Decent camera advice

ThePrettyDamned

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

It's a good time for budget dslr! 

beed84

Some people turn their noses up at them, but if you're happy to forgo full-frame, I'd consider a micro four-thirds outfit. They're very capable cameras without the bulk, which is ideal if you're hiking around in nature. I have a Panasonic G9 and couldn't be happier with it.

Tannin

A long way from the topic but I can't let  @RaymondLin's remarks about the 5D series go uncorrected.

There have been five 5D models (counting the 5DS and 5DS R as the same thing). Only the very early ones are as Raymond describes.

* 5D (2005-2008) Lack-lustre focus system by the standards of the day, essentially just scaled up from the 20D crop camera, otherwise (like all the 5D versions) excellent.

* 5D II (2008-2012) Same focus system as the Mark 1. (!) Originally planned to have a  much improved, high-tech AF system but the new system was not ready in time (and may also have been deemed too expensive to manufacture). Whatever the reason, despite being in all other respects a superb new camera at that time far in advance of any competitor's product, the Mark II's AF system was well below par even when first released.

* 5D III (2012-2016) All-new, first-class focus system, similar in ability to the very best professional cameras.

* 5DS and 5DSR (2015-2022). AF system based on the 5D III and very similar. Highly competent. 

* 5D IV (2016-present) A further improved version of the Mark III system, excellent in every way and quite extraordinary in its  amazing ability to focus accurately in near-darkness. Easily superior to any other SLR I am familiar with (including even my  wonderful 1D IV).

The 5D III, 5DS, 5DS R and current 5DIV have excellent focus systems.

All things considered, the 5D IV focus system is probably the best I've ever used - and I own a 1D IV, 7D II, 5DS and 5DSR, not to mention my ancient 5D II which still gets used now and then, and the Canon EOS R I owned for 18 months but sold because of its many glaring faults, including a focus system inferior to that of any camera mentioned here other than the 5D/5D II. People say that the latest Canon mirrorless cameras are much improved. One can only hope so!

For low-light bird photography in gloomy rainforests the 5D IV rules supreme. For more general birding - and remember that bird work is about as demanding as it gets so far as AF is concerned - it is versatile and very competent. Even for flight shots it is more than capable, though for that task I tend to go to the 7D II or the 1D IV, not so much for the AF (all three are excellent) as the frame rate. 

My first-choice camera for bird work these days is the 5DS R. Its massive resolution - superior to any Canon or Nikon camera yet made, SLR or mirrorless - is more than handy, the AF is  very good (it is only narrowly shaded by the 5D IV, the 1D IV and the 7D II in this regard) and for most purposes the slow frame rate is not an issue. 

Here is an example of the 5DS R at work.





(Little Pied Cormorant, Kingston, Tasmania, January 2024. Canon 5DS R, 600/4 II, 2500 ISO, f/5.6 1/2000th.)

RaymondLin

I had two 5D4 (as well as 5D2 and 5D3, as good as that AF was on the IV, it does not span to the very edge like a mirrorless and it is not all phase detect like mirrorless everywhere.  

The head of that bird is band center of the frame and 1/4 in, which is inside the focus points and the center part are the brightest.  If we imagine a circle of the lens going round the rectangle it makes how central it is even more obvious. 

This is what I meant with its limitations.  Was it good? Yes…but it was limited by the design of the DSLR.

(this is in reference of its OVF not on LCD live view as that uses dual pixel focus)

ThePrettyDamned

I reckon you could do worse than this. The autofocus would likely be better on an olympus em1 mark ii, but the menus are very complex - Panasonic make much more usable cameras. The g9 is one of the finest handling cameras of all time - absolutely beautiful.

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/panasonic-lumix-dc-g9/sku-2346122

If you want a long lens for animals and such, this is good. https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/panasonic-lumix-g-vario-100-300mm-f-4-5-6-mega-o-i-s

Pushes the budget, but that's BAGS of reach, in a portable, fun package. 

If you prefer a more traditional slr experience, how about this - the fantastic original wildlife monster Canon 7D https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/canon-eos-7d/sku-2431132 and the furiously sharp, wonderfully professional 300mm f4? https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/product/canon-ef-300mm-f-4-l-usm/sku-2427154

This would get you pretty good reach for birds and animals - make sure you budget a small amount for a small kit lens for day to day shooting - like an 18-55mm kit zoom.

Of course, if you don't need reach and you're more interested in flowers, scenery and the like the world is your oyster. So many incredible cameras. When I was a working professional photographer, I could only dream of some of this kit. 

Devil#20

pt22 said:

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? 

No. That's a common misconception. @Tannin is correct. Read his post again. The crop factor looks like it is giving you additional zoom length but it isn't. You could shoot the same picture on a full frame at 400mm and blow the middle bit up to the 640mm and have the same picture but sharpness will be different. it'll be down to pixel density on the sensor for that part of the image.