Camera for bird and plant pictures (1 Viewer)

A

albatross02

Well-known member

• May 16, 2008

• #1

Hello,

I need a camera for bird pictures and detailed plant pictures ( emphasis orchids and ferns ).
Lots of pictures ( have only camcorder and anlaog camera Canon EOS 300 with two zooms 18 - 75, 75 - 300 ) I made in rainforests.
Use tripod often is not possible, because the birds do not wait.
Especially plants on ground ( like small ferns ) in rainforest, demand making pictures under very hard light conditions.
High moisture and heavy rainfall are other hard conditions.

Which camera is recommended for excellent amateur pictures ?
Which objectivs are needed ?
( it said cameras like Nikon D 80, need high level objectivs )


Best regards
Dieter

 

JTF

Well-known member

• May 16, 2008

• #2

Most if not all of the DLSR bodies would be fine, its the lenses that will make the difference with what you want to do. To completely different distances, yes a D80 would be fine for a body. I won't give specific lense choices as I only have a nikkor AF-S VR 18-55mm and am not knowledgeable enough for giving advice on lenses.

 

E

eddwillis

Well-known member

• May 16, 2008

• #3

Have you looked at Olympus E3 with 50mm f2 lens.Sharp fast and water-proof.I would also suggest a good monopod which could double as a walking aid

 

ruchai

Well-known member

• May 16, 2008

• #4

For camera: D300. Lenses: AF-S 300mm F/4 for birds, Micro Nikkor VR 105 F/2.8 for insects.
Picture below taken with Micro Nikkor VR 105 F/2.8:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3162/2488353684_a61aa46a50_b.jpg

 

A

albatross02

Well-known member

• May 20, 2008

• #5

Camera

Hello,

thank You for the advices.
The picture with D 300 looks excellent.
I want to make bird and plant pictures.
Plant pictures like
http://cookislands.bishopmuseum.org/results.asp?ebg=blechnum&search=true

Especially ferns and orchids can be in very poor light conditions ( rainforest, mountain fog forest ).
For defining ferns it is important to see detailed leave pattern and detailed spores.

I thought about D80, D200 and D300 ?
In one report was written the light measurement of D80 should be rather poor ?


Best regards
Dieter

 

bkrownd

Well-known member

• May 21, 2008

• #6

You will need a powerful flash and a diffuser to take good photos of plants. The built-in flashes on cameras are too narrow angle and too weak and illuminate unevenly when taking wide angle or close photos, and photos of wet plants show too much reflection from a bare flash, obscuring textures and detail. I use the 18-135 kit lens on my D80, or occasionally my Sigma 10-20mm lens. However, I'd really like to have an image stabilized 18-200mm lens...as close focusing as possible.

I do lots of plant photos: http://www.pbase.com/bkrownd/hawaiian_plants

 

Last edited: May 21, 2008

P

pe'rigin

Well-known member

• May 21, 2008

• #7

Albatross,

For top quality plant images, I'd go for a Canon 5D, reasonably priced at the moment, it's sharper than a D3 (just) and cheaper. Certainly agree with bk on a diffuser. Bird wise, if you can get close enough then the images are going to be very good, it's a tad slow though. Nikon make a cracking 105mm VR, which doesn't help you for Canon. Otherwise for plant images check-out the new Fuji 'bridge' camera.