Which Camera?

[Gem]

Hi everyone,

I want to get into wildlife photography, just amatuer stuff of course, but want to buy a digital camera with a good optical zoom, but not too expensive, a couple of hundred at the most.

Can anyone recommend anything at this kind of price and level?

Many thanks in anticipation.

Gemma

[eeyore]

So long as you dont want to shoot stuff to far away you could do a lot worse than the panasonic fz30 - not many left in stock now (as is being replaced by fz50) but those that are around are discounted because of this - check out pic by Matt XYZ to see the kind of thing possible.

[Boddie]

Fz30

[eeyore]

just beat you to it mate , great minds ....

[colincurry]

Hi

You might like to look at the "What Camera" thread in this forum.

Colin

PS I too have the FZ30

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by eeyore

So long as you dont want to shoot stuff to far away you could do a lot worse than the panasonic fz30

For £200-300 you are looking at a 'prosumer' or bridge camera rather than a DSLR and there isn't one on the market with a longer zoom than the FZ30 so Pete's comment above is a touch misleading

If the 420mm lens isn't long enough you can get an Olympus TCON17 teleconverter which converts it to a 714mm lens. It still gives high quality images and won't be bettered for wildlife in the price bracket that you're talking about (in my opinion ).

All but the most recent bird images in my Gallery below were taken with an FZ30 and a TCON fitted.

Matt

[carlj]

FZ5 is also worth a gander, or the FZ7 - both have same length lens as the big brother, but a bit cheaper too. Smaller in the hand.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

For £200-300 you are looking at a 'prosumer' or bridge camera rather than a DSLR and there isn't one on the market with a longer zoom than the FZ30 so Pete's comment above is a touch misleading
Matt

Thats what I meant mate - if you dont want to shoot images too far away get an fz30 (although technically the canon S3 has a longer zoom ), if you do want to be a long range wildlife photographer save up and get a dlsr and long lens.

I'm sure the Tcon converter is a good option if you only want to shoot long range images occasionally but I doubt it betters a DSLR with a 500mm lens in any area except price.

another option for gem would be to get a film slr and long lens second hand - you can get a canon eos30E and a sigma 400mm lens for under 300 notes - however if you go this route remember to factor in running costs - before I went digital i was spending £70+ per month on film D+P

[Gem]

guys, this is really helpful, thanks so much for all your replies... Eeyore, Colin, Boddie, Carl and Matt.

Will look into the options you've given me here.

I want something relatively simple to use. I'm not a technophobe by any means, but sometimes they seem over complicated, and yeah zoom doesn't have to be massive, just decent enough to shoot birds and the like.

Thanks a lot everyone, have a great weekend.

Gem
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