The title is really an exercise in alliteration. It really should be “Can You Do Wildlife Photography On A Limited Budget?”, but that’s not as catchy or succinct. I used to think it was impossible. I thought to be a wildlife photographer you needed deep pockets to be able to afford the cameras and lenses. The photo review sites would have you believe that you need to drop unto $10K AUD on a camera body and up to $24K AUD on a lens to be in with a chance of taking a decent photo. Then you had to have the wonga to be able to travel to Africa, Antartica etc to actually find animals worthy of being photographed. About twenty years ago my sister tried to encourage me to enter the BBC Wildlife Photographer Of The Year competition my response was that I didn’t have the money for the equipment let alone alone being able to travel to a suitable location.

 

 

Twenty years later my views have radically changed. What changed them was the confluence of learning about two of the pioneers of wildlife photography and the digital camera revolution. The photographers were Cherry Kearton (1871-1927) and his brother Richard (1862-1928) the naturalist and writer. They were very early pioneers of wildlife photography and they published the first natural history book entirely illustrated with wild photographs in 1895. Their 1898 book “With Nature And A Camera: being the adventures of a field naturalist and an animal photographer” illustrated with 160 photos was a best seller and inspired many people to become wildlife photographers. A very young David Attenborough attended one of their film lectures and in an interview to The Guardian Newspaper said “It captured my imagination and made me dream of travelling to far-off places to film wild animals.” (Vidal, J; The Guardian 4th December 2021).  In their book the two brothers list what it takes to be a wildlife photographer:

“The great points about successful natural history photography are: the possession of suitable apparatus to work with, an aptitude for taking care in stalking timid creatures and plenty of patience and determination to wait for and get what is wanted in spite of obstacles.”

p.334 Kearton, R and Kearton, C; With Nature and a Camera, 1898, Cassel, London.

 

 

The “suitable apparatus” was a half plate (4¾ × 6½ in or 120mm × 165mm) Dallmeyer camera with a pneumatically controlled silent shutter for still subjects and miniature plate camera (probably 3 1/4” x 4 1/4” glass plates with a 5 1/4” f8 lens) for birds in flight. There was no autofocus with bird recognition AI. No 40 fps. Nothing under 4Kg in weight and certainly no endless digital images on a memory card. The plates had a sensitivity of 2 to 25 ISO. They’d be lucky to carry a dozen glass plates and take one picture every 2 minutes. They initially started just photographing the fauna of their native Yorkshire in their days off often sleeping in hedges or barns. No luxury safaris with 5 star accommodation and the convenience of modern jet travel.

 

 

The digital camera revolution has meant for the last twenty years camera and lens manufactures have brought out new products with amazing technological innovations every year. This has meant that the second hand market has been flooded with equipment as photographers unload their “obsolete” stuff so they can buy the new stuff only to do the same 12 months later. This now means that there is a wealth of extremely capable second hand equipment out there to suit every budget.

 

 

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TLDR

 

 

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Needs Versus Wants

This is quite important as it will help us decide on equipment and set a budget. For instance if all you want to do is post some photos on social media then pretty well any interchangeable lens DSLR or mirrorless camera released in the last 20 years will suffice. If you want to print photos up to A3 in size then a 12Mp camera is adequate. If HD video and 4K video are important then that sets another parameter. It’s nice to day dream about having top of the line equipment such as a Sony A1 and a Sony 600mm f4 lens, but that combination will set you back $27000 AUD new and won’t be had for thrift shop prices second hand. But, say you want to print up to A3 it is possible with a bit of careful shopping on EBay or GumTree to get a DSLR with an APSC sized sensor and a 75-300mm lens for less than  $500 AUD second hand.

I basically find that deciding on the lens is the most important part of the exercise and you really should aim to put most of your budget to that. So what are we looking for?

 

Sensor size	Full frame (36x24mm)	APSC (23.6 x 15.7mm or 22.2 x 14.8mm [Canon cameras only])	Micro Four Thirds (17.3 x 13mm)
Minimum Focal length	400mm	300mm	300mm
Best Case Scenario	600mm	600mm	400mm

 

The focal length will determine how close you need to get to your subject. The shorter the focal length the closer you will have to get. Having said that a shorter focal length is not a handicap because you’ll have to learn bushcraft so you can approach animals and that is a very good skill to have in this game and it’ll also stand you in good stead if you get a longer lens later on down the track. 

You can use zoom lenses or primes. A prime lens is a fixed focal length, whereas a zoom lens  covers a range of focal lengths such as 75-300mm, or 100-400, or 150-600mm. In theory a prime lens will give better image quality and have a larger maximum aperture value which will let more light in. The down sides are that primes are usually more expensive and being a fixed focal length means that if your subject gets too close (it does happen more often that you’d think) you won’t be able to take a picture. Zooms offer flexibility in that you’re not stuck at one focal length, but the trade off is that they’re not as optically good as primes at the cheaper end and the maximum aperture value isn’t as great meaning that you may have to stop shooting as the light goes down.

 

 

Now as soon as you tell another photographer what you’re planning to do they will inevitably tell you that you should get a camera with a full frame sensor as you’ll get a whole heap of benefits over the other smaller sensors. Now if we just content ourselves with reading spec sheets maybe, but out in the real world other things come into play. You want to photograph a bird that is 20cm long and fill the frame with it, so that’ll mean getting 5m away from it. To do that with a full frame camera you’ll need a focal length of 800mm, with an APSC camera 600mm and with a micro four thirds camera 400mm. There is a magnification factor when comparing the focal lengths on the different sensor sizes. It is x1.5 (or 1.6 for Canon) for APSC and x2 for micro four thirds. We’ll look at this comparing three common focal length ranges for the three sensor sizes.

 

	75-300mm	100-400mm	150-600mm
Full Frame (36x24mm)	75-300mm	100-400mm	150-600mm
APSC (23.6 x 15.7mm) (22.2 x 14.8mm Canon cameras)	112-450mm full frame equivalent 120-480mm full frame equivalent when used on a Canon APSC camera	150-600mm full frame equivalent 160-640mm full frame equivalent when used on a Canon APSC camera	225-900mm full frame equivalent 240-960mm full frame equivalent when used on a Canon APSC camera
Micro Four Thirds (17.3 x 13mm)	150-600mm full frame equivalent	200-800mm full frame equivalent	300-1200mm full frame equivalent

 

So a smaller sensor will mean you don’t need very long lenses and that is good because they are expensive. Shorter lenses have the advantage of being lighter which is good when carrying stuff in the bush.

 

 

I started my nature photography using a Canon EOS 300d with a Canon EF 75-300mm lens. The camera has an APSC sensor so that gave me almost enough reach to fill frame with my 20cm bird at 5m. It did me well until I decided that I wanted to invest more into the hobby. So if your budget is really tight I would recommend getting either a Canon of Nikon APSC camera and a 75-300mm lens as the bare minimum, and we’ll look at what’s available a bit later on.

 

 

The other thing to consider is that when you buy a camera and lens you also have to budget for batteries and memory cards. First things first; when looking at memory cards over the last 20-25 years there have been roughly ten types of memory card and many of them have gone obsolete so when buying a camera I would suggest that buying one with a commonly available card such as Secure Digital Card or SD Card. Similarly with batteries, make sure batteries are easily obtainable. With both cards and batteries try to buy the best you can afford and I’ll expand on this a bit further later on. Buying second hand also means that there is a chance where you’ll be able to buy the camera with spare batteries, a memory card, strap and possibly some form of bag as a package. Just make sure you’re getting things you actually want and are not paying more than if you to buy each item separately.

All the cameras I’ll be talking about are cameras I’ve owned or used. They’re not recommendations they are to give an idea of what’s about and where possible I’ll suggest equivalent models from other manufacturers.

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Bargin Basement

You’ve got next to no money. OK a bit of a draw back, but not insurmountable. Back in the dim dark days of digital photography there existed a class of camera that you don’t hear much about now – the bridge camera. They are a cross between a point and shoot compact and an SLR. You get a wide range zoom lens with a small body. They were popular with enthusiasts in the early noughties as more serious cameras were way way expensive. Every manufacturer offered at least one some several at different price points. Sony and Panasonic still make a few models and they range in price from $500 to $2400 AUD new. But on the second hand market that’s where things get interesting. You can pick up something for less than $50. 

What you are looking for is camera models with the terms “UltraZoom“, “superzoom” or “mega zoom” in the model name. Ideally look for something with at least an 8x zoom, better yet 10x or 15x. The more zoom the bigger your subject will be in the final image.

 

Olympus Camedia C-720 Ultra Zoom

 

 

The Olympus C-720 was introduced in 2002 and is fairly typical of models from that era. It has a whopping 3 Megapixels and an 8x zoom range (24x if digital zoom is switched on but it is crap). It’s small, light, and cheap. Typically expect to pay about $15 to $35 AUD for one. What makes it ideal is that the camera runs off 4x AA batteries which are plentiful and cheap. The downsides are that it takes a SmartMedia memory card which while obsolete can still be bought. The downside is that you will probably spend more on the memory card than the camera. Another problem is that the largest capacity card is 128MB which can hold 14 photos at the best quality TIFF setting, 58 in SHQ jpg, 170 HQ, 196 in SQ1, and 206 in SQ2. The last two come at a smaller resolution. Although 3MP is a bit limiting you can print a postcard sized print comfortably and print an A4 sized print at a stretch.

 

 

In use it is not a speed demon, it takes about four seconds to power up. When shooting in sports mode with medium quality jpgs the camera can manage to shoot at 1 fps for a total of 15 frames. The autofocus is slow and very noisy. The top shutter speed is 1/1000 and the maximum ISO, or sensitivity, is 400.  At 400 ISO the noise is bad and prevents you from recoding fine details. This is not a camera with which to take pictures of fast moving subjects in low light. But in good light, with a heap of patience and an understanding of the cameras limitations you can get some pictures. Whether you enjoy the process or not will depend upon your outlook.

 

 

 

 

Canon EOS 300d with a 75-300mm lens

 

If you can swing to $250-300 AUD there are better alternatives than the very old bridge cameras. The Canon Canon EOS 300D (Canon EOS Digital Rebel in North America and the Canon EOS Kiss Digital in Japan) was the first real consumer budget DSLR when released back in 2003. For $60-100 you should be able to find a body only. I’d look to team this up with a  70-300mm zoom lens. With a bit of careful searching the combo should come in at under $300. Alternatives from that period going for around that are the Canon EOS 10d and the Nikon D100. They’ll be a little bit more money but they have slightly better features. The downside to them is that they were often used professionally and so they might not have much life left in them.

 

 

So with the 300d what do you get for your money. Well you get a 6MP camera that takes Canon EF mount lenses – one of the biggest ecosystems of lenses in the world which means lots of choice at a variety of prices. Canon themselves have made an assortment of 75-300mm lenses over the last 30 years and you should be able to pick up something for $120 AUD and the one I’m looking at with Image Stabilisation for about $220. Sigma and Tamron are third party lens makers and you can find their versions for around the $100 mark.

The good points of the 300d are that it’s cheap, batteries (Canon BP-511a) and memory card (Compact Flash) are still available. The camera has a 6MP sensor that produces very nice A4 prints and it is very simple to use. The downside is that the camera was built to a budget and it is not possible to shoot in Continuous Autofocus when shooting RAW, the buffer is 2.5 frames per second for 4 frames, and the plastic body looks a bit tacky (but at least it feels solid). On the copy I have the rubber panels have gone a bit soft and sticky.  To use Continuous AF you need to shoot in the Sports mode which is jpg only and you cannot adjust the exposure using exposure compensation in this mode. There is no being able to use the rear LCD screen to compose pictures on and there is no video mode. Maximum ISO is 1600 and the quality is  ropey, but files can clean up quite well in image processing software.

The 70-300mm lenses at this price point are not going to win any awards for optical performance, but they will suffice to get you started. Irrespective of the manufacturer they all tend to be a little soft at the 300mm end and are not the fastest to find focus especially in low light, but they are capable of giving you a nice image if you don’t shoot wide open and keep the shutter speed up.

If you don’t want to buy Canon then at this price point look at the Nikon D100. Obviously you’ll have to substitute Nikon fit lenses as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canon Eos 550d with a 75-300mm lens

 

 

If you can squeeze another $50-100 then a good option would be to go for something like the Canon EOS 550d. You have a substantial increase in resolution with an 18Mp sensor with better high ISO performance – now up to 6400 natively or 12800 by expansion. Continuous auto focusing in all shooting modes and the frame rate is increased to 3.7 frames per second with a buffer of 34 frames shooting jpg and 6 frames shooting RAW. The AF system has been beefed up a little and while  still only having 9 centrally arranged focus points  it has a cross type sensor in the centre with extra sensitivity. The camera uses SD cards which are cheap and easily found. The battery, the Canon LP-E8 is a bit of a down grade in terms of performance compared to BP-511a used in the 300d, but it is readily available and affordable. While being able to shoot 1080 video it is only really suitable for still subjects as the contrast based autofocus is is too slow to lock onto moving subjects. My first videos were shot with this camera and it is capable of producing a good result if you are prepared to manually focus. Other downsides are the limited buffer and the slow frame rate, the lack of a second control dial also makes using exposure compensation a little fiddly. I try and keep my ISO below 3200 as the chroma noise is quite intrusive and difficult to clean up without destroying fine details. But, having said all that this is a camera which is capable of producing very good results. Even though I now have other better cameras I still like to get the 550d out and use it because it is just fun to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This would be a camera which would benefit with a better lens if you can afford it. Something like a Canon EF 300mm f4 (approx $500 on EBay) or a 400mm f5.6 (approx $600 on EBay). This would be a nice nimble set up that would give great results.

The Nikon equivalent to this camera would be the Nikon D5000 for about the same amount of money.

 

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Summary

It is quite possible to put together a competent kit to photograph wildlife for less than $500 AUD. It won’t have all the bells and whistles of more modern high end cameras but you will be able to make it work. The limitations mainly are speed of operation and picture quality. Learning how to make up for the short comings will inevitably make you a far better photographer in the long run than having the latest and greatest camera will.