New Guy Here! looking to take wildlife photos

[charlygarcia808]

Hello everybody, here's my story. My name is Charly, I'm a 22 year old college student who works full time. I just recently moved out of the parents house and into a nice apartment tucked deep in the woods. All my life I have loved to track down wildlife, not to hunt, but to observe them in nature. I have always wanted to get a camera rig to start taking pictures of what I find, but have never had the money and don't know a damn thing about camera's. I am a full time student going for my bachelor's degree in environmental biology and a full time employee at a group home. Doesn't leave me much spare time. This morning while perusing the local flea market I came across a camera that peaked my interest. It is an older looking Canon EOS ELAN 35mm film camera, with a Quantaray Tech-10 75-300mm. I know that it is not a great camera but it was only $50 so I figured I would give it a shot because the lens seemed to zoom pretty well which I would need for taking pictures of wildlife. The mode selector knob is broken, it spins freely. I don't know if that is worth repairing or not. It does auto-focus when the lens is on automatic so that is a plus, and the shutter seems to be working fine, as well as the flash. I googled some info on the camera but would love to hear some feedback on here and perhaps some pointers for taking pictures of wildlife. Any help/comments are much appreciated and I look forward to learning alot from the forums here.

 

[SCraig]

Birds and wildlife are one of the more difficult objects to photograph in my opinion. You can seldom pick your background or time of day or anything else. You can seldom get close enough to them, or at least as close as you'd like to. Plus they won't listen if you tell them to be still, in fact that's the easiest way to make them disappear.

Study exposure, especially the Exposure Triangle. Understanding that is absolutely critical. Study composition. A poor composition can ruin an otherwise good photograph. Most of all enjoy yourself. It is a great way to spend a day.

 

[charlygarcia808]

thanks! I will start my research by reading up on those things.

 

[Overread]

Generally speaking wildlife demands a good fast shutter speed, think 1/400sec or faster for getting a clear short of an animal (even if its not running/flying regular motions will need a fast shutter speed for a clear shot). Furthermore with a 300mm lens you'll need at least 1/300sec for a handheld sharp shot (rough rule of thumb for handholding is 1/focal length for getting a sharp shot - of course good posture when shooting is important and the value will vary a little from person to person).

In addition you'll need some film for your camera; honestly considering the lens and the fact that you're shooting wildlife I would say look for ISO/ASA 800 film. A bit more grainy than lower ISO values, but it gives you the extra sensitivity you might find you need for those fast shutter speeds. Note you might get away with ISO/ASA 400 film and then "pushing it" to 800 (ps I've no idea how this is done in practice, but books on film photography are abundant and any library should have stock or able to get stock of books that can guide you through the process).

 

[scorpion_tyr]

If the mode selector knob is broken in a way that you can't change the mode I would get a new camera. Here's the good news. You at least have a decent starter lens for wildlife photography and I've seen people pay more for that lens than you did for the lens and camera. Look into a used Canon EOS rebel XTi or similar. Very decent cameras, but you can find them cheap as dirt now because there have been so many other cameras come out to replace it. I see them going anywhere from $150-300. Worth every cent of $300 as long as it's in good working order, find one for $150 and you've really got a deal. The money you'll save on film will pay for the camera within a few months if you shoot a lot.

If you stick with the 35mm I also suggest what Overread said. 800 speed film would be the lowest I would go with that lens, maybe pick up a roll of 1600 if you can find it to try it out. A fast shutter speed is key with wildlife photography since you're usually at a very high focal length (300mm for example), and because some of the key times for getting shots of wildlife are right after sunrise and right before sunset. This is when a lot of animals are most active, and it's when the natural lighting is best, called the "golden hours". Nothing wrong with shooting in the harsh sunlight of mid-day, especially if you need that extra light, but good luck finding any really cool animals at that time.

Keep looking around at pawn shops and garage sales and such for cheap lenses. If you have a camera phone take a picture of the back of your lens and keep that picture in your phone. A lot of off brand lenses will not say on the lens what camera they will fit. If you find a good deal on them and you don't have your camera with you to see if it fits, look at the picture on your phone and make sure it matches exactly what your other lens looks like. Just know that the only difference may be that some lenses have plastic mounts and some have metal, so that will be fine as long as it all looks the same. For your Elan you're going to be looking for Canon EF lenses or 3rd party lenses with the same mount, EF-S lenses will NOT work. If you're into the small critters as well as the big ones keep your eyes open for macro lenses. True macro lenses are usually very expensive, but cheap ways of getting around that are extension tubes and close-up filters. I highly recommend extension tubes. You can get ones for your camera as cheap as $10, you'll just have to manually focus the lens instead of auto focus. Auto focus extension tubes will run you about $100-200. Either will let you get closer and magnify small bugs and stuff better. Hope all that helped!

 

[charlygarcia808]

If the mode selector knob is broken in a way that you can't change the mode I would get a new camera. Here's the good news. You at least have a decent starter lens for wildlife photography and I've seen people pay more for that lens than you did for the lens and camera. Look into a used Canon EOS rebel XTi or similar. Very decent cameras, but you can find them cheap as dirt now because there have been so many other cameras come out to replace it. I see them going anywhere from $150-300.

just bought a Rebel XTi with two battery packs and a charger and carry bag for 239 on ebay. sounds like a better idea to go digital considering how many pictures I will take and how much film is, plus it's easier to get them onto the computer this way. Now I guess I just bought a lens for $50. But ill try to sell the camera body or keep it as a backup, we'll see.

 

[scorpion_tyr]

Keep the camera body and when you're ready to upgrade to a much more expensive camera take advantage of Canon's loyalty program

 

[charlygarcia808]

Keep the camera body and when you're ready to upgrade to a much more expensive camera take advantage of Canon's loyalty program

I already bought the new canon so im going to an area photo shop to see what i can get (if anything) for a trade in on the old ELAN and the quantaray lens towards a newer lens. I am getting the occasionaly error 99 with the quantaray lens on the new Rebel.


looking at the canon EF 70-300mm lenses on ebay. The description says good for sporting events/wildlife but I know never to trust those ads without some backup info from someone knowledgeable on the subject at hand. So how about the EF 70-300mm, are those any good?

 

[unpopular]

I cannot comment on that lens, but don't get too caught up on "which lens is best" mentality, plenty of new photographers get so absorbed with glass that they never make a decision.

 

[CanonJim]

Agree with most of the above comments. Here's my .02 worth:
1) Get a good tripod - doesn't have to be a $1000 carbon fiber job that only weighs 4 ounces or so - you need stability more than light weight.
2) Get a ball head - it makes moving the camera/lens around so much easier than a plain pan & scan tripod head.
3) Practice, Practice, Practice - as people have noted, don't get hung up on which lens. Get one that goes out to at least 300mm or so, stick the camera at f/8 to f/11 or so, and practice on birds (or actually, anything that's more than 30 feet away) as much as you can.
4) Set the camera to use the central focus point ONLY.
5) For Birds In Flight, or BIF as it's often called, use AI Servo focus mode.
6) Don't be afraid to go to manual focus mode if the situation calls for it - I've lost many shots because the lens couldn't grab focus on what I wanted.
7) Shoot in LARGE FINE jpeg mode to get started, and later on, ​as and if you feel comfortable, switch to raw files - they will let you tweak to a greater extent that plain jpeg files will.

Also, at least in terms of wildlife shooting, don't be TOO concerned with how fast a lens is - you'll be able to compensate for a f/2.0 lens by having a longer shutter speed because you'll be using a tripod. Many thousands of wildlife photos are taken with the Canon 100-400L and it's not fast by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[charlygarcia808]

thanks for the the tips, just noticed the tamron lens with pretty much the same specs is only about half the price of the canon one so... one of those will most likely be on order. I have a tripod already, the ball head is an excellent idea as the tripod head i have right now is anything but smooth to move around. Once I get the new lens in practice I shall...