Subject: Digital Cameras for recording sightings
Hi Jude,
I agree with the other responses you have received, and just wanted to add
some ideas. Firstly, the slow auto-focus speed of (even the best) point-and
-shoot cameras, as well as their small viewfinders (if they even have one),
make taking photos of birds a pain in the butt. They are good for
stationary subjects only, not birds in flight or quick-moving birds. If you
like taking pics of pelicans asleep in the sun, a P&S might do very nicely,
but for ID'ing every bird you see, you'll love the performance of a DSLR.
Others mentioned lower sensor noise and better high ISO performance of
DSLR's- they are 100% correct. These considerations are important for
photographing birds, since they are about as demanding a subject as a
photographer can pick, even for ID shots.
Secondly, on the DSLR front, you might want to consider the 4/3 format
cameras (by Olympus and Panansonic) over the ASP-C format cameras (by Canon
and Nikon). The main feature of these DSLR's is their light weight and
compact size (lenses and camera bodies). They are itst bitsy things..the
kind of kit you can have on you all the time without it feeling like a
burdeon. You can interchange lenses on them just like other DSLR's, and the
quality of lenses for the 4/3 foramt are superb. They are also excellent for
bird photography because of the 2 X crop factor on sensors of this size.
For example if you put a 50-200mm zoom lens on one of these, the effective
focal length of that lens will be 100- 400mm etc. They are therefore a
popular choice for wild-life photographers. Another bonus is they are
relatively inexpensive whilst producing excellent quaility images.
Some examples include cameras such as Olympus E-520, Olympus E-620,
Panasonic Lumix G1 and GH1, Olympus EP-1 and Ep-2 ....all excellent
examples of the 4/3 (and micro 4/3 ) sensor format.
I hope that helps~
Cheers,
B
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