[Tweeters] Yes, it IS possible to buy a better birding camera

[Dennis Paulson]

As I often get questions like this, I’ll respond to Bob about zoom lenses. I always prefer them, because even though I’m a bird photographer, I photograph many other things in nature, and I love the versatility of a zoom lens. Even restricting the discussion to birds, I can zoom out to get more of the bird’s habitat if I wish, zoom out to get several birds at once, and zoom out when a bird is about to fly, and I’m not sure which direction it will go. On occasion, a bird is too close for 400 mm!

I have used 100-400 mm lenses for years on several cameras, including Canon 7D Mk II. Now Netta and I are using mirrorless cameras in which the smaller sensor size effectively multiplies the lens length by 2x. So this gives you the equivalent of a 200-800 mm lens on a relatively light, easy to carry camera system. And like all SLRs, there are plenty of interchangeable lenses for any type of photos you wish to take.

Right now I’m using an OM Systems OM-1, a camera that is like an upgraded Olympus (OM took over Olympus), with the less expensive ($1300) Olympus 100-400 mm lens. They also make a very expensive ($7500) PRO 150-400 mm lens, but I can’t imagine it takes photos that are 5.8x better!

As to the other question, twigs and leaves will always confuse cameras. Note that Jim was talking about birds in flight mostly, and a lot of new cameras now have settings that actually recognize the subject as a bird. As long as you can hold on it in flight, the bird will be enclosed in a box, and if you keep that box on the bird, it will stay in focus; the shutter speed has to be high to stop the motion. As Jim said, with cameras with high-speed shutters, you can get a lot of photos per second, with multiple wing and body positions. It has made bird photography ever so much more fun!

Dennis Paulson
Seattle


> On May 21, 2023, at 9:05 AM, Robert O'Brien <baro at pdx.edu> wrote:

> 

> Thanks to Jim for a very helpful birding camera review.  I'm still using an older Canon EOS 7D Mark II which is a very good camera, but maybe not "great"?

> I'd say its weak point is autofocus, especially when the subject is in a,say, a twiggy environment where the twigs confuse the AF system.

> I'm guessing from the review that this is less-of, or not, a problem?  This is always a major problem with bird photography.

> 

> But a more general question I've always had is why to buy a zoom lens for a 'birding' camera.  For a general purpose camera a zoom lens has the obvious advantages.  But for a bird camera, would not a 400mm lens, lacking lots of useless moving parts, be better.  Would you ever want to use the 100mm for a bird?  This would be when  you're too close to the bird?  That has always been a puzzler for me, why so many 'serious' birder photographers buy zoom lenses.

> Grateful for any and all answers to both questions.

> Bob OBrien  Portland