Wildlife

[jcooley6960]

Hey guys I just got a canon t3 as a gift and I would like to use it for wildlife photography nothing professional just a hobby... I do not know a lot about photography, I don't get how the x-x mm system works so eny help is appreciated. Looking for cheap in price but not in quality thanks

 

[SCraig]

Photography is not an inexpensive hobby. A cheap lens is usually just that, a cheap lens. Stay with quality brands and you'll never be sorry.

Lenses with two focal lengths (i.e. 70mm - 300mm) are zoom lenses. Lower focal lengths are suitable for close subjects and wide angle shots whereas lenses with longer focal lengths are suitable for distant subjects. For wildlife and birds I would not recommend anything shorter than 300mm, and longer is better. I typically use two lenses, a 70mm-300mm zoom lens and a 150mm-500mm zoom lens. In my opinion anything less is too short.

 

[KmH]

Wildlife is a very broad term.

Wildlife could be making photos of small insects, which require specialized close up lenses (macro), or it could mean making photos of Bighorn mountain sheep, which require gignormous, expensive ($10,000), telephoto lenses.

You get what you pay for

An oxymoron ?:

cheap in price but not in quality

 

[Tony S]

Cheap lens and wildlife photography do not go together...... it's one of those oxymoronic things. You might get the occasional lucky shot to turn out, but overall you need to step up the quality of the glass on your camera.

 

[3Ddeath]

However If a cheap lens is the ONLY option, you can still do wildlife photography.

You may not be able to sell your images, but you'll be able to figure out if that's the photography you really like doing.
I would recommend a lens to goes to 250-300mm at the minimum.

 

[jcooley6960]

Why can't you sell them? I may spend some of my deployment money on quality equipment when I get back just trying to get some practice

 

[matthewo]

Cause there are already a million people who have $10,000 lenses and do it as a hobby. What would you sell prints? I guess thats possible

I have done some research and found about the best option on a budget to get into wildlife is 300mm f4 with 1.4x converter. Gives you 420mm at f5.6 min. For around $1500. Much cheaper then the real big dogs.

I shoot Nikon but I have heard good things about canons 300mm f4. Canon Also makes a 400mm 5.6, but you couldnt use a teleconverter on that

 

[matthewo]

Only other option for serious wildlife for cheap is old manual focus stuff. You could find a 500mm f4 for.around $2000. You could Also try Your luck with Sigma, but remember there is a reason some of there super zooms are cheap. Iq isnt as good and focusing is often hit or miss

 

[Overread]

Even with high quality image selling wildlife photos is sadly very difficult - though if you've some good solid photos chances are you can print them out frame them up and you might be able to sell them locally with some effort. Just don't expect to make much in the way of sales, you might be lucky and have the business skills to really make them sell, but sadly even the top end pros that I know of don't actually make much money from the sale of images (unless they can land an advertising deal with a company as they tend to pay more in licensing costs) and more of their income tends to come from running photography tripos and tuition.


But my all means test the waters with a cheaper lens - a cheaper lens will never be a waste for the experience of shooting and good methodology in using camera and glass won't change even if you move up to affording and using the higher grade gear.

 

[jamesdak]

Only other option for serious wildlife for cheap is old manual focus stuff. You could find a 500mm f4 for.around $2000. You could Also try Your luck with Sigma, but remember there is a reason some of there super zooms are cheap. Iq isnt as good and focusing is often hit or miss

Yep, good technique with old manual focus glass can yield good results. In fact most of my work is with old manual focus lenses on digital bodies and I think I get good results. And the IQ of a lot of this cheap old glasses easily surpasses alot of today's modern lenses.

Here's some shots from an old Manual focus Nikon 800/5.6 mounted on my EOS bodies:

Then these with a much cheaper and lighter Leica Leitz 560mm f/6.8 Telyt-R:

Same 800/5.6 lens on a Nikon body: