Best Camera?

[PacoBirb]

So I think it is time that I get my hands on a camera for birding. I just don't know which one's best. I know it needs a high shutter speed, but what else? Do I need a lense? I've been looking at the Nikon D500.

 

[bill-e]

The D500 is a good choice because it is DX, 10FPS and most importantly a large buffer. 200 RAW pics or 20 seconds continuous shooting.

What lens you get depends on what you plan on shooting and how serious you are. The cost of the lens can easily surpass the cost of the camera by a factor of 2 or more.

 

[scott199]

as above I have a D500 and its epic for the money, 9/10 hit rate for BIF but as above, body is only as good as the glass you put in front of it.

what do you plan to shoot ?

 

[bill-e]

Disclaimer, I'm just a hobbyist.

For a hobbyist, a high megapixel camera and a good eye for cropping and you can get some great crops of song birds and large stationary birds like herons. Ebay has an assortment of older 300mm prime lens. Years ago I picked up a Nikon 300mm f4 AF lens which while the AF is slow and requires a body with a motor, the lens is tac sharp.

The beauty of a DSLR is that you can take a zillion shots and you only really need one Even inexpensive zooms can produce very nice photo's of song birds and the occasional great blue heron or the like.

Professionals will tell you to stay away from zooms but you'd be surprised how many good shots you can get even with inexpensive equipment.....though primes are typically sharper. I have a 150-600 Sigma Sport zoom I bought to double duty with my grand kids sports and birding though i have yet to go birding with it...or at all since buying it, but am happy with it for sports while on a monopod.

 

[Dartman]

I use a old Canon T3 that I got a deal on years ago after upgrading from a Rebel XT. It's only 12 meg but it's pretty low noise at the higher iso settings and I already own a bunch of Canon full frame and crop sensor lenses that work with it. Like they said I have more money in glass than I paid for the camera. There are a LOT of good cameras out there from simple point and shoot to pro level DSLR units. Decide your budget and what you want to do with it and pick the camera that fits your needs and hand the best. I like Canon because I have lots of lenses and I like the way they work for me. My buddy likes Nikon and has thousands of dollars in cameras and lenses but he's on a semi pro level now and makes plenty of toy money. Either camera system will do a great job and both have plenty of choices for new and used lenses that work with them. I originally bought excellent used ef lenses from ebay after I got the XT, then picked up some cropped frame lenses made specifically for the digital Canon cameras that are image stabilized and they still work with the T3. If you don't need that much camera get a nice super zoom point and shoot and save a ton of money. If you decide you really want to take great pictures and enjoy it you can pick a DSLR system and stick with it.

 

[PacoBirb]

I currently have a PowerShot SX530 HS and it is EXTREMELY grainy. I can barely photograph 50 feet away. I would like to photograph some hawks and vultures in flight. I guess I could get a good zoom lens for the end of it. I have also applied for the Young Birder's event at Cornell University, so I would say I'm getting pretty serious.

 

[Dartman]

For you I'd go with a better point and shoot or a entry level DSLR that comes with a zoom lens or put extra in the budget for one. I have the 18-55 stabilzed and the 55-250 in the same stablized format and I use whichever one fits the job. I also have a 100-300 usm ef lens, and a I think 55-105 and maybe another. I haven't used the ef lenses much since I got the two stabilized ones as they take great shots and compliment each other. The 100-300 does a great job if I need more reach and I got some great shots of house finches happily snoozing in a bare tree about 20 feet up and maybe100 feet away. They had their foot put away and the happy half closed eyes.

 

[scott199]

Budget is everything, you can take amazing pictures with a relatively cheap camera it’s just how hard you have to work and the number of “keepers” you get.

I took the below with the D500, sigma 70-200 2.8 with a 1.4 Tc (teleconverter) which boosts the lens by x1.4 but it was a £100 lens, £40 Tc and I hand to manual focus, so possible but I took maybe 300-400 shots that day and only came away with 5-10 keepers.

https://flic.kr/p/23upVtT
with my D500 and Nikon 200-500 or better still my Nikon 70-200 and TC, I will get probably 80% keepers (not all great but in focus and sharp)

the first set up would be around £1200, the second set up for body and both lenses around £4000-£4500.

image quality not a whole lot in it but the amount in focus and pin sharp is drastically better.

 

[bill-e]

Absolutely you need to relegate your current camera to snapshots. If you're looking to get into it on a budget then a used Nikon D7200 is a very good sport/bird camera body. It ha reasonable speed and a above average buffer (about 100 jpegs). You can pick them up used for about 500$ I just did a quick search on one of the forums and they had a 2 year old D7200 and a Nikon 18-140mm lens for $750, just to give you an idea of prices.

In the Nikon line (sorry, dont know about Canon) the next camera up and the D7200's replacement is the D7500...about $900 new for the body only and then of course the D500 which is just under $1500 for body only. All are DX cameras.

If it were me, and it was me a few years ago, I would try to find a D7200 if I was on a budget (I actually found a D7100 about 4 or 5 years ago for the same reason, paid 350 or something like that, but it is not as good as the D7200 buffer size)

A great and inexpensive lens is the Nikon is the Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 SP Di VC USD XLD. It's light, fast focus, stabilized sharp and very good at 300mm. It might be my favorite all around tele lens and I have about $15k worth of lens to choose from.