Cameras for birders.

I’ve just been asked what camera and lenses I’d recommend for bird/nature photography. I’ve been toying with the idea of upgrading myself and have only recently began looking into the possibilities. I’ve been spending a lot of time on BirdingNewBrunswick admiring the photos of friends old and new and I’m getting the urge to give it another try, when I see photos of this quality from (mostly) ordinary folks I start to think that I may be able to do the same myself. I know it’s not all about the equipment, there are some magazine quality photos of birds I have yet to locate, let alone get pictures of, but I’d like to be able to get decent pictures of some of the birds I see around.

I just posed the question in BirdingNewBrunswick’s Q&A Forum, I suspect you’ll get a lot better advise from the people who are actually using the latest equipment. (There’s already some great advice in response to my initial inquiry and other questions are being asked and answered.)

I have a great old camera with multiple lenses and huge flash, but it’s 35 mm and I haven’t even had it out of the bag in 15 years. I thought I should try selling it and put the money towards a new digital, I went on eBay and there were several of the same model up for auction. There is one lot with two cameras the same as mine, plus 5 other cameras with all the accessories you could ask for, the bidding is nearly closed and the highest is $25. For the entire lot. I’d likely get more for my equipment if I dumped it out and sold the bag empty, at least that has some use left in it.

I bought the camera in the 80’s with birding in mind, but after hundreds of dollars and very few nice pictures to show for my effort I bought a digital camera. Now at least I could check my picture immediately and possibly take another with different camera settings if need be. With film I took several, as many as I could afford, and had to wait a week to see your results. For me it was common to have no good pictures in the lot, especially when I was trying out some of the cheaper telephoto lenses.

I’ve long ago given up the idea of huge telephoto lenses and opted for blinds, car window mounts, and planning my bird feeder locations so I can approach without disrupting the birds. I found out later that this isn’t such a bad idea as less distance between you and the subject means you’ll be shooting through less “atmosphere” and end up with better pictures.

With the new digital at least it didn’t cost anything to try, but I soon found out that the delay between pressing the button and taking the picture was a little too long for some bird species. If I wanted a picture of a goldfinch, no problem, they sit contentedly on the feeder until they are full or get knocked of by a flock mate. If I wanted a picture of chickadee, I’d have to watch for him approaching out of one eye and press the button before I thought he’d land on the feeder because if I waited until he landed he’d have his seed and be gone before the camera fired. I have tons of empty bird feeder shots or of a totally blurred gray streak exiting the frame. My inquiry was for bird/nature photography, if your wanting to take pictures of flowers, trees, mushrooms, lakes, rivers, moose... then I have the camera for you. If you want birds, dragonflies or butterflies than you better get something a little newer, (mine’s over 10 years old, they’ve fixed that problem).

A few years ago I was leaning towards a very high quality spotting scope for digiscoping, that is attaching a digital camera to a spotting scope to act as a telephoto lens, but from talking to others who’ve gone this route, I think the money would be much better spent on a long lens. Even with the best scope, the picture quality isn’t what you can get with today’s lenses, and you have to constantly be removing your camera if you want to use your scope on it’s own for spotting, then reattach the camera if you want a picture. I still like digiscoping occasionally, you can reach out and get a picture good enough to identify and document. I still just hold the camera up to the eyepiece with my fist, the same can be done with one barrel of your binoculars to increase the power, although it would be hard not to shake without the aid of a tripod.

So here I am with two, once expensive now worthless, cameras, contemplating spending another couple thousand or more by the time I’m finished. I hope this won’t be obsolete in a decade but at the rate things are changing there will likely be something better come along before I pay off my credit card.