Didn't know where best to put this, so feel free to move. I've decided I have to get outdoors once in a while, so am going to try wildlife watching for a bit of a hobby (foxes, badgers, birds, etc). I'm going to need a new digital camera, as well as some binoculars, and was looking for a little advice. I need a camera that will be able to zoom about 100 metres at a vaguely decent quality. I've seen plenty of cameras with 12x zoom or whatever, but this doesn't really mean much to me! Cheaper is better, but I am willing to shell out for the right camera. As you can probably guess I don't know much about photography so any advice is appeciated! Cheers guys/gals
just remember that the zoom nuber you see on digital cameras is often both digital and optical zoom. digital zoom is prpbably the most useless feature ever, so just look at "optical zoom". (digital zoom just cuts out a piece of a picture and saves it as a picture bigger than it needs to be. it's better to take a picture at high res and cut out a piece and resize it)
yes i agree, defeintely get something with a high optical zoom. As an example i love my camera it has a 10x optical zoom. Camera Makes to look at are from companies like Minolta Pentax Nikon Olympus Kodak (only the higher end ones) Other features to look at are things like battery types wether they use a propetary Li-Ion or just normal "AA" size batteries. If your interested my camera is the Minolta Z1 10x Optical Zoom 2x Digital Zoom basically it's equivalent in zoom rang asa 340MM Telephotolense SD memory Cards 4x "AA" Batteries SLR Style I think it sells new for around $400 something Canadian. Hope this helps.
As u go up in zoom, the quality of the image gets worse, as every lens imperfection is amplified, and the image get darker. If money is no object, get the biggest lens (maximize light gathering capability) u can afford (it will be heavy too), and willing to carry. F3.5 lenses would be good, F2.8 very good, F1.8 excellent$$$.
I'd pick up a Jessops catalogue and short-list a few models out in your price range, then go searching for reviews, opinions or whatever. Then you can start looking for the best deal. Read about zoom ratio here with some sample photos. Add Canon to the above list.
The variable "F rating" is the minimum f/stop your camera can achieve at a specific focal length. When you zoom all the way out, the widest aperture you can obtain is f/2.8. at full zoom (or somewhere in the middle), your widest aperture becomes f/3.5. This is a farily common trait among zoom lenses. if you look staright at a lens, the numbers along the inside edge will tell you the smallest f/stop, as well as the lens diameter (for filter size). If you want to try your hand at wildlife photography, I would recommend something with as small an f/stop as possible, with as much optical zoom as possible. The zoom will help you get up close. The wide-open aperture will help you get faster shutter speeds to catch the animals (as well as give you a nice, blurry background). Hope that helps -monkey
Cheers guys, I don't want to go crazy at first, so I shan't be buying a digital SLR just yet! I think I'll go for something with at least a 10 x Optical zoom though, and get a tripod maybe. I'm thinking ~5 megapixels should do the job.
