I have been photographing birds with DSLR equipment for about 5 years
now. I've probably taken 50,000 shots or more. My skills have
definitely improved, but without upgrades in equipment I know I would
never have gotten my better shots. Sharpness, accurate color, and
adequate resolution (including enough pixels to crop down to the area
that contains that warbler at 50 feet), are all limited by equipment quality.

Before I bought my first DSLR, I had an $800 Konica Minolta and I can
barely stand to look at any of the pictures it produced, except for a
few where the compositional aspects outweigh the technical
deficiencies. Since then, I have had various Canon DSLR's: 30D, 40D,
and now a 5D Mark II. Mostly I've shot with the 100-400mm Canon zoom
lens that is rated well by virtually all bird photographers. As Nate
has mentioned, there are other options in the same price range that
can give slightly sharper photos. But I always return to the 100-400
because of the zoom capability. I do a lot of shooting from a kayak,
so I might be photographing a Great Blue Heron at 12 feet when a
Kingfisher suddenly swoops in at 35 feet. No time to change lenses,
so the 100-400 is a life-saver.

Something to consider when buying a camera for bird photography is
its ability to focus quickly. The Canon 5D Mark II is actually slower
to focus than the 40D, but overall I prefer its superior image
performance and higher pixel count.

Here's a link to a slide show (with audio) of my trip last year to
Costa Rica. Virtually all the photos were taken with the 5D Mark II
and the Canon 100-400 lens. Many also utilized flash, which makes a
huge difference in either very dim light where the light is
inadequate for a fast exposure, or very bright daylight where there
is too much contrast between shadow and light and the flash helps
reduce the difference:

http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/costaRicaSlideShow2010

Marc Hoffman
Kirkland, WA
email: tweeters "at" dartfrogmedia "dot" com

At 03:18 PM 3/13/2010, Nate Chappell, Trogon Tours wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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
><http://www.trogontours.net/galleries>www.trogontours.net/galleries .
>
>If anyone has any equipment related questions feel free to email me
>at
><http://us.mc633.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=nchappell at trogontours.net>nchappell at trogontours.net
>.
>
>Best regards,
>Nate Chappell
>
><http://www.trogontours.net/>www.trogontours.net
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