Photography stuff - which lens

electrodent

You've had some great advice here but I can't help but stick my nose in when people are talking lens gear

Firstly avoid mirror lenses. I was investigating them when I wanted to buy a cheap long lens to photograph the moon. They are cheap and nasty. Manual focus is giving them too much credit. From what I remember, the one I looked at focused by changing the distance between the lens and the camera - essentially unscrewing and screwing the lens. Fine if you've got a still object but otherwise... It also had a ludicrously small depth of field and bizarre hexagonal bokeh. Even at £100 for a 1000mm lens it wasn't worth it.

My friend took his Sigma 70-300mm on safari and took photos good enough that he sold some of them. That's one option, but, as mentioned, I don't think it'll be that dissimilar to your current set-up.

You could look at a prime such as a 200mm or 300mm lens with a teleconvertor and do all your composition in an edit. Or as other people have also mentioned you could hire. Personally though I would avoid hiring as it's actually not that cheap, I'd guess £100/200 for a decent lens.

If it was me I'd go with a prime and a TC. But as I'm a Nikon shooter I'm not clear on which lenses are open to you.