Liz Leyden wrote:
Hans-Georg Michna wrote:
the_niner_nation wrote:
I might just invest £40 in one of those 'gorillapod' things..it's kinda
like a bendy tripod that can curl its self onto branches, pipes etc

May not be too useful in a car, though, that has neither
branches nor pipes.
...
Re Harlan's post, the OP should note that IME most safari vehicles,
esp minibuses, have horizontally opening windows.

I think that the 'IME' part here is important: while I saw a few
vehicles that were of the minibus (w/poptop) variety, for the company
that I used, 100% of their safari vehicles had *no* windows (see page
10 of 73 of the .pdf link I previously provided). They also didn't
have doors either, but I digress.

My general observation is that its pretty straightforward to begin to
optimize when you're going back a 2nd or 3rd time to the same company,
same place, same vehicle, etc. While you can get it right on the
first try, that generally requires some prior applied experience and
knowning the right questions to ask, having a mentor who's been there/
done that, etc.

In general, I found that the ability to move & point very fast was
frequently an asset (directly for the subjects), plus (and I don't
know why) I found that for our itinerary, the majority of the
customers were not what I'd consider to be particularly serious nature
watchers/photographers, so it was more considerate to be able to
minimize shot preparation time (pre- and post-).

If I had to do my same itinerary again, the simplest "small" change
that I'd make would be to pack lightweight poly fill for my sandbag,
instead of trying to minimize its volume by packing it empty and
scrounging local fill material. I'd not bother with bringing a
monopod or compact/midsize tripod or any window/roof mounts. OTOH,
if I were to be going on a different itinerary where I knew that a
roof mount would be useful, then I'd take one (and also probably a
bigger lens), although this would also require paying for an extra
seat on the charter flight because it would clearly put me well
overweight on baggage limits (for the Cessna flights in-country, not
the commercial jets to get there).


-hh