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What is the best camera/binoculars for Bird Watching?

I need to know what is the best camera for bird watching. I would also like to know what brands of binoculars are great for bird watching too.

Public Comments

1. i recommend canon a650
it has wonderful options: 12.1 megapixel
6x optical zoom, etc

2. The answer to this question is like the answer to 'how long is a piece of string'? (twice as long as half it's length)
It's all down to a number of factors, the most limiting of which is your budget.
By way of guidance, go for the best known brands, then look at price, and finally, coinsider how much use you will give the item.
Brands to look at in bino's are Swarovski, Pentax, Canon, Nikon.
In cameras there's more choice.
Good shooting!!

3. Most any camera that has a big lens, meaning 10X or more on a P&S or up to 300 - 500mm on a DSLR.
For binoculars, any 8X/10X should be good enough. I like Leupolds because of their lifetime warranty.

4. For taking fotos of birds, you require a long telephoto lense with image stabilization or a tripod. You did not mention the amount of money you desired to spend. You can spend a lot of money on both a camera and binoculars.

Relatively inexpensive cameras that will work in many situations are the Canon Powershot S3 or S5. Both have 432 mm lenses and 6meg and 8meg images respectively. The large image formats come in handy when cropping the large image down to a 4x6 that just shows the bird. Adobe Photoshop is a must. Others in that category are the Kodak P712 and Kodak Z610.

Now among the more expensive cameras but also much more versitile are the Canon Digital Rebel but you will have to buy the lense separately. Still reasonably priced. The Canon 30D and Canon 40D. Now we are beginning to talk big bucks. A decent image stabilized lense for one of these will cost about $500 for a 70-300mm image stabilized Canon lense. A Canon 100-400mm image stabilized lense about $1300.

Binoculars:

Among the best are the Swarovski 8.5x44 at about $1900 and the Nikon LXL 8x42 Premiere at about $1300.

Most birders prefer 8 power for the wider field of view but many do use 10 power. If you do not wish for the "best" there are plenty of good binoculars that are less expensive. You receive about 10% better performance for a doubling of price. And many times the better performance is not too noticable in most situations.

Exceptionally good pairs of binoculars for the price are Bushnell Legend 8x42 at $250, Eagle Optics Ranger 8x42 at $300, Swift Audubon 8.5x44 Porro at $349, Votex Razor 8x42 at $699 (these are generally rated very highly by those who have them)