Eric Sharp: When it comes to birds, a camera in hand beats just about anything
18.05.12
A reader e-mailed to say she had become fascinated with bird-watching and asked, "What's the best camera for taking pictures of birds and other wildlife?"
The answer is simple -- it's the camera you have with you.
Think about that for a minute. In my truck, I usually have several digital single-lens reflex cameras with auto-focusing zoom and telephoto lenses that range from 18 to 650 millimeters.
With these cameras, I can get close-ups of a dove sitting on a nest a foot away, stop the motion of a hummingbird's wings at 20 feet or record the fierce glare of an osprey flying 100 yards away.
But many of the best bird pictures I have were made with a Canon Powershot SX230, a point-and-shoot digital camera that at $250 costs about half as much as the cheapest lens for the DSLRs.
The reason is that the lightest DSLR and telephoto lens weighs about 4 pounds and is 14 inches long. The Canon Powershot is 4 inches long by 2 1/2 high by an inch wide, weighs about a half-pound and nearly always is in my pocket or backpack. There are dozens of cameras from other manufacturers that will do the same thing.
Source: Detroit Free Press