The Best Compact Digital Cameras for Kenya Tanzania Uganda Travel, Safari Photography
Though our safari guides are dedicated photographers, they often don’t take digital cameras with them when they are on a safari in Tanzania Kenya Uganda as they rather not to have the interruption and concentrate on making the experience as enjoyable as possible for tourists who have paid for the privilege. Our guides do have lots of other opportunities to travel on their own and photograph incredible wildlife & scenery. With this “best digital camera information our travel guides hope to pass on advice to help you get the best digital camera for travel, safaris and wildlife photography.
Best Digital Cameras for Travel in Kenya Tanzania Uganda – the most important features are:
The camera should be Handy – This for a safari travel camera is vital, it should be easy to place in your hand luggage; it has to be simple to hold, we highly recommend a compact digital camera for touring Africa. Remember that professional photographers carry large photographic equipment because it’s their job and you are on Kenya Tanzania Uganda holiday with the idea being to enjoy it.
Don’t become a Target – Another thing to keep in mind is that if you travel around populated cities like Nairobi, you are immediately a target for thieves.
Safari Camera – When you travel on safari in Africa, you most probably will be traveling on a 4×4 and the size of your camera is not that critical as long as it is easily available, but if you plan on a walking safari, again a small easy to carry camera is highly recommended.
Best Cameras for Wildlife Photography
When photographing wildlife the most important features to look out for are:
Get in close to the subject – Big Zoom required – the principals of Africa wildlife photography are similar to photographing polar bears in the arctic, you need to get as close as possible.
Digital Camera Battery types and Battery life
Battery life and what type of batteries the camera takes is also an important consideration to take into account, remember if you are traveling to remote locations there may not be any electricity to charge your batteries, therefore buying a spare battery or two is a must.
Below are recommended best digital cameras for Africa travel and wild life photography, by taking into account three main features of large zoom and compact size camera
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 is the successor to the very popular FZ18 and has increased resolution: 10.1 Megapixels.
It has an amazing super-zoom with an 18x optically stabilised lens (27-486mm, 35mm equivalent) and if that is not enough there are options to add a 1.7x teleconverter to it. As well as the zoom for t great close ups of wildlife; the 27mm wide-angle feature is ideal for your broad Masai Mara and Serengeti landscapes allowing you to capture a wider view.
Canon Powershot SX10 IS
Canon’s latest super-zoom, taking over from the fantastic PowerShot S5 IS. Unlike the Panasonic, it uses AA batteries to power it. The massive 20x zoom (28-560mm equivalent), is perfect for getting close to large wildlife like elephants and rhinos. The Canon Powershot SX10 IS boasts 10 Megapixels with the latest DIGIC 4 processor adds AF tracking, more efficient video compression, and a clever self-timer mode which waits for a new person to appear before starting the countdown..
Canon Powershot SX10 IS and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28.
Both cameras are very alike in most regards
Canon Powershot SX10 IS Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 Zoom tele (T) 560 mm (20 x) 486 mm (18 x) Dimensions 128 x 88 x 87 mm 118 x 75 x 88 mm (4.6 x 3 x 3.5 in) Image stabilization Yes Yes Format SLR-like SLR-like Price guide £322 £260 Max resolution 3648 x 2736 3648x 2736 Effective pixels 10.0 million 10.1 million Battery / Charger No Yes Battery AA batteries (NiMH recommended) Lithium-Ion rechargeable Weight (inc. batteries) 600g 417g
Other Super Zoom Cameras Worth Considering Other than the above recommendations for the best camera to take on Kenya safari, you may wish to also take a look at the options below, all great cameras and all that meet our requirements of being compact enought to easily carry whilst traveling, have a great zoom on it to get nice close up photos of the wildlife and must be not too expensive
By: Esther Muthoni
Posts Tagged ‘Africa Wildlife’
Best Digital Cameras For Kenya Tanzania Uganda Safari Travel
January 28th, 2010Africa Wildlife Conservation, Community Support and Eco-toursim
January 14th, 2010Woni Safarisbelieve in the conversation of Kenya’s inheritance, their wildlife. While other Africa countries pride themselves in having natural minerals like gold and diamonds and oil, in Kenya their pride lies in the conservation of their wildlife and more so the endangered species. Woni Safaris are the official tour operators for The Friends of The Elephant. They have been providing services to the foster parents of Friends of the Elephants since their inception up to date. The number of the foster parents has been on the rise every year from the initial 11 persons to the current approximate over 100 Persons. Some of their consideration areas include:
Conservation of their Environment: Woni Safaris work with local schools in Kenya on tree planting projects where by they accord their clients to leave a mark when they came on safari by planting a tree.
Conversation of the African Culture: Woni Safaris, are very proud of the African culture and are proud to showcase it to their clients. They give their clients an opportunity to visit and interact with the local communities.
Education: Their clients also get an opportunity of visiting local schools where they have child sponsorship projects as well as donating of schoolbooks, sports uniforms and accessories.
Poverty Alleviation: Woni Safaris have incorporated Eco tourism as one of their main products and this has proved to be very popular with their past clients. They donate a percentage of all the activities they undertake during their eco tours at the places they visit. This generates income for different projects as well as giving the local community another alternative of earning a living as opposed to activities, which destroy the environment such as sand harvesting and tree cutting for fire wood.
The clients undertake the above projects after they see the needs of concerned communities as follows:
The Education Sponsorship: When Woni Safaris take their clients to visit the Masai in their villages, the clients get to notice that some girls as young as 14 years old with young babies strapped at their backs. Almost always travelers want to know why these children do not go school and are informed that the young girls are people’s wives as the Masai community marry off their girls because the younger they are, the more dowry they fetch.
The Tree Planting Project: On one of the development charts of the school Woni Safaris visits, top on the list was “fencing of the school compound”. This was so that the school can embark on tree planting project without fear of domestic animals from the surrounding village destroying the young trees. One client took note of this and when she went back home, she started fundraising for tree seedlings for this school for a dollar a tree and this was very successful.
By: Magdalene Ngina
