I am often asked what equipment is needed for bird photography. This is a difficult question to answer because it depends on so many factors:
what birds you want to photograph (rarities, common birds, captive birds, etc.)
what you want from your photos (record shots, photos for web publishing, photos you can sell, etc.)
what you're physically able to lug around and use (some high-end gear is very heavy and unwieldy)
how much you have to spend.
For this tutorial, I'll start by describing the choices I made, the reasons for these and the lessons I learned, and then make some recommendations for anyone just starting out now. If you want to skip the details of my experience and lessons, you can just go straight to my detailed recommendations. If you're even more impatient, you can jump to the brief summary in my conclusions.
Firstly, though, I should say that although equipment is important, it's only one of many factors involved in producing good bird images, so don't get too hung up on this. (If you're anything like me, I'm sure you'll ignore this advice!)
As part of my general interest in photography, I've had a variety of film cameras for over thirty years, from basic compacts up to SLR (Single Lens Reflex camera) outfits. Since my other main interest was in birds, I tried on numerous occasions to capture their beauty and variety on both print and slide film. I failed miserably and, due to the prohibitive cost of the film itself, plus the almost total absence of feedback (waiting a week to see the results), I just didn't make any progress on improving my abilities. Thankfully, film is now a thing of the past in bird photography.
Lesson: Forget film!
I finally managed to get hold of a decent compact digital camera (a Nikon Coolpix 4300) in 2003, mainly for taking family photos. I later heard about the technique of using cameras like this to take photos through spotting scopes, i.e. digiscoping, and got very excited at the opportunity to combine my interests in birds and photography once more.
I spent a few months fiddling with different settings and making minor improvements, but realized I'd need to invest quite a bit more to get any worthwhile results: better scope, better tripod and better camera (with adapter, cable release and other bits of kit).
At the same time, I was reading widely about bird photography and looking at the photos being posted to websites such as BirdGuides. This really got me hooked and I realized that I was getting more of a buzz looking at high-quality images of even common birds than distant shots of rarities. Given my limited budget, I knew I had to decide between upgrading my digiscoping kit and investing in the Digital SLR (DSLR) route.
The deciding factor for me was a day spent trying to photograph a Red-throated Diver in late 2004. On a small country park lake, this bird was surfacing anywhere from 20 to 200 feet away but, try as I might, every time I got my scope and camera set up on the bird, it submerged again. At that rate, I could have spent a week there without a single worthwhile image. I felt as though my equipment was working against me, not with me, and that taking the digiscoping route would have me battling against something that wasn't meant to be. That same evening, I ordered a DSLR with the longest lens I could afford.
Lesson: Understand the type of photos you want to take and then choose the technique accordingly. I know only one photographer who has mastered both Digiscoping and DSLR bird photography, so you should concentrate on just one of these techniques.
At the time, the entry-level DSLR getting the best reviews was the Nikon D70. Having bought this (body only), my budget had virtually gone and I could only afford an £89 Nikon 70-300mm G zoom lens. It didn't matter: I was in heaven, blasting away at every bird I clapped eyes on, then transferring the images to my computer and learning how to get the most out of them with an early version of Photoshop.
Over the following few months, though, I came up against three problems. I'd expected the first two: the quality of the lens was poor and, at only 300mm, I was struggling to get big enough images of the birds, especially smaller and shyer birds. The third problem was more of a surprise: the light levels through the British winter drop so much that bird photography becomes very difficult. If you open your lens to the maximum aperture, you get the poorest quality; if you turn up your ISO sensitivity, you get too much digital noise; if you choose a longer shutter speed, you get blur due to 'camera shake' and subject movement. I felt as though I would have to hang up my camera for six months of every year.
Lesson: Getting hold of any DSLR gear will help you to find out whether bird photography pushes your buttons. If it doesn't, you can either use your DSLR for general photography or sell it without much of a loss. If it does, you will learn very rapidly what works and what doesn't, and will have a lot of fun in the process.
To overcome the three limiting factors, I'd identified a solution. If I could afford Nikon's (£1000+) 80-400mm VR lens, the Vibration Reduction technology would enable me to shoot at lower shutter speeds and the improved optical quality would let me shoot at wide aperture, so I wouldn't need to raise the ISO sensitivity. Also, the longer focal length of 400mm would increase the size of the birds in my images.
By the end of the year, I'd sold some stuff and agreed with my family that I could pool the year's Christmas, Birthday and Father's Day presents and splash out on the VR lens.
Once again, I was making progress and having fun. I finally felt as though I had some photos worth sharing. I started uploading images to BirdGuides and set up my own website. People even started buying photos from me, which came as a great surprise. At this point, I had everything I needed to build up a perfectly good collection of bird images.
Unfortunately, my obsessive nature being what it is, I started looking at what would be the ultimate gear for bird photography. I noticed that the leading photographers seemed to be using the Image Stabilized (IS) 500mm or 600mm lenses made by Canon. Not only did these have greater magnification, but their wide (f/4) apertures and superb optics meant they could use teleconverters to gain even more 'reach', whilst still making it possible to shoot hand-held.
I'd tried using a 1.4x teleconverter with my Nikon zoom lens, but the loss of image quality and autofocus speed/accuracy was just too great.
At this point, I realized that Nikon didn't have a longer lens with VR/IS technology, even though their 500mm and 600mm lenses cost more than the Canon equivalents. At the time, I couldn't afford any of these lenses anyway but, a year or so later, I had an unexpected bonus that meant I could finally order one of the ultimate bird photography lenses.
My research suggested that a 500mm lens would be on the limit of what I could hand-hold, so my preference was to go for one of these, rather than the 600mm. Since there was no prospect of Nikon launching a VR version of their 500mm lens (I asked them), I bit the bullet and switched to Canon. In April 2006, I bought a 30D body and 500mm lens, plus 1.4x and 2x extenders, costing a total of £5500.
Lessons: If it's something you really want to do, it's surprising how you can find ways to make it happen. If you really get hooked, you could end up being prepared to spend vastly more than you planned, so don't ignore your upgrade path. Contrary to what camera magazines would have you believe, you should select your equipment based on the entire system, especially the lenses, not the camera bodies. In fact, camera bodies change every year, whereas the key lenses change only every decade or so.
Equipment I've used for bird photography: Nikon D70 with 80-400mm zoom lens (bottom), which I upgraded to the Canon 30D with 500mm f/4 IS lens with 1.4x converter (top). I now also use a Canon 40D and 300mm f/4 IS lens.
Having spent such a huge amount of money on my gear, I then spent a month losing sleep wondering what I'd been thinking of. I also became aware of some of the difficulties involved in using this gear:
previously, I'd take my camera everywhere 'just in case', but with something of this size and weight, I just couldn't any more
it attracts a lot of attention, which can cause problems and can limit the places you'd want to use it
the inability to focus closer than around four metres causes lost opportunities and the diameter of the lens means it can be very difficult (and sometimes impossible) to use through a hide window
the high magnification can make it difficult to locate and track your subject, especially for flight shots, and can emphasize atmospheric conditions, such as heat haze.
Gradually, though, I realized that the results I'd been getting were greatly improved and that many of the birds I was photographing would have been beyond the range of my previous gear. Importantly, I found that the extra reach meant that I could photograph birds from outside their 'circle of fear'. Previously, a typical situation would be that I'd see a bird and start moving closer to it, but not so close that it would be disturbed by my presence. In most cases, this would be too far away to get a decent-sized image of the bird. With the new gear, though, I was able to take shots of the bird happily preening, feeding and generally behaving naturally, which makes for much better photographs.
I found that I could use the 1.4x teleconverter to turn my 500mm lens into a 700mm lens, whilst retaining good image quality and autofocus/IS operation. With the 2x converter, though, I lost autofocus operation, so have never used it. [Note that, since the beginning of 2009, I have been trying not to use teleconverters at all to make sure I'm getting the best possible image quality out of my lenses.]
Incidentally, I also found I needed a backpack to carry around my gear. The only one I could find that would take my camera body plus lens and converter was the Lowepro Lens Trekker 600AW. Although I do have to remove the lens hood to fit this in, it works very well and even makes it possible for me to go out on my mountain bike with it on my back, giving me even greater mobility. The Mark II version of this backpack currently available is taller, and so can fit the lens without removing the hood.
One of the key steps forward I took at the point when I bought my Canon gear was to start shooting in RAW format and using the bundled Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software to convert images to TIFF format before final processing in Photoshop. This gives a major boost to control and flexibility during processing. I also started to use the NeatImage tool to reduce the amount of digital noise in my processed images. One of the things I didn't anticipate was the amount of time I'd spend on learning how to use image processing tools effectively.
Lessons: You don't need a pro supertelephoto lens to photograph birds but, if you can afford one, these do have major advantages that outweigh their drawbacks. You can have a lot of fun using the cheapest of DSLR gear and can take high-quality photos with mid-range gear. In the end, though, having even the best equipment will not make you a good bird photographer any more than having a good set of paintbrushes would make you a good artist!
In truth, I haven't felt any great need to buy more equipment since my big blowout in early 2006. I've bought three significant equipment items since then, but these were in no way essential and haven't really made much difference to my bird photography.
In February 2008, I upgraded my camera body from a Canon 30D to a 40D to get improvements in a number of areas (higher resolution sensor, better high-ISO noise performance, improved autofocus accuracy and a bigger LCD screen), even though I knew each of these would be only slight improvements. I toyed with the idea of buying a Canon 1D Mk III body, which would give even better noise and autofocus performance, plus better handling of tonal detail, but I felt it was too expensive for a 10-megapixel body, so I decided to wait a while before upgrading.
In June 2008, I bought a Canon 300mm f/4 IS lens, for two reasons: firstly, it's greater portability would mean I could take it with me more of the time and use it more easily from hides; second, with a minimum focal distance of 1.5m, it would be better for close-up work. It could also deliver pretty good results with a 1.4x teleconverter attached. In practice, I've had very little use out of this lens. There's nothing wrong with the lens at all and, in many situations, it would deliver images that few people would know weren't taken with my 500mm lens. However, I always want to know that I'm getting the best possible results in any given situation, so tend to use the 500mm wherever possible.
In July 2009, I bought a Gitzo 3541LS Systematic Studex tripod and Wimberley Mk II gimbal head. I still prefer the mobility of purely hand-held shooting, but there are situations where it's better to have solid, maneouvrable support for your gear, especially where it would be beneficial to keep your camera pointed at a bird for longer than your muscles will allow (e.g. waiting for a bird to take flight). In fact, I've barely used the tripod since I bought it, so I'm still not convinced about its value. The jury's still out on this one!
Lesson: As with most product purchases in life, there are advantages to spending more than the minimum, but there comes a point at which further spending doesn't really gain you very much. Personally, I'm quite relieved about this!
Looking to the future, there are a couple of major purchases I would consider to help me increase my success rate with flight shots. The first of these is a camera body with a better autofocus capability: compared with Canon's 1D Series pro bodies, the 40D struggles to acquire and track flying birds, especially against 'busy' backgrounds. Also, the 500mm lens can be quite cumbersome for flight shooting compared with, for example, the Canon 300mm f/2.8 lens. However, with new camera launches and over-inflated prices at present, I'm happy to wait a while for these.
Lesson: No matter how much equipment you get, there will always be other goodies to tempt you so, at some point, you just need to switch your attention from your equipment to your images!
Based on my personal experience and keeping in touch with equipment reviews, my recommendations for people just starting out are as follows. I've specified the time of writing here because products - especially camera bodies - are replaced frequently, and prices change every month.
Until you know that bird photography is something you'll take to, start with some reasonably priced gear that you can upgrade or sell later.
Although Nikon has recently brought out VR (Vibration Reduction) versions of its long lenses, I still believe the Canon system provides the best upgrade path for bird photographers, and is the system used by the vast majority of serious bird photographers.
Canon's best entry-level DSLR at the moment is the 500D, which you can buy new for around £500 body only. If you can afford more than that, you are better putting the extra money into your lens, rather than a higher-spec body. Similarly, buy the camera in body-only form, rather than as a kit, so you can put the extra money into a better lens, and don't be tempted by any other gear at this stage.
If the camera body has used up most of your starter kit budget, you'll find there are a range of zoom lenses that go up to 300mm focal length from around £100. Have a look at the ones from Canon, Sigma and Tamron: they're not great lenses, but they'll give you a good taste of what's involved. Avoid anything with less than a 300mm maximum focal length.
If your budget allows, the cheapest really sharp lens is the Canon 400mm f/5.6 at around £1100. There are several zoom lenses that go up to 400mm or 500mm at just below this price point, but these would be inferior optically. If you can't resist buying one of these lenses, I would suggest you opt for the £700 Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 OS lens, mainly because I've seen a fair number of decent images taken with this lens and at least it's significantly cheaper than the Canon 400mm f/5.6. Definitely avoid the £1080 Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3 lens, which costs around the same as the Canon 400mm f/5.6 and is heavier and bulkier, with greatly inferior optics.
Many people can't resist going for the £1290 Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS zoom, rather than the 400mm f/5.6, because of the perceived flexibility of the variable focal length and the attraction of image stabilisation. However, in practice, you'd use this lens at the 400mm setting virtually all the time and the IS facility is only a benefit in certain types of low-light shooting. The greatly superior optics and focusing speed of the 400mm f/5.6 would definitely give you a better collection of bird images in practice.
Finally, it's a similar story with the £1110 Canon 300mm f/4 IS lens. This is a fairly sharp lens which can be converted to a 420mm f/5.6 by the addition of a 1.4x converter, whilst retaining image stabilisation and autofocus functions. With the converter, however, it will not be anywhere near as sharp as the 400mm f/5.6 lens and, without it, the 300mm focal length will leave you struggling for reach on any birds you can't approach very closely.
Make no mistake, if you're spending around £1100 on a bird photography lens and you don't buy the Canon 400mm f/5.6, you will regret it!
The prices listed above are from reputable UK-based mail order companies. Prices in high-street camera shops would normally be higher, although some will do price matching.
If these prices are too high for your budget, it is possible to buy similar equipment, either new or used, at considerably lower prices, e.g. on eBay. A used DSLR plus lens can be purchased for as little as £200, albeit with some degree of risk.
If this is still above your budget, the best thing I could recommend would be to pick up a cheap digital compact for anything from £50 upwards and just have a go at photographing birds that you can get close to, such as wildfowl at your local lake or captive birds. This can still be fun and will certainly make you appreciate it if you later manage to upgrade to a DSLR outfit. If you have a spotting scope, you can, of course, use any digital compact (or even a camera phone) to have a go at digiscoping.
If you've practised with equipment like the ideal starter kit above and are now looking for an upgrade, you'll soon realize that there is a big gulf in the available lenses of at least 400mm focal length, stretching from the £1000 level right up to £5500 or more. This gulf is incredibly frustrating for many bird photographers, who are forced to stick with their £1000 lenses until or unless they can afford to spend a huge amount of money on a Pro lens.
There are two lenses that sit in this gulf, albeit at the upper end. The first is the £3850 Sigma 500mm f/4.5 lens. This is not a great lens and represents poor value for money. The other is the Sigma 800mm f/5.6 lens, which is extremely big and heavy, with no image stabilisation. Even though this lens can currently be picked up at a reduced price of around £4000, it is hard to recommend unless you're happy to be limited to non-mobile, tripod-based photography.
If you are able to spend over £5000, your options are as follows (all have superb optical quality):
Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6 (£5700): Extremely big and heavy, with no image stabilization - not recommended
Canon 800mm f/5.6 (£10,200): Huge price tag and limited flexibility, but lighter than 600mm
Canon 600mm f/4 (£7300): Expensive with limited portability, but excellent for tripod use
Canon 400mm f/2.8 (£6700): Big, heavy and expensive, and only modest focal length
Canon 400mm f/4 (£5600): Good portability, but costs more than the 500mm, which has significantly greater reach
Canon 500mm f/4 (£5500): Felt by many bird photographers to be the best compromise between reach and portability.
If you're lucky enough to be able to buy any of the Canon Pro lenses, the £290 1.4x teleconverter (extender) is a useful addition. The f/2.8 models can also take the 2x extender without loss of autofocus, although with significant loss of image quality. If you have a high-spec. camera body, you may be able to get autofocus with the 2x extender on f/4 lenses, although this may be limited (e.g. to the centre AF point only and with reduced focusing speed).
Although not in the 400mm-or-longer category, there is another lens that warrants special mention. The £3800 Canon 300mm f/2.8 lens is one of the sharpest, fastest-focusing lenses in the world. This makes it an ideal lens for flight shots and it works very well with a 1.4x teleconverter. This lens will also work with a 2x teleconverter, making a 600mm f/5.6 lens that still autofocuses, but don't expect quality on a par with a prime lens of similar focal length.
In terms of camera bodies, the £700 Canon 50D is a worthwhile upgrade from the entry-level models, especially in the areas of build quality, autofocus capability and continuous shooting speed.
At the next price level up, the £1240 Canon 7D has further improvements in build quality and shooting speed, although the level of digital noise isn't great and careful setup is required to get good autofocus performance. On the whole, though, it's a very competent all-round camera for bird photography.
Most bird photographers ignore the bodies with full-frame sensors (currently the £1700 5D Mk II and £5000 1Ds Mk III) because they don't have the effective magnification increase resulting from bodies with smaller sensors and are also relatively expensive. These cameras tend to be aimed at landscape or studio/commercial photographers and so don't have the fast shooting speeds associated with action photography (e.g. sports or wildlife).
That brings us to the '1D' series of camera bodies, which are very much aimed at action photography professionals. An earlier model from this series - the 1D Mk IIN - established itself as the ideal camera for bird photography, especially flight photography, due to its superb autofocus capability and shooting speed. An intermediate-size sensor with a 1.3x 'crop factor' provided a good compromise between magnification and image quality. Its replacement, the 1D Mk III, was an improvement in most respects, but has been plagued by autofocus problems. The 1D Mk III is now an outgoing model and, at £2700 for a 10-megapixel camera, still seems expensive (especially since its replacement is now coming down in price).
The 16-megapixel Canon 1D Mk IV was launched in December 2009 with a price of £4500. This has now dropped to around £3900 and is likely to drop further over the coming months. After its predecessor's autofocus problems, the 1D Mk IV's AF system was completely redesigned. However, the jury is still out on whether this has been successful, with early reports being quite mixed. The main advantages of the new model are its improved resolution and high-ISO image quality, a combination that enables it to capture images in situations that would defeat other cameras.
So, the best all-round camera body for bird photography at present is the Canon 1D Mk IV, and falling prices are making this better value all the time. However, there may be advantages to waiting for further price reductions and more conclusive autofocus testing.
Another question I'm sometimes asked is whether flash can be used to overcome the problems of low light in bird photography. In general, I think the answer to this is 'no'. Flash units, especially with a beam focuser, can be used to provide a 'lift' to poorly lit shots, but only at a lower intensity than the ambient light, otherwise the images have an ugly, unnatural look. It is possible, under controlled conditions, to simulate daylight through complex, multi-flash setups, but this is not something to tackle until you are able to take good photos under natural lighting conditions.
You don't need special computer equipment to process bird images. I've only just replaced my six-year-old PC and even older 19" CRT monitor, which were used to process almost all of my published images. Current budget desktop packages, which you can buy for around £300, are perfectly adequate for the job, as are any current models from the Apple Mac range.
I strongly recommend that you get a broadband Internet connection so that you can make the most of the Internet as a learning resource and publishing mechanism.
I also recommend that you take regular backups of your work, for which I use a combination of DVDs and Western Digital external hard drives. For under £100, you can now buy a 1-Terabyte hard drive that just plugs into your PC's USB socket. This would probably hold all your images for the foreseeable future. I back up my images to at least two external hard drives in case one fails.
I've found the most valuable PC component is a decent monitor with a good range of adjustments. To get accurate colours, I use a £140 Monaco monitor calibrator, but this does need you to be able to change the monitor's colour and other settings. I now use a LaCie 324 monitor, which I rate very highly.
For image editing, I use a graphics tablet. This is not essential but, if you're doing a lot of selective editing in Photoshop, the £220 Wacom Intuos3 A5 tablet is excellent.
Eventually, you'll want to use the latest version of Adobe Photoshop for image editing. This costs a few hundred pounds but, fortunately, a cut-down version - Photoshop Elements - is available for £70 or less to get you started. Importantly, this works the same way as the full version, so upgrading is a relatively easy process.
To start with, I recommend you use as few software tools as possible. Each one of these takes a lot of time to learn, so you need to keep things as simple as possible.
I strongly recommend that you shoot in RAW format, in which case you will need to convert your images to TIFF or JPEG format before processing them in Photoshop. For this conversion, I use the Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP) software that comes free with Canon DSLRs, but you can alternatively do this in Photoshop itself, or in other independent RAW conversion tools.
For noise reduction, I use the NeatImage Pro+ tool (which integrates with Photoshop and costs around £50) but, again, you can alternatively do this in Photoshop itself. Once you've familiarized yourself with your image-editing software, you'll develop a 'workflow' for processing your images: cropping, resizing, adjusting brightness, sharpening, etc. This can be very basic to start with, but can be optimised later to give better results and faster operation.
I recommend getting as much help as you can to learn about image processing. I learnt this the hard way, but could have saved a huge amount of time by getting someone to teach me. Contact me if you're interested in getting some help with image processing.
If you want to print your images, you can get fantastic results from some of the current A4 or A3 inkjet printers from the likes of Canon and Epson (I now use a Canon printer because I've had print head clogging problems with Epson models). Avoid the cheapest printer models, because these are false economy in the long run: go for a photo-optimised printer with at least eight inks for best results.
Make sure you use the manufacturers' own inks and the best possible photo paper and, after a bit of experimentation, you will be getting great prints that will last for decades.
To briefly summarise my equipment recommendations and preferred products:
Ideal starter kit is a Canon 500D body (£500) plus Canon 400mm f/5.6 lens (£1120).
If that's over your budget, look for used equipment on eBay, e.g. Canon 350D body with 70-300mm lens (£250 in total).
If that's still over your budget, practice with anything you can get your hands on (e.g. any compact digital camera), shooting through your spotting scope if you have one.
A good upgrade from the ideal starter kit is a Canon 50D body (£700) plus Canon 300mm f/2.8 IS lens (£3800) with 1.4x and 2x extenders (£290 each).
Even better is a Canon 7D body (£1240) or Canon 1D Mk III body (£2700) plus 500mm f/4 IS lens (£5500) with the 1.4x extender (£290).
The new Canon 1D Mk IV (£3900) has further advantages, but is still very expensive and not yet fully proven.
If you want to go really silly, you can go for the Canon 1Ds Mk III (£5200) plus 600mm f/4 IS lens (£7300) or 800mm f/5.6 IS lens (£10,20), but I wouldn't recommend these options unless you really know what you're letting yourself in for. In my opinion, the downsides of these items outweigh any benefits they may appear to have on paper.
You've probably realised by now that bird photography can be an expensive activity.
There are some plus points, though:
it is possible to start small and build up if you get hooked
digital cameras save you a fortune in film and processing costs compared with cameras of the past and can also be used to take great general photos, such as family and holiday shots
you may already have a suitable computer and printer and, if you don't, buying these will enable you to use them for other purposes
if you build up a good collection of images, you can start to publish and sell them, which can give you a real buzz; if you reach a certain level, your hobby will pay for itself and can even give you an income
wherever you take your bird photography, you will almost certainly get a huge amount of enjoyment and satisfaction from it.
Whatever camera gear you can get your hands on, give it a go! You'll never know how much fun it can be until you try it.
If you're interested in getting some assistance with your bird photography, contact me. I'd be happy to give advice or to sign you up for one of my Bird Photography Workshops.