Subject: [Tweeters] re: camera equipment
Date: Mar 13 14:18:14 2010
From: Nate Chappell, Trogon Tours - nchappell at trogontours.net






Hi everyone,
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I follow tweeters threads regularly but this is my first post here.? Some?of this may have been covered in previous?posts but?I do a lot of bird photography (I lead bird photo tours and workshops) so I thought I would give?some of my thoughts on camera equipment. I use Canon and am familiar with all of their larger lenses as well as being somehwhat familiar with the Nikon and other brands available.? Canon's 300F4 and 1.4 teleconverter are?an excellent option and a bit cheaper than the Nikon version -which is also excellent. You can purchase the Canon 300F4 lens and teleconverter for about $1,600 and they produce sharp images.? My wife uses this combination and is quite happy with it.? The Canon 100-400 zoom is also a good option and costs roughly the same.? It's not quite as sharp as the 300mm combined with the 1.4 however.? The main advantage is the zoom ability, this may be important to people who also want to do some landscape work and/or
photograph larger mammals.?
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If you don't want to spend too much on a camera body the Canon Rebel XSI is a good option for Canon, it can be had for about $500.? Another good option would be to buy a used or refurbished Canon?40D.? This camera performs better in lower light than it's successor the 50D which has more megapixels but isn't a very good performer in low light.?? So a good birding option that produces high quality images would be a used 40D or new Rebel XSi?with the 300F4 and a 1.4 teleconverter for a total of about $2,200.? It's lightweight enough to be handholdable for most people as well.? I personally use a Canon 1DMkIII and 500mmF4 lens which have a combined price of about $10K.?This equipment can also be handheld with some practice but it's much?heavier.? I?have just purchased a 7D which from everything I've read is quite a step up from the 40 and 50D's but also costs about $700 more at $1,600.
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As far as off brand lenses for bird photography if you are interested in getting high quality images the only brand I would really recommend is Sigma which has some nice offerings.
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If anyone would like to take a look at some of my images I have galleries from all over the world and here in the Northwest at www.trogontours.net/galleries .?
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If anyone has any equipment related questions feel free to email me at nchappell at trogontours.net .
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Best regards,
Nate Chappell

www.trogontours.net