Madagascar Insights?

[eaj101]

Heading there in a couple of months and looking for impressions/reactions/ideas.... (Traveling as light as possible).

 

[ricardo00]

Heading there in a couple of months and looking for impressions/reactions/ideas.... (Traveling as light as possible).

Wow who are you going with? What does your itinerary look like? I researched going to Madagascar for several years and finally went with a guide (Des Ong) who was great! It is an amazing country. The poorest country I have ever been to. But the people are exceedingly friendly! I would encourage you to bring lots of small bills to give out tips (people who help you, people whose pictures you take, etc). Unfortunately we never found an ATM that worked and ran out of cash to give as tips. The roads are terrible, most people bike. Surprisingly there were a fair amount of photographers/tourists in most places we went.
The lemurs and chameleons are so much fun to photograph. Often they will come beg for food (the lemurs) at lunch spots and lemur island, so you can get really close to them. The internal commercial flights have very low limits for carry on but the check-in people were incredibly accommodating for us photographers. What lens/cameras are you bringing? I would strongly suggest bringing a macro lens for the bugs. Our favorite photos were of the fossa (which came right up to us) and the aye aye. If you want to see which focal lengths I used for my pics, they are on my Madagascar flickr album. Let me know if you have any questions:

Madagascar

Explore this photo album by ricardo00 on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[eaj101]

Wow who are you going with? What does your itinerary look like? I researched going to Madagascar for several years and finally went with a guide (Des Ong) who was great! It is an amazing country. The poorest country I have ever been to. But the people are exceedingly friendly! I would encourage you to bring lots of small bills to give out tips (people who help you, people whose pictures you take, etc). Unfortunately we never found an ATM that worked and ran out of cash to give as tips. The roads are terrible, most people bike. Surprisingly there were a fair amount of photographers/tourists in most places we went.
The lemurs and chameleons are so much fun to photograph. Often they will come beg for food (the lemurs) at lunch spots and lemur island, so you can get really close to them. The internal commercial flights have very low limits for carry on but the check-in people were incredibly accommodating for us photographers. What lens/cameras are you bringing? I would strongly suggest bringing a macro lens for the bugs. Our favorite photos were of the fossa (which came right up to us) and the aye aye. If you want to see which focal lengths I used for my pics, they are on my Madagascar flickr album. Let me know if you have any questions:

Madagascar

Explore this photo album by ricardo00 on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

Thanks for the info! Organizing the trip through Wilderness Travel, so far we're going to Andosibe and then to Anjajavy. Wilderness Travel is very flexible in a creating a trip for just my wife and I. We'll have guides the whole trip.

I'm trying to keep the gear as light and inconspicuous as possible so it's all Olympus. OM-1, OM E-M10IV, 9-18mm, 14-42 pancake, 75-300 (I have the 300f4 and 100-400 but they're much larger) and I was going to add the 45f1.8 to have one fast lens but with your advice I might swap that out for the 60mm macro.) All together it's a couple of pounds and fits in a normal sized fanny pack. Still debating tripod options with myself...

 

[eaj101]

p.s. Great shots!

 

[janzin]

You'll definitely want a macro for the insects and some of the reptiles too. If you are planning to shoot birds (so many endemics!) then you might want to reconsider the 100-400, 300mm would be a bit short. I was shooting at the time (2019) with the Nikon D850 + 200-500 and brought along the Fuji XT-30 for macro and scenery. We were on a group birding trip and visited several spots, my favorite being Berenty for the Ring-tailed Lemurs and Ifaty for the spiny forests with their baobabs and unusual plants and endemic birds. Just be prepared if you are taking any domestic flights, the domestic airline is notoriously unreliable and almost everyone has either cancelled or rescheduled flights to deal with.

You might be interested in my trip report on SafariTalk: https://www.safaritalk.net/topic/20557-fabulous-frustrating-madagascar/

 

[ricardo00]

p.s. Great shots!

Thanks! I didn't bring any tripod or monopod. So all my shots (including the macro) are handheld. Some were at night and I used flash. Also went quite light, the Nikon 300mm is about half the weight of the OM systems 300mm and used it with the 1.4TC on a cropped Nikon body, so effectively almost 600mm.
I also loved Berenty. We didn't go to Anjajavy but have heard great things about them. I had emailed them but it took several months to get any response and had already made other plans. There are many great places to go but they are quite far apart, especially if driving and as mentioned in the prior post, the domestic airline is a bit unreliable.

 

[eaj101]

You'll definitely want a macro for the insects and some of the reptiles too. If you are planning to shoot birds (so many endemics!) then you might want to reconsider the 100-400, 300mm would be a bit short. I was shooting at the time (2019) with the Nikon D850 + 200-500 and brought along the Fuji XT-30 for macro and scenery. We were on a group birding trip and visited several spots, my favorite being Berenty for the Ring-tailed Lemurs and Ifaty for the spiny forests with their baobabs and unusual plants and endemic birds. Just be prepared if you are taking any domestic flights, the domestic airline is notoriously unreliable and almost everyone has either cancelled or rescheduled flights to deal with.

You might be interested in my trip report on SafariTalk: https://www.safaritalk.net/topic/20557-fabulous-frustrating-madagascar/

Thanks. In micro4/3 (Olympus land) 300mm is the equivalent of 600mm in full frame. And thanks for the heads up on domestic flights. We're taking one to Anjajavy.

 

[janzin]

Thanks. In micro4/3 (Olympus land) 300mm is the equivalent of 600mm in full frame. And thanks for the heads up on domestic flights. We're taking one to Anjajavy.

oh right, DUH. I forgot about that! Then you definitely should be set.

 

[Anthony]

Take the longest lens you have - lemurs are often up in the trees. As mentioned earlier, a macro is important, and take a flash as well. There are many interesting night creatures.

 

[SonoranDesert]

Lucky you! Hope you have a fabulous adventure. I don't have anything to add to the comments above but here is a link to a podcast on the lemurs in Madagascar that I thought was enlightening.

Lemurology (LEMURS) with Dr. Lydia Greene — alie ward

How did these tree-hopping furry angels evolve to be the cutest thing in the world, objectively speaking? They have saucer eyes, wet noses, chunky tails, toe claws, matriarchies, a feature film starring role, and all the mystery of 100 species spending millions of years on a remote island.

www.alieward.com

 

[ricardo00]

Take the longest lens you have - lemurs are often up in the trees. As mentioned earlier, a macro is important, and take a flash as well. There are many interesting night creatures.

You must be in better shape and/or younger than me, but trying to climb up and down the hills in Madagascar to see the lemurs was not something I would want to do with my 800mm lens (or the new OM 180-600) though I am sure it would help to get better pictures.

 

[Anthony]

You must be in better shape and/or younger than me, but trying to climb up and down the hills in Madagascar to see the lemurs was not something I would want to do with my 800mm lens (or the new OM 180-600) though I am sure it would help to get better pictures.

We were able to see lemurs in trees without doing heavy duty hiking.

 

[Butlerkid]

I found a spectacular photo trip to Madagascar, but after researching the flights to get there I decided that is one bucket list item I'll never see. 36 hr travel time!

I anxiously await your stories and photos!

 

[eaj101]

I found a spectacular photo trip to Madagascar, but after researching the flights to get there I decided that is one bucket list item I'll never see. 36 hr travel time!

I anxiously await your stories and photos!

Thanks! The travel time is such that we're taking the first day we get there to just sleep and recover. The only non-stops to Antananarivo are from Paris, so going via CDG cuts the travel time a bit, but it's still a long time.

 

[ricardo00]

Thanks! The travel time is such that we're taking the first day we get there to just sleep and recover. The only non-stops to Antananarivo are from Paris, so going via CDG cuts the travel time a bit, but it's still a long time.

We went and flew from JNB to Madagascar, so we did a stopover in JNB and on the way back, even went to a safari place in SA. That way it broke up the flight. I had heard that during COVID they discontinued those flights. However, just checked, and now one can fly Airlink from SA to Madagascar on some days of the week.

Pardon Our Interruption

 

[ricardo00]

We were able to see lemurs in trees without doing heavy duty hiking.

Which lemurs? Not sure which park, but to see the Indri lemur, we hiked up and down a steep hill with poor terrain (no path). There was another photographer with a tripod and a big lens (not sure what, 600mm f/4?) and he definitely was struggling. There was no way I could do that, I had a hard enough time walking with my very small 300mm PF lens. Would have loved to get a video of them singing, their calls are amazing! And of course the lemurs never stayed in one place, once he would get the tripod set up on the hill, the lemur would move to another tree.

 

[Anthony]

Lemurs are in

Which lemurs? Not sure which park, but to see the Indri lemur, we hiked up and down a steep hill with poor terrain (no path). There was another photographer with a tripod and a big lens (not sure what, 600mm f/4?) and he definitely was struggling. There was no way I could do that, I had a hard enough time walking with my very small 300mm PF lens. Would have loved to get a video of them singing, their calls are amazing! And of course the lemurs never stayed in one place, once he would get the tripod set up on the hill, the lemur would move to another tree.

Lemurs are in many places on the island, some remote, some less so. And individual fitness and strength vary because of many factors.

This sifaka lemur was photographed from our guide's vehicle parked at the roadside.

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[ricardo00]

Lemurs are in many places on the island, some remote, some less so. And individual fitness and strength vary because of many factors.

Nice shot. Yep lemurs are all over, some even came to join us for lunch at one lodge. But our goal was to see as many species of lemurs as we could, and for some that required drives to out of the way parks and for others hikes up and down hills.