I’ve been using a Canon point-and-shoot for bird and nature photography for a while now, and while it’s been a great starting point, I’m feeling ready to take the next step. The zoom capabilities are limiting, and I’m excited about the idea of moving to a telephoto lens to get closer to wildlife and capture more detailed shots.
I’ve read a lot about the advantages of telephoto lenses for bird photography—especially when it comes to getting those crisp, close-up shots from a distance. I’m looking forward to exploring new possibilities, especially for capturing birds in flight and getting sharper, more dynamic images.
I know this upgrade will come with a learning curve, particularly in terms of stabilizing the camera, adjusting settings for wildlife, and working with the increased focal length. But I’m excited for the challenge and ready to dive into it!
I’m looking forward to experimenting with my new gear and continuing to improve my bird photography skills. If anyone has any advice or tips on making the most out of a telephoto lens, I’d love to hear them!
First, budget. Second? For me at least: portability.
If you’re going to have a problem toting 10 or more pounds of expensive camera/lens/possible tripod gear, then what are the remaining options?
For me, it was sticking to a bridge camera. The tiny sensor in a bridge gives them much lighter optics to achieve high zooms. My Nikon P950, for example, has the ‘equivalent’ zoom range of a 35mm 2000mm lens. 24mm on the short end. A weight, with battery and strap, at around 3 lb. Fits into a small knapsack. Shoots RAW, and has 4k video.
I bought mine used for $350. The first owner had dropped it and cracked the outer lens element. $50 on eBay, got me a lens replacement from a unit with broken electronics. Took less than 5 min to fix it and it’s been working great for 2 years now.
When I travel, I take it in my carry-on bag along with a Raynox macro clip-on lens that gives me crisp bug macro shots down to a 4mm field width.
I also have a Nikon P950, which I love. It is plenty of camera for my purposes. It is not a DSLR, nor does it have the capabilities (speed, interchangeable lenses, speed, sensor size, speed) of one. It is basically a glorified point-and-shoot, complete with an actual mode labeled for birds, which you can just dial up and then ignore all the other settings unless the light is poor. The zoom goes up to 83x, which makes it a decent substitute for a scope if you pair it with a tripod. (I still take bad blurry photos, but they are of further away birds!)
There is another model that goes up to like 125x, but the weight is too much for me, and a camera you will carry with you is always better than a camera which is so heavy you leave in the car.
You can absolutely get much better, more professional results with a DSLR. A larger sensor and faster speed can get you much better flight shots, for example. But the learning curve is a lot higher as well, as is the price. If you just want to up your bird photography game without a huge investment in time learning how to use the camera, the P950, or a similar camera from a different brand, is a great choice. (…they don’t pay me to say that.)
That’s incredible! Is it the DCR-250? I don’t know if I need to have quite that much macro power, but I do miss the macro on my previous, smaller camera, which could get much closer to things.
I do a lot of bird photography. I first used a point-and-shoot, then a bridge camera, and now a DSLR. For me the biggest transition was learning to use editing software. A DSLR can get you high-quality photos, but it’s nearly impossible to get the settings exactly right for every subject. If you understand how to (at the very least) crop and adjust exposure compensation, you can fix a lot of the little imperfections without decreasing quality, especially if you shoot in RAW.
I totally agree about RAW editing. But that’s no longer just limited to DSLRs. The Nikon P bridge models P950 and P1000 (and some other cams) are small sensor bridge cams that offer RAW saving.
With the small sensors though, you don’t have the cropping wiggle room of a DSLR, not even close. Things like BIF (birds in flight) becomes much more challenging. And their sensitivity and AF tech and speed are far behind. But for me, a casual winter birder mostly, the relative low ticket price and portability of the Nikon P950 in RAW made it the easier choice. Plus with a bridge cam, you never need to worry about getting gunk on the sensor during a lens change in the field.
Regardless of your choice of bridge or DSLR, learning basic RAW editing is a huge game changer. If I had to pick one tool for anyone doing RAW tweaking, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend DxO"s PureRaw batch RAW processor. It adds at least 2-stops of control to almost any lens. And for the money, and the fact that it works across so many cameras, it’s a fantastic deal.
Here’s an example from a couple days ago. I was sitting on a park bench, watching the chickadees bobabout and as I glanced to my right, I spotted a young hawk about 40 ft away.
During my first field excursion with the 3 pound P950, I crossed paths with a small flock of 'seasoned" birders lugging their huge, giant ($$$ too) zooms and tripods. As we quietly muttered greetings and I passed through the group I heard one tired-looking one say to another, “See? That’s the camera I want to get next.”
Two things – have you tried shooting in RAW with the 950? If you do, try shooting with a stop or two in compensation (darker), and a high, say ISO 1600 setting, and then download the trial version of PureRaw, an easy to use, almost magical RAW bulk processor. Those dark muddy shadows? The grainy noise? You have to see it to believe it.
Raynox+250, yes. Incredible great deal as you can use it on almost any camera to deliver great macro, but it works incredibly with bridge super-zooms. The two bugs in my examples there were shot with it.
Those shots also used a trick I use sometimes for stationary subjects: shoot in 4k vid mode (natural light here) and slowly ‘scan’ the focus area along the subject. That takes some kind of support (a wall, in this case) and practice. Then later you have to find and extract enough decent frames to do an image stack.
Hah! And if it wasn’t for finding a used P950 really cheap, I’d still be there myself.
Who am I kidding? I can’t even watch BBC nature docs anymore because of the intensity of gear envy it invokes. (Macro, telephoto, underwater, low-light, timelapse – you name it!)
I have tried, but it’s such a change to my normal processing routine that I stopped doing it. …possibly I should try again, after seeing the result you are getting! I do know how to process my photos in theory, but I’ve been editing JPGs in GIMP for so long, the inertia is hard to overcome. (GIMP generally can do what more expensive software does, but it is not obvious how. You basically have to poke at it with sticks until it does what you want.)
I obviously also need to learn how to use the video mode, and also what the heck an image stack is.
The best news about RAW editing is it gives you way more control over highlights and dark shadows. In fact, most of the time, what you see in the camera afterwards looks dull and flat, if you’re doing it right. That’s because RAW contains more data than can be displayed.
In the RAW editor workflow, it’s actually best to shoot with a -0.3 or -0.7 f exposure compensation (especially for birds) to get full detail of the whites. With JPGs, you have to trust the camera software to do all that which often results in blown-out highlights and no shadow area details.
Then there’s ISO noise. Again, most camera views of high ISO shots are too noisy, even with noise reduction on. They look even worse on the camera’s screen if you use RAW. But again, don’t trust what you see there. Best RAW denoiser, IMO is PureRaw. It’s like upgrading all your lenses and cameras in one modest purchase.
After a while with RAW, you get to overlook the camera screen noise and exposure/colour flatness and just trust that you got what you think you got. Like this cormorant taken on a grey cold day against the sky. In camera? A dark grey silhouette only. After RAW…