Scott Bourne, a local pro bird photographer has lots to say on this subject. Check him out at scottbourne.com. He uses Nikon for still photography and Canon 7D for video. He has a really great video of a borrowing owl that you can find on his site, the 7D is pretty amazing in the right hands.

Ted Ryan
Fredrickson, WA

On Sep 1, 2010, at 11:52 PM, John Puschock <g_g_allin at hotmail.com> wrote:

> >I am trying to figure which
> >direction to go with two questions: Canon vs.
> >Nikon and also which "level" of quality (and size
> >and expense). I have been comparing the Nikon
> >D300S and the Canon 7D and then the Nikon D90 and
> >the Canon T2i.
>
> Howdy,
>
> As others have said, any of the options you mentioned are quality cameras. Most birders (and, as John Tubbs points out, sports photographers) use Canon, but this is probably due to Canon historically having a larger and often less expensive selection of telephoto lenses, plus they seemed to be ahead of Nikon five to ten years ago (leading to the legacy share that John Tubbs mentioned). But recently Nikon cameras are largely regarded as having better image quality compared to Canons at similar price points.
>
> You should definitely take a look at the lenses available for each brand when considering which camera to buy. A high-quality telephoto costs at least as much as you're paying for the camera. Many birders (and I'm using that term to mean those who are secondarily concerned with getting a great photo, those who have the camera hanging from their shoulder while the tripod has a scope, etc.; I realize that there's a continuum of interests and I'm not saying either "birder" or "photographer" pejoratively) with Canon equipment use a Rebel with the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L zoom (its price seems to have gone up a couple hundred bucks in the past few years, now similar in price to the Nikon 80-400mm). A few, including myself, have the 400 f/5.6L, some use the 300 f/4L with a 1.4x telextender, and I've seen only two hand-holding the 500 f/4L. Most "photographers" will be sporting a 500 f/4L or better on a tripod. I'm bringing up this distinction to point out that it's difficult to do birding and pro-level bird photography at the same time. (I don't know Nikon equipment well enough to comment on what's being used.)
>
> I bought a Canon 7D about 8 months ago because my 30D was starting to malfunction, and I began a review of it on my blog, though I haven't finished that project yet. The camera has taken a beating online because Canon crammed a lot of (too many?) pixels on the sensor, leading to claims that images will have too much noise. Image quality probably would have been better with fewer, larger pixels, but I'm largely pleased with the noise. It has a film grain quality to it and is definitely better than the 30D. HOWEVER, I do have problems with bright areas being overexposed (blown out), which never happened with the 30D, and this is probably attributable to the camera having a smaller dynamic range due to the small pixel size. That's my biggest beef with it. Another problem I've encountered is that the mode dial is easily moved, with the end result being incorrectly exposed photos. I'm also not completely sold on the accuracy of the autofocus, but I haven't yet figured out if the problem is the camera or me, hence the incomplete blog review. With that said, it's still a very nice camera....Well, I'm sure I've already gone way past what will be interesting to the general Tweeters subscriber. Feel free to contact me privately for more opinions about the 7D.
>
> John Puschock
> Wedgwood, Seattle
> g_g_allin at hotmail.com
> http://www.zbirdtours.com
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