topic Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos in General Discussion

What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

ws — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 02:31:14 GMT

I like to go birding and found it enjoyable using my sons Canon 5T, some pics were good and others I needed sharper resolution. Would an EOS 70 D be marked improvement? Is this model restricted to specific lenses, so if are there restrictions to the lenses it can use?

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

jrhoffman75 — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 02:53:56 GMT

Birds in flight or stationary? What lens were you using?

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

ws — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 03:14:04 GMT

Both! I got some decent picks of a black phoebe and an Anna's Humming Bird in mid flight using the sports or action setting. It was a 300mm zoom that comes in the kit he bought at COSTCO for this model.

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

jrhoffman75 — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 03:32:54 GMT

I would guess your lens is the limiting factor. A faster lens (lower f/stop number) will let you use a faster shutter speed to stop action. Are your "unsharp" images motion blur or image quality?

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

ws — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 04:24:17 GMT

Ya the lens is pretty low end. It struggled a bit in shady conditions and the wing bluer was a bit much. The EOS 70 D comes with a 250mm lens versus the 300mm on my sons. Would the 250mm lens work better because of a more sensitive ISO range?The ISO ranges from something like 100-12000 where the one on my son's ranges from 100-600.
Thanks

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

jrhoffman75 — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 13:20:44 GMT

Birds in flight is very challenging. The higher level camera you have the higher your success rate. If it fits your budget the 70D is a better choice.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/cameras/canon/70d/vs/canon/t5/

At www.the-digital-picture.com you can peruse lens reviews.

Another option, slightly less expensive than the 70D is the new T6s.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/cameras/canon/70d/vs/canon/t6s/

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

TTMartin — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 16:06:26 GMT

@ws wrote:
Ya the lens is pretty low end. It struggled a bit in shady conditions and the wing bluer was a bit much. The EOS 70 D comes with a 250mm lens versus the 300mm on my sons. Would the 250mm lens work better because of a more sensitive ISO range?The ISO ranges from something like 100-12000 where the one on my son's ranges from 100-600.
Thanks

The reasons to go with the 70D over a Rebel like your son's T5 is a better AF system, more frames take per second, and a larger buffer so you can take more pictures in a row.

I would choose the EF-S 55-250 IS STM over the EF 75-300 lens that it is likely that your son has. The STM lens will have better image quality, and also image stabilization (IS) which does help with birds not in flight.

Figure either of those lenses will be 'starter' lenses, and if you really get into birding you will eventually move up to the EF 100-400 L IS II or one of the 3rd party 150-500/600mm lenses.

To answer your original question the 70D can use all the same lenses as the T5 which includes all EF and EF-S lenses and compatible 3rd party lenses. Both the lenses you've asked about have the same maximum aperture of f/5.6 so ISOs will be similar. I believe the 70D has better high ISO performance than the T5 so coupled with the better image quality of the STM lens you should be able to crop a little further than you could with your son's setup.

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

ws — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 16:15:03 GMT

Thanks for the help. Think I'm going to start with 70 D at this point. What site or store seems to have the better prices?

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

jrhoffman75 — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 16:17:59 GMT

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=canon+70d+price+comparison&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

TTMartin — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 17:09:47 GMT

@ws wrote:
Thanks for the help. Think I'm going to start with 70 D at this point. What site or store seems to have the better prices?

Consider a refurbished camera from Canon Direct.

EOS 70D EF-S 18-135mm IS STM Lens Kit

Same 1 year warrenty as new!

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

TTMartin — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 17:15:48 GMT

EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS STM Refurbished

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

TCampbell — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 19:35:55 GMT

For birds-in-flight, a camera with a fast continuous burst speed and a good buffer size will help.

A 70D would be an upgrade... a 7D II would be an even better upgrade (much better focus system, faster burst speed, etc.)

The other consideration is the lens. While it's nice to have a 600mm lens to capture shots, the angle of view through a 600mm lens is very narrow. So if the bird goes out of frame (and it will) you'll have a hard time re-acquiring your target. So it's NICE to have a zoom that lets you drop the focal length to an angle of view that isn't so tight... find and re-center your subject, and then zoom back in to focus and shoot.

There are a couple of 150-600mm lenses on the market (by Tamron and Sigma -- neither of which I have any experience using so I wont bother to comment or recommend a particular lens.) Canon makes the 100-400mm lenses but in longer focal lengths the zooms tend to get very expensive (the 200-400mm with builting 1.4x extender is the longest "zoom" they make and the rest of the super-telephoto lenses are primes.) The Tamron and Sigma 150-600mm lenses seem to be popular among the birding photography crowd.

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

ebiggs1 — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 14:54:55 GMT

Almost always the better lens is the best solution. All the lens you are considering are poor for what you want.
A 70D is not going to have a great deal better sensor than the T5 has. It does have better AF no doubt.
If it was I, I would buy a lens like the Tamron 150-600mm super tele first. Learn to use it and later get the 70D. If you truly love this hobby maybe consider the 7D Mk II. It is a absolutely fantastic camera upgrade over the 70D and vastly better than the T5.

Re: What kind of camera by Canon is best for bird photos

ebiggs1 — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 14:58:19 GMT

BTW, I would get up close and personal with a good post editing program. Like Photoshop Elements. That will impact your photos more than anything.