I’d recommend the Sigma 150-600 Telephoto Lens (that’s what I know it as I don’t know if that’s it’s actual name) but I haven’t gotten too many chances to try it yet since I got it recently. It’s so heavy any advice on how to carry cameras with long lenses around would be appreciated.
I’m just curious - what type of equipment do you guys use for photographing your observations? I’m using a Google Pixel for my closer observations and a Canon PowerShot SX740 HS for my zoom shots. The Pixel is great most of the time but I get really frustrated without having manual focus for some of the close ups.
It would be interesting to hear what other people are using and how it’s working out for them
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Nikon D3300
Lenses: 18-55mm, 55-300mm telephoto, 200-500mm telephoto. My macro setup consists of a 50mm prime and a 35mm prime with interchangeable Raynox DCR-250 and MSN-202 attachment lenses.
Curious which Google Pixel you have. I had a Google Pixel 2 XL which I adored for its camera and especially its macro capabilities. A few months ago, I “upgraded” to the Google 6 Pro on the assumption that the camera must be at least as good as its 5-years-older predecessor… but I hate it and it is particularly bad at focusing close up.
I’m using a very basic smartphone (Motorola G8 power) and while this often serves me fine it also leads to lots of frustration, both in the capturing and uploading stage. I’d love to upgrade to a proper camera but it’s not in the budget right now. It’s mostly an issue for macro and telephotos, which has had an impact on which species I focus on (generally medium-sized and more static beings such as plants and fungi). I see this is a positive side-effect, but will order some lens attachments this week to expand my options and increase the quality of my photos.
My decision was mainly about size and affordability because most of the time i use my bike to get around, sometimes in combination with public transport and so it would be too much to carry around a big camera and additional lenses as well as further equipment.
For me it’s mostly about learning and exploring and not about taking the best photos possible, but i want a nice quality standard. So right now i use a Sony RX100 M3 and a tripod.
For daily finds i just use my Iphone SE which i also like because of it’s size. Sure, image quality is not the best, but for documenting purposes it is ok and i don’t like large Smartphones.
In the future i want to focus on better image quality using built in focus stacking, but right now i am happy with my equipment.
My new A53 has a rather good macro camera so I use that more, maybe even phasing out the NX300M I sometimes used before. And often I take a picture (or many to select the best ones) first using the camera function, then upload inside INat from the filesystem. The things I take pictures of are mostly small, so I don’t need a telephoto system (I have a long lens for the NX, but the only beings to be taken pictures of with that are birds which tend to fly away before I unpack the camera and change the lens).
(I moved the 7 posts above to this existing topic)
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If your Pixel phone is Android based you should be able the get a free camera app that allows manual focus. I’m pretty sure it is covered in this recent live stream with Travis McEnery and Dr. Echeverri. It covers spider photography but if you can photograph a spider with your phone you can photograph a flower or a fly. Spider Photography Workshop
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I started with a system much like yours. A Canon PowerShot 540SX. Added a clip-on Raynox-250 and wham, very nice macro quality for such a minor investment. And it’s so small and light. Without: great birding zoom; clip-on the Raynox – full frame down to around 1cm. With a good cam to subject distance.
If you go back up this huge thread here you’ll find more details from me on all of this. As well as a sample gallery. Lots of reading ahead! Good luck.
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I have the pixel 6. The macro isn’t perfect but it can be okay as long as the background is clean and is darker than the subject. Otherwise, I can’t get a shot.
I’m going to look into that Ranox 250. Thanks
Yep - I also have the Pixel 6. I feel your pain with the macros.
You can get manual focus with Android phones. Are you sure you did not just miss the feature in the default app? If not, you will find it in many alternative apps (e.g. Open Camera when you enable Camera2 API).
So i just picked up this lens for my d5100; my old zoom was in the shop for an issue that unfortunately couldnt be fixed (apparantly parts are imposaible to get) but so far in pretty happy?
We’ll see i guess. But so far the photos look good
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Really depends on what you want to photograph
I have a canon 5600 which serves me pretty well for birds as long as their perched or flying at a slower speed.
I have two clip on lenses for my phone which also works pretty well. There’s a macrolens that was about 15$ and gets better pictures of insects than the camera and a 10$ telephoto lense that you have to focus by hand. That one is okay but it fits in my pocket which is useful when I don’t want to bring the camera with me
I played around with my A53 and Pixel 7 in order to make bursts (formerly known as “sports mode”, that name now seems to describe adding creative motion blur).
- Pixel 7/Android 14: Google worked hard to take burst mode away (they changed the function of holding the shot button from burst to video, and “top shot” doesn’t create bursts either anymore). I downloaded GCam first, but that was useless (time step between shots was random and about 1 second on average despite having set the delay to none). OpenCamera v1.52 seems to work, one has to go thru the settings first. It feels a bit slow, not yet tested on real animals.
- Images go to /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/OpenCamera/
- Filenames are IMG_yyyymmdd_HHMMSS-x.webp (I switched to webp format)
- the time in the filename varies instead of being constant over the burst.
- I don’t have an SD card in that phone so I don’t know if it would be possible to send bursts there.
- Samsung A53/Android 13: drag the shot button down and hold it, it fires as long as you hold it.
- Images go to /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera/
- if you have an SD card, the camera app warns you that burst photos can only be sent to the internal memory (the path to the normal photo directory is /storage/xxxx-yyyy/DCIM/Camera where xxxx-yyyy are numbers the meaning of which I don’t know)
- filenames are yyyymmdd_HHMMSS_xxx.jpg where xxx is the serial number of the image and the time is constant along the burst.
Forget the “bridge” camera. iPhone cameras have improved enough for most of my macro shots (still waiting for a good telephoto), so the camera is an expensive bookend.
Same thing happened with a favourite 300 mm lens of mine. The motor is not just impossible to get, what is available is almost at the cost of a new lens. Which is a pity because these lenses are all functional expert for what I think are “normally replaceable parts”.
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I just got a brand new Lumix FZ60 (even though it is a 10 yo model) for under $150 after I wore my original FZ60 out. It allows me to go from macro to 96X zoom. I do a lot of zoom for birds and a lot of macro for bugs and flowers. A cell phone just doesn’t cut it yet, and costs a lot more.
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