Wildlife and bird photography can be tremendously exciting and rewarding work, but the combination of fast action, faraway subjects, and frequent low light often necessitates the use of extreme cameras and lenses that can quickly put serious stress on your bank account. Thankfully, nowadays, we have a bevy of impressively capable budget options. This excellent video review takes a look at one of the best affordable setups for wildlife and bird camera and lens setups.
Coming to you from Jan Wegener, this great video review takes a look at the Canon EOS R7, RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 IS USM, and RF 800mm f/11 IS STM as a budget setup for wildlife photography. The EOS R7 is the mirrorless successor to the highly popular 7D series, and as such, it brings a lot of fantastic capabilities and features from Canon's high-level full frame cameras at a lower price. Meanwhile, you will have a hard time getting the kind of focal length range you can get from the 100-400mm and 800mm for less than $2,000; in fact, the entire kit, camera and lenses, can be had for just a smidgen over $3,000. Of course, the major limiting factor is the narrow maximum apertures, but considering the cost savings and the high-ISO capabilities of modern cameras, you may be able to get along just fine so long as you are not shooting in very low-light conditions a lot of the time. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Wegener.
I haven't ever used this thing but I think the video is fairly on the money. If you are looking to shoot stationary birds in bright light then it is going to be a killer option at a great budget. As soon as you want to start shooting birds in motion or in lower light such as blue hour or even late sunset you are going to really start to struggle.
For a budget bird setup I've gone for a Panasonic G9 and Panasonic 100-400mm secondhand cost me £1200.00 in total. Cracking setup!
I had the 800mm plus 2x TC on an RP. Great for stationary birds. Got the R8. Getting them on the fly, now.
Nikon D500 and the Nikon 200-500 lens.
New gear isnt going to be afordable. The 2nd hand market is way more afordable.
I have the Canon R6, R7 and the RF100-400. The R7 has become my 'go-to' camera. I have just bought a second hand RF800 and am delighted with it. I have taken it on my daily walks except when the weather forecast is dodgy because of the lack of any weather sealing and have been very pleased with the photographs I have taken. All of them have been hand held.