Hi. I'm Charl from Pangolin Photo Safaris and in this video I would like to share
with you five very easy but crucial points that can help you prepare
yourself for your next African or wildlife photographic safari and to
prevent some disappointment.
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Let's start. So my tip number one it's checking your camera gear. This is
extremely important. I would suggest you check your camera gear
at least two weeks before you go on your trip or your safari and the main
reason for this is that if you find something that is wrong you have time to
replace it or to fix it. So the first thing I would check is my battery charger.
I would charge my batteries to make sure that my chargers working properly and
my batteries are working. After you've charged batteries I insert my
batteries into my camera and then you can see, after you charge them fully, your
camera will indicate if your batteries are full or not. So that's how you can see
your chargers working and all your batteries are working. So that's the
first thing I will do. Second thing I would see if all my lenses are connecting
properly. If I click them. That click sound. I can hear them they're connecting
properly and by doing that if you just twist your camera lens just a little bit.
On your aperture, if the connection is not on properly your camera would show 00.
This normally happens after a lot of use. All the zooming in and out then the wear
is coming in between your camera and your lens. So this can happen. So to
prevent having this issue on your safari is you can test this before.
So if you twist just your lens and your body just a little bit and you will see your
camera showing 0 0 you know you have that problem. So you could also try
yourself by fixing it. Your camera and your lens have four screws you so you
can just tighten it yourself a little bit. Maybe one of them is loose. Or the other
problem it could be is your cleaning. These metal golden metal
plates may be dirty. So it may be that you have to clean. Those metal plates are what's
giving the signal to your camera. Talking about it signal then you can
also test and make sure your image stabilization is working if you have one
because you might just need it a low-light condition to make sure your
image stabilisation is working properly. Your zoom is working properly. I would
test my camera on all my zooms. Let's say I have a 100-400.
I will test it on 100mm, 200mm, 300mm and 400mm to make sure that
when I focus on my camera, when I focus on something, it is working properly and
my pictures are sharp at the different focus lengths. Before you pack your gear
please test that. You can also then make sure that all your buttons are working
properly. Testing turning all the wheels.
Your card. Make sure all the cards that you have. Test every card. Make sure your camera is
reading your card and you don't have any problem. Upload your photos that's are
already on the cards. Make sure your cards are empty. Formatted on this specific
camera that you will use and make sure that they are also ready.
Tip no 2. Disable shutter release without a card. This is really important please make
sure that your camera cannot take any photos so the shutter doesn't work if you
don't have a card in your camera. So this means you can do any settings. You try to
focus. You try to turn any wheel. It will indicate no card in the camera. This is
extremely important. The last thing you want is to be on a sighting, great sighting,
you pick up your camera, you've been shooting a lot of photos and when you
look at the pictures you want to look at your picture there's no card in your camera.
So try to avoid that by disable the shutter release without a card in your camera.
Ok so tip No 3 is lens hood!
I see so often people don't use it. They don't take it with, Im not sure why.
This is a very important tool in your photography.
The lens hood is there to prevent light hitting your front element of the
lens from the side. Reducing contrast and creating flare. When of course it's
to protect your lens as well. The front element scratches and bumps maybe
fingerprints and you can't touch it with your fingers. So this is a very important tool.
So I will highly recommend you always use this. So don't leave it at home.
Please take it with you. It is important
Tip No 4: Laptop and editing process programmes.
Guys please make sure before you go on your safari and you're
taking your laptop with then your laptop has enough working space. If your laptop
is full is very difficult to work on your images. It's going to load and load
and load some of these editing programs is quite big. So you need to make sure that
you have enough working space. You should have enough time to prepare your
laptop before you're on your trip. Same with your editing programs. Make sure your
editing program is up to date. Latest software update. Maybe you bought a new
camera. Please make sure that your camera's RAW files are compatible with the
Lightroom or the editing program that using. If you maybe the rented a camera
or you borrowed the camera from a friend make sure that the editing program that
you're taking with you on your safari is working with the files that
you are using. So please make sure that that is up to date. You have enough
memory that you're taking with. External hard drives are so cheap. They're small.
You can easily take them with you. Make sure if you take maybe, for example 1Tb
you have a full Tb. Its no use taking a 1 Tb hard drive and it's
80% full and you might not have enough space on your trip. So please make sure
that you have enough memory enough working space on your laptop and your
editing program is up to date to the latest software that you need.
Also make a test before you pack it. If you've done some software
updates, please make sure that you test it before you just pack it.
Import a couple of photos. Work on it and see everything is fine.
There's no updates that you require. That everything is fine. You might travel to
areas where there is no internet or you can't connect for days to the internet
and then you can't update that and then you might sit with a problem. You can't
do anything on your computer. So please make sure that this items are up-to-date
and they're ready to use
Tip No 5. My last one and this is adaptors. This is a
very important piece of equipment that I recommend that you always have with you.
It's very small and easy to pack. This will help you of course then not to have any
issues with charging your laptop, cell phone, camera batteries, shaver ,whatever
you have. All around the world we all have different plug points so make sure
that the location where you going on your safari then you know which plug
points they're using and then you can get yourself one of these adapters and that
will definitely help you not having an issue charging your gear. Ok guys so
that was my five points. I hope these five points help you. I hope this will prevent
any disappointment in your next photographic safari. Please if you have
any comments to add please leave them below and I hope to see you soon.