Hi. I am starting this thread, though I know there was a previous thread earlier this year.
I am in the market for a new camera, as I am still on film and I need a digital. I have a Canon at the moment with interchangable lenses.
I was looking for maybe a 400d or a 350d as they are cheaper, though not as many functions.
I mainly was wondering who out there had them and the pros and cons of the different versions, but I thought some of us newbies out there may also be interested in what everyone was using, and maybe post pics for examples.
Please post what cameras, lenses and techniques.
Thanks everyone, daggert
All I can say is "ditto".
Please recommend cameras, lenses, (other attachments?) and techniques that you use for getting good bird photos.
- soakes
soakes
Olinda, Victoria, Australia
I typed a whole swag but something buggered up and it's too late to retype it. Hopefully it's in limbo somewhere and admin can find it.... please oh please.
I have got a 350D Canon which I use for Macro.
I also have a 40D which is used mainly for surfing and birds.
I think the 350D is quite a decent camera and has more than sufficient features.
You dont really need all the bells and whistles, in my opinion.
A 350D, a 400D, etc.. would do you fine, I reckon.
,
I use a Canon 400mm L f/5.6 lens for birds and surfing and this is quite an economical lens. The quality is excellent and is renowned for its sharpness.
.
Another alternative that is economical is the Sigma "Bigma" 50-500mm zoom lens. Quite a lot of wildlife photogs use this lens.
.
.
cheers,
steve
Thanks for your info. I have a 300mm lens without IS. Do you guys think that this will have a great effect on what the photos turn out like.
Many cameras selling on Ebay are body only. I have the lenses for my normal film camera but they are not Image Stabilizing ones.
As long as it has the right fitting for the camera you buy it shouldn't matter.
IS allows you to take sharper photos hand held at slower shutter speeds. I'm guessing you probably have a tripod already so just continue to use that. You will also be able to get a remote trigger to take a photo without touching the camera.
Birds are pretty quick movers so you will more than likely be shooting at faster shutter speeds and will probably not have to worry to much anyway.
Hi Daggert,
Image Stabilizing (IS for Canon or VR for Nikon) is is a great lens feature but only to be used hand held, on a tripod or monopod it actually makes things worse. Your 300mm will be fine, maybe think about getting a 1.4x or 1.7x teleconverter, I agree with stevehapp the 50-500 is a great lens.
Regarding the choice of camera body, The things I'd look for are:
Megapixel size, Not for resolution (as a 4mp camera is plenty, with 4mp you can still get great A3 size prints) More MPs will give you more cropping options, Remember to double the resolution you must x4 the Mps. So to get twice the Resolution of a 4Mp camera you need 16Mps. The down side to large Mp Cameras is the huge file sizes and the speed it takes to store the images.
Per second Frame Rate (the number of shout the camera can take and store per second) The faster the better.
RAW file format (the images are not processed or compressed by the camera) It gives you much more control when post processing.
One last nice to have feature is Live preview (let you see and adjust the exposure on the screen before you shoot)
Hoo Roo John
Hi I have the sigma 50-500 on a Pentax K10D its a reasonable lens especially for the price you may like to look at the newer sigma 150-500 as it has OS stabilization and HSM for Nikon or Canon
Cheers
Nick
Heres a pic of a Fairy Wren @500 mm taken from min focus distance (3m) with the bigma.
Cheers
Nick
wow, that wren almost looks super imposed
Nice Wren shot Nick.
I've never used a Bigma, It looks like it's got a very narrow Depth of Field, Is that right?
Do you know what the aperture was on that shot. Was it wide open?
Hi jomarq the narrow depth of field is manly because the bird was so close, it was @ f6.7 which is wide open at 500mm. The DOF at longer distances is not so narrow.If your interested in sigma lenses DOF http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?navigator=3
there are charts for each lens
Cheers
Nick
Here is a pic of a female superb fairy-wren taken on a Canon 400 L f/5.6 lens.
This is a bit further away i think and I am pretty sure I have cropped it.
DOF depends on lens size, aperture and focal distance.
.
.
You can have a look at my birds gallery if you want to have some idea of what the Canon 400 pics look like.
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http://www.stevehapp.com/birds/index.php
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cheers,
steve
Great shots Steve, Thanks for the like to your site.
I especially liked the White Bellied sea eagle!
John
Thanks John,
That was the first day out with the lens.
At the west side of Lake Macquarie.
Havent seen one since. :(
Hi Stevehapp
Nice shot of "Female" Wren, but it is an eclipse male, not female.
Denis
Denis Wilson
www.peonyden.blogspot.com
doh!
Thanks Denis.
I think I have probably made that mistake before!
I was wondering about that too. I guess you can tell by the colour of the tail?
- soakes
soakes
Olinda, Victoria, Australia
Yes, tail is the most obvious difference, but also eye and beak colours darker. Females have reddish colour around the eye, and brownish/red beak.
Those signs are more subtle, but the dark blue tail is the main sign.
I didn't want to make a "fuss" about it, or try to embarrass Steve, who is a really good photographer. But as you have asked..... those are the clues.
Denis
Denis Wilson
www.peonyden.blogspot.com
Morning, I am new to this forum but have some experience with bird photography. I believe frames per second is a great assist, so as a minimum I recommend 5fps. This ensures no shutter lag. A relatively high ISO with little noise (800 -1000) for those overcast days or in the bush is also a bonus.
The ISO will allow you to get away without IS by enabling the shutter speed to be high as well. Try to shoot in AV mode where possible
The canon 400L 5.6 is a brilliant light weight lens you can carry about all day. Very 'fast' and renowned for its images. You may also consider a canon 70-200 (there are a number of versions from 2.8 (expensive) & 4.0 IS to 4.0 non IS. But you need a converter with this for birds and that will drop you by a couple of stops which you will definitely notice with out IS. However it is a better all purpose lens
Maybe all photography, but certainly bird photography, is a series of trade-offs. You have to decide what you need for your style of photography, and what you can do without.
I love the Sigma 50-500. But I like to be able to zoom out to locate the bird and then zoom in. And I like to be able to get a wide shot of the habitat or the flock without changing lenses or cameras. I have a Canon 30D.
A friend just bought a Nikon 500mm lens ($10,000 worth) but I probably wouldn't use it if someone gave it to me, because I like to walk around with my camera and don't want to have to use a tripod.
I went on a shoot with a bunch of people who had better cameras, longer lenses, elaborate flash units, and monster tripods. They all got one or two fantastic images. I got a dozen really great images. What would you prefer?
Well I ended up getting a 400d canon. So hopefully I wont be disappointed.
Thanks for everyones input.
Keep up the tips and such
hi daggert. I think you have made a good choice.
.
And everyone has given excellent advice re lenses in this thread.
:)
cheers,
steve
There's no disputing that the L series lenses from Canon do the business. Having worked for them for a very long time in the past and dealt with many pro and wildlife photographers I can attest to that . but these days with the technology getting more and more sophisticated you can get some pretty good results from the lower end of the range if that's all you can afford.
I have just purchased a Canon Eos 1000D and apart from the limitation of 3 frames per second ( which is not always such a problem) it has most of the features necessary for great photography. For $885 I got the two lens kit, and I find the 75 - 300 is not too bad at this stage. As you say you can push the ISO up to 1000 without any noise to speak of and the results are pretty good, with the higher shutter speeds containing any movement etc.
One question I would ask of anyone who is more experienced digitally than me, I got fairly flat results when I did that (ISO 1000) but it was a grey type day . Is that maybe related to the ISO or do you think it was maybe just the day?
For example this photo:
[img]
Sunshine Coast Queensland
There's no disputing that the L series lenses from Canon do the business. Having worked for them for a very long time in the past and dealt with many pro and wildlife photographers I can attest to that . but these days with the technology getting more and more sophisticated you can get some pretty good results from the lower end of the range if that's all you can afford.
I have just purchased a Canon Eos 1000D and apart from the limitation of 3 frames per second ( which is not always such a problem) it has most of the features necessary for great photography. For $885 I got the two lens kit, and I find the 75 - 300 is not too bad at this stage. As you say you can push the ISO up to 1000 without any noise to speak of and the results are pretty good, with the higher shutter speeds containing any movement etc.
One question I would ask of anyone who is more experienced digitally than me, I got fairly flat results when I did that (ISO 1000) but it was a grey type day . Is that maybe related to the ISO or do you think it was maybe just the day?
For example this photo:
[img]
Sunshine Coast Queensland
There's no disputing that the L series lenses from Canon do the business. Having worked for them for a very long time in the past and dealt with many pro and wildlife photographers I can attest to that . but these days with the technology getting more and more sophisticated you can get some pretty good results from the lower end of the range if that's all you can afford.
I have just purchased a Canon Eos 1000D and apart from the limitation of 3 frames per second ( which is not always such a problem) it has most of the features necessary for great photography. For $885 I got the two lens kit, and I find the 75 - 300 is not too bad at this stage. As you say you can push the ISO up to 1000 without any noise to speak of and the results are pretty good, with the higher shutter speeds containing any movement etc.
One question I would ask of anyone who is more experienced digitally than me, I got fairly flat results when I did that (ISO 1000) but it was a grey type day . Is that maybe related to the ISO or do you think it was maybe just the day?
For example this photo:
[img]
This doesn't seem to be working for me.
Sunshine Coast Queensland
oh no, sorry folks I didn't see the 2nd page so kept on trying to post and assumed it wasn't happening due to a time out or something. Still getting used to this forum speak stuff! :)
Sunshine Coast Queensland
Hi birdie.
I was wondering how the 1000D was, it seems like a good bargain.
Re grey days, i dont think you can do much about the light. and flatness. The only way would be to use a flash. That would give you some highlights and pull the subject out from the background a bit. maybe..
.
cheers,
steve
G'day daggert and soakes,
.
I am presently using a Panasonic / Lumix FZ-50 which is my first digital camera. I regularly log on to the Birding Oz website to view photographs posted by the forum members http://birdingoz.com/forums/ The majority of members use Canon cameras in the 20D / 30D / 40D family. If I were to replace the Lumix, its successor would definitely be the just-superseded Canon 40D. It appears to be a great piece of hardware and has quite a wide useable ISO range. Coupled with a decent Canon lens (or two) it would be a great kit. I think ed owns a 40D and 100-400 'L' zoom with which he replaced his Lumix FZ-30.
Stevehapp's website also shows (in addition to his personal photography skills) the quality of the Canon products.
.
Cheers,
.
George
Cheers,
George
Melbourne, VIC
Hi
First post here.
As long as you buy a reasonable quality lens, that is far more important to the overall result. Of course, better and more expensive bodies will have more advanced and better features. The camera frame rate (fps = frames per second) is irrelevant to the shutter lag as that is not an issue with DSLR cameras. Well most certainly not Canon or Nikon.
The longer the lens, the better, so I would recommend a minimum of 300mm and with IS. I use a Canon 300mm f/4L IS USM and generally with the matching Canon 1.4x converter as a minimum. Still, it means I need to be close, but careful stalking, knowing the birds' behaviors and habitats as well as using hides occasionally does help. My mid-range camera's (Canon 30D) crop sensor ensures that even though I am working with 420mm focal length mostly, I am effectively getting a cropped image due to the sensor size that equates to a crop of 672mm. Not magnification, but crop only. Still a good trade-off for me. To see examples of the set-up. you can check my Flickr photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdsofsydney/
Most images were taken with a 30D and 300mm f/4L IS USM and 1.4x. Not all though.