Hello I take animal and plant photos regularly for Inaturalist and so far I have always used my phone. My phone camera is good and it works completely fine for most insect, plant, reptile and fungi photos (basically anything that is small and harmless that I can get up close and take photos of) but …

I’ve got a Canon Rebel T5, with a 55-250 zoom. It has served my well for many years. Makes great shots which generally enlarge well. Two things, unrelated to brand. Getting into DSLR photography can be complicated. Learning about ASA, f-stop and shutter speed and how they all work together. I start…

Sony RX10 bridge camera without a shadow of a doubt - it has the ability to go from close ups of flowers out to distant birds etc with a 600mm zoom equivalent lens. Not the cheapest but worth every cent. https://www.sony.ca/en/electronics/cyber-shot-compact-cameras/dsc-rx10

[image] inspector_crow: with a 600mm zoom equivalent lens i think you’re describing the RX-10 III or IV. while they do take excellent photos near and far, they go for $1800 and $2200, respectively, and are somewhat chunky. not exactly: [image] animalobserverdeniz321: a cheap easy to use …

I use the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ60. It is a bridge camera with good image stabilized telephoto (they say 9600x) and macro. Sometimes I have problems getting the focus sharp on macro, but part of that was learning / operator problems. I will probably go with their new model if this one fails.

[image] joerich: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ60 I’m looking at a used FZ-80 as a nice small birding cam. I have a Sony Alpha with a 300 zoom but it’s hard to beat the reach for the buck of those FZs. As I look closer at these FZ80s though, I’ve been coming across a few stories of focus problems (i…

If you can find which Leica compacts have a Panasonic version - the Panasonic version is same glass (lens) but you aren’t paying for the name and the UI software is a bit different otherwise it is the same camera Ex: Panasonic ZS200 is 'the same" as Leica C-lux, offering a 24-360mm equivalent lens …

[image] NoGenAI: All the Lumix cameras I have loved were Panasonic branding of the high quality Leica cameras :) Do you know if that’s true for the fz-80 (or 82) cameras?

FZ80 is not leica at all; I dont know about the 82.

[image] NoGenAI: FZ80 is not leica at all; I kinda figured, judging by the ticket price. It sounds like you’re stuck in a very tricky user group: people who need a ‘reasonably affordable’, rugged, compact bridge that can handle near microscopic with a full range (true) f-stop lens. Or mayb…

For myself; I adore my Lumix LX100 (and prior to that, LX3). These are based on Leica but I personally do not need zoom for birds; the OP wanted that :) I need wide angle mostly, and hotshoe, for cave photography ( sunguramy.com ) that has macro ability for the bio work; which the LX100 is perfect fo…

What camera should I buy?

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What camera should I buy?

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