Wildlife photography is undergoing a quiet revolution and all wildlife photographers stand in line to benefit. Taking animal pictures has traditionally been a very expensive business.

DSLR photography wildlife cameras and specifically the ultra zoom and telephoto lenses imperative to get up close and personal to the subjects cost an arm and a leg (or should that be a paw and a hoof?).

But with the advent and technical advance of point and shoot compact cameras with big lenses this has begun to change...

This is thanks to a new wave of ultra zoom compact digital cameras that manufacturers have released and continue to improve on.

I started out with the Canon Powershot S1 IS and then upgraded to the S5 IS model later.

I won't bore you with all the technical specifications because the important thing for wildlife photographers is that this camera has a 12 optical zoom (36-432mm equivalent).

And not only does it have this massive lens in a very compact body, it also has image stabilization (IS).

"Big deal" you might say, and in that you would be right, because the IS means that you can handhold this camera, zoom to 432mm and take your wildlife photograph in most lighting conditions (2f stops less than normal in fact) without having to worry about blur.

And you can do this at a fraction of what it would normally cost you for a DSLR and the relevant lenses. The quality of the photographs obtained is good enough for amateur and semi-amateur applications but not yet for professional photography.

Top photographs have image stabilization on - bottom three IS off

By using an ultra zoom compact camera you will be able to take excellent wildlife pictures on safari. Not professional quality unfortunately, but reasonably close.

I specialise in African wildlife photography and the Powershot gives me great versatility at a very low cost to obtain wildlife photos on safari.

The ultra zoom compact camera will make your life a whole lot easier and combined with the number one African photo safari tip you should be able to get excellent results.