Beginner Camera for Wildlife Photography

Any camera that takes decent pictures at that distance isn’t anywhere close to your price point.
I’d look at some sort or camera scope combination to get away cheaper.
Quality pictures and distance cost crazy money in the photography world.

I got the Nikon p950 at the beginning of the season and love it. Have enjoyed taking pics almost as much as killing

It's all in the lens, but don't use telephotos and don't buy aftermarket. Use a tri/monopod for any focal length over 90mm for better stability.

This is a cool little gadget to have, too.



ETA: NVM. It seems that everything is telephoto these days.

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The camera body doesn’t matter as much as the lens.

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This. The issue with wildlife photography isn't the body, but the lenses. The problem becomes light gathering ability (aperture).

Remember the exposure triangle.



Optimally, what you want for wildlife photos is as fast a shutter speeds as you can get away with. As everyone here knows, animals like to move around, a lot. Under extreme magnification, they have little motions that can cause blurriness in the exposure. That means you have to do 1 or 2 (or both) things. You have to open your aperture to it's maximum diameter (smaller numbers) and/or increase your ISO.

Remember that everything is photography is a trade-off. The lens above has what's called a variable aperture. Since aperture is a calculation between the aperture diameter and lens focal length as the focal length of the lens changes so does the aperture.

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The problem with going with super high ISO's is that whenever you increase ISO, you introduce "noise" or "grain" into the photos. What is understood among most wildlife photographers, is that the images put out for public consumption are often highly cropped. So your lens will get you 65-75% of the framing you want, and you crop in the rest of the way. It's just the nature of the business. But when you crop in that far, noise that was unnoticeable at full frame, becomes much more noticeable. There are tricks in PS and other editing software to reduce noise, but it's not a cure all (and oftentimes those fixes are noticeable to those who know what they are looking for.)

To make matters worse, most (serious) wildlife photographers often stack a 1.5 or 2x teleconverter on their lens system. And guess what, that further decreases your aperture. A 2x teleconverter will double your lens' focal length, but will also decease the aperture by the same amount. That is, a f/2.8 lens becomes a f/5.6 lens. The f/5.6 lens above would become a f/11.2 lens, and unless it's SUPER bright outside, that's not a practical solution.

ETA: I forgot to mention that the rule of thumb for not needing a tripods is your shutter speed should be faster than your focal length. ie: At 200mm your shutter speed should be faster than 1/200 second (preferably 2x that fast).

FWIW, I've done a little wildlife work, but it wasn't really my bag. I know enough about it to be dangerous. I've included is exif info so you can see how each photo was composed...


200mm, ƒ/2.8, 1/1600s, ISO 200


300mm, f/6.3, 1/320 sec, ISO 640


400 mm, f/5.6, 1/500 sec, iso 250


200 mm, f/10, 1/160 sec, ISO 400

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I’d like to take pics 75-100 yards away and would like it to be very “automated” with the settings (I don’t want to have to adjust a lot of things- point, zoom in and click).

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Not gonna work with wildlife

You will need to adjust shutter speed for motion, so understand the basics of exposure

You can get good photos on auto, just not great.

Unless you are just dead set on getting a dslr, I'd consider this:

amazon link


I started out with a much older cool pix, and if you want some serious zoom, these are great. And you don't have to lug around and change out lenses.

I personally use an old rebel T3I with a low-end 75-300 mm lens, and it works for me, but I am not trying to win any awards. I am actually in the market to get something new, so this is a good reference thread.

Some pics I've taken with my t3i:













and some from my old coolpix










This is a wildlife photo thread I made last year if you are interested.


https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/outdoor/wildlife-photo-thread-photos-that-youve-taken/107082249/

Starting new, I would be buying mirrorless.