Minggu, 29 Desember 2013

Digital Camera for wildlife photography help?

Q. I am planing a couple trips in the next year. First trip is to go up to Alaska or Canada and I want to try and get some nice Polar Bear and Musk Oxen shots. Then I am going to be going out to Yellowstone to try and photograph wolves and finally I will be taking a trip to Australia and New Zealand and am hoping to get some great landscape and animal shots. But now I have to figure out what is going to be the best camera for me to get. I have a budget of around $3500.

Right now I am looking at the Nikon D 7100, Nikon D 7000, Cannon EOS 7 D, and Sony Alpha SLT-A77.

I am also then figureing on getting either a 300mm or 400mm lens then buying a 2X teleconverter. I'm trying to do all this for $3500 or less I know its going to be tough. Obviously I can not afford the real nice lenses in the 300mm zoom so how much is this going to affect my quality if I get a little bit cheaper lens? My goal is I want to have nice enough pictures to where I could blow them up and hang them up around my house with out the image getting grainy or fuzzy. I'm looking at blowing them up to 24 x 36 and maybe bigger for landscape shots.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for your time.

A. You might get to see these animals, but don't get your hopes up too high. The Nikon D7100 with 18-105mm could be a good choice of camera for most of your shots. A super duper great telephoto to get the kind of shots you are dreaming of will blow your budget. For less ambitious but pretty good shots you could get the Nikon 70-300mm AF-S VR (the good 70-300, not the cheapo). Forget about a 2X teleconverter. The 70-300mm lacks a tripod collar, and it will be front heavy. You will want to bring a tripod. You need to think about what day pack you will carry it in, as the tripod must fit. There are some decent travel tripods. However, the light duty ballhead on some of these may be barely adequate with the 70-300mm. You need to assemble something with a good medium duty 3 way pan head, like maybe the Manfrotto 804RC2 or the Induro PHT2. BTW, if you want to point a panhead higher than about 30 degrees, the trick is to put the quick release plate on backwards.
Which brings us to, when do you expect to do this?
Winter, aurora watching?
You will need serious clothes.
http://www.martingrumet.com/yellowknife01-30-2013-02-2000.jpg
Carry your camera in a padded case with several handwarmer packs. Have an extra charged battery in your pocket. Two layers of glove liners with handwarmer packs inside can probably give you adequate dexterity without freezing your fingers.
Also have a clean, dry cotton handkerchief in the bag to wipe off condensation.
Getting focused in the dark could be a problem. You might be able to lock on autofocus on a distant street light, and switch to manual. Or you could spend more money on an older style AF-D prime lens like a 20mm or 24mm, and be able to dial to infinity in the dark.
For aurora shots set white balance to daylight. Practice with your equipment at home before you go on your trip. Maybe ISO is 800. More gets noisy. Exposure time maybe 20 seconds. More shows star trails. Also the aurora is dynamic, and more exposure makes it look blob like.
http://www.martingrumet.com/yellowknife02-05-2013-01-2000.jpg
http://www.martingrumet.com/yellowknife02-05-2013-02-2000.jpg
About midnight to 2am is often best activity, although not always.


What Canon compact digital camera should I buy -- either A4000 or A2600?
Q. Which should I buy? ...it is between the Canon A4000 IS or A2600?

Technical Benefit Differences of A4000 IS the A2600 lacks I see:
1. More zoom range (8x vs.5x)
2. Optical Image Stabilization/Intelligent Image Stabilization
3. Better Macro Capability (1 cm vs. 3 cm)

Technical Benefit Differences of A2600 the A4000 lacks I see:
1. Longer Battery Life (ECO Mode -- up to 30% more pictures per battery charge)
2. Wider Aperture (f/2.8 vs. f/3.0)
3. Lower Light Exposure Sensitivity in Low Light Mode only (ISO 6400 vs. ISO 1600)
4. Digital Image Stabilization -- Yes, an added feature the A4000 lacks; but greatly inferior to Optical Image Stabilization/Intelligent Image Stabilization

The physical size, dimensions, and weight differences, are very minor to me; both relatively small. Other than these differences above, they are technically the same compact camera. The A2600 is this years (2013) new Canon compact model release -- highest model of the newest of the A-series. The A4000 IS is last years (2012) Canon compact model release -- overall highest still for this years A-series lineup.

This is just an opinion question, but if you could justify your answers as to why YOU would pick one over the other with reason, that would be great! I am stumped. I am torn between these two. Thanks!
Let me add...

If you ask what kind of pictures I generally take, I take all kinds like landscapes, portraits, close-ups, night scenes, action, etc.. Yes, a general use camera.

A. No need to enumerate what you shoot. It is expected for all cameras to do them all anyway.

Judging from those spec differences, I'd go for the A2600. Battery life would be a huge issue and it would be nice to see Canon actually address the shortness of it once and for all. Wider apertures allow for longer shooting pleasure after the sun has gone down. It also helps blur backgrounds more easily for closeup portraits.

Although I personally avoid going higher than ISO 1600, it's good to know there's more in case I really need it. Image stabilization would be great though for making razor sharp shots but it's not really that important as I am confident my hands can still hold on steadily.





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