Wildlife Camera

[Sean Juan 0]

I'm looking for a nice digital camera which would be used primarily to take pictures of wildlife - birds and Moose and that sort of stuff. Water resistance would be nice but being totally waterproof isn't necessary.

 

Key feature would be the ability to zoom.

 

I say a pair of binoculars in the Cabela's catalogue with a camera built in - that would be awesome but I don't know it just looked better than it ever could have been.

 

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/template...&hasJS=true

 

Any help would be welcome

[Sturgeon_Catcher 0]

Hey Sean Juan...

might consider the little digital I employ. posted some pics and such already.

My Webpage

 

later

Fred

 

really a nice little camera and even with the waterproof case (10') still fits in my jacket pocket.

 

[Sean Juan 0]

I may have to look into that camera for myself.

 

This one would be a gift for Wifey who likes taking pictures of birds, and other animals. Small size is always a benefit but in this case not so much.

 

I have to get in a better habit of taking pictures of fish or at least keeping a camera on me - I've always considered a camera to be the single worst luck charm you can have.

 

Whats the difference between an optical and digital zoom? I'm guessing the optical is the lens and the digital is from the computer...so if a camera is 3x optical and 10x digital does that mean I can take a picture at 3x go home and enlarge it to 10x or 30x or am I just missing the point?

[Sturgeon_Catcher 0]

I think you are on base. Optic being lense. Wait for others though, I'm mostly roll film and 35mm.

 

regardless of either medium. ISO will determine clarity. 400 will be for fast and 100 will be for detail. The smaller the number the denser the emulsion. In other words if I were planning to enlarge I would use the smaller number. This is relevant to digital as well. A fast shot on slow film will blur. A fast shot of a flower for instance is very grainy when enlarged.

 

Hope I haven't confused you more.

later

Fred

[KVRNut 0]

Optical zoom is equivalent to you physically moving closer to the subject (although your lens does the moving not you) so you capture the actual image without any kind of digital manipulating on the part of your camera. The result is a clear shot, just like any other photo.

 

Digital zoom is where the camera crops and enlarges the part of the photo you are trying to zoom in on. So it's not really a zoom, its just an enlargement. When you enlarge a photo, your camera has to make up the spaces in between the pixels (those tiny color blocks that make up the photo) that didn't exist in the original shot.

 

The problem is that cameras aren't that smart, so the result is always blurry and sometimes discolored in areas because the camera's software duplicated the wrong pixels. This process is called dithering by the way, and there's more than one way to dither, but none of the dithering technologies is anywhere near being close to fooling the eye. That's why optical zoom is the only thing you should look at when considering a camera to buy.

 

I guess that's why I still have yet to buy a digital camera and why I'm still strictly a film user. Granted, at this time, the best I can do with my lenses is 6x optical (300mm telephoto) but that can change with the purchase of a stronger lens. I try not to use focal doublers at all.

 

sturgeon_catcher is very right when he says to use the lowest ISO you can or try and stick with ISO 100 if you do use a digital for a better quality picture. The only time I use ISO 400 is if the film is high definition and high quality otherwise you'll see nothing but ISO 100 and 200 in my cameras. By the way, get in the habit of using a tri-pod when you use the slower ISO. It will well be worth it.

 

Hope this helps you Sean Juan.

[Sean Juan 0]

So what would take better zoomed in pictures a Camera with 12x optical 4x Digital or a camera with a 10x optical 5x Digital?

[KVRNut 0]

Go for the higher optical by all means.

[Al Beatty 0]

Hi,

 

I use a Fugi S9000 (9 MP) with a 28 to 300mm zoom. It seems to work well for me. Take care & ...

 

Tight Lines - Al Beatty

www.btsflyfishing.com

[Graham 0]

Last week my new Nikon 70-200 lens arrived, due to the conversion factor of the digital image sensor, it is equivalent to 105-300 on film. Now I'm waiting for the 1.7 teleconverter to arrive, which should allow me to zoom in on wildlife without the cost of purchasing a Nikon 200-400.

[KVRNut 0]

Good luck with your tele-converter Graham. I shy away from them because they add grain in the photo, no matter what ISO I use. Hope your new one doesn't add any grain.

[Graham 0]

Geez, I hope not, the lens cost $1,700 and the converter another $400.

[Sturgeon_Catcher 0]

As my cameras are antiques and purchased as somone's entire collection have a number of teleconverters.

2x - 3x - 4x and even one with extra lenses for portraiture. If they weren't pare of my collection - would sell them all. In other words - gosh I hope optics improved esp. in you case.

later

FRed

[Isonychia 0]

Not to worry, Graham. Nikon's TC-17 is one of the sharpest teleconverters on the market.

 

When it came out, I snapped up Nikon's 80-400 f/5.6 VR zoom. With the mulitplier factor on my D2H, it's the equivalent of a 120-600 zoom. The VR feature makes it hand-holdable at shutter speeds as slow as 1/125 of a second. An f/5.6 lens might seem a tad slow, but since it's possible to shoot at ISO 400 or even 800 with little appreciable increase in noise, it's easy to get good results even in relatively low-light conditions.

 

I shoot a lot of wildlife photos for the newspaper I work for. I use the 80-400 for most of those shots.

 

John

[Graham 0]

Phew, thanks for the reassurance John!!! I spend considerable time researching positive and negative things about gear that interests me, and I was fairly confident the TC-17 was a good match with a Nikon 70-200. I had a hard time deciding between the TC-14 or 17, and figured, lets go with the 17.

 

Graham

[antelope 0]

Sean Juan,

for around the price of those binoculars you could get a Nikon D50 body and add lenses as you need them (or for a little more you can get a combo w/ body + lens). The nice thing is that you could upgrade the camera some years down the road and still get use of the lenses. a little more $$ to invest but much better results than a point and shoot. havent used the D50 myself but have the D70, D100 and older film SLRs which have been great. I dont know about water resistance but they are typically well built and can withstand some abuse... when on the water i usually keep my camera in watertight plastic container in case i take a slip in the drink