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Hi

I plan to buy a camera to use mainly in KNP, I need to know if I buy a 200 mm lense if it will be ok for wildlife photos. What will you recomend, I usuly battle to get good photos off animals that lie away fromthe road. I dont have a huge budget .

Thanks

That is a bit on the short side Harrys.
IMHO you can better get yourself a good second hand long lens.
A 150- 500mm or a 170- 500mm.
That gives you the range you want and is still acceptable in price.

As a standard wildlife lens i would say a 70-300 but if you want closer like michel367 said a 170-500 does the trick but the only problem i find with my dads 170-500 is the minimum focusing distance is 3 meters so anything within less than 3m he has to change lenses.

What camera system are you using?

I must aggree with you on that one Mike, but I never had any problems with that as I have bought myself a cheap second hand camera with a 28 - 150 mm lens on it.
That takes care of the close shots.

michel367 that is a great idea
I was just going on the fact that harrys said he was on a budget

That is what i am going to do as i know have the Canon 40D and 100-400 L so will buy another body and smaller lens later on

I bought myself a second hand Pentax IstD with the lens, a 100- 200 mm lens and a heap of other stuff for just R 1300.00.
A steal.
The pics are just great. A lot of them are in my TR.
Specially the short and the wide shots.

Wow that was for a steal

Yep.
Although it is from the first digital camera series from Pentax, it is still in perfect working order.
Just bought it blindly through the internet.
The 200 mm lens alone is worth that price.

It was indeed worth it though!
Good Buy

Hi harrys,

200mm is okay for most shots, depending on your needs. You may have to crop the image a bit if the subject is small or is a reasonable distance from the car.

You never mentioned what the minimum focal length was. If you are looking at the 18-200mm range, are you planning on the "one lens to rule them all", i.e. Landscape and wildlife?

The 500mm lens, sorry guys, is overrated and could be associated to compensation issues .

With the 500mm lens you tend to get a very small maximum aperture (that f-stop thingy) and if the lens is cheap you get bad bokeh (hexagonal blurring), which could influence the quality of your shots. Let's not mention camera shake.

Also the further you zoom out the more likely you will have blades of grass or branches obstructing the view. Although changing your position can prevent this, you can't always avoid it.

I find 300mm to be a reasonable distance lens and tends to be a good balance. Added to that the possibility of getting one with VR or IS. Anyway that's my two cents.

Never could aggree with the compensation issues.

You have some valid points bushnut, but then again the bigger lens allows you to close in on the object much more than a smaller lens and allows you to concentrate a lot more on getting the shot perfect in sharpness etc than a, rather, long shot that you have to crop and then find out that it is just not sharp enough.
Just depends on your point of view.

Literally!

Yeah.

I have only a standard ( 28 - 150mm), a mid range (80 - 300mm) and a long range lens
(170 - 500mm) and they suite me just fine.
Need the long lens to allow for my fading eyesight.

Michel I agree with you and have the same lenses 18-135 70-300 and the 150-500.Got the 150-500 a month or so ago so have not yet taken it to KNP.Harry what are you looking at spending?I saw an add in a pamphlet for a nikon lens and body think the d500???and a 70-300 for just over R6000

go to a shop that sells 2nd hand lenses and play with as many as you can, especially a 70-300mm and a 1X0-500mm.
Personally I'd recommend a 2nd hand 170-500mm.