Help to pick a camera for wildlife photography.

[slick]

Hi,
need a little help and advice if possible. I'm ready to buy myself an SLR style camera. Still not sure if to go digital or film. I will be using it for nature photography. Including a lot of bird work. Someone has suggested the pentax 100d as a good choice. I know I will also have to include a zoom lense.

I can see pro's and con's for both. Digital you can take hundreds of shots and not waste any film. On slr film you enlarge to a much greater scale and the picture quality would prob be better at the price range I am in -£300-$400. ! would like auto focus and a good amount of frames per second capability. Apart from this I'm not sure. I read on review which is good, the next is bad.

Would really appreciate some help or advice on this one.

Thanks for your time.

[galanthus]

I've had the canon 400d for 7 months now, mainly bought for landscape and wildlife photography, very very fab digital slr camera. Has autofocus plus manual. Lenses are your main tools, I'm finding the canon 70-300 mm IS lens really cool for wildlife, mainly my walk around lens at the mo. The canon 100mm macro lens is also a must have (or the 60mm if money an issue) for little insects, flowers etc. I'm saving for a canon 400mm though for birdies, it's the biggest I can hand hold. I also have a 24-70mm L lens which I love and a 10-22mm for fairly wide landscapes. These latter two you could wait for tho. I've got pics on new webpage.... lilydel.co.uk. Lots of opinions out there so expect a few replies to your question lol

[Boddie]

I think that may be a bum steer as I know of not a single user of that camera. It is never even included in the who's who lists of wildlife cameras

[DaiTheDragon]

Whats on the who's who list then?

Dai

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by slick

Hi,
need a little help and advice if possible. I'm ready to buy myself an SLR style camera. Still not sure if to go digital or film. I will be using it for nature photography. Including a lot of bird work. Someone has suggested the pentax 100d as a good choice. I know I will also have to include a zoom lense.

I can see pro's and con's for both. Digital you can take hundreds of shots and not waste any film. On slr film you enlarge to a much greater scale and the picture quality would prob be better at the price range I am in -£300-$400. ! would like auto focus and a good amount of frames per second capability. Apart from this I'm not sure. I read on review which is good, the next is bad.

Would really appreciate some help or advice on this one.

Thanks for your time.

you cant really go wrong with canon or nikon - which model really depends on what you are going to use it for , but you wont get a decent dslr of any make and a decent zoom for 400 notes so you might be better off with a bridge camera like the panasonic fz50 if thats your top budget.

If you do decide to go with pentax i'd give the 100d a swerve as it is very basic and behind the market , the pentax 10D is a good bit of kit tho (not to be confused with the canon 10D though the latter aint sold new anymore) but it is around 600 notes including a kit lens.

One advantage of the pentax system is that there is a lot of second hand kit about - though you need to be careful cos not all the older third party lenses are compatible with digital.

[Boddie]

Originally Posted by DaiTheDragon

Whats on the who's who list then?

Dai

Nikon
Canon
Oly

Sometimes Sony

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Boddie

Nikon
Canon
Oly

Sometimes Sony

very occasionaly mamiya z22 for the well heeled among us

and very very occasionally the pentax 10D

Ive used a Pentax 100D for review purposes and it just isnt up to the job the AF is sluggish, the metering inconsistently unrealiable (that is sometimes reading high , and sometimes low) it is poorly featured and has a cheap build as a result of being built down to a price - not the best alround , its okay for holiday snaps but even there, there are better camera for the same price point

[Kev Lewis]

If you plan on shooting birds then I would seriously suggest you go digital. The extra magnification you get from the crop factor will give you much better images if you can't get close to the birds. If I was on a budget but still looking for quality images I would buy a 400mm prime lens and then buy a body with any budget you have left. It is the lens that will give you the quality not the camera.

A basic 300D and 400mm prime lens will give you better images than my 1D MkII N and say a 70-300mm zoom

[Kymba]

Originally Posted by eeyore

you cant really go wrong with canon or nikon - which model really depends on what you are going to use it for , but you wont get a decent dslr of any make and a decent zoom for 400 notes so you might be better off with a bridge camera like the panasonic fz50 if thats your top budget.

If you do decide to go with pentax i'd give the 100d a swerve as it is very basic and behind the market , the pentax 10D is a good bit of kit tho (not to be confused with the canon 10D though the latter aint sold new anymore) but it is around 600 notes including a kit lens.

One advantage of the pentax system is that there is a lot of second hand kit about - though you need to be careful cos not all the older third party lenses are compatible with digital.

My birthday is in July one of them camera's sounds nice if your stuck on what to buy me

[Boddie]

My birthday is July too.