The Two Lenses I Use for Almost Everything And Why I Rarely Need Anything Else

Best lenses for wildlife photography | Sigma 150-600 review | Canon 70-200 wildlife | Safari photography lenses

Lens conversations in wildlife photography tend toward the expensive and the absolute. The 600mm f/4. The 800mm prime. The lens choices of photographers whose day rate exceeds the GDP of small nations. These lenses are extraordinary. They are also not what most people shooting wildlife are using, or should be prioritising.

I shoot with two lenses for the vast majority of my wildlife photography: the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Contemporary and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8. Between them, they cover almost every situation I encounter in the field, and together they cost a fraction of a single professional prime telephoto.

This is not a compromise position. These are considered choices that I have arrived at after years of field use, and I want to explain exactly how I use each one and why.

The Sigma 150-600mm: My Primary Wildlife Lens

The Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary is the lens that is on my camera for the majority of every game drive. Its focal length range covers the distances at which most safari wildlife photography happens, from a herd of elephants fifty metres away at the wide end, to a distant bird of prey on a termite mound at 600mm.

The 600mm end is genuinely useful. At a typical game drive distance from a sighting, 30 to 100 metres, 600mm produces frame-filling images of medium-sized mammals. On birds, it extends your reach significantly beyond what a 500mm gives you. For a lens at this price point, the optical quality at the long end is impressive.

The zoom range is its core advantage over a prime. Wildlife does not respect fixed focal lengths. An elephant that is the right distance for 400mm becomes a whole-frame portrait at 600mm as it walks toward you. A cheetah that fills the frame at 600mm needs 300mm when it stands and begins walking in your direction. The ability to zoom fluidly through this range, while maintaining continuous focus tracking, is practically more useful in the field than the marginal optical advantage of a prime.

In the field: The Sigma 150-600mm goes on the beanbag for the majority of game drive shooting. Its size and weight work well with a beanbag over a vehicle window, the lens balances naturally, the zoom ring is accessible, and the focus ring is positioned conveniently for manual override. I use the optical stabilisation on the lens itself rather than relying solely on in-body stabilisation, and the combination gives me usable frames at shutter speeds lower than I would otherwise accept in good light.

Its limitation: The maximum aperture of f/6.3 at 600mm is the lens's primary constraint. In low light, the dawn and dusk golden hours that produce the best wildlife photography, f/6.3 requires higher ISO to maintain sufficient shutter speed. On a modern camera body with good high-ISO performance, this is manageable. On older bodies, it is a real limitation.

The Canon 70-200mm f/2.8: The Versatile Complement

The 70-200mm f/2.8 is my second lens and the one I reach for in specific situations where the Sigma's characteristics work against me.

The f/2.8 maximum aperture is the reason this lens exists in my bag. In low light conditions where the Sigma forces high ISOs that degrade image quality, the 70-200mm's larger aperture collects more light, up to two and a third stops more than the Sigma at 600mm. In genuine golden-hour dawn or dusk shooting, this difference is meaningful.

The 70-200mm is also my choice for environmental portraits, images where I want the animal in context rather than filling the frame. At 70mm with a large animal close to the vehicle, you can include significant landscape context. This range is impossible on the Sigma, which at 150mm minimum focal length still produces fairly tight framing at typical game drive distances.

For elephants and large herds, the 70-200mm often tells a better story than the 150-600mm. A family of elephants photographed at 100mm, with the Amboseli landscape behind them and Kilimanjaro in the distance, is a fundamentally different image than the same elephants at 400mm. I switch to the 70-200mm deliberately for these wider environmental shots.

For low-angle ground shots, the 70-200mm is my preferred choice. When I use a monopod to get the camera low to the ground, level with a small mammal, a bird, or a ground-level scene, the shorter, lighter 70-200mm handles more naturally at low angles than the Sigma. The wider aperture also helps in situations where the camera is lower and handholding stability is compromised.

How I Carry and Switch Between Them

On a game drive vehicle, I keep one lens on the primary camera body on the beanbag (almost always the Sigma 150-600mm), and the 70-200mm on a second body either in my lap or clipped to the vehicle within reach. Lens changes in the field are unavoidable but should be minimised, every second you spend changing a lens is a second the animal is doing something without your camera on it.

Switching between bodies rather than swapping lenses on one body is faster and exposes the sensor to dust less frequently. If you are serious about wildlife photography in East Africa, a second camera body is a worthwhile investment, both for the flexibility of dual focal lengths and as a backup against mechanical failure at the worst possible moment.

The Honest Bottom Line

The Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 together cover an enormous range of wildlife photography situations. They are not the lightest combination, and they are not the sharpest optics money can buy. They are practical, versatile, and capable of producing genuinely excellent images in the hands of a photographer who knows how to use them.

No lens makes the photograph. The lens makes the image optically possible. What makes the photograph is being in the right place, at the right time, with sufficient understanding of the animal in front of you to anticipate what is about to happen.

For a complete guide to building a wildlife photography kit, including camera body recommendations, support systems, and accessories for safari shooting, my Photographers Safari Prep Guide covers gear selection in detail with specific recommendations across budget ranges.