whats the best camera/w/telephoto lens for?

[toejam]

nature, birds, animals on a budget?

[thomasmckown]

What is your budget?

[Ed_Ingold]

How about Nikon D40 and a 70-300 lens, a bird feeder and a garbage can (opossums and raccoons). You could use a salt block for deer, but flower beds seem to work well enough :-)

[Matt Laur]

And, are we talking about Great Blue Herons that are 10 yards away, or eagles that are 100 yards away, on the wing, in low light? There are some big differences, there. And, what sort of animals? Squirrels at the feeder, or a bull moose across the swamp from you?

 

Are you inclined to shoot film, or digitally? And, are you also thinking about a quality tripod? That's pretty essential for most of this sort of thing.

[jcuknz]

I would suggest that the Panasonic FZ50 and either the Raynox 2020 or Olympus TCONx1.7 which will give you 950mm or 730mm equivalent angle of view.

 

The advanatge of these combinations is that you loose about half a stop of light when you add the telephoto adaptor after starting with a faster lens, f/3.3 against I expect f/5.6 with the DSLR at 300mm, and another two stops when you place a tele-converter into the system to get just 600mm AoV. That is unless you spent big on the fast DSLR telephotos

 

With a DSLR putting a telephoto converter into the Nikon and a 300mm you loose two stops of light to get 600mm Angle of View. This is compensated by the fact that with the DSLR you can gain some ISO speed with reasonable results. The FZ50 is only satisfactory to 400ISO.

 

The DSLR will be faster to focus and manual focus, helps to separate the bird from the bush, which AF may not be able to do, is not very good with the FZ50.

 

I have this set-up and there is little difference in results between the Oly and Raynox except the AoV obtained. The Oly is more compact and permits you to use a greater zoom range [x3 < x12] compared with the restriction of the Raynox which only permits around x10 < x12 ... it is rather frustrating when effectively you get too close to the subject with the reach of the x2.2 Raynox and cannot zoom back.

 

It is definitely not as good as a DSLR set-up but you did ask for the 'poorman's' option I think ? :-) You need to mortgage the farm to get that angle of view at that speed with a DSLR.

 

With the pro-sumer set-up you need to be reasonably competant in editing to get a decent result as post processing is essential.

 

I wouldn't try to get the Eagles on the wing with my set-up .. have not succeeded so far :-( But you will find that AF and OIS both work well with the tele-adaptors. From what I read there are serious limitations with converters quite apart from loss of light and starting from a poor baseline.

 

I hope these pros and cons help you :-)

 

PS. Ideally if on a budget you build a hide and use that DSLR with the 300mm .. but perhaps you don't have the time to sit in a hide waiting for the animals to perform. I have a 50ft cable release for the FZ50 to place it amongst the action and watch from way back hiding behind a curtain .. rather hit and miss this set-up so far.

[Brian]

As others have intimated, the poor man's answer to getting up close to wildlife is to use trickery and stealth rather than an expensive telephoto.

[Ed_Ingold]

As others have omitted, the professional's answer to getting up close to wildlife is to use trickery (e.g., a blind and/or camouflage) and stealth, in addition to an expensive telephoto.

[kayak203]

I have been pretty happy with the price and size of the Nikon D40 and a Nikon 70-300 lens that I think Edward was referring to. The G version has decent out of focus characteristics, but I have to manually focus on the D40 since it's not an AF-S lens. But, that inexpensive version of the lens will auto focus on a D70s or a D50 body which you can still buy as a factory demo at cametaauctions on *Bay. Also, I found that the Nikon 70-300mm will autofocus with a 36mm Kenko extension tube which turns it into an ok macro and nature lens for not a lot of money. The Panasonic could also work, but I prefer the speed and control of an SLR.

[jcuknz]

If you are coming from the 'film world' it could be worth pointing out that in 35mm terms that 300mm lens is equivalent to a 450mm AoV with an APS DSLR and with a x2 tele-converter gives you a 900mm AoV.

 

In going after 'reach' you need to not be awed by the large numbers but work out the differences in AoV .... ie. 450 to 900 WOW! But those large numbers are only the equivalent change of magnification of say 50<100mm. It is when you perhaps combine x12 zoom with x2.2 tele adaptor with a quarter crop [ from a 10Mp camera] that you start to get good reach [1800mm AoV] ... and having got it you feel you need more :-)

[sarah_fox]

Gary, if I were starting fresh, on a tight budget, with no lenses in my collection, and with no ambitions of doing professional work (for which I do feel Canon offers better support), I have little doubt I would choose the Nikon D40. Besides offering a lot of entry-level bang for the buck, it's small, light, and QUIET (a definite bonus for wildlife photography). There are a few other good options with other manufacturers too. Go to a camera shop and look at a few of them. See what sings to you. For a better price, you can always buy from B&H, Adorama, or a rising number of non-NYC dealers. (I just bought a 5D from a wonderful dealer in CA called Canoga.) Don't deal with ANY camera dealer that you don't see recommended here on photo.net. Rip-off dealers outnumber the legitimate dealers.

 

As JC indicated, there is the crop factor. Just multiply any lens' focal length by 1.5, and you'll get what the equivalent focal length would be on a 35mm film camera. A 300mm lens then gives you quite a lot of reach. Get Nikon's VR lenses (if you choose Nikon) for your long telephotos. You won't regret it. As for specific lenses? I don't know enough about Nikon to say, but you can find out more on the Nikon board. (I shoot Canon.) Finally, forget the teleconverters if you're after image quality, unless you're willing to pay up for a very good one -- and a very good telephoto to go with it. Telephoto lenses are very unforgiving, and their optical quality can leave a lot to be desired. A teleconverter merely multiplies the image quality problems and, if it's not a really good one, adds some of its own.

[colinsouthern]

A Canon 1Ds Mark 3 with the new Canon EF 800mm F5.6 IS USM lens on a Wimberly Mk2 head on a Gitzo 1548 tripod would be a hard combination to beat. You didn't mention a budget - the above shouldn't come to much more than $22,000.

[jcuknz]

Come on Colin, pull the other leg :-) Surely budget means $500 to $1000. The Panasonic suggested is closer to the lower amount than the higher. [ in US$ terms ]

[lola_gunch]

Price batteries for the FZ50 before you buy one.

[jcuknz]

Lola, you only need to price the cost of a back up battery if you are going for a holiday ... commonsense use of the battery which comes with the camera will suffice until them. One silly waste of power is to be continually chimping what you have shot. The camera has an adjustable review mode, I have my camerea set to one second, to enable one to confirm what one shot. I use the LCD for the occasional low and high angle shots.

 

I bought my second battery from Batterybarn and didn't think it expensive as you appear to infer and a drawback to a damm good camera and in my experience superior to the DSLR in the features I need for my shooting.