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Welcome Skebenga,
What you would need depends upon the type of safari you are going to make.
If you do a safari by driving in a safari vehicle, supposedly with other people in the car as well, stability is the main issue. With very long lenses you will have a lot of problems with 300mm+, the engine may be running, people move in the car etc.
You'd be supprised how well 300mm works in Africa.
We've met some professional wildlife photographers there and they all work with less than 500mm (some even work with 200mm).
If you are travelling privately, you can take your time, wait etc. A bean bag is handy for resting the camera on the vehicle. Basically you can encounter 3 types of safari vehicles:
1. Normal 4x4, you need to shoot out of the window, so, handheld shooting.
2. vehicles of which the roof can be moved up (you'd be shooting standing in the car, under the roof which is moved up, beanbags, sometimes a monopod works well here,
3. (Semi) Open vehciles, a 4x4 pickup with seats made over the back of the car. Most of the shooting here is handheld again.
You can also go on foot in some areas, however you'd never have time to put up a tripod and be ready before the action is gone.
To come short, very long lenses seldom work well on safari.
Fortunatly, in some areas wildlife is very acustomed to people and it can be approached with some ease.
Some plains in southern African countries (Zambia, Botswana) have a lot of birds, if you go there, take time, wait and be silent. You will make wonderfull shots with 300mm and even less.
In fact I recommend to take a zoom with you (60-250 or 55-300) since a lot of the wildlife may be so close that 200mm or 300mm is way to long. And the action is gone before you will have changed your lens. Also, because of the dust around, refrain from lens changes when possible.
I hope this helps.
Cheers, Bert
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