Which camera do I want?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The wires will go as far as you want.

A blind would be available to visiting photogs, so that's a serious option at this point.

[Schneibster]

That's probably the best way because of the TTL UI.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We set up a blind inside an enclosure once, left it there for four days. On the fifth day one of the keepers occupied the blind and took notes. The wolves ignored the blind after she was inside like she had never been there.

[Schneibster]

I've never had to use one; otters are my target, and while they're curious, they don't see anything on shore as a threat, or anything even on a boat as much of one. They look and if it disturbs them a couple sculls of their tail and a flip of their back feet and they're gone without even diving.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I've never had to use one; otters are my target, and while they're curious, they don't see anything on shore as a threat, or anything even on a boat as much of one. They look and if it disturbs them a couple sculls of their tail and a flip of their back feet and they're gone without even diving.

I've used blinds of various kinds to shoot things of various kinds.

[Calilasseia]

May I ask, Calilasseia, why Pentax didn't make your list? I ask because I have trusted you longer than I have trusted DXO mark...

Simple. I have no experience with Pentax DSLRs. However, their manual kit is excellent. It's also absurdly fault tolerant. Pentax decided that it would be a good idea to build in a mechanical back-up shutter release to take over when the batteries fail, and although the mechanical shutter release is fixed at 1/125 second, it just so happens that Pentax made their flash units sync with all their manual cameras at this speed. So, you could pick and choose whether or not to have the low-end flash units or the high-sepc top-end ones, and they'd always work on every Pentax body, even when the camera batteries failed.

However, Pentax haven't shown much of a presence in the DSLR market, which was first swamped by Minolta and Canon, then Nikon moved in, and the three more or less sewed up the market between them, until Sony decided to muscle in.

Another company that missed out big time on the DSLR market is Olympus, and guess who happens to have a brace of Olympus OM30 kit? Yes, yours truly. And of course, I had to pick the OM30, the model in the range that had the worst reputation for eating battery power, but that was because I was buying second hand, and found out afterwards that I'd paid peanuts for a camera that was worth about four times what I'd paid for it even second hand. It was only afterwards I found out the downsides of the bargain. Namely, [1] batteries are hideously expensive, and the camera can go through them like Oliver Reed could go through bottles of booze, [2] the accessories are expensive as well, and if you buy Olympus' own kit, the prices make your eyes water (well, they made mine water, but that's because I was buying them on a budget, and had to save up for the juicy bits of kit), [3] finding a second hand dealer still carrying OM gear became painfully difficult after about the year 2002.

However, the upsides of my bargain purchase were: [1] Olympus cameras were the lightest of all SLRs at the time, so it wasn't a strain wielding them, even with all my macro grar bolted on; [2] the viewfinder was fantastic to use, and I've yet to see a better viewfinder on any camera I've had since; [3] it probably provided the best introduction to SLR cameras I could have hoped for when I bought it, and I learned a lot experimenting with it, even though sometimes I burned a roll of film with crap shots doing this.

After Olympus brought out its swansong manual film SLR, the oh-so-lovely OM4-Ti (if you got the dedicated flashgun to go with it, you could sync the flash at an amazing 1/2000 second!), the company seemed to be caught lead-footed, first with autofocus SLRs. Olympus completely failed to produce an autofocus film SLR, when Minolta and Canon were producing what appeared to be a new model every six months, and also took time getting into the digital SLR market - the Four Thirds system looks to me like too little, too late, but at least has the virtue of being compatible with legacy OM lenses using an adapter ring. Even so, whether a Four Thirds camera is good enough to justify the price tag remains, for me, one of those 'hmm' decisions ...

[Tero]

We set up a blind inside an enclosure once, left it there for four days. On the fifth day one of the keepers occupied the blind and took notes. The wolves ignored the blind after she was inside like she had never been there.

There was a crow or some such bird that counted how many people went into the blind and how many came out. So to get in there, the ornithologist would get five people and him to go in and the five soon came out. The bird lost count and forgot he was still inside.

How is the camera shopping going?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We set up a blind inside an enclosure once, left it there for four days. On the fifth day one of the keepers occupied the blind and took notes. The wolves ignored the blind after she was inside like she had never been there.

There was a crow or some such bird that counted how many people went into the blind and how many came out. So to get in there, the ornithologist would get five people and him to go in and the five soon came out. The bird lost count and forgot he was still inside.

How is the camera shopping going?

Wild animals can be very clever. One of our wolves figured out he could climb the fences if he went to a corner. We had to put reverse slopes on the tops to keep them in after that.

Camera shopping pends time to go shopping.

[Tero]

I kind of like the bridge cameras. For me right now, I would get one if I had a major target to shoot. 30x sounds very attractive for a small camera.

I tried digiscoping through my spotting scope for a day. I did not have the patience for it. I had better luck with a video camera that took pictures, this solitary sandpiper at Bush Wildlife lake in the very back. You can see it lacks pixels.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This is my best shot to get a wet-dream camera, so I'm going for the most that I can afford. For once I'll have equipment like I used to have. (Camera equipment, dirty minds, camera equipment. )

[Tero]

I was quite happy with film cameras. Mine were manual with built in meter. F stop, shutter speed, zoom, focus. I would shoot three in important situations. Overexposed, underexposed and on the meter at the center.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I was quite happy with film cameras. Mine were manual with built in meter. F stop, shutter speed, zoom, focus. I would shoot three in important situations. Overexposed, underexposed and on the meter at the center.

I shoot dozens of shots and keep the one or two I want. I'm loving this DLSR era. With the price of buy and developing 120 and 200 film, I'm good with a 16 gig SD chip.

[Robert_S]

This is my best shot to get a wet-dream camera, so I'm going for the most that I can afford. For once I'll have equipment like I used to have. (Camera equipment, dirty minds, camera equipment. )

You won't be done. You'll be able to spend more money on fast primes and big zooms. They'll hold their value for a while, but three or four years down the line, you might be able to upgrade your camera body for less that you're paying now buying something used. That's why I recommended taking a look at what's in craigslist, if you prefer to shop locally. See what brand keeps popping up, especially for used lenses. That's probably what's popular in your area.

[Tero]

Birders mostly look, so the scope is the main thing. But Zeiss offers a scope with a 4 Megapixel camera when you need proof of a rare bird sighting.
http://www.eagleopticsblog.com/2007/09/ ... t-present/

hard to get prices on line. Better to see a dealer. Here are some good pics though.
http://www.digiscoping.co.uk/?Cat=Adapters

[Tyrannical]

There is one difference between a toy and a real camera, does it take real camera lenses
High quality lenses can not be matched for quality, are expensive, but will last a life time.