Decent camera advice

crosstownvamp

The Lumix Panasonic mirrorless can be had for that budget.

Tannin

If you really want to do nature photography, wildlife in particular, you absolutely, positively need a reasonably long lens of high quality. Cheap short-cut lenses just lead to frustration. If you are going to do birds or even mammals, 400mm is the baseline. Canon's superb 100-400 Mark II would be perfect, though possibly out of budget. Their older 100-400 Mark 1 is a very, very competent lens and can be picked up for spare change these days. 

Don't be fooled by the various cheap(ish) "600mm" zooms on the market. They are difficult to handle and optically inferior to a 100-400 II, and not really any better than a Mark 1 (which is cheaper, lighter and has much better handling.) Long lenses are optically among the most difficult things to design and build; for this reason cheap ones are best avoided. (You'll only end up having to replace them with something better.) Go for quality first up.

Connect whatever camera you fancy to it. A 7D II is pretty cheap these days and though old is very good indeed. Cameras are much less important than lenses.  

For a general-purpose lens, on full frame something like a 24-105/4 is ideal, though sadly still quite expensive. On a crop body (e.g., 7D II) look around for a cheap(ish) designed-for-crop lens, accepting that you will have to throw it away if you switch to full frame one day. You'll probably find that something like the excellent Canon EF-S 15-85 is cheap enough these days to regard that as unimportant. (Don't confuse it with the earlier and significantly inferior 17-85.)

If your budget is tight, you can skimp on the general-purpose lens and still get good results. Long lenses (and ultra-wides) are difficult to make and cheap ones are poor things. General-purpose lenses (e.g., 18-55, 17-70, 24-105) are much less difficult and even a cheap one will go perfectly OK.  

Summary:
Long lens: spend what it takes. This is the most important part of your kit. Choose the lens first, then get whatever camera fits on it.
General-purpose lens: better is better but skimp here if necessary.
Camera body: try not to skimp but do so if you really need to. 

strumjoughlamps

theatreanchor said:

I still think the Canon 5D mk II or up is fab. 

Great cameras but with wildlife in mind you're much better off going for a 7D model if looking at Canon, which tbh is probably the smart choice..

boogieman

theatreanchor said:

I still think the Canon 5D mk II or up is fab. 

It is, but even a decent condition used Mk 2 is going to gobble up £300 plus. Doesn’t leave much for lenses. 

Unless you’re convinced that birding pictures are going to be the majority of your wife’s shots, then personally I wouldn’t even go down the DSLR rabbit hole. For general photography I’d get a decent quality compact. For a start you just can stick it in a pocket, so you’re not lugging tons of gear around (which can end up being a pain, so eventually you leave it all at home). Secondly a lot of them have all the zoom range you need; I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen a great shot only to realise I’ve got the wrong lens on the camera body. Have a look at something like a used Sony RX100, amazingly competent camera in a small package that gives very good quality results. 

@Tannin, I don’t know if used Canon gear is cheaper where you are, but even a Mk1 100-400 isn’t “spare change” money and would set you back £400-500 ish here. A used Mk2 would be more like £1000 plus. Good lenses for sure, but not cheap.  

pt22

strumjoughlamps said:

theatreanchor said:

I still think the Canon 5D mk II or up is fab. 

Great cameras but with wildlife in mind you're much better off going for a 7D model if looking at Canon, which tbh is probably the smart choice..

Agreed if you want to maximize lens zoom, you’ll want a crop-frame camera vs full-frame. Not sure how that translates to mirror less. 

I think the recommendation of the Canon 70-200 is fine to start but so long ad OP gets the 2.8, not the 4. For nature you’ll need to be shooting at higher shutter speeds, and with less than perfect light you won’t be able to do that without crazy ISO compensation at F4 so get the largest (widest) glass possible now. You can always by a 2x extender and sacrifice some aperture for sunny days later on. 

Wolfetone

Nature needs a good lens. To a good and competent photographer, the lens is probably the key item. Don't get to hung up on bells and whistles. 

Tannin

boogieman said:

@Tannin, even a Mk1 100-400 isn’t “spare change” money and would set you back £400-500 ish here. A used Mk2 would be more like £1000 plus. Good lenses for sure, but not cheap.  

In the world of wiidlife photography terms £500 is spare change. A first-class Canon wildlife lens is around £14,000.

The equivalent Nikon is even more (which has always been a mystery to me - it's not as if anyone thinks the Nikkor lens is better in any way, the two are very similar - you just always pay extra for Nikon lenses. That's one good reason to get a Canon SLR: more lenses to choose from, and cheaper too.

Budgie

Have you considered a high quality bridge camera? A Sony RX10 MK 3 would definitely be worth looking at. Great optics and a 24mm-600mm zoom with a decent aperture of f2.4-4.0. It reviews well and is suitable and capable for wildlife photography. It should also be available within your budget.

Tannin

pt22 said:

strumjoughlamps said:

theatreanchor said:

I still think the Canon 5D mk II or up is fab. 

Great cameras but with wildlife in mind you're much better off going for a 7D model if looking at Canon, which tbh is probably the smart choice..

Agreed if you want to maximize lens zoom, you’ll want a crop-frame camera vs full-frame. Not sure how that translates to mirror less. 

I think the recommendation of the Canon 70-200 is fine to start but so long ad OP gets the 2.8, not the 4. For nature you’ll need to be shooting at higher shutter speeds, and with less than perfect light you won’t be able to do that without crazy ISO compensation at F4 so get the largest (widest) glass possible now. You can always by a 2x extender and sacrifice some aperture for sunny days later on. 

I am afraid that this is incorrect. Reach (called "lens zoom" above) has got nothing, repeat nothing at all, to do with sensor crop factor. There are many variables but if we hold all other factors equal and just look at the sensor size and spec, pixel density is what matters. Pixel density is the number of pixels per given area. It is usually measured in pixels/mm2. 

Often - well, almost always - with wildlife photography (especially with lenses which are a bit on the short side for birds) the subject is not nearly filling the frame and the final picture has to be cropped. The key to resolving nice detail is getting a good number of pixels on the subject. You can do this by getting closer to the bird (always the best method but hard!), using a longer lens (but good quality long lenses are bulky, heavy, and very expensive - cheap long lenses gain you nothing because what you get in reach you lose in blurriness), using a teleconverter (mostly doesn't work, but see below), or by having a camera with more pixels per square millimetre. Whether that camera happens to have a 1.5 or a 1.0 or a 2.0 crop factor is not relevant 

Note that there is a practical limit to pixel density. Past a certain point, adding more pixels no longer improves picture quality.  For any given lens and shutter speed and ISO combination, there is a practical upper limit. If a 5D IV (35,000px/mm2) is just barely able to sharply resolve a given scene with a given lens, a 90D (97,000 px/mm2) won't improve things. The same applies to teleconverters: if I am pushing the limits of the possible (under given lighting conditions) with a 600/4 and a 5DS (or a 7D II, which has the same pixel density only cropped) adding a teleconverter won't really improve things either.

There is no free lunch. 

RaymondLin

In an ideal world you would get a Sony A7R5 (60mp), with a Sony 400mm/2.8.

Would set you back about £14,000 though, probably £15,000 by the time you got a good tripod, spare batteries.

You can try save some money in getting the 300/2.8 and then crop using that 60mp sensor.  But even this lens is £5,000.

I remember seeing a really beat-up Canon EF 300/2.8L mk1 for £500 last year.  I was too late, by the time I decided to get it, it was gone.

dazzajl

Wow! We’ve gone a bit stratospheric here. 

Back in the real world, if I was buying a kit on that budget to take around and get pretty pics of life around me, I’d get these. 

A good solid body that still performs respectably by today’s standards and two of the sharpest lenses that Canon have ever made. And…under budget too. 

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/canon-eos-60d/sku-2406587

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/canon-ef-17-40mm-f-4-l-usm/sku-2419072

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/canon-ef-70-200mm-f-4-l-usm/sku-2260299

pt22

Tannin said:

pt22 said:

strumjoughlamps said:

theatreanchor said:

I still think the Canon 5D mk II or up is fab. 

Great cameras but with wildlife in mind you're much better off going for a 7D model if looking at Canon, which tbh is probably the smart choice..

Agreed if you want to maximize lens zoom, you’ll want a crop-frame camera vs full-frame. Not sure how that translates to mirror less. 

I think the recommendation of the Canon 70-200 is fine to start but so long ad OP gets the 2.8, not the 4. For nature you’ll need to be shooting at higher shutter speeds, and with less than perfect light you won’t be able to do that without crazy ISO compensation at F4 so get the largest (widest) glass possible now. You can always by a 2x extender and sacrifice some aperture for sunny days later on. 

I am afraid that this is incorrect. Reach (called "lens zoom" above) has got nothing, repeat nothing at all, to do with sensor crop factor. There are many variables but if we hold all other factors equal and just look at the sensor size and spec, pixel density is what matters. Pixel density is the number of pixels per given area. It is usually measured in pixels/mm2. 

Often - well, almost always - with wildlife photography (especially with lenses which are a bit on the short side for birds) the subject is not nearly filling the frame and the final picture has to be cropped. The key to resolving nice detail is getting a good number of pixels on the subject. You can do this by getting closer to the bird (always the best method but hard!), using a longer lens (but good quality long lenses are bulky, heavy, and very expensive - cheap long lenses gain you nothing because what you get in reach you lose in blurriness), using a teleconverter (mostly doesn't work, but see below), or by having a camera with more pixels per square millimetre. Whether that camera happens to have a 1.5 or a 1.0 or a 2.0 crop factor is not relevant 

Note that there is a practical limit to pixel density. Past a certain point, adding more pixels no longer improves picture quality.  For any given lens and shutter speed and ISO combination, there is a practical upper limit. If a 5D IV (35,000px/mm2) is just barely able to sharply resolve a given scene with a given lens, a 90D (97,000 px/mm2) won't improve things. The same applies to teleconverters: if I am pushing the limits of the possible (under given lighting conditions) with a 600/4 and a 5DS (or a 7D II, which has the same pixel density only cropped) adding a teleconverter won't really improve things either.

There is no free lunch. 

This is an interesting reply, and I’ll ask the following saying that I’m only a hobbyist, not a pro. (Which I’m sure will be made clear)

Let’s say I’m bird “hunting” and I’ve got one lens (100-400) and two bodies. A full frame and a 1.6 crop frame sensor. 

The full frame will provide a usable zoom range of 100-400mm. The crop frame will have an effective range of 160 to 640mm. That’s a pretty significant increase due to the crop sensor, which is helpful for nature and sports photography. I was under the understanding that was why Canon used crop sensors on their high-shutter speed pro cameras (1D line) vs the portrait-orientated full frames. (5D line) 

Is that not a correct understanding? 

RaymondLin

You are only looking at the crop factor and not pixel density.

The 1D line is a low pixel camera, even the mk4 is only 16mp.  The 5D4 is 33mp.  Apply 1.3x crop to 33mp you get 25mp? Thereabouts.  Meaning a 5D4 can “zoom” in even more.

The reason the 5D is more for portraits isn’t due to its pixel count primarily but its Auto focus system…which always lagged behind the 1D series. Canon always gimped the AF for lower models vs the 1D series.

In short, a 5D4 with a 400mm can “zoom” in more than a 1Dmk4.

The other reason why 1D focuses better is because on the EF mount, with OVF, due to the light fall off on the edge of the frame, the type of focusing system used in DSLR, it is harder for the focusing system to focus on the outer edge of the image.  So mounting a FF EF lens on 1.3x and using only the center where it is the brightest means it can have more frame coverage.  Which is also why the outer points on the 5D always sucked.  This is no longer a problem with mirrorless where the focusing is does on the sensor.

dazzajl

pt22 said

……,,

Is that not a correct understanding? 

It’s correct, assuming an equal pixel count. 

If you’re comparing a FF body with 50mp to a APS body with 20, them the ‘greater reach’ of the 1.6 crop is outweighed but the amount of information in the FF file. So if you took the same shot with a 400mm lens on both bodies and cropped the one from your full frame body to match the APS one, the FF image would still be bigger in terms of pixels. 

The reason for APS and M4/3 cameras is that smaller sensors are cheaper to make, as are the smaller lenses that they can use. The bonus is also much less bulk to lug around. 

I think the optimal sizes are APS and Medium Format personally. But that’s just what suits my needs. 

pt22

dazzajl said:

I think the optimal sizes are APS and Medium Format personally. But that’s just what suits my needs. 

This is where my mind was for OP. So maybe a full frame would technically be able to crop better than APS-C, but the combination of prices for a used body, frame rate, and sensor effect on lens range is what I had in mind as the best value for OP. 

ThePrettyDamned

I would recommend looking at a few options.

1. Older dslr and lenses. Fast focus, accurate, bit more clunky. A Canon 7d is every bit as professional as the day it was released and would pair with a 24-105mm and 100-400mm.

2. Micro 4/3. Still underrated, but you could do a lot worse than a beautiful olympus om-d em1 mark ii or Panasonic g9 and the excellent plastic fantastic 40-150mm olympus lens to match for that budget. Add in a Panasonic 14mm prime or olympus 17mm and you're away. 

I personally use an olympus epl-7 a lot. That's crazy cheap if you can find one, but you won't track birds or anything. Beautiful little thing for day to day photography. Photo below was epl-7 and the tiny 40-150mm f4-5.6 olympus lens. 



Option 3 - bridge camera. I know little of these though. 

ThePrettyDamned

When in Dorset my camera broke, so I bought a Sony a350, minolta 35-70mm f4 and minolta 70-200mm f4 for under £100 all in. Worked out alright. This is an ancient 14mp CCD sensor and lenses built in the 1980s. Note that the animals were in captivity at Shepreth. 

The point is, there are a lot of very good cameras and lenses. I'd suggest finding a local shop that has some you can try and see what you're comfortable with. I love micro 4/3 as I have smaller hands and find the lenses adorable. I also love my old Sony. Plenty of people hate the menu system in the olympus em1 series. I don't blame them... 

FelineGuitars

If you would consider a Sony I have an A580 as already mentioned and a whole brace of lenses both Minolta, tamron and Sony that will  be a great place to kick things off . 

I moved to Nikon because of the D800E with it's huge sensor, so left the Sony stuff behind. (Eleanor Jane who takes all those sexy guitar pics for Eleven magazine uses the same camera), but the Sony stuff was great till I needed that higher resolution sensor.

strumjoughlamps

Bloody hell just had a gander on WEX and they have a 550d for £74 and a 300mm f4 L IS for £349

dazzajl

strumjoughlamps said:

Bloody hell just had a gander on WEX and they have a 550d for £74 and a 300mm f4 L IS for £349

The 300 f4L is one of Canon’s truly classic lenses.