What Camera Gear to Pack for Safari // Gear
We just got back from a 14-day safari trip across Tanzania and Uganda, and were thrilled with the gear we brought, both on the trip and in post, reviewing what we captured. For context, we are both content creators, so our main use cases were of course seeing and shooting the animals, but we also do a lot of vlogging, and try to capture videos of both of us together. I’ve noted below where that context is necessary to understand, but please view this list through that lens (no pun intended).
Here is what we packed for our safari trip, with different shots for reference.
Cameras
We brought the cameras we own already, and if you have a great camera, there’s no need to buy ours. But this is what we own and how we use them.
This is Sony’s flagship “do it all” camera. It shoots 50mp photos, records 8k30p and 4k120p footage, and does it all nearly perfectly. The sensor also allows continuous bursts up to 30 fps with amazing autofocus tracking, making this the best camera ever built for wildlife photography.
It’s definitely a splurge, but we’ve never regretted buying or bringing this camera.
If you are in the market for a new DSLR, this is a great one. Good for vlogging, handles really well, easy to switch between photos and videos, and a more reasonable price point.
This was our backup camera. We mostly used it for vlogging, and to charge a battery in the car while our other cameras were being used (the jeeps they use in Tanzania have charging ports behind the drivers).
We didn’t bring our GoPro because we knew we’d prefer to use cameras, but if you have one, this could be great for getting wide shots of you + your friends/family on safari.
Drone (DJI Mavic Air 2S)
We also did not bring our drone because they require a permit to fly, and if you don’t have a permit, they can confiscate your drone at the border. So we left ours at home.
Lenses
If you are not familiar with the term focal length, you can basically understand it as what controls the magnification of a photograph. The greater the number, the greater the zoom. Here are some photos taken at different focal lengths on our trip (uncropped), to help you understand why you might want some version of the lenses listed below.
If you don’t already have a DSLR, the iPhone Pro’s 5x can work as your zoom lens — it’s the equivalent of a 120mm lens. For reference, the iPhone’s 1x is 26mm and the 3x is 77mm.
Sony 200-600mm f/5.6f-6.3 (rented)
This is a safari lens. I can only imagine owning one if we go on safari regularly (I’m talking like once or twice a year), or we get really into bird-watching. Otherwise, renting this works great for us, as the lens is not something we use often, and is massive and heavy.
For safari, though, it’s amazing, and I would highly recommend you bring something equivalent to at least 400mm, but 600mm is definitely preferable. Just know, though, that there are weight limits on many local flights, so be careful your camera gear isn’t too heavy with this lens.
Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 (rented, but will buy soon)
We usually carry a 16-35mm + an 85mm, so we’ve never felt the need for another lens in that range. But this one is a common “main lens” for people, and we now totally get why. It was great for getting scenes, or shots with more context.
Great for shooting wide scenes, or walkthroughs of our lodges. We also used this quite a bit for vlogging. We never used it when shooting animals, though we could have used it in the car to capture us and what we were doing.
My all-time favorite lens. We used this for gorilla trekking, but found it too much of a hassle to trade out the 24-70mm for this one on safari.
This is our favorite vlog lens. Weight matters so much when vlogging and this lens is crazy light. Fast enough at f/2.8 to get great low light shots and wide enough at 20mm for almost all vlog shots you can think of, including the two of us when handheld backwards. Fantastic and very affordable lens.
I adore this focal length and think it gets amazingly creative shots. It’s also a super lightweight lens we use for vlogging. Usually, we carry it with our 20mm as an alternative prime focal length, but this trip we just used our zooms which had almost equivalent aperture, and didn’t use this lens at all.
In general, safaris are very dusty, and swapping lenses while out can introduce unwanted dirt and dust to your sensors — for this reason, I would strongly recommend using a zoom lens that gives you focal length flexibility without the dust risk.
SD Cards
You’ll want fast writing and reading SD cards. Fast writing for bursting photos, and fast reading for transferring them off every night.
Tripods
Because the car moves so much on safari, and you’re not really allowed outside the vehicle in the Serengeti National Park, we only used the tripod at our lodges to capture shots of the both of us.
In general, would not really recommend bringing this on safari unless you have a specific use case for it.
We vlogged a lot, so we used this to capture shots of us at meals, or to extend the camera when we needed a slightly wider shot. Again, not sure you’ll need this unless you’re vlogging.
We preferred this to a gorilla pod for this trip, because the truck moves a lot on safari, and we thought we’d capture a lot more of ourselves capturing footage of the animals on safari. Unfortunately, the was even shakier than we remembered, so we ended up only using this once for a stationary shot.
In general, you don’t need this.
Mics
For our various vlogging and content creating needs, we also brought mics. If you’re not doing this, skip this section.
Compact, portable, and easy to use, this DJI Mic system is what M records most of his on-the-go video on.
We were asked about this twice on our trip because it’s revolutionary. You can choose which direction to focus the audio recording on, and the audio quality is very good.
Straps
Peak Design Shoulder Strap (we used with A7CII)
Peak Design Cuff (wrist strap we used with A1)
Quick releases
We have quick releases on all of our tripods to take our cameras on and off quickly. These are game changers. If you shoot a lot with tripods, I highly recommend these.
We have the these quick releases that snap in from the side but our friend has a system similar to this one that snaps in from the top, and I think this system might be superior, we just don’t want to spend the money to switch (at least for now).
Backup solutions (SSDs)
The other most important thing we brought (besides our cameras + lenses) were our SSDs.
We emptied this onto our NASes before setting out for this trip, and were very glad to have a full 2TB for our 14 days. We ended up only using about 1.5TB between our 3 cameras, shooting video and photos every day, but were glad for the space nevertheless.
If you don’t have a hard drive solution, this is a great starting point. They also have smaller ones at 1TB or even 500GB.
Charging Station
In order to charge all of our gear every night, we use this 6-port charger. We love it and would recommend everyone who travels a lot get one.
Adapter
Tanzania uses a different plug than the US does, so we brought our Universal Adapter.
Backpacks
Before we left, we were very lucky to be gifted this McKinnon backpack from a friend who had no use for it anymore. This backpack held our safari lens and all of our extra gear that didn’t fit into our regular Peak Design bag.
It also held all of our charging cables + charging station, our medicine, our passports, and much, much more. We really like this backpack, and will be using it a lot in the future.
We bring this bag on every trip, and it usually holds all of our gear.
Other
Sandbag
To rest your heavy safari lens on the car and reduce shake, you’ll want either a sandbag or a beanbag. When booking your safari, ask if they can provide your driver with a sandbag. These get reserved out, though, so you want to ask asap. You can also bring a bag and fill it with rice or beans when you get to your safari country, but that’s definitely a Plan B.
Camera Lens Blower
Dust gets on everything during a safari, including your camera, so you want a blower to clean up your cameras. We have this Rocket Air Blaster, but it’s quite large — this one is a much smaller alternative.
Thunderbolt 4 Cable
To make transferring from our cameras to our computers as fast possible, we use this cable. It makes a huge difference.
Extra batteries
If you have extra batteries, you might want to bring these. We found 2 to be sufficient for most days, but were very glad to have a third charging on days longer than 6 hours of shooting.
If you’re curious what we edit on and how we edit, you can find more details in this photography gear list post.
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That’s it for gear! I hope you have the best trip!
For everything else we packed for safari (including clothing, toiletries, and medicine), check out this blog post!
