Best DSLR Kit - would you switch from Nikon? (1 Viewer)

Greetings bird people

I've spent several weeks browsing various forums, seeing loads of images (good and bad) and wading through yards of text while researching the best equipment for bird and wildlife photography.

What is left of my brain hurts....

The emphasis will be on taking photographs while birding rather than concentrating on the photography so something as light and compact as possible is required.

I would really appreciate any comments you can make, e.g. are you totally happy with your kit, what would you upgrade to and why.... it would be very useful to see examples of good sharp photos to help me make a final decision.

The budget is roughly £1500 for camera body and a telephoto lens. I realise that buying a good lens is most crucial as upgrading body is easier at a later date on a restricted budget.

At present I am contemplating one of the following three options:

Canon 30d/100-400mm l IS f4.5 IS and the Kenko 1.4 TC
Nikon d200/300mm f4 or AF 80-400mm f4.5 VR
? body /Sigma ?

Thanks in anticipation of your responses/help.

Good Birding

Andrew

Andrew the D200 is a great birding camera i think it can be picked up now for £750 to £800 it has more great features to it than the d70. i use this camera all of the time with my nikkor 300mm 2.8 afs vr prime with a 1.7 teleconverter i have also used it with the 80-400mm af vr 4.5-5.6 lens by nikon a little slow to autofocus but very sharp usually used for static birds the other mentioned lens is the nikkor 300mm afs f4 non stabilised lens this is brilliant for bird photography and mates perfectly with the 1.4 nikon afs teleconverter which gives you 420mm in 35mm terms im afraid i cannot comment on the Cannon side of things because i have never used this setup as for the nikon great lenses and cameras in my eyes you cant go wrong as for price i recon you could buy the d200 and find a second hand 80-400 lens for the price your talking look on e-Bay there are lots of them going for auction or alternatively on the for sale wanted adds on here theres always someone trading equipment i do hope you find what your looking for best of luck. :t:

Thanks

I don't know whether many of us are qualified to really comment on Canon vs Nikon - who has the opportunity or money to purchase both systems???

I switched from Nikon to Canon when I changed from film to digital purely because I came across a prime Canon lens at a second-hand price, meaning I had to purchase a Canon body of course. I don't have anything against Nikon though, I'm sure their systems are equally good. I do think though that the lens mainly determines which way you go, find a lens you like and the body will follow!

At this moment in time Canon has advantages over Nikon for bird photographers, slight but real. The biggest advantage is that so many more people use Canon gear than Nikon, so there is a larger community of people who can talk the same language in terms of gear. A good friend of mine who is a bird photographer is currently off on a long photo trip that includes a "meet and greet" for Canon nature photographers. I suspect that at this point it would be harder to drum up enough Nikon nature photographers for this kind of social/photographic event. Also, I perceive that Canon's customer service is slightly better than Nikon's.

However, what used to be another Canon advantage has now disappeared, i.e., the existence of state-of-the-art supertele lenses incorporating IS technology. Nikon's new long tele lenses appear to be fabulous (and yes, expensive), so now an aspiring bird photographer can dream, at least, of someday owning "the best of the best."

The 80-400mm. and 100-400mm. zooms are convenient and can be used to capture great photos, but in either case you are compromising optical quality at the long tele end for the sake of versatility. From what I can perceive having seen countless photos from both lenses, their performance is quite comparable.

I am not up to speed on Canon's flash technology, but Nikon's wireless flash system is first-rate. This area of technology has inspired more than a few photographers to choose Nikon in recent years.

Overall, you really can't lose either way, at this point.

Many thanks for the comments - still undecided but every little helps!

Good Birding & Best Wishes

Andrew

I've used both Canon and Nikon and there's not a lot between them when you're talking budget or mid range/enthusiast level. In the end it probably does come down to lenses. Having used both, I swapped to Olympus - I just like the cameras and the 2x effect means you get that bit closer with the advantage of a more lightweight system. We're a small band!