what camera ?

[Shrike]

Hi i was just wondering if anyone had any advice for which camera in the £100 price area i should get for photographing wildlife in particular birds, and what kind of zoom should i be looking at ?
Thanks for any help - Terry-

[Acipiter]

I don't think you would get a suitable camera, in that price range Terry. As for a zoom it depends, if you just what to take pics of wildlife in the garden, you could make do with a 10x zoom. which you may be able to get for £200. I myself have a canon sx30 35x zoom, if you what to go the next level, the skys the limit I am afraid sorry.

[Shrike]

Originally Posted by Acipiter

I don't think you would get a suitable camera, in that price range Terry. As for a zoom it depends, if you just what to take pics of wildlife in the garden, you could make do with a 10x zoom. which you may be able to get for £200. I myself have a canon sx30 35x zoom, if you what to go the next level, the skys the limit I am afraid sorry.

Thanks for that Acipiter , yes it's for garden/feeding stations for now anyway so i'll keep an eye out for a second hand 10 x zoom and maybe post on here if i see one before i buy for advice. Thanks again

[RoyW]

Do you have a decent telescope? If so, and if you are prepared to play around a bit and put up with poor results until you get the technique right, you might want to consider digiscoping.
Realistically, you aren't likely to get a decent SLR or 'bridge camera' for around £100 (unless you can find a secondhand bridge camera that fits the bill). The same money can buy you a compact camera that would be suitable for digiscoping, and which can give good results with practise, though.

When you are looking at cameras, you need to know that "10x zoom" (or equivalent) does not mean that you will have up to 10x magnification. This just means that the maximum "effective focal length" is 10x the minimum (so a camera that will go from a SLR equivalent focal length of 25mm to the equivalent of 250mm will be described as having a 10x zoom - but will only have an actual magnification of about 5x).
For bird photography you will usually need the equivalent of a 300mm lens even if you only want to take pictures of garden birds that you can approach closely.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense to you!

[Shrike]

Cheers Roy , i kind of get the gist of what your saying , i did think 10 x zoom was equivalent of 10 x magnification so thats good to know. Digiscoping is a serious consideration , unfortunately i sold my fieldscope the other year and regret it now that i've started birdwatching again so it would actually make more sense to concentrate on a new fieldscope and then as you say play around with a cheap digital camera.

[RoyW]

Some examples that I recently posted on a digiscoping question on another forum:

With a Coolpix5000 camera, through a Nikon ED82 telescope...




...and with my Sony Ericsson phone, through the sme telescope...




You wouldn't win prizes with images like these - but it gives you an idea of the type of shot that you could get.

[Shrike]

I love the garganey pic, they may not win prizes but that garganey pic would look fantastic enlarged and framed. I see what you mean though Roy they may not be sharp and crystal clear but its good enough for personal use.Yes i think i'll go down the digiscoping road as the photographic equiptment seems out of my price range,plus as i said i need a new scope anyway .Cheers mate.

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Shrike

they may not win prizes but that garganey pic would look fantastic enlarged and framed.

Unfortunately the main thing that you can't really do with shots like this (whic aren't sharp) is to enlarge them - they will tend to look OK printed at small size, but if you enlarge them you magnify the imperfections (try it by comparing the thumbnail with the full sized image - remembering that low res shots look better on a PC than printed!).

[Acipiter]

I did go down the digiscoping root when I first started, it does have its draw backs, much longer to set up being one, I often found that by the time I had done so, the subject had either moved or gone completely. plus having to carry around a tripod. If like me you like to travel light, not the way to go. If you dis side to just use a camera, its much better to buy one with a view finder. Again more money The camera I first had for taking pics in the garden, was a panasonic dmc- tz1. 10x zoom, which I found did the job very well, something like that would be ok, that's if your garden is not too big!!

[Fauna]

Have a look at the Fuji FinePix range, fairly resonable and cheap?

Just had a quick look and there is a FujiFilm Fuji FinePix S1800 HD Digital Bridge Camera on ebay at the moment for £110, it has an 18x zoom. Don't know how much cop it is though...

Regards Chris.