Camera Advice

[Alleycat1]

I am a fairly new birdwatcher since moving to a house near woodland, I now want a camera which is not too bit with a good zoom and not too pricey! Any recommendations would be welcome.

[Boddie]

Can you give us a budget?

[artdemole]

Ijust use a vivitar 8.0 mega pix 4x zoom ordinary looking camera goes in pocket or on belt loop very handy on walks handy for quick shots of whats about.

[squishy]

if it's for birds, you will struggle to get good pictures without an expensive lens and good field craft (read as: getting clooose)

the best way of describing it is: big lenses don't bring the far close, they bring the close closer (and cost a damn fortune!)

the sigma range is regarded as sort of entry level telephoto zooms, and they'll start a £500ish for just the lens.

you're best bet is a 'superzoom' camera. like a big compact camera, with a fixed lens. i use a fuji S9600. these give you the zoom, but usually the quality of the images drops quite a lot at the top end, AND you still have to get close

i've had a few good shots from my fuji







those where all take from very near the bird (and there were hundreds of awful shots from when i didn't quite get close enough)

but bird photography is an area where if you compromise on cash, you usually compromise largly on image quality

[Alleycat1]

Unfortunately budget not much, £300 max really.

[Boddie]

Originally Posted by Alleycat1

Unfortunately budget not much, £300 max really.

I guess you have to be realistic about what you expect to get from your camera. £300 will get you a decent BRIDGE camera but the shots of birds from afar will be fine for ID purposes, but by no means showcase standard.

Ask any photographer on here and they'll no doubt have started with such a camera but now find its relegated to a bottom draw or maybe a lucky nephew.

Dont be drawn in by the manufacturers supposed images of what their zooms can do, i.e. before and after shots. They are usually wildly inaccurate.

My advice would be, if you can, save some more and £700 is far more realistic for decent birding pics as you could find the £300 invested now becomes an item with a low resale value and frustrating in its limitations.

If you think its something you are really likely to get into the extra wait, and that extra investment will be well worth it.

You should may be try to get out on one of our meets and hopefully a few members may bring along some BRIDGE cameras for you to borrow for a day, so you can see what sort of results are achievable. I know thats what I'll be doing at the meets that I attend

[nigel_b]

What they said. I've a Fuji S5600 which you should be able to pick up for £50 or £60 secondhand. It will produce some pretty good images, although dont expect much at the long end of the zoom. I can recommend it for starters.

I compared my new (to me) Sony with the Fuji. At 50mm focal length snapped a shot with each of the same scene. Printed them both at 6x4. Surprisingly most people chose the Fuji shot as the best. The Sony was over £500 with the kit lens when it was new! I paid £65 for the Fuji. Go figure!

[Tringa]

Check put a number of photo mags. Many have mini reviews of lots of cameras which may help you to see what is available in your budget. and what is liked.

Have a look at the bridge cameras from the main manufacturers - Canon, Nikon, Olympus. I am biased here because I have an FZ28 which is made by Panasonic - not a traditional camera maker, but it gives good results.

Most of the bridge cameras will have a zoom which is cover the 35mm equivalent of 28mm to 450mm+, which is a fairly decent.

The following were taken with an FZ28