At 03:05 PM 1/13/99 -0800, sanjer at televar.com wrote:

>Here are a some places to check out. Everything you wanted to know about good
>cameras (Canon)

>http://bobatkins.photo.net/index.html
>http://donb.photo.net/gearheads.html
>http://photo.net/photo/

>> As well as a birder, I love wildlife photography. After getting back
from my
>> trip, I inherited a very old Nikomat from my Grampa.

As the owner of one of those websites, and co-moderator of the Q&A forums
on one of the others, I'll add some comments here specific
to Tyler's situation as a young, beginning photographer with an interest
in wildlife.

First, your camera's fine as long as everything works. Play with the
shutter speed settings, and listen to see if a second exposure sounds
about like a second in length, a 1/2 second twice as fast, etc. This
isn't precise but will give you an idea as to whether stuff's totally
hosed or not.

If you have a manual for the camera (if not, there are places on the
web with copies of old manuals) see what kind of battery it takes
for the meter. It may take an old mercury battery which can no
longer be bought due to environmental concerns over mercury
contamination of landfills, etc.

Second, lens choices. Try to find out when the next swap meet is
in town, and scour for an old, manual focus, 400/5.6 lens of some
variety in Nikon mount. Check to make sure the aperture closes
down correctly (play with the back of whatever lens you have now
to see how the mechanism works). Really old 400/5.6 lenses aren't
very good optically by today's standards, and because of this can
be picked up for $100-$150 or so if you look long and hard and don't
mind dings and scratches on the lens barrel, etc (don't buy a
lens with serious scratches on the glass, little scratches are
OK if there are only a couple).

This is perfectly adequate for learning the basics. You'll quickly
find out that 400/5.6 is only adequate for shooting around bird
feeders and places where ducks and similar birds are used to people
being around, but you can learn everything you need to learn about
how to photograph birds with such a simple setup. You won't be
able to make high-quality photographs of every bird species you
might be interested in photographing, but what you really need to
do is to learn as much about photography, and secondly photographing
birds, and it doesn't matter if the species you shoot is a house
sparrow or rustic bunting, you'll learn as much either way.

If your interest in wildlife photography continues, then you can
give consideration to saving the money necessary to afford newer
equipment.


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net