MY GEAR PART 1 - CAMERA BODIES

Date: 31 March 2019

After I started getting involved in bird photography and birding since 2010, I have purchased quite a collection of photographic equipments, and spent quite a sum of money for them. I am sure i will not stop buying more gear that can help me improve my photography, unless the price is prohibitive.

I thought I share with you the gear that I have used for my bird photography, the good and bad of each item if any, so you do not make the same mistakes I did. Bear in mind that I am a Canon shooter so most of the gear are Canon or third party for Canon DSLR. I have used other cameras for birding like Panasonic Lumix FZ-100 bridge camera but it was not suitable for birding, even if the zoom was massive. The AF was not up to the job.

MY FIRST DSLR - CANON 60D

I was interested to buy Nikon D7000 at first because I  know Nikon was a very good brand with a good reputation, but after trying out the camera, I opted for the Canon 60D DSLR. The price was a bit cheaper, the ergonomics was better, felt good in my hand and the diopter suit my eyes. The Nikon diopter power was not suitable for my eyes, since I wear correction glasses it is the most important when shooting without glasses. You cannot shoot what you cannot see! At that time Canon 7D with a higher frame rates per second was also available but it was outside my budget.

Canon 60D was the camera that I used when I started my birding and bird photography. I also used it to take macro shots of plants and insects paired with Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro lens and it did a good job at it. I paired my 60D with Canon 70-300L IS f5.6 and Sigma 150-500 OS f4.5-6.3. These combination gave me some good focal lengths after adding the 1.6 crop factor since 60D is an APSC body. I have taken some nice bird photos with these combination, until I noticed something lacking in the 60D.

60D has limited 9 AF points only. However, the screen is flippable for difficult angle shots

The 60D has only nine focus points in a diamond shape which cover mostly in the centre. You can either select all nine or one each, and they do not cover to the edge of the screen. It does not have zone, grouping, centre point with helper points like the 5D3 or 7D2. The frames rate per second was low at 5.3 frames per second. At a second thought I should have coughed out a bit more and buy the 7D with 8 frames per second. The 7D has more focus points at 45, but has the same resolution at 18MB because it used the same sensor as the 60D. Both has noise issue at ISO higher than 800, good image up to ISO 1600. The 60D takes only SD card, so no CF card back up if you run out of space for your shots.

The 60D eventually gave way to Canon 5D3 which is a full frame camera which I bought in 2012 at more than twice the price of 60D! Still, the 60D is a good camera for back up, macro photography which does not need fast AF, and no issue with ISO performance since I can use the speedlight in low light conditions.

SECOND BODY - CANON 5D MARK 3

The 5D3 gives so many things that the 60D cannot give. It is a full frame body which means the image quality is better especially in low light conditions even though the resolution is only slightly more than the 60D at 22.3 MB vs 18 MB. Higher resolution is not everything in photography. When they tried to cramp all those pixels in a certain fixed size, the pixels have to get smaller which reduces the ability to gather light from the lens. This resulted in more noise which is noticeable at high ISO. The pixel size is called "pixel pitch". The 5D3 being a full frame has a higher pixel pitch at 6.22 microns compared to 4.29 micron of 60D. You need a higher resolution camera if you want to enlarge the photos on big prints, otherwise not necessary for small prints and internet viewing.

5D3 with Canon 400mm f5.6 telephoto lens

5D3 QuickMenu screen. Too bad it is not a touchscreen like 5D4.

The cons in going full frame is that you will lose the 1.6 crop factor which is a big deal in bird photography. Most of the birds I photographed were quite a distance away, and I have to rely on the longest lens that I have like the Sigma 150-500mm, but even then the images I got on my LCD are not even half full especially for small birds. On an APSC body like 60D the effective focal length with the Sigma 150-500 is 240-800mm, whereas on 5D3 it is still 150-500mm since the factor is 1:1. I have to heavily crop most of my images from 5D3 in Lightroom to get a decent size and some details of the birds. It is a lot of work when you take a few hundred shots a day!

5D3 6 preset AF Cases which can be fine-tuned to your liking

With the 5D3 I cannot pair it with the Sigma 150-500 since the lens was designed for an APSC body. Using it on my 5D3 will result in a lot of vignetting since the lens image is smaller than the full frame sensor. The part that did not get the light from the lens will be darker than the rest. The only long lens I have to pair with the 5D3 are Canon 400mm f5.6 and Canon 70-300 L f4-5.6 IS. That means I lose more focal length with these lens compared to the Sigma 150-500 on 60D. The only way to extend the focal length is to add a 1.4x extender which turns them into 560mm f8.0, and 98-480mm f8.0 respectively. However, the image quality will drop slightly and the AF will slowdown somewhat.

5D3 different metering modes. I use evaluative metering most of the times.

However, the 5D3 still can do the job for bird photography due to its 6 frames per second frame rate and an awesome AF capability which can be customised to your liking. This AF is similar to the one in 7D2. There are 6 preset AF Cases with different sensitivity and priority in the menu which you can adjust to suite different situations. This awesome AF couple with the 61 focus points which spread quite wide on the focus screen helps acquiring focus a lot easier than 60D. The 5D3 allows you to select either single point focus, spot focus, centre point with 4 helper points, centre point with 9 helper points, zone or all 61 focus points which beat the 60D hands down! My favourite are centre point with 4 helper points for bird in flight and a single point for non-skittish birds.

5D3 allows you to use all 61AF points, just the cross-type AF points, 15 or 9 AF points. When using teleconverter only centre point can be used at f8.0

The 5D3 is also more robust build and weather resistant than 6D, so I do not have to worry with knocks and exposure to dust and water. Once I rinsed it under tap water after coming back from sea trip, of course I had to use a hair dryer to dry it before turning it on again. It still functions until today.

5D3 allows me to use an SD card and a compact flash card at the same time. I never ran out of space so far.

The 5D3 has two card slots vs one on 60D. It has a slot for a CF card and one for an SD card. This will give peace of mind that you have enough storage during a heavy shooting session.

The 5D3 is my workhorse for all my work, but to optimise its usage you need to combine it with long lens like Canon 500mm f4 or 600 f4 IS. These lens coupled with an extender will give you a good focal length. However, they cost an arm and leg here and frankly I cannot afford them. I highly recommend the 5D3 body for bird photography if you can pair it with a good long lens. A lot of pros used it as second body to 1DX bodies for closer shots.

THIRD BODY - CANON 80D

After using the 5D3 for a few years, I felt I needed more focal length for those birds perching high in the tree tops. The lens in my collection are not long enough. The long white Canon lenses like the 500 f4 and 600 f4 cost as much as a new car here, and could not justify spending that kind of money for a passion which has no financial returns, unless I sell my images, of course. But, I am not into bird photography for money.

So, would buying a very capable APSC better than my 60D with a 1.6 crop factor give me that extra reach with the lens that I have in my collection? Yes, it would give me a 60% increase in effective focal length, and a lot cheaper than buying those Canon white lens. I still can crop further like a 100% in Lightroom to get an acceptable size images. So, I bought an 80D body from Canon .

My Canon 80D body with a battery grip

Before throwing away my cash, I did a comparison between 7D2 and 80D on the internet. The 7D2 was more expensive and older than the 80D. The 80D has the latest sensor of 24.2 MB vs 20.2 MB on 7D2, however, has smaller pixel pitch at 3.73 micron vs 4.1micron on 7D2. Some reviewers on the internet claimed that the 80D gives cleaner images or low noise up to ISO 3200, however, I beg to differ as my experienced using the 80D in not so bright conditions produced images which were very noisy and soft images, very unusable when cropped heavily. As a matter of fact I was quite disappointed after I bought the 80D. I thought it was because of the lens, but after changing so many lenses I got the same results. The 80D does a better job in a bright condition noise wise, however, the images were still soft when cropped. I used the AF micro adjustment for each lens but the results remained the same. I did not have this problem with my 60D or 5D3 on the same lenses. Did I get a bad 80D copy?

80D has 45 AF points which are grouped for your selection. The best performance comes from the single point AF. The rest gave me hit and miss results.

The 80D does have its strengths vs 60D and 5D3. It has a flippable screen which is good for video shooting, selfie and weird angle shooting, touch screen LCD for various selection including focus points shift during video shooting, 45 autofocus points, AF points grouping like 5D3 except centre points with 4 and 9 helper points, and 6 frames per second burst rate.

80D allows you to adjust the AF tracking sensitivity but doesn't have the AF cases like 5D3

80D has only an SD card slot. You better use a higher capacity card like 32GB or 64GB just to be safe

At the point of buying the 80D I thought it could do a decent enough job like the 5D3 for bird photography, or give me a reason not to buy the more expensive 7D2 which is very good for bird photography, and popular among wildlife pros, but I was wrong. 

You can use the 80D for simple bird shots, close and non skittish birds perching on a branch in a bright sunlight with uncomplicated background. The 80D focus is not as good as 5D3. It missed a lot of shots on a bird sitting quietly on a branch of a tree even when using a tripod. The keeper rate on this body is very low, so low that I turned back to the 5D3 for my birding shots. When it managed to get a good shot the image was soft. I never experienced this kind of performance from Canon DSLR.

I should have bought the 7D Mark 2 instead even though it was a bit more expensive. Now the 80D sits in my bag as a backup body, for landscape and a bit of macro shooting. It is great for video works but I am not into videos. My son borrowed it more for video shooting for his schoolworks, at least it is still useful.

THE ULTIMATE APSC BODY FOR BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY - CANON 7D2

The last DSLR body I bought, which I should have bought a few years ago arrived on 25th March 2019, is the Canon 7D2. I know this camera has been out since 2014 and getting dated, but I could not wait for 7D3 to come out, if there is one in the works by Canon. The price has dropped significantly down to USD1036 for imported version, so I grabbed one since I cannot afford the 1DX Mark 2!

This camera is widely used by the pros for wildlife photography either as the main body or as a back up to their 1DX bodies. The 7D2 with the awesome AF and 10 frames per second burst rate is enough for my requirement to photograph birds especially birds in flight.

7D2 AF Cases which can be adjusted like 5D3

7D2 menu and buttons very similar to 5D3, except for the round lever at the toggle button.

It has buttons layout very similar to 5D3, with similar menu and card slots. I do not need a steep learning curve with this 7D2.

The 7D2 has the ISO speed range from 100 to 16000. Since I shoot mostly during bright daytime I do not think that the high ISO noise will be a problem if I limit the ISO to 3200. Anything higher than that I can use my 5D3 during very early morning or late evening.

7D2 has 65AF points, a bit more than 5D3

7D2 paired with Meike battery grip for better handling especially when using long lens, and more battery life.

7D2 paired with Canon 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS L lens. Add a 1.4x teleconverter I will get 112-420mm f8.0 lens.

I will do a special trip to test my new 7D2 to photograph birds in various situations to test the AF tracking, and the noise level in different lighting conditions using different ISO settings, and I will post the results for your viewing soon.


Thanks for reading.