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Birding Camera Recommendations (1 Viewer)

HLG

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I'm new to birding and am looking for a budget digital camera. My current camera Panasonic ZS50 is on a tripod in my home that is about 40 feet away from the feeders in my backyard and am looking for recommendations on budget cameras that will be capable of full zoom to photograph without blurring of losing sharpness. Thanks for any help.
 
Hi there and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum :t:

We're glad you found us and thanks for taking a moment to say hello. Please join in wherever you like ;)

I'm gonna move your thread to the camera section of the Forum and I'll subscribe you to the thread so you'll get notices when someone posts a suggestion ;)
 
I'm new to birding and am looking for a budget digital camera. My current camera Panasonic ZS50 is on a tripod in my home that is about 40 feet away from the feeders in my backyard and am looking for recommendations on budget cameras that will be capable of full zoom to photograph without blurring of losing sharpness. Thanks for any help.

A 500mm lens will have about a 4* angle of view, horizontal, on full frame. At 40', that is about 2 x 40 x tan(4*/2) = 2.8' wide field of view. A 1000mm equivalent lens would be about 1.4' wide. 2000mm is about 0.7' wide. So, I imagine you want something in the range 1500mm - 2000mm (1' - 0.7' wide field of view at 40'). [EDIT: I was off on the trig calculation in the original post, this edit is correct.]

Here is another way to figure it out. Your ZS50 is 700mm equivalent. Take it off the tripod and walk it towards the bird feeder until you get the framing you want. Measure that distance to the bird feeder. Then multiply by the ratio (old : new). For example, if you walk to 15', you need 40/15 = 2.6x crop, so 700mm * 2.6 = 1,820mm equivalent zoom.

Those numbers are all ballpark-ish, as each camera/lens will have its own particular field of view. There's also some small-angle approximations happening (I did everything as linear scaling). But it should be good enough to estimate what you need.

Does that sound about right, you want about a 2x - 3x crop from what you have right now? If you take a current photo at 700mm and crop it 1/2 horizontal and vertical, that's a 2x crop, or crop it down to 1/3 of the horizontal and vertical for a 3x crop.

I think the Nikon P900 would be the budget thing going out to 2000mm. New, they are just under $500, but you can likely get a good used one in the $250 - $300 range. I think the P900 or the older Canon SX60 (1365mm for $150-$250 used) would be the ticket. You can find deals on them used or refurbished.

Some other options, all new prices: The Panasonic FZ80 (1200mm, $300), Canon SX70 (1365mm, $545), Sony DSC-HX400V (1200mm, $448). I think the 1200mm will be on the short size, but you can do a size estimate above.

Be sure to not use "digital zoom", which is basically just cropping the photo smaller than the sensor. Also, keep your window clean! Another trick is to put the end of the lens right up against the glass, maybe with a little black electrical tape around the edge to cushion it. This really reduces the internal reflections of stray light. Another option instead of electrical tape is a $6 rubber hood, like this one for the P900 (67mm filter threads): .

Usually, I would want to try them to see how the EVF viewfinder works, as I think that is very important with super zooms. But for your use on a tripod, I think LCD focusing would be fine, so the EVF quality probably is not such an issue.

 
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