Best lenses for safari photography

I feel strongly that successful safari photography is all about capturing exotic wildlife in photos that you’ll want to keep for a lifetime. After all, for most of us it involves travelling across the globe, so it’s not the sort of thing we do every day. Logistics and travel expenses aside, the main hurdle is that wildlife is, by its very nature, wild. Depending on the nature of the beast, the animals you’re trying to photograph will either be timid and run for cover if you get too close, or they’ll go into attach mode, maybe eyeing you up as a tasty treat.

Discretion is the better part of valor, and it pays to use a lens with serious telephoto power, so that you can get frame-filling shots of wild animals in their natural habitat, while keeping a respectful distance. With that in mind, I’ve picked out the best telephoto lenses for this guide, that really cover the distance. All of them are zoom lenses, which might no be the first choice of professional wildlife photographers, but give you greater versatility in framing when your safari time is limited. Unlike the pros, you probably won’t have days or weeks to wait around in order to get the shot.

In the following guide, you’ll find lenses to suit a wide range of mirrorless cameras and DSLRs. Most are full-frame compatible but also work on the respective makes of crop-sensor cameras. Others are designed purely for APS-C or Micro Four Thirds system cameras, which have crop factors of around 1.5x or 2.0x respectively, further boosting your effective telephoto reach.

Jon Stapley

Jon is one of our go-to specialists when it comes to all aspects of photography, from cameras and action cameras to lenses and memory cards. Here he looks at the best lenses for safari shoots.

The Quick List

The best lenses for safari photography in 2024

Best overall

Covering a focal expanse from telephoto 150mm to super-telephoto 600mm, the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports is a very popular format of lens. We could have filled this list with 150-600mm lenses if we wanted, but we picked this update to a very popular DSLR lens, the old Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM | Sport for Canon EF and Nikon F mounts. This time it fits Sony E-mount mirrorless, with a version also available for L-mount full-frame cameras made by Panasonic, Sigma and Leica.

Tack-sharp throughout its zoom range, the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports is designed for speed and flexibility. It focuses fast, delivers great-looking bokeh in its defocused areas, and it’s also comprehensively weather-sealed, which is good news if the heavens decide to open mid-safari. If you’re using an L-mount camera, we’d say it’s essential. If you’re on Sony E-mount, you have a few more competitive options (see our full Sony section further down the page).

See our full Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports review.

Canon RF

Canon lenses with the ‘L’ designation in the name are designed with the utmost attention to quality. This means a lens like the Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS USM is built to last in all sorts of conditions, with a heat shield coating that means it can withstand ultra-hot weather (or ultra-cold, for that matter). The generous zoom range gives you a lot of shooting flexibility, with a smooth zooming action with speed that can be adjusted to taste. Its stabilization is very effective too (even more so with higher-end EOS R cameras like the EOS R5), meaning you can use slower shutter speeds and still get sharp shots. This is especially helpful when dealing with the somewhat pedestrian maximum aperture, which drops to a weak f/7.1 at the telephoto end. See our full Canon RF 100-500mm f/4.5-7.1L IS USM review.

Canon EF

At around twice the price of competing Sigma and Tamron 100-400mm lenses for DSLRs, the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM is a more substantial proposition. It’s about 50 percent weightier, comes complete with a tripod mounting ring, and has Canon’s typical L-series pro-grade build quality and weather seals. The Mark II edition of the lens ditches the trombone-style push-pull zoom mechanism and adopts a more conventional twist ring.

However, it still incorporates the adjustable friction damper for the zoom mechanism, as featured on the original lens, which helps to avoid zoom creep. The top-class glass includes fluorite and Super UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements, along with ASC (Air Sphere Coating) to minimize ghosting and flare, and fluorine coatings on the front and rear elements. There’s a 4-stop triple-mode image stabilizer and very fast autofocus. All in all, it’s a better lens than the original edition in every respect.

Read our full Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS II USM review

Nikon Z

Nikon very much sees this as the Z-mount successor to the popular AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR lens that I've also featured. It's an ultra-telephoto lens that's highly capable, but also reasonably affordable to amateurs and enthusiasts as well as professionals. That extra-broad zoom range gives the user real shooting flexibility, too.

In my review, I was blown away by this absolute cracker of a lens. It's razor-sharp right the way through that big focal range, and the build makes it lightweight enough for prolonged handheld use. Autofocus is lightning-fast and pinpoint accurate – which is really all you can ask for as far as sports photography is concerned.

Even when the conditions are challenging, this lens delivers the goods, and it's an eminently worthy successor to the excellent DSLR lens that preceded it.

Read my full Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR review

Nikon F

Reasonably priced for a telephoto zoom of its kind, the Nikon AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR offers tremendous value for users of Nikon DSLRs – which are still some of the most popular wildlife cameras out there. Its image quality is top-notch, delivering clean and sharp images right the way through the zoom range, and both the autofocus and stabilization are consistently effective. We would have liked a full suite of weather seals – there’s a rubber mount around the gasket, but it’s not overall comprehensive. You’ll probably be okay in light drizzle, but it might be worth investing in a rain cover if you’re anticipating any torrential downpours. See our full Nikon AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR review.

Sony E

Sony’s ‘G Master’ designation is conferred only on its top-end lenses, ones that deliver an exceptionally high standard of optical quality. As such, while the Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G Master OSS is undoubtedly an expensive lens, it’s also a beautiful piece of kit. One thing it particularly excels at is creating images with attractive bokeh – meaning the quality of the defocused areas of images. This means if you want to create portrait-style images of wildlife with a shallow depth of field, it’s a good choice of lens. Also, if you need more reach, it can be used with Sony’s 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters (just remember that the extra focal length comes at the cost of reduced maximum aperture). See our full Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G Master OSS review.

Fujifilm X

With the release of highly capable cameras like the X-H2S and the X-T5, Fujifilm has signified it is playing in the big leagues. This weighty lens is a perfect partner for those who want to use Fujifilm’s flagship cameras for challenging pursuits like safari photography. It may be heavy for an APS-C lens, tipping the scales at just under 1.4kg and stretching out to 270mm in length when fully zoomed, but it delivers a focal range equivalent to 152-609mm in full-frame terms. It’s thoroughly weather-sealed as well.

See our full Fujifilm XF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR review

Micro Four Thirds

Typical of Panasonic’s up-market lenses for Micro Four Thirds cameras, this one is impeccably turned out. The relatively small size of MFT image sensors equate to a 2x focal length multiplier or ‘crop factor’, giving the lens a humungous effective zoom range of 200-800mm. As an MFT lens, it will not only work on Panasonic cameras like the GH5, but also on Olympus OM-D and PEN mirrorless cameras (and some Blackmagic video cameras too).

It feels pretty epic in practice, like using a 100-400mm on a full-frame camera with a 2x tele-converter. And while the f/6.3 aperture rating at the long end is a third of a stop down on some competing lenses, it’s no narrower than in the latest Sigma and Tamron 100-400mm zooms.

Switches are on hand for auto/manual focusing, an autofocus range limiter, and stabilization on/off. The built-in Power OIS (Optical Image Stabilizer) can work in conjunction with sensor-shift stabilization, available in Panasonic cameras with a ‘Dual IS’ function.

A handy locking ring between the zoom and focus rings enables variable friction damping and can put a stop to zoom creep. Build quality feels very solid and the lens has a dust- and splash-proof construction.

Typical of MFT lenses, this one has fast and practically silent autofocus, based on a linear motor. Sharpness and contrast are impressive and there’s practically zero distortion at any zoom setting.

Lab data and comparisons

The graphs below show the comparative performance of the lenses in this guide, based on our in-house lab tests. There’s a lot of sharpness on show in this group, the Canon RF 100-500mm and Nikon Z 180-600mm ruling the roost. A little pincushion distortion is typical, while color fringing tends to be well controlled.

Scores for sharpness and color fringing are averaged from data taken across the entire image frame, from the center to the edges and corners, throughout the aperture range. For zoom lenses, the scores are also averaged from data measured at all marked focal lengths, and the same applies to distortion. Bear in mind that these average values don't fully reflect specific areas of performance. For example, a zoom lens might have noticeable barrel and pincushion distortion at its shortest and longest focal lengths respectively, which tends to average out when looking at the data overall. For more detailed graphs of each lens's performance, which give the full picture, check out the graphs in our full standalone lens reviews.

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How to choose the best lenses for safari

Naturally, safari photography shares a lot of DNA with wildlife photography – however, there are a few factors specific to shooting safari that will impact your lens choice. For one, the guided nature of a safari means you're likely going to be able to get closer to your subjects than you would if you were out on your own relying on bushcraft. For this reason, you don't necessarily need the kinds of ultra-long telephoto lenses that are the hallmarks of professional wildlife photographers – 600mm and 800mm lenses are probably going to overkill (which is good news for your bank balance).

You do need a bit of telephoto reach, and having a zoom is a good idea, since you're unlikely to be able to move much from your initial position. For this reason, many safari photographers favour standard workhorse telephoto zooms like 70-200mm, 100-400mm or even 150-600mm. This gives you plenty of range and flexibility.

Naturally, the wild animals you encounter are not going to pose obligingly for you, so a lens that focuses quickly is certainly an asset. Having stabilization is also going to help, as you won't necessarily be able to set up a tripod – and this also means you'll want to keep an eye on weight, as you may be hand-holding the lens for extended periods. Weatherproofing is also a good idea.

How we test lenses

We test lenses using both real world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths / picture height – a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing. We also take lenses out into the real world to get a feeling for how they perform, and whether they do everything their manufacturers claim.