[switch79]

After a lot of thought and going back and forth deciding wether or not to get the Bigma, i have just pulled the trigger and placed an order through B&H. $999. I have used them before with no dramas so i don't mind paying that little extra for peace of mind. I also got a little omni pod bean bag to accompany this apparent monster.

The reason i bought it was that i am going on a 6 week trip Japan, Austria & England which will include 3 weeks in Africa with 2 of those weeks on a full on safari. My only other zoom lens worthy of taking on the trip is the Tamron 18-250 and i wasn't convinced it would be long enough.

After i saw some Bigma galleries on Flickr of people Safari's i thought to myself. I cannot travel that far and not be able to get the type of shots I want without the Bigma.

I am sacrificing a few bits of clothing and other stuff to bring my gear and have settled on this lineup.

K10D
istDS as a back up body
Bigma
Tamron 18-250
FA50
18-55 kit lens (as a backup), its small, light so why not.
smallish velbon tripod, but does the job wonderfully.
omni bean bag
plus batteries, 14GB worth of memory, chargers etc.

I'm am going to leave my 10-20 behind, don't think i'll use it that much and i'm happy to sacrifice 8mm at the short end to replace with an extra 250 on the long.

In two minds about taking my 540FGZ flash? Do you think the onboard flash will be enough?

in a Lowerpro Orion Trekker backpack. Which i will be making some modifications on. This is going to be my carry on bag.

[Lowell Goudge]

In two minds about taking my 540FGZ flash? Do you think the onboard flash will be enough?

I shoot a lot with both my 70-200 f/2.8 plus 1.4x TC and flash on my K10, and also my 300 f/4.0 and 7.7x AF TC on my *istD

I suggest you get a "better beamer" flash extender, to give you some reach, but you will be very disappointed with the lost dawn and dusk wild life shots missed because you didn't take a flash.

[Syb]

(snap a lot)

... 14GB worth of memory,...

(snap some more)

I am afraid that is going to be far too little. Unless you are planning to do the selection in the field, or taking a laptop with extra memory capacity, 14 GB will be through before you notice.

I took my K10d on a ONE DAY conference, with a 4GB memory card. It was completed on the end of the day with "hesitation pics" (maybe keeper, maybe not) and definite keepers.

Just my dime. Have a nice trip!

Syb