I had planned to grab my cameras and get back on the trail of the Serengeti gnus in January and February. Every spring, during the short rainy season, more than a million gnus migrate to the huge plains in the south of the Serengeti nature reserve where the females give birth to hundreds of thousands of calves in the space of just a few short weeks. Most of the gnus don't graze in the Serengeti National Park itself, but prefer the Ngorongoro Conservation Area between the Ngorongoro crater and the park border. With the exception of a few strips of woodland near river banks and lakes, this is a huge area of almost vegetation-free dry savannah that is only green for a very short period during the rainy season. During this green phase, the area is covered with highly nutritious grass that the gnu mothers eat to help them produce milk for their newborn calves. Such an enormous amount of potential prey naturally attracts hyenas, cheetahs and lions, and makes the area a major draw for wildlife photographers. One of the main migratory paths is near the Ndutu Lodge, where you can follow the herds for miles off-road on their way south and east. My attempts to photograph this spectacle in the spring of 2006 didn't pan out, and the ten days I had set aside were simply not long enough. Back then, a long drought meant that only a few gnus had reached the area by the time I got there, and the rest of the herds arrived weeks later than usual.
A rare piece of Serengeti shade. My favourite breakfast tree in the "Two Big Trees" area.
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania is one of the few nature reserves in Africa that still allow visitors to drive off-road and is a paradise for wildlife photographers who are resistant to enormous numbers of mosquitoes, horseflies and tsetse flies. The only things that can really spoil the fun are the mud that follows the rain and the odd broken axle or suspension spring. The distance that the animals flee to in emergencies are great compared to the short distances they keep when they are at rest, and even ungulates that are not usually timid are especially nervous during the birth period. Flight distances of 100 metres and more are not uncommon, and even the usually indifferent hyenas don't allow vehicles to within less than 30 metres before they take off for safer ground. Photographically speaking, this is an area that is predestined for the use of the very longest super telephoto lenses.
Before I set off on my trip, my lack of a real super tele caught up on me. The full-frame hype and the introduction of the D3 has brought Nikon users back down to Earth with a bump. Once again, a 400mm lens is a 400mm and the wonderful 1.5x crop factor is suddenly a thing of the past. Having said that, the noise problems (even at relatively low ISO values) and the speed issues associated with the D2x made it inferior to the Canon cameras of the time anyway. You simply had to get used to photographing hunting lions at 1/250 second and ISO 200 (or less) if you wanted to produce adequate results. The narrow band of sensitivity and the lack of image-stabilised super telephotos were the main reasons why back then even the remotest corners of the wild were populated almost exclusively with white lenses.
In those days, my VR 200-400mm Nikkor and the male genetic defect that makes us more faithful to camera or car brands than to women were probably the only things that prevented me from switching to Canon.
The VR 200-400mm was obviously too short for my planned trip, even if used (grudgingly) with a teleconverter. Purchasing a 600mm Nikkor would have cost me around ten thousand euros and would only have given me the same maximum range with my D3 as I always had with my D2x anyway. The idea simply made no economic sense.
Then a new dream lens turned up - unfortunately in the wrong colour and with the wrong bayonet. Yes, we are talking about the Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L IS USM - a really big gun packed with all the latest technology. And Canon also just happens to build the super-fast, high-resolution, professional-grade EOS-1D Mark IV with its range-extending 1.3x crop factor to go with it. A lot of Canonites complain that the Mark IV isn't a full-format camera, but for me, it was the main reason for considering my first ever system switch.
The Olympic Games had made it impossible to buy or rent a Mark IV short-term, and I was left with the choice of either an EOS-1Ds Mark III or an EOS 7D with a 1.6x crop factor. So, two days later I found myself faced with a box that looked like a small coffin with a handle (filled with a big, white tube), two camera bodies and a 24-70mm lens for shooting landscapes. Together with my Nikon gear, I carted more than 40kg of kit over to Africa and made the customs man's day at Kilimanjaro Airport. Two hours of wheeling and dealing, eighty euros "import duty" and six hours of unmade road later, my new friend could at last show me what he was capable of.
Focal length comparison: young lion on the Masai Kopjes, at a distance of about 30 metres
Nikon D3, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS 7D,
VR 200-400mm 800mm f/5.6, 800mm f/5.6
f/4 set to 400mm, 1/350 sec., (= approx. 1280mm),
1/200 sec., f4 f5.6 at ISO 200, 1/125 sec.,
at ISO 200, beanbag f9 at ISO 200,
beanbag beanbag
The Canon 800mm f/5.6 is not just an extremely long lens. For your average working wildlife photographer it is more of a minor miracle, and it produces sharpness and contrast that I wouldn't have believed possible in such a huge piece of glass. It does belong to the body-builder class of lenses, but is nevertheless lighter than your average 600mm and is also shorter if used with the lens hood from a 400mm f/2.8. On the whole it is quick and easy to use. The IS image stabilisation technology is the best yet and allows experienced photographers to shoot handheld under 1/100 second. Build quality is first class, and everything works smoothly and precisely. Autofocus and IS are almost silent, and the vibration-free tripod mount has click stops every 90 degrees. This is pure luxury compared to Nikon's shaky little tripod mounts. The only weak points are the autofocus, IS and VR switches that all Japanese lens manufacturers seem to buy from the same supplier and whose supplies are not showing any signs of running out yet. Used with a beanbag, the switches shift randomly and (in 40° heat) gaffer tape only helps for a while until it melts off, leaving an immovable chewing gum-like mass stuck to the switch.
Sharpness and bokeh: subject distance approximately 20 metres
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III,
800mm f/5.6, 1/250 sec., 800 mm f/5.6, 1/250 sec.,
f11 at ISO 200, beanbag f9.5 at ISO 200, beanbag
Autofocus accuracy, central metering area
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS 7D,
800 mm f/5.6, 1/500 sec., 800mm f/5.6 (= approx. 1280mm ),
f5.6 at ISO 200, 1/250 sec., f5.6 at ISO 200,
beanbag beanbag
Close-up depth of field, subject distance approximately 12 metres
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III,
800mm f/5.6, 800mm f/5.6, 800mm f/5.6,
1/250 sec., 1/500 sec., 1/500 sec.,
f6.7 at ISO 200, f8 at ISO 400, f5.6 at ISO 400
beanbag beanbag beanbag *
*an 800mm lens produces extremely shallow depth of field close up. This characteristic can be used deliberately as a compositional tool, but you have to make sure that the details you want to keep sharp really are within the field of focus. The right-hand image shows clearly that the depth of field available at f5.6 is not sufficient to keep both the lion's nose and its eyes in focus.
The shallow depth of field produced by the lens makes shooting pans or action sequences a lot of fun. Even shooting at f32 and 1/30 second, you can pick out a single, well-defined animal within a running herd. If I had remembered to take a grey filter with me, I would probably have been able to produce real works of art using the beast wide open.
Obviously, experience counts when you are using this type of lens, and the extremely narrow angle of view makes it all too easy to lose track of your subject in the viewfinder. It takes some practice until you can be sure of capturing a landing bird, but once you have got the hang of it, the enormous focal length turns every thrush into an eagle! You also need to keep your breathing under control when you are shooting pans of fast-moving subjects from a monopod or a beanbag. A heavy tripod with a fluid head makes shooting easier but is, of course, much harder to carry.
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