When you hear someone say that, they are usually using a DSLR which is a automatic camera that will take photos as long as your finger is on the button. While for something like a point-and-shoot camera (which is much cheaper), you can only take one photo picture per click.
To answer the pictures question, I’ve been in possession of several cameras from a wide spectrum of their purposes. My favorite is a DSLR and the one I use right now is a Canon EOS Rebel T7. I like cameras like these because you have a lot of control on what you want to do because you manually adjust everything like zoom, focus, shutter, etc. And that’s how I come up with photos like these. It is true that you don’t get “great” photos often, I would say only 1 out of every 30 bird observations I submit on iNat would be considered 5/5 quality, but most settled between 3-4 out of 5 like this. The big downside to buying a DSLR is that they are expensive, I got mine for $500 and the Nikon D3000 I had beforehand was $400. You might be able to get a bargain price of a used camera on Amazon but besides that, they seem to be out of your budget.
My recommendation with the budget you set is to get a simple point-and-shoot camera and the big thing you need to decide is, how do you plan on carrying it. The Canon Powershot ELPH series is a fantastic little camera because they can easily get 4-star photos and they fit in your pocket. You can get one of those for $100. The Canon Powershot SX series is a larger camera but has more technically aspects. They can range from $200-400 depending on which one you get. The big downside to these cameras though is that they run through batteries like there’s no tomorrow. My last piece of advice is, wherever you get your camera, get it from Walmart because every other company could charge up to $100 more for the exact same camera.
In terms of filming tips, my best advice would be closer zoom does not equal better photos. You will want to zoom in on your subject but you shouldn’t be zooming all the way in or have subject fill the frame. Taking a wide shot and cropping tends to produce much better photos than excessive zooming. Two, light is your friend, so use it to your advantage. Unless you can’t, always position yourself between the subject and the sun. Hopefully this helps.
I just wanted to add that one of the most prolific iNat observer, Greg Lasley (who sadly died about 6 weeks ago) claimed that he used a point and shoot camera.
I never heard him say that. We went out together and he had very expensive professional equipment. Maybe started out with point and shoot, but all those good ones were with $$$$ equipment.
If you want good photos, you need a real camera, not a phone. Technology has come a long ways and point and shoots can take decent quality photos. Bridge cameras (google it if you don’t know what they are) should be an eventual goal with point and shoots. I used one for years before I could justify the expense of a DSLR.
My suggestion would be to look for used, reconditioned, or similar older model bridge cameras like the Nikon P600. These are great quality for the money. There is also a lot of great quality photo editing software out there, but no software in the world can make a great photo out of a bad one. The camera is most important.
I looked at about 20 of his photos going back to 14 years ago, and they were all taken with either a Canon 7D Mk II (mid level DSLR) or 1D Mk III (professional level), often with a lens 600mm or more (very expensive!). If you click on the “i” icon on a photo it shows the EXIF data.
@kmagnacca@royaltyler I forget where I read that, though in the same thread someone said ‘point and shoot indeed’. I guess he was joking. Now that you say it, pictures of him after his death showed Greg with high tech stuff. If you think I should, I can withdraw the comment - I didn’t know Greg personally, but had correspondence with him. I miss him a lot.
Thank you for correcting me.
If you are interested in inventory work and mainly focus on insects, and maybe plants, I highly recommend the Olympus Tough TG6. Its microscope and stacking functions makes it possible to swiftly record what you find, and together with its built-in led flash, you get a good result even in dark conditions. That is my main tool for the recordings I submit to INaturalist. It beats any mobile phone, and is more handy than a DSLR.
Using the zoom on a phone camera is a good idea if you plan to upload the photo to iNaturalist. The reason is that iNaturalist reduces all photos to under 3 megapixels, but phone cameras have a lot more than this. If your subject doesn’t fill the screen and you don’t use the digital zoom, you’ll be throwing away a lot of pixels that could be making your subject more detailed.
I get good results using about 2x digital zoom with a Google Pixel phone and iNaturalist app. Closeups this way are quite a bit clearer than if I don’t use the digital zoom at all.
Greg’s gear was pretty top-of-the-line. I asked him how he managed to lug all that around without tripping himself and he just laughed. But his pics were amazing. This was his set-up for shooting dragonflies during a visit to New Mexico.
So good to find someone here mentioning THE FILM @mamestraconfigurata. I also photographed for most of my life using 35mm Chrome films. That kind of color saturation and quality is irreplaceable. But as mentioned above, it was time consuming and required lots of patience.
My personal advice for good bird photography is the use of a hide. You can invest in one made from fabric, or you can simply build it using available materials close to the bird you want to photograph. For example you can use dead reeds and twigs then you sit and wait for it to approach. This needs time and patience but it will allow you to see many behaviours and if you are lucky, the bird might get very close to you, and these encounters are surely some of the most amazing moments in life.
Using an SLR with a good telephoto in the range from 200 till 500 is a must for serious photographers, You don’t have to buy new ones, try the used market and surely you will find a good range of prices, and I highly recommend that you try to increase your budget if at all possible because these used gadgets are still a bit expensive. I hope this helps.
A hide (or bird blind) is helpful, not always something that can be used in many situations. I’ve found placing feeders near a window in the home and shooting through that can work, although I dislike shooting through glass and it rarely provides as good of a pic. But sometimes that’s the only way to get close and get any pic at all. A couple of nature centers/refuges I visit have viewing areas that are behind a window and I’ve gotten some good shots that way since you can actually get close to your subject without scaring it off.
Lots of great advice already said above. I’ll just give you a summary of my own journey trying to answer the same question. I can’t claim to have taken any ‘great shots’ yet though!
Because of its excellent zoom the Nikon p900 has got to be one of the cheapest ways to get started with bird and wildlife photography. With it you can take photos of birds at pretty great distances and there is no need for a big bulky separate zoom lens! In my experience it’s been a sturdy camera that I have been quite rough with–been through a few bike wrecks even and I’ve bounced it off rocks etc. You can get one for around $500 to $700 (on ebay) which is still a lot of money but it may be better than buying a $200 camera that you are unsatisfied with. Also it has a GPS, which is such a time saver compared to using an older DSLR that doesn’t have one (like my old Nikon d60).
As @molanic mentioned, the other nice and cheap thing about this camera is that you can snap a small (fits in your pocket!) >$100 “macro” magnifying lens on it. Then you can quickly shift between super zoom photos and super macro photos. Getting tiny things in focus is tricky though because the depth of field is like 1 mm (I basically have to be laying down with the camera to get it steady enough to use!).
Big downsides for me with the Nikon p900 have been 1) very hard to get a fast moving subject (bird or insect) in view and focused; and 2) it has a really long working distance (distance between you and the subject)–meaning if I try to take a picture of anything moderately close, like a dragonfly, butterfly or lizard, I often have to actually back up to get it in focus. That has made it really frustrating for butterflies which you’d ideally want to zoom in on from about 5 to 10 m away.
I have had too many times with too many organisms and still have to remind myself to just get a shot, any shot the moment I see it because in a blink of an eye, “this bird has flown” - I miss my chance to at least have a record shot no matter how poor of that lifer - be it a bird, a bee, a dragonfly, a ground squirrel. Once I have that shot, then I can get that great shot for which the organism is gracing me with its presence as if to say “look at me, I’m so pretty.”
I think this one https://www.instagram.com/p/CLBNkspAdUr/ is the best of those you linked! Would like to know which settings you used for others, there’s some issue with focus/sharpness that I’m sure can be fixed.
