What is the best camera for a wildlife photography beginner? This is probably the question I get asked most both on my website and my Youtube channel. In this post I will hopefully provide you with an answer, or my answer, but this is certainly how I started as a wildlife photographer. So lets get into it.
The first thing I would say before considering any equipment is that you first need to have a real passion for wildlife, animal welfare, environment and the outdoors. It may surprise you that I include animal welfare and the environment here but for me this is critically important to you becoming the RIGHT type of wildlife photographer. Unfortunately there are some photographers out there for who the shot is the only thing that matters and I see them all the time. The most recent incident was a photographer approaching a red deer stag in Derbyshire during the rut which forced the stag and his females to retreat and edge dangerously close to another huge stag. These males are pumped full of testosterone at this time of the year and actions like this can lead to unnecessay fights between stags or injury to the photographer. Always have this in mind when out taking images ‘The environment and the welfare of your subject always, without exception come first’ Follow this rule and you have taken the first step to becoming a wildlife photographer.
EQUIPMENT
So, what camera do you need as a beginner for wildlife photography? This is my sage advice with regard to equipment. And the first thing to note is that you don’t have to have the flagship wildlife camera from the top brand to be a successful, or even award winning wildlife photographer.
After my experience of shooting for the last twenty years I can honestly say that I have never, to this point owned the latest model from any manufacturer. So, what do you need, well I think my own experience of shooting my ‘So you want to be a Wildlife Photographer’ series on Youtube really holds the answer here.
For this video I got perhaps the cheapest setup I could for a beginner wanting to shoot wildlife photography. The kit I used was a Nikon D3200 and a Tamron 75-300 Lens. Now the total cost for this kit came to about £300 pounds. Now I did manage to get some images with this setup (see left for an example) However, I found this very challenging, and I had to call on all my experience of tracking, field craft etc to make this work.
This made me realise that as a beginner, using this setup you would probably get frustrated very quickly and I suspect it would lead to a very short career as a wildlife photographer.
Now I know what your now thinking. ‘So I do have to fork out for the latest and the best?’ But the answer to this is a very definite NO.
In photography equipment as in most goods you buy there is a sliding scale of cost vs benefit. So lets take another example, and again I will use a real world example from my own experience as a competitive cyclist and triathlete. (Now stick with this because it really does explain the concept!)
If I buy a bike from the local discount store who are having a month special on cycling and cycling equipment. I can pick up a racing bike for £150. This will have a steel frame and steel wheels with heavy tyres and equipment. I race a ten mile time trial on it and it takes me 45 minutes to complete the course. If I decide that I want to upgrade for the following race I go to my local bike store and purchase the box basic racing bike they have in the shop, it costs me £300. This has an allow frame but heavy wheels and poor equipment but an upgrade from the first one. This time I race the ten in 38 minutes. I’m still not satisfield so again I swap the bike, this time I get a good branded bike and it costs me £650 it has an alloy frame alloy wheels and better tyres and equipment. I race the ten and now hit 34 minutes. Still not satisfied I switch to a higher end bike this one costs £2000 but has a carbon fibre frame, alloy wheels and much better equiment such as brakes, gears and saddle. I race the ten again and this time get a time of 32 minutes. I want to go faster so I get an Ineous Team replica bike this costs me a whopping £12000. I race the ten and hit a time of 31 minutes. As you can hopefully see there is a law of deminishing returns and a point where the equipment is only making a tiny difference compared to the outlay. I am going to highlight this bit because it is the most important! The experience you gather by studying animals and birds, fieldcraft and field signs over time will give you much larger improvements in you photography far beyond the most expensive kit.
This is important because it is exactly the same for photography
So, what you need to know is where does that point where the improvement you get from equipment is not worth the outlay. People will have different ideas on this and the answer will aslo vary if you are buying used rather than new, so lets get into it.
THE CAMERA
I have caluclated that a good starting price for the camera is in the range of £500 to £800 pounds, now this is if you buy new (and I hardly ever do!) Used you should look at a range of camera between £300 to £600. A camera that I still use today for my backup camera for wildlife is the Sony A6400 and this is available used from about £550 but I would happily use one of its previous incarnations the Sony A6000 that can be had for under £300. Another of my favourites I have shot very successfully with in the past (see image right) is the Canon 70D and there are loads used for around £250!
THE LENS
Now this is more tricky, firstly because lenses do not tend to drop in value a great deal unlike cameras that get new features every year. Lens optics, if they are good stay good and the number of features andded to lenses are tiny compared to the camera’s they attach to. Buying used here can cut the cost down a bit but don’t expect any huge drops. But what size lens do you need? Well I think that to avoid frustration as you start out you should try and get something 400mm or above. 300mm is a bare minimum but this is a little short (watch my series on Youtube, so you want to be a wildlife photographer, for reference) Unfortunately the 400mm mark is the point at which lenses start to get expensive, so I would recommend going used here. Lenses I have used to good effect in the past are the Canon 100-400 Mk 1 These can be a little erratic with regard to quality (I’ve had three in the past one was rubbish, the second ok, and I wish I still had the third!) See the roe deer images above. I would always get this lens from a used camera kit specialist like MPB as if your not happy with it you can always return it. This lens can be had for around the £550 to £750 price range. Another great lens here coming in loads of different fits is the Sigma 100-400. This is more modern than the old Canon 100-400 Mk1 with more features and comes in around the same price range. There are other options available like some of the older Canon 300mm prime lenses. Yes I know I said at least 400mm but because the lenses are pretty fast with an F4 aperture they can be used with a 1.4 teleconverter to get you that extra reach, however at an extra cost for the teleconverter! These lenses can be purchased for around the £350+ mark but expect to budget £100+ for the used teleconverter.
CONCLUSION
I hope you have found this post useful, if you have please leave me a comment below or if you have a question please ask! I would be confident of getting a very capable first setup for wildlife photography for just under the £1000 mark. With kit at this level you will avoid the frustrations of trying to start where the equipment is holding you back. I would also advise you not to be too distracted by marketing hype on thing like animal eye tracking etc. Yes it’s nice to have but I survived fifteen years shooting by placing the central focus point on the eye of the subject myself, and as a real world example only last week I was laid down in long grass taking pictures of a roe deer laid in long grass and I switched the autofocus off in the end because it just wouldn’t lock on through the waving grass, I manually focused and got the shots!
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