Many people go to take pictures of Komodo Dragons and whilst this is fair enough there’s a lot more to see in Komodo National Park.  Bring a telephoto if you’re going to Rinca or Komodo Island and want to take pictures of Komodo Dragons.  I took a 55-200mm Fuji (Crop sensor) and used the full range of that quite a bit. You can’t get too close to them (3-5 meters they tell you), so you need something with a zoom.  Perhaps 200mm (300 full frame equivalent) is not needed, but I’d at least take a 24-70mm or something similar.

The sunsets in Komodo National Park are quite nice, but the sun sets quite early, around 6p.m, at least when we went (middle-late May).  You can get some good shots no matter where you are. Padar Island is worth walking up, it’s not far and easy to do unless you’re overweight and unfit.  I just took the Fuji 18-55mm and that was fine but wanted something wider, perhaps the 14mm (21mm full frame equivalent) would have been enough to get the entire landscape in.

Also take an underwater camera because the snorkelling here is awesome. For me this is the Olympus TG-5 but I wish somebody made something more than a point and shoot that was affordable and decent.  It’s fine for video but still images under water even in good conditions are difficult and the focus on the Olympus is a bit shady underwater. Out of water is fine, great for snap shots on the beach or wherever there’s water but average performance underwater.  Anyway, you can’t take pictures of Komodo Dragons the whole time because there’s no resorts on the Islands that have them.

Komodo National Park is vast and there’s islands sprinkled throughout.  To photograph this properly you ideally need to hire a private boat and just get them stop wherever you want. This it’d be very costly and you’d need to do a lot research beforehand.  I’d have liked to have a decent under water camera but not sure who makes one. You can get underwater cases but they’re massive and trying to keep en eye out on kids while you’re snorkelling isn’t really conducive to something like that.

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