Safari Photography: Camera Settings and Lenses That Work

The short version

• Shoot at fast shutter speeds: at least 1/400s for a resting animal, and faster, often much faster, when it moves.
• Keep the aperture wide or close to it on a long lens, and let Auto ISO do the rest.
• Use continuous autofocus and burst, and shoot RAW.
• Bring one long lens and one mid-range zoom, ideally on two bodies so you never change lenses in the dust.
• Brace the camera on a bean bag, not a tripod.

The rest of this guide explains why. Every photo here is our own, taken on safari in Namibia and Botswana, and each caption shows the settings we used.

Settings: where to start

Nobody gets a perfect exposure from a formula. But these starting points, widely recommended by wildlife photography teachers such as Nature TTL, will get you close most of the time.

Shutter speed first

Animals move, vehicles vibrate and long lenses magnify every shake. Shutter speed is the setting that decides whether a photo is sharp.

• Resting or slow animals: 1/400s as a minimum.
• Walking, running or flying: Nature TTL suggests 1/1600s to 1/2500s.

You can sometimes get away with less. The fish eagle here was taken at 1/800s, and it works because the body is sharp even where the wing tips blur a little. When in doubt, go faster.

Image stabilisation helps with resting animals, not moving ones. It cancels your own shake, so you can go slower on a lion lying still, but it can’t freeze a cheetah that’s moving.

A related rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed of at least one over your focal length, adjusted for sensor size. On our Micro Four Thirds camera at 600mm, that means about 1/1200s without stabilisation.

Birds squabbling in mid-air, like these lilac-breasted rollers, are where burst mode and a fast shutter earn their keep.

Aperture

With a long zoom, the usual advice is to shoot at or near the widest aperture the lens allows. You need the light, and a soft background helps the animal stand out.

In practice we usually stop down a little, to around f/7.1, for a touch more sharpness and a bit more of the animal in focus. As you’ll see in the captions, almost every photo in this guide was shot at f/7.1.

Let Auto ISO follow

The easiest way to hold a fast shutter speed in changing light is aperture priority, or manual exposure, with Auto ISO. Set the shutter speed you need, and the camera picks the ISO. Noise is easier to fix than blur.

This jackal was photographed shortly after sunrise. The camera went up to ISO 1250 to hold 1/800s, and the result is perfectly usable.

Exposure compensation

A bright sky or a pale background fools the camera into making the animal too dark. Dial in +1/3 to +2/3 of a stop and check the histogram. Go the other way, −1/3 to −2/3, when you want a silhouette or a glowing rim of backlight like this bee-eater.

Focus

• Continuous autofocus (AF-C or AI Servo) for anything that might move.
• Animal or bird eye detection if your camera has it.
• Back-button focus is worth learning. It lets you lock focus by lifting your thumb when a branch or grass stem gets between you and the animal.

Leaves and grass in front of an animal are the classic autofocus trap. Here the focus stayed on the warthog, and the blurred leaves in front became part of the picture.

RAW and burst

Shoot RAW. Safari light is harsh and contrasty, and RAW files give you room to recover highlights and shadows. Use burst for action, and delete ruthlessly in the evening.

Lenses: what you actually need

One long, one mid-range

Most photography guides agree on the core: a long zoom reaching at least 400mm (full-frame equivalent) and a mid-range zoom for wider scenes. Nature TTL suggests two bodies, one with the longest lens and one with the mid-range zoom.

How long is long enough depends on where you are:

• In the Maasai Mara and Serengeti, off-road driving is restricted, so animals are often further away and extra reach pays off.
• In South African private reserves, vehicles can often get closer, and a 70–200mm or 100–400mm covers most sightings.

Don’t just zoom in. Some of the best safari pictures show the animal in its world, and a scene like the one above, with an impala bolting past a herd of elephants, only works because the lens was set wide enough to include everything.

Why two bodies

Dust. Changing lenses in an open vehicle is how sensors get dirty. Two bodies also mean you still have a camera if one fails halfway through the trip.

What we carry

Our kit is built around the OM System OM-1 Mark II, a Micro Four Thirds camera. That system has one big advantage for safari: everything is smaller and lighter.

M.Zuiko lens	FF equiv.	Use
150–600mm F5–6.3 IS	300–1200mm	Wildlife and birds
12–100mm F4 IS PRO	24–200mm	All-rounder, second body
9–18mm F4–5.6	18–36mm	Landscapes, interiors
45mm F1.8	90mm	Low light, portraits
90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO	180mm	Close-ups

A few honest notes on it:

• The crop factor works in your favour for reach. On Micro Four Thirds a lens frames like one twice its focal length on full frame, so the 150–600mm behaves like a 300–1200mm. The trade-off is that depth of field also behaves like a lens stopped down further, so backgrounds are less blurred than on a full-frame telephoto.
• The body is well sealed; the long lens less so. OM System rates the OM-1 Mark II IP53 against dust and splashes, and the 12–100mm matches it. The 150–600mm is rated only IPX1, splash-resistant, so we cover it on dusty roads.
• Stabilisation is strong. OM System quotes up to 7 stops with the 150–600mm at 150mm and 6 stops at 600mm when body and lens stabilisation work together.
• Pro Capture saves missed moments. Holding the shutter half-way buffers frames before you fully press it, so a bird taking off is already in the sequence.
• Subject detection: the camera’s official detection modes include birds, and cats and dogs. It works very well on birds. For other mammals, treat it as a bonus.
• Weight: the body with battery weighs 599 g, the 150–600mm 2,065 g and the 12–100mm 561 g. That’s about 3.2 kg before a second body, which matters on small planes.

The long lens is more versatile than it looks. At 150mm it focuses down to 56 cm, close enough for this Namaqua chameleon catching its prey on a dune near Swakopmund.

Holding it steady

• Bean bags are the standard in East African minibuses and closed vehicles, resting on a window frame or roof hatch. Many operators supply them; bring an empty one and fill it locally.
• Monopods work better in the open vehicles common in southern Africa.
• Tripods don’t belong on a game drive. Save them for camp and night skies.
• Ask your guide to switch off the engine when you’re shooting. Vibration ruins long-lens photos.

Light, and when to shoot

The best light is the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. In national parks, gate times decide whether you’re out in it, so check them the night before. In Kruger, for example, SANParks doesn’t allow driving after the gates close.

Midday light is harsh. Use it for hides and waterholes, or put the camera down and rest.

On night drives, leave the spotlight to your guide and don’t use flash, which stresses animals. Nature TTL suggests starting around 1/80s to 1/150s, wide open, at ISO 3200 to 6400. Accept some grain.

Small planes: check the weight limit

Fly-in safaris use light aircraft with strict luggage limits, and camera gear counts:

• Wilderness Air (Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe): 20 kg per person, including hand luggage and camera equipment, in soft bags.
• Coastal Aviation (Tanzania): 15 kg per person including carry-on.
• Safarilink (Kenya): 15 kg in soft bags, including hand baggage and cameras, with 20 kg on some routes.

Check your own operator before you pack. Some let you pre-book extra weight or an extra seat.

Phones

A modern phone won’t give you a sharp leopard at 100 metres, but it’s excellent for landscapes, camp life and the animal in its habitat.

• Don’t rely on heavy digital zoom. Compose wider, or crop later.
• Use burst for movement.
• Try digiscoping: hold the phone lens right against a binocular eyepiece, steady it with a finger, and shoot at low zoom. It takes practice, but it works.

The step up: bridge cameras

If you don’t want to invest in interchangeable lenses, a bridge camera is already a big upgrade from a phone. It has one fixed lens with a long optical zoom, so a distant animal is magnified by glass instead of software, and it handles like a proper camera, with a viewfinder, a grip and manual settings.

• Panasonic Lumix FZ82D: 60x optical zoom (20–1200mm equivalent), about 640 g. Around €400. The obvious choice for a first safari on a budget.
• Nikon Coolpix P950: 83x optical zoom for even more reach. Roughly €700 to €900, depending on the shop.

The trade-off is sensor size. Both use small sensors, so image quality drops quickly in dim light at dawn and dusk. For bright daytime game drives, they do a very good job. Prices are approximate as of September 2026.

Prices from Geizhals (FZ82D) and Geizhals (P950); specs from Digital Camera World and Nikon.

The rules that matter more than settings

• Your behaviour should never change the animal’s. No calling, whistling or tapping to make it look up.
• Never feed or bait animals. In South African national parks, feeding or deliberately disturbing wildlife is an offence.
• No drones in national parks without a permit. SANParks prohibits them outright. Our interview on drones and elephants covers the rules in more detail.
• Share the sighting. Get your shots, then let the next vehicle in.

A long lens isn’t just about reach. It lets you get the photo without getting close.

Sources

• Nature TTL, camera settings for wildlife photographers
• Nature TTL, how to master exposure in wildlife photography
• Nature TTL, safari photography gear
• Nature TTL, night safari photography tips
• Nature TTL, smartphone nature photography
• Digital Photography School, the reciprocal rule
• Digital Photography School, equipment tips for an African photo safari
• Photography Life, back-button focus
• DPReview, what is equivalence
• OM System, OM-1 Mark II
• OM System, M.Zuiko 150–600mm F5.0–6.3 IS
• OM System, M.Zuiko 12–100mm F4.0 IS PRO
• National Geographic, how to photograph wildlife on safari
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology, basics of digiscoping
• SANParks, rules and regulations
• Wilderness Air
• Coastal Aviation, luggage policy
• Safarilink, baggage allowance

Top photo: cheetah with a springbok, Etosha National Park, Namibia. OM-1 Mark II, 150–600mm at 600mm, 1/800s, f/7.1, ISO 250. Photo by 25° South