Lens Rental for Safari

[at9]

Hello,

I am a total beginner. I have an old Contax 167MT 35mm in brand new condition that I recently found in storage. It currently has no lens, just the body.

I will be going on a safari in July. Since I'm totally new to this, and I'm not ready to pour a ton of money into it just yet, I'm looking to rent a lens. From what I've read a 300 or 400mm lens would be ideal for a safari. I looked at many sites that rent lenses, but none of them rent contax. Can I use any (Canon, Nikon, etc) lens on my camera, or do I need an adapter? Anything else I should keep in mind for the safari/renting a lens?

Thanks

 

[usayit]

Contax went away several years ago and was better known for their G series rangefinder and lenses. I don't think you'll have much luck finding a rental. Not sure about Nikon but I'm pretty sure you can't adapt a Canon EF lens to Contax.

KEH has a few used lenses for sale... but I'm afraid you are better off purchasing into another camera system at this time.

 

[Senor Hound]

For a once-in-a-lifetime trip like a safari, perhaps you could rent a camera and a 400mm lens? You'll want photos from this, and since you can't rent any lenses for what you have, you can rent the whole set, use it for your trip, and then figure out what you want to do with your other camera (I suggest a 50mm 1.8 lens).

I will edit this, and say you should get a 300mm lens, or a 70-300 lens. With the multiplier on digital cameras, this would be like your film camera having a 450mm zoom which is plenty enough. Plus, you can crop later, you can't get a shot of a full elephant back when all you took was a picture of his head.

This is just my two cents, but I'd rent a normal DSLR with a zoom lens that goes up to 300mm

 

[djacobox372]

In my experience the cheapest "rental" is to buy a used lens off ebay, and then sell it on ebay when you return from your trip.

With some luck you may even make some $$, if you show off some of those safari pics with your ebay ad.

The weekly rental price for a 400mm f2.8 is about $400, you'd have to be pretty unlucky to end up selling it for $400 less then you paid for it.