canon powershot g series for safari??

bungaro79

looking for a good camera for my safari honeymoon this summer and was well impressed with the photos my buddy showed me on his canon powershot g10 tonight. my dad was going to give me a loan of his slr but i think this would be too bulky for the trip and wouldn't be the safest to carry around the place.
is there any other cameras like this i should be looking at too?? and is there any good websites i can be checking prices for these??
thanks in advance!

jonboy74

When I went on safari (Borneo, Tanzania, Botswana and Zambia) I did not have a dSLR but I can say with 100% certainty that I would not have been worried at all about the safety of my gear.

Having said that, if you don't want to buy a dSLR, I would suggest going with a super-zoom. I used a Panasonic FZ-series superzoom and had great results, primarily due to the long zoom and generous amounts of natural sunlight. My concern would be that, although you should be able to see some animals close up, the extra reach of a longer optical zoom will certainly be appreciated when there's a leopard or cheetah off the track and your zoom won't quite cover the distance.

Also, and this is probably more important than anything else, whatever you decide to do, make sure you spend a lot of time learning your camera before you go. Take pictures of birds at a distance, go to the park and pretend there's a lion behind a bush, try to get shots of a dog in motion, etc.

The single most important thing (IMHO anyway) is to learn how to change your autofocus from multi-point (which is normally the default) to spot focusing. The reason is very simple - even though your lion may be in the middle of your pic, the camera may focus on the grass in front of him, or on something else that you didn't really care if it was in focus or not. Classic example is this shot I took in Zambia: https://picasaweb.google.com/EBCJCG/KasakaRiverLodgeLowerZambeziZambia#5117376199399267890

There were a group of 4 lions eating an impala, and although they were in plain sight, there was some grass and bushes in between the safari truck and the lions. Several people were complaining when we got back to camp that the grass was in focus, but not the lion. The simple explanation was they were still in multi-point focus mode. I used spot focus and got the above shot. This is a recurring issue on safari, and I actually left my camera in spot focus mode the entire time on all those trips.

On my trip to Botswana, there was an American that bought a high-end Canon full-frame professional model dSLR just before her trip (probably $10k in kit overall). And all I heard at the end of the day was how she couldn't understand how her expensive camera just couldn't seem to get the pictures right...

Good luck.

bungaro79

those pics of yours are amazing jonboy, exactly what i'm hoping to take! thanks for the tips, will definitely take them on board once i decide on whatever camera i decide on. would i be right in assuming that its just matter of going into the settings to change from multi-point to spot focusing???

i did a search in amazon and found this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-14-1MP-Digital-Camera/dp/B003WOKU4W/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1300031901&sr=1-1
would you recommend this instead of the canon??
thanks again for the reply

jonboy74

I haven't looked at super-zooms in over a year so its hard for me to recommend one without doing the research. What I have recommended to a few friends looking to buy a super-zoom is to first start with a short-list of potential cameras that have good reviews and narrow your choice down from there. Every camera I have bought in the past 10 years has been on this list, so I would suggest starting here first with the cameras in the Super Zoom list.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/best-cameras.html

Narrow down the list to those that are in your price range, then start to read as many reviews as you can. Amazon & dpreview.com are among some places with reviews, no doubt you can find many others.

To answer your question, generally yes it is very simple to change to point-focus, but it is amazing how many people don't even know they can do so.

Again the most important thing is to not rely on the camera for good pics - you need to buy a camera that is capable of good pics, but then you have to practice with it until you are taking good pics of your own.

Good luck, and have a great honeymoon (and don't forget to bring lots of extra memory cards!!)

bungaro79

cheers jonboy, appreciate all the advice!