.6, and compensate for low light with a Godox flash.
I wish I had an easier choice of 40-150 Pro / 12-100 Pro + 100-400mm. However, since I already have the 300mm prime, I want an autofocus lens that complements this.
If you're a wildlife photographer, what focal lengths do you prefer, and what would you do in my position?
Many thanks in advance for your responses!

I find the Olympus 12-100 PRO and PL 100-400 are the perfect combination (with two bodies, obviously - there's no time to change lenses out in the field!). You'll definitely need something shorter than 100mm - your subject needs to be quite small or quite distant to fit in the frame at 100mm!

Cheers,

Chris

Panny 100-400 all the way.  On a safari, you won't be getting that close to anything wild.

Pana Leica 50-200 f2.8-4

Exactly what I am taking to Africa.  12-100 and 100-400 with two EM-1 ii bodies.  That said, I am taking the 12-40 and 40-150 (with TC-14) as backups.  A long way to go and expensive to not have some backup.

James Pilcher wrote:

I've been on safari in southern Africa. Lens speed is important, as I believe you already understand. Having a lens limited to f/5.6 or f/6.3 at the long end relegates it to mid-day sunny shooting or embarrassingly high ISO. Having f/2.8 lets you shoot earlier and later in the day, and more easily into the woods at the edges of the clearings. I would even consider taking along the M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 to gain another 1-1/3 stop of speed, which is up to a whopping 3-2/3 stops advantage over some of the slower zooms! In low light, a sharp 150mm equiv at f/1.8, possibly needing to crop, is far better than a blurry 300mm equiv @ f/5.6, due to too slow a shutter speed.

I've strongly considered the 75mm as well! When I was new to photography, I went on a few safaris with the 14-42 kit lens. The 75mm would have made a huge difference then. But on the flip side, there's a huge FL gap between 75mm and my 300mm, and 3 bodies seems a bit much to juggle.
For the past couple days, I've been researching the Olympus 150mm f2 as well. Sure, it lacks the versatility of the 40-150 or 50-200, but it's the only one that matches (or surpasses) the 'feel' of the 75mm. And by feel, I mean brightness, sharpness, bokeh, pop ... the whole deal.
I'm going to sound pretty stupid to some when I say this, but as much as I've been craving the 40-150 Pro, it seems to lack the sharpness of the 75mm or 300mm Pro, at least based on samples on Pixel Peeper. Sure, the old 50-200mm isn't much better, but then again, it doesn't cost $1200.

James Pilcher wrote:

I owned this lens for several years from 2004 onward. It was a gem on my E-1. In 2018, I have two comments:

1. The E-1 was a 5Mp camera. Newer cameras are now 16Mp or 20Mp. To be honest, I've not been overly impressed with images made with that lens on the higher MP camera bodies. I'm very willing to be contradicted by current users.
2. The bokeh on that lens can be extremely busy and distracting. I found, even when using my low Mp E-1, that I had to be careful with the backgrounds if I did not want to distract from the main subject, mainly when doing portraiture.

I'd love to understand this better. I get stellar photos out of my 40 year old Canon FD lens, and yet photos from many modern-day lenses (including Canons) lack the same quality. What determines how a lens performs on a certain sensor? I used to think that a lens merely focuses light (with coatings controlling CA, flare), and the sensor captures the detail.

gnik1 wrote:

Pana Leica 50-200 f2.8-4

I'm sorely tempted by the PL 50-200mm, but it's a lot of money to put down when the Olympus 50-200mm is available for $1000 less. I might be willing to live with slightly worse image quality or slower autofocus, if that frees up $1000 to use for other gear. As I don't make money from photography, I have to watch my spending.

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

Cheshire-Chris wrote:

I find the Olympus 12-100 PRO and PL 100-400 are the perfect combination (with two bodies, obviously - there's no time to change lenses out in the field!). You'll definitely need something shorter than 100mm - your subject needs to be quite small or quite distant to fit in the frame at 100mm!

Cheers,

Chris

Yes, I'm a bit more downmarket with the PL 100-300 and 14-140, but those are the ranges you need.

Dave

drmarkf wrote:

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

These are stunning! I especially loved 'Patience Rewarded'. Botswana is my dream safari destination. That's where I'd have headed to next year, if I could have afforded it. Thanks for sharing your photos!

anupamkatkar wrote:

drmarkf wrote:

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

These are stunning! I especially loved 'Patience Rewarded'. Botswana is my dream safari destination. That's where I'd have headed to next year, if I could have afforded it. Thanks for sharing your photos!

Thank you.

Yes it’s probaly the most expensive safari destination, but the density of good sighting (not just of Big 5 animals) is the highest I’ve ever seen, and the standard of guiding is excellent (they have a national guiding school I think).

We met a number of people who were staying at lodges and taking their game drives, but self driving between the lodges rather than flying or going on a fully-arranged multicentre trip with a safari specialist. The roads between lodges seemed reasonable if you were confident at 4wd driving, so that might be a more economical way to do it.

In contrast, we saw a series of self-drivers actually in parks doing game drives who’d got stuck in soft sand, even with 4wd. This happens so often that a lot of lodge guides don’t stop, but leave them there to be pulled out by park staff at the end of the day. So I’d suggest that unless you really knew what you were doing, and were preferably in a group of more than one vehicle, you didn’t self drive in parks there. The roads are a lot tougher than I’ve ever seen in the Kruger or Madikwe, for example.