The simple answer: Anything you want!
Everybody gets hung up over this one, what can I take, what should I take. I don't mean to trivialise the question but as with most of life there are many layers to this. Some fairly obvious others not so.
The most obvious is the camera gear. After all you are going on a photo safari to take pictures of wildlife and for the majority of us these days that also means digital photography.
So lets delve into the obvious first off.
You are a competent wildlife shooter so you should have a pretty good idea on the equipment you require for the results you want. For those not so sure what I am getting at, we are talking big zooms. Even though most animals you will come across in Africa are confined in some way these days, the place isn't a petting zoo. In general they don't come up alongside and have a chat. So to get a decent size animal in the frame you are going to want a at least a 300mm lens.
The lens choice changes slightly dependent on your type of safari. In South Africa on the private concessions you could get away with a 70-200. To be on the safe side though I would want something with a tad more reach. I don't have a lovely 500mm so I get by with the Canon 100-400 IS, with on a apc sensor DSLR gives a nice reach. For East Africa I would say that this range is probably the minimum. We are taking the 70-200 f2.8 IS to Kenya shortly but we are also taking the 1.4x and 2x extenders to make sure we have the reach.
Other than the big zoom you should also take a wide angle or something appropriate for landscapes. Africa has alot of big open space and some very dramatic landscapes. By having one of these handy with you, you will have something to do even if there is no wildlife action. Or it maybe a case of not very thrilling action, you can only watch a herd of impala for so long. Try to get some shots of the animals in their habitat.
Don't get me wrong I know the seduction of the big lens, I mean you have spent some decent cash on this monster lens, lugged it halfway around the world so you want some frame filling shots. By all means do it, fill the frame, do the interesting crops (that only you will appreciate) but do pull back at some point. Get the tips of the ears in, make sure the animal has feet, make sure it still has a tail. I could show you a multitude of these shots from our first safari. In fact i could show you too many from the last safari as well. No matter how much you may love them very few other people will so pull back get the whole animal in. Then when you are comfortable with that pull back a bit further and show some environment. Trust me on this, you will appreciate those shots when you get home.
Anyway the point here is you can and will use a variety of ranges when on safari, so make sure you have room in the bag for some of the others. Besides its digital if you don't like them you can delete them when you get home!
I have rambled a tad so the other obvious bits will have to be for another day, so stay tuned,
Next: What camera to take
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