Hi,
I'm looking for lens suggestions for a trip I'm taking to Africa in late May. I typically don't shoot wildlife and normal usage is landscape scenes and normal vacation type stuff. I need to go for versatility rather than something wildlife or action specific.
I'm a complete amateur and no aspirations otherwise. Simply want solid kit that will last for years (I tend to hang onto things for a very long time). I don't ever plan on having more than 2 or 3 lenses, so maximum versatility rather than outright specialty is key.
Opinions?
Thanks -
Based primarily on your long-term criterion above, and having just spent a month in South Africa and a number of the game reserves in December, I'd recommend that you just stick with the 18-200 VRII. I think that it will serve you will enough while you're in Africa, you can potentially swap out for nicer glass with your friend while you're there, and you'll find it much more useful for your overall photographic needs after you're home.
I took a bunch of lenses with me that I've accumulated over the years. I borrowed the 18-200 VRI that I had given my brother, put it on my d5100, and gave that to my girlfriend to shoot with while we were there. I then brought my 12-24, 35/1.8, 50/1.8, 185/2.8, and a 70-300 VR that I bought used for the trip. What I found was sort of in line with what I expected:
1) When you're either in a jeep on safari or else out in the backcountry yourself, your options for 'zooming with your feet' are often extremely limited. This can get you by not having enough zoom if the animals are far away, or by not having enough width for when they come close. If you're on safari, you may be (happily) surprised to realize just how close some of those animals come. Certainly closer than a 70mm on a DX body would allow for framing in the way you might want. In that way, I'd actually say that the 18-200 is more helpful than something like the 70-300, as you can at least crop on the long end to try and mimic the effect of having a bigger zoom, where you may miss shots you'd want to have because you can't go wide enough. No question that the 70-300 lens can yield a (somewhat) higher quality shot, but I wouldn't be swayed by this for your particular trip and long-term use for the lens. Another shot you might often want to take would be to zoom out quickly to capture your wife with an animal in the background, and not having to change lenses is nice for that. It was for me, certainly.
2) In most cases, I did not find myself limited by the set of lenses I brought along. Generally the things that kept me from getting what would have otherwise been awesome shots were things that a lens can't help with: an animal partially obscured by a tree, or some wavy grass in the foreground, or some other piece of a vehicle, or the inability to stand up from our hiding place because the lion would have come and eaten us, or the rhino would have charged us, or whatever. Had I dropped the $2k or whatever for the 70-200 /2.8, it would have made some of my shots better, no question. But honestly, the ones that it would have made more awesome are already pretty fantastic, just because of the subject matter.
3) The ability to quickly switch to wide angle to put the animals in context is really nice.
4) I've lost track of the reason why I started numbering these things.
5) I should note that, by far my favorite picture from the entire trip is a panorama I stitched together of a sunset from Tintswalo in Hout Bay. It was an incredible night in an incredible place, and the final shot actually comes close to doing it justice. That panorama was taken with 4 shots stitched together from my girlfriend's 3 year old, 8 mp Canon point and shoot.
I guess what I'm saying in all of this is that many of us would like to believe that we're going to take award-winning quality photographs of wildlife if only the opportunity were right. And we think that having the right equipment with us at the time will give us our best possible opportunity to do so. That's true, but only when the equipment is likely to be the limiting factor. I take photography fairly seriously, and have taken some shots that others that don't know me have praised highly, but it was very clear to me on the Africa trip that I was being limited by my own expertise/talent, and even more so by our general lack of time to simply be patient and wait for the shot to develop the way I was envisioning it. If I were to be fortunate enough to go back to Africa, those are the two factors that I'd hope to work on to make my pictures better, as they'd make a much bigger difference than any improvement in my equipment.
I think you'll be happy with the pictures you take with the 18-200, and that you'll get some that are real winners. I think the same is true with the 70-300, but I think in that case you'll also miss some other shots that you'd like to have, and have a less versatile lens in your kit for other things you want to shoot when you get back home and aren't always looking for lions.
Two more things -- I got very quick at changing lenses, but there's no question that in all of the lens changing I started getting dirt on the sensor of my d7000. I didn't have a cleaning kit with me, so that actually caused me to mess up what would have been some of my favorite shots of the trip due to the dirt, and it also caused me to just go to the 18-200 on my d5100 more. Some of those shots turned out great, despite using an inferior camera with lower quality lens. The second is that, midway through the trip, I started getting good at using a zoom on my d7000, but then signaling to my girlfriend when I wanted to grab her camera to take advantage of the wide angle part of the 18-200 that was on it. That allowed me to take advantage of both, while not needing to swap lenses. You could potentially do that with your d40 and the kit lens.
Finally, I bought the 70-300 used off of craiglist. I think I only paid about $400 for it, and wouldn't expect it to be difficult to sell in the same manner at little to no loss. That's an easy way to test out lenses, though it requires a little bit of savvy.
Enjoy your trip. You're going to have a great time, and see amazing things. And you'll have great pictures to prove it, regardless of what you choose here.
Ah, and truly last but not least, you really need to go and practice shooting animals with your d7000 if you want to have a chance at taking shots you like while you're there. I spent an afternoon at the zoo before I went, and it totally improved my ability to use the autofocus properly and to see what settings I could get away with with my lenses and own technique and still have sharp pictures. I learned a ton, just by trying it out for a few hours in that setting, and that paid big dividends on the actual trip.
