Originally posted by Chuckie I'd still leave the 150-500 at home and rather take the 100-300+TC. If you borrow the 18-135 then maybe bring the 15 and you can leave the 16-50 at home (or zoom with legs to cover the gap and leave the 15 at home). Remember that you will be lugging everything except the laptop around all day every day! If you need to get any kit here when you arrive, just drive in to Rosebank (in Johannesburg and about 30 minutes from the airport) and go to Kameraz. They have a wide range and their prices are decent.
Choices, choices...My biggest fear is that I miss out on something because I didn`t bring the right tools. Maybe I should paint a more precise picture of how I intend to travel and shoot:
We have a rental car at our disposal for the whole period and we drive from lodge to lodge.
The padded inside of my backpack can be taken out if I want to convert it into a regular daypack, the insert is a bag of it`s own. Offcourse, I don`t wanna carry the whole lot with me everyday, so everything not in use can be stored in either the lodge/car/suitcase.
The 100-300 F4 with TC on the K-5 and DA* 16-50 on the K20d will (probably) be the daily workhorses, at least for the safari`s. The DA15ltd is intented for long exposures (nighttime, sunset and -rise, etc) and is so small and light that I will probably not feel it.
Offcourse, the 150-500 is the biggest and heaviest but also has the longest reach and it has OS. Some say 300mm`s is enough, others say bring as much mm`s as possible.
Shooting wildlife and birds in my area usually means as much mm`s as possible. Because I have no expirience shooting from and what vehicles will be used on the safari`s I`m prepared to take the extra weight with me to have the best possible choice. If my reasoning is faultly please let me know