Buying Bird Photography Equipment on a Budget

White Ibis in Breeding Plumage Millers Lake - Taken with Nikon D2X and Nikkor 300 AFS F/4 with TC-14e Teleconverter

This article is an update to my 2015 article, with much of it duplicated here. The good news is that with the switch by major camera manufacturers to mirrorless cameras with new lens mounts, there are bargains available for excellent systems. It is now possible to purchase a good starter system for approximately $1500, about $500 less than five years ago when I wrote the original article. The camera bodies now have more resolution, a faster frame rate, and are lower in high iso noise.

The equipment for bird photography can be costly. Part of this is the nature of the business, photographing small moving objects requires long telephoto lenses and effective autofocus systems Beginning bird photographers would be well served with a good cropped sensor camera body and 400 mm f/5.6 lens or a 300 mm f/4 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. By applying several common-sense strategies, you can acquire such a system at a reduced cost. For Nikon, currently available suitable camera bodies are the D7200 and the D500, for Canon, the similar camera bodies are the EOS 7D Mark II and the EOS 7D Mark III.

Strategies for Reducing Equipment Costs

There are several strategies for reducing the cost of such a system. These include:

1.    Buying Refurbished Equipment
2.    Buying Last Years Model
3.    Buying Used    
4.    Buying Grey Market
5.    Renting

Buying Refurbished Equipment

The two major camera system manufacturers used in bird photography, Nikon and Canon, both offer equipment that has been returned and then repaired and resold as refurbished equipment. I frequently use this strategy, and the savings are significant. Often the testing performed on refurbished equipment exceeds that done on new, I've purchased many camera bodies refurbished and numerous refurbished lenses, and I've never had a problem. However, one downside to this strategy is the length of the warranty, typically 90 days rather than the one year for new equipment, in some cases, a camera store will supplement the warranty with one of their own, but I'm not sure how well this works. I make sure I do a thorough job of testing any equipment purchased in this way as soon as I receive it to reduce the risk of a problem.

I have purchased refurbished equipment from Nikon directly, B&H, and Cameta Camera (Currently offline, not sure of their status).

For example, right now, Nikon USA has a refurbished D7200 699.96 and a D7500 for the same price, I'd choose the D7200 even though it's an older camera because it only has one card slot. Older, Nikon manual focus lenses aren't supported, if those things aren't relevant to you, the D7500 may be better as it shoots 8 FPS versus 6, and it has an articulating screen. A new D7500 is going for $899.99 on the same site.

Buying Last Years Model

Both Nikon and Canon have recently released mirrorless cameras, with significantly higher prices, and they probably don't handle flying birds as well as the DSLR's. For now, if you're looking for a budget system, I'd go with one of the DSLR's

The newer Canon 100-400 is $1799 at B&H, and the Nikon 300mm f/4 pf is $1996.55. While these are indeed very lovely lenses, for the budget-conscious, the older lenses are a better choice.

Buying used

Frequently when new equipment is released, people sell their older models to finance the latest camera equipment. This behavior is certainly correct now with the Nikon and Canon Mirrorless systems and with many people moving to Sony or Olympus Mirrorless systems. Looking at sources like KEH camera and eBay, you'll notice used camera equipment prices are much lower now. For example, I saw a used D500 on eBay for $845, which sells new for $1496.95. However, on eBay, if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Check the seller ratings carefully and stick to one that has a high rating and a large number of sales. Usually, you're better off going to someone like KEH or the used department of B&H.

Buying Grey Market

Another strategy is buying "imported" or "Grey Market" equipment. Stores often purchase equipment outside of the country at a lower cost and then sell them in the US for less. The downside of this is that Nikon and Canon in this country will not honor the warranty or even service the equipment. I'm cautious not to buy any expensive Grey Market products. However, for low maintenance items, for example, a teleconverter, I would undoubtedly consider Grey Market if the price were right.

Renting equipment

One strategy for a one time equipment need, such as for an assignment or to do a photo tour, is to rent the equipment. Several good rental companies rent appropriate equipment. Two I'm familiar with are:

Lens Rentals Borrow Lenses

One caution is to be sure that you either have insurance or purchase their protection in case something goes wrong.

Camera Company Deals

Nikon and Canon are also running many specials discounting older cameras they still have in stock. If you're interested in a specific model, be sure and check that the used or refurbished camera or lens is really your best deal.

Conclusion

You can put together a good beginner's bird photography system with roughly equivalent Canon and Nikon equipment now for approximately $1500, roughly $500 less than five years ago, and have a better system.

Computer Maintenance - Hard Drive Backup Failure

Bald Eagle Atchafalaya Basin

Computer Maintenance

This past week I have been working primarily on my Computers, specifically the backup system for my laptop. This article is a bit geeky, if not interested in the details, at least read the conclusions.

My Laptop and Daily Workflow Like most photographers my laptop is essential on a trip, it is the repository of all the images taken during the day and having a working backup system is critical to avoid losing each day’s work on the trip. I’m using a a Apple MacBook Pro Retina laptop, whose performance and screen quality is fabulous. I’ve been using a 2TB Western Digital portable drive to backup the machine and contain a copy of my image library for use on the road. The daily workflow includes importing images taken during the day into the library and then backing those files up onto a second smaller portable hard drive prior to erasing the files off the camera’s memory card.

Diagnostics and System Errors

I use several tools to monitor the operation of the system and report any errors. The tools I use include:

1. SMART Reporter, an App available on the Apple App store which reports any SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology errors.
2. Drive Genius / Drive Pulse Reports on any serious disk problems including the detection of bad disk. (Note if you buy drives from OWC, this took is highly discounted). Last week I started getting Drive Pulse messages concerning the number of back sectors on the Western Digital disk. I ran the following tests on the drive:

I ran the fill disk utility using the DiskTester included with Diglloyd tools. This will fill the disk with 1000 files of random data and time the write and read time for each of these files. This will force the disk to mark any bad sectors and the tool includes a way to graph the results across the whole disk, gaps in consistent timing will indicate sectors of the disk that have been replaced with spares. The report showed serious problems with the disk. I also ran the Drive Genius Physical check on the disk and got similar alarming results. The disk needed to be replaced.

A Replacement, Testing, and Further Issues

I purchased a LaCie 3 TB Thunderbolt drive. A physically much larger drive, but hopefully one that is a bit more reliable. I formatted the drive and ran the Drive Genius Physical check and all appears to be well. I used Carbon Copy Cloner (http://bombich.com) to make a clone of my laptops boot drive and copy the Aperture Library. During the process I got Drive Pulse messages that there were bad sectors. I stopped the process and reinitialized the drive using the write all zeros option (a time-consuming process that writes to every part of the disk). There were numerous bad sectors, the Drive Pulse recommendation was to back up the disk and replace it immediately. The disk had to go back. Finally I replaced that drive with a OWC Elite Dual Pro Dual, which uses 2 disks with a hardware RAID option, which I set to mirror to provide greater data integrity. I reran the burn in test, including the zero’s initialization and this time all went well.

Conclusions

1.  Diagnostic tools are critical to identify problems before Hard Drives fail. Drive Genius proved to be very effective in creating alerts about pending problems.
2.  Backups are critical, if this had been the primary drive rather than the backup, with no backup this could have been catastrophic.
3.  Even new drives can be bad, Testing a new drive is critical before trusting it with your data.

I can provide consulting services for Mac based computer systems for photographers. If interested contact me here.

Photographing Stunning Louisiana Landscapes in the Fog.

There are many foggy mornings in Southern Louisiana. This is very fortunate! I love to photograph Foggy Cypress Scenes over the water. The limited vision afforded by the fog enables the trees to be seen against a stark white background. Even better, mornings with low lying fog allow the photographer to create stunning images of the fog appearing to be on fire.

Louisiana and Fog

Due to the humid conditions, Fog is not unusual in Southern Louisiana. Fog forms when the air temperature falls below the dew point. Over the water, in the Atchafalaya Basin, it is not unusual to have very dense fog that covers all. Less frequently, the fog forms in a thin layer over the water. Both situations lend themselves to stunning photographs.

Photographic Characteristics

1.  The light is very “soft”. No distinct shadows are visible and very little detail is discernible. 
2.  There is very little contrast, 
3.  The scene becomes blurrier with distance, the further the object the less sharp it appears.
4.  Shooting into a light source causes the fog to “glow”
5.  The scene is often much brighter than a camera meter will measure.

Techniques

1.  Choose your position to the scene prior to picking a focal length, judge the degree of blur desired, then choose the lens focal length to make the composition.
2.  Focus the lens on Close Objects rather than distant ones. The image appears sharper closest to the photographer, A sharp foreground with a blurred background will look natural.
3.  Largely ignore the depth of field as distant objects will appear blurred in fog anyway. A moderate Telephoto Lens is often a good choice in dense fog even with its shallow depth of field.
4.  Assume the scene is white, which often requires 2 stops of light beyond mid-tone. In an automated mode such as Aperture Priority try 1.7 to 2.0 stops of positive compensation. Check your histogram after shooting and adjust to the conditions.
5.  With Low lying fog, look for opportunities to shoot into the sun to achieve a fiery appearance.

Examples

Taken with a Nikkor 70-200 with a 1.4 Teleconverter at 310mm 100 ft from trees. Focused on the front stump.

Taken with a Nikkor 28-70 @ 70mm @ f22. Focus was on foreground branches.

Taken with a Nikkor 28-70 @ 70mm @ f11, Focus on Foreground Grasses.

Boat positioned with rising Sun Behind Cypress Tree.Taken with Nikkor 28-70 @ 70mm f5.6.