“I’d like one of those and one of those and one of those and…”
You can never have too many cameras…
“Hello, my name’s Nick, and I’m a cameraholic.”
There’s something very addictive about buying a new camera. You get obsessed with the idea of owning something that has the latest features, and you simply have to have it…!
Let’s just assume, then, that you want the very best camera on the market, but what do you actually need as a wildlife photographer?
For me, it all comes down to having the best camera you can afford. Customisation is important, especially on mirrorless cameras, and things like pre-release capture, lens choice (see article) and a built-in Neutral Density (ND) filter are great. However, the most important features are sensor size, frame rate and autofocus.
Let’s have a look at each of these.
Sensor Size
Wings of Gold (taken with my 50MP Sony ⍺1
There are two ways of measuring the size of a sensor. The first is its physical size, with full-frame sensors the largest common format among DSLRs and mirrorless cameras—although you can always buy a medium- or large-format camera if you really want to.
A full-frame sensor measures 36 x 24 mm and beats any of the smaller formats available:
1/2.5”
1/1.8”
2/3”
1”
Micro Four Thirds
APS-C (including Nikon’s DX).
APS-H
etc…
The extra size of full-frame sensors allows manufacturers to fit more pixels on them, which brings several benefits:
finer detail
sharpness
ability to crop in
ability to print at larger sizes.
Full-frame sensors also gather more light, but there’s a trade-off. If you want better noise reduction and low-light performance (especially at high ISOs), it’s the size of the individual pixels (or ‘pixel pitch’) that matters, not the overall size of the sensor. The fewer pixels you have on the sensor, the larger they can be.
That leaves you with a tricky decision: which is more important to you, resolution or low-light performance? If it’s resolution, you’ll want to max out your megapixels by getting a 50-60MP camera like the Sony ⍺1 or a7R V. If it’s low-light performance, you’ll want to get a 20-30MP DSLR like the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III or the mirrorless Canon EOS R6.
Now, it’s worth mentioning that the specifications of your new camera won’t automatically improve all your images—a blurry mess is still a blurry mess! Whether you opt for extra resolution or better low-light capability, you’ll still need good camera technique and the right settings. That means supporting the camera properly (either in your hands or on a beanbag or tripod) and using image stabilisation and a fast enough shutter speed.
However, better specs DO give you a headstart, and that should improve your average shot. It should also let you get shots that are simply impossible with an iPhone or a compact camera.
Frame Rate
Three's a Crowd (taken with my 5 fps Nikon D810)
The frame rate is the number of shots you can take in a second. The typical Raw frame rates of modern DSLR and mirrorless cameras are between five and 40 frames per second (fps), but the ⍺9 III’s global shutter system gives you 120 fps!
However, there’s a trade-off between frame rate and resolution. High-resolution RAW files are much larger than compressed JPEGs, so it takes the camera longer to write them to the memory card. The ⍺9 III only has a 24MP sensor, but Sony managed to crack the problem on the ⍺1 by using CFexpress cards and increasing the readout speed of its sensor so that it can record 50MP RAW images at a frame rate of 30 fps (albeit in lossy compressed format). However, Canon forces you to choose between high resolution (the R5 Mark II) and a high frame rate (the R1 and R3).
Essentially, a high frame rate gives you more chances of winning the lottery. Animals and birds can move very quickly—especially when chasing each other or flying at high speed. Being able to take more pictures during crucial moments gives you more ‘keepers’ but also a better chance of landing the big prize.
For example, if you want a shot of a bird in flight with its wings lifted almost vertically, there’s no way you could time a single shot to capture that exact moment, so you have to take a burst. The higher the burst rate, the better the odds of getting the image you want.
However, it’s not quite as simple as that. Some cameras have high frame rates, but they don’t let you alter the focus or exposure in the middle of a burst. That’s obviously no good for most action shots! There are also cameras that can only hit their highest frame rate when creating JPEGs rather than RAW files. Again, most serious photographers shoot in RAW to capture the maximum information during the exposure, so that’s not very helpful.
The other factor that affects the number of shots you can take in a given time is the buffer size. This measures the number of images the camera can take before it starts to slow down—or even stops taking pictures altogether.
In wildlife photography, the crucial moment usually lasts only a few seconds, but that’s not always the case. I once saw four male lions take down a Cape buffalo, and the whole thing went on for 10 or 15 minutes. Unfortunately, I was using a Nikon D810 DSLR back in those days, and it could only manage 28 shots before freezing up!
My new Sony ⍺1 cameras are much better. The frame rate does slow down a bit, but they never stop shooting entirely. The only problem would be if I had to use an SD card rather than a CFexpress Type A card. The read/write speed is much lower, so it would take forever for the buffer to clear!
I don’t use them any more, but I once made the mistake of switching off my camera to switch SD cards before the buffer had completely cleared. That resulted in an error message and a very anxious five minutes while I replaced the original memory cards (in the right slots) and let the camera ‘catch up’…
Autofocus
Feeding Frenzy (taken with my Sony ⍺1 using bird eye detection)
There are a number of different aspects that a wildlife photographer should be looking at in an autofocus system:
Coverage of the frame
Number of focus points
Eye detection
Eye tracking
Speed of acquisition
‘Stickiness’
etc…
At the end of the day, though, the most important thing is to be able to detect and track the eye as quickly and reliably as possible. This is where mirrorless cameras will always score more highly than DSLRs, and it’s one of the main reasons I traded in my Nikon D810 and D850 for a pair of Sony ⍺1s.
The top mirrorless models from Sony, Nikon and Canon have exceptional eye detection and tracking capabilities. Sony’s been in the game a bit longer, so its autofocus has set the standard, but the other two have just about caught up now with the Z9 and the R3/R5 Mark II.
Eye detection is simply impossible when using a DSLR’s optical viewfinder, and its coverage area is very limited compared to the full-frame focus areas of mirrorless cameras. That’s why mirrorless models are the future of wildlife photography—and it looks like Nikon and Sony have basically given up on DSLRs.
I’d be surprised if any more brand-new DSLR models came out in the next few years, so unless you’re a Pentax user, you’re much better off with a mirrorless model.
Other
Apart from the ‘big three’ factors, there are a few others to consider. The most important ones to me are pre-release capture, customisation, lens choice and filters.
Pre-release Capture
Wing Beat, taken with my Z8 using pre-release capture
I recently swapped one of my Sony ⍺1s for a Nikon Z8, and the reason I did it was to get access to pre-release capture and a lens with a built-in teleconverter. The feature has been around for a long time, and OM System cameras have had it for ages, but now the Sony ⍺9 III, the Nikon Z8 and the Canon EOS R1 also offer it.
The reason it’s so important is that it means you’re less likely to miss the crucial moments in action sequences, such as a bird taking off. Until I bought my Z8, whether I managed to get a good shot of a lilac-breasted roller taking off was always a bit of a lottery, and my reactions just weren’t good enough to capture the moment when it actually left the branch with its wings raised.
Now, though, I can use pre-release capture, which is like a photography time machine. My camera starts buffering images as soon as I focus on my subject, and as soon as I press the shutter button, it writes them to the memory card and then carries on recording frames as normal. The Z8 lets you choose the length of the pre-capture period, but I set it to the maximum of one second—which equates to 30 images at 30 fps. That means it’s almost impossible for me to miss the moment a bird takes off.
The only downside is that pre-release capture doesn’t currently work in Raw format. However, the Z9 does offer the Raw version, so I can’t imagine it’ll take too long for that to be rolled out to the Z8 in a new firmware update. Here’s hoping!
Customisation
Sony ⍺1 with three custom presets on the main dial, two custom buttons near the shutter release and a dedicated exposure compensation dial
One of the things I miss about my Sony ⍺1 when I’m using my Z8 is the customisation options. The ⍺1 has 16 customisable buttons, a dedicated exposure compensation dial and three pre-sets on the main dial that let me save every single setting I need for animal portraits, bird portraits and slow pans. The Z8 just doesn’t have that flexibility.
Yes, there are memory banks, but they don’t actually save the default settings, so it’s impossible to ‘reset’ them all at once, and I can’t even set up a custom button to toggle between subject detection modes. Crazy, right…?!
Lens Choice
My NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S with the built-in 1.4x teleconverter
No camera can take pictures without a lens, so you have to decide which focal lengths you need before investing in one. Sony has been making full-frame mirrorless cameras and lenses longer than anyone else, so there’s a huge range to choose from. However, it still hasn’t brought out a telephoto with a built-in teleconverter.
To me, this is the ideal compromise between a prime and a zoom lens. You get the wide maximum aperture and all the optical quality of a prime plus some of the flexibility of a zoom in terms of focal length. That’s one of the reasons why I recently decided to ‘mix and match’ my equipment, trading in my old Sony ⍺1 and 600mm GM lens for my new Nikon Z8 and a NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S lens.
You can read all about it here, but as well as getting a camera with pre-release capture, I also benefit from a lens with a built-in 1.4x teleconverter. All I now have to do to go from 600mm to 840mm is flip a switch on the side of the lens!
I used to have 400mm and 600mm lenses, but it was always a nightmare deciding which lens(es) to pack or take with me on a game drive. Now, I don’t need an extra bag any more as I can simply take my 600mm lens with me wherever I go!
Filters
Most wildlife photographers don’t use many filters any more. You can do so much in Lightroom or Photoshop that it’s just not worth it. However, the one filter I still find useful is a variable Neutral Density (or ND) filter.
Thanks to Paul Goldstein, I now take lots of slow pans of birds and animals. However, the African sun is so strong that there’s often too much light! Prime lenses tend to have a maximum aperture of f/22 these days, so if you’re trying to shoot at anything from 1/4 to 1/30 of a second, it’s easy to max that out—even at the minimum extended ISO of 32 or 50.
An additional problem is that most fast telephoto lenses are just too big to be able to use screw-in filters, so they have a drop-in system instead. That’s all very well, but the range of available products is often quite small. For example, I could get a drop-in ND filter for my Sony 600mm but not for my NIKKOR one. It’s very annoying, and I have to make do with a circular polariser, which only cuts down the light by a maximum of one stop.
One way of solving the problem is to buy a camera with a built-in ND filter. Unfortunately, there are currently only 49 cameras that offer that feature—and they don’t include the high-end flagship mirrorless cameras of Sony, Canon and Nikon!
If you don’t mind a crop sensor, there are plenty of Micro Four Thirds cameras made by OM System and APS-C ones made by Fujifilm and Panasonic. However, it would be nice to see the full-frame manufacturers get on board…
Verdict
Watch the Birdies (taken with my Sony a1)
Sensor size, frame rate and autofocus aren’t the only factors when deciding which new camera to buy, but they’re the most important ones for wildlife photographers. Not everyone will be able to afford the top-of-the-line Nikon Z9 or Canon R3/R5—let alone the Sony ⍺1!—but the autofocus performance makes a mirrorless camera your best bet.
If you have a limited budget and want the highest possible resolution, Sony users should probably buy the new Sony a7R V. Its frame rate is only 10 fps, but it has a 60MP sensor, a selfie-friendly LCD that’s ideal for vlogging and an improved autofocus system that doesn’t make you choose between humans, animals and birds. Alternatively, if you prefer a higher frame rate and don’t mind the minimum ISO of 250, you could opt for the new Sony a9 III with pre-capture and blistering bursts of 120 fps!
If you have Canon or Nikon glass that you want to keep using (with or without an adaptor), there are plenty of mirrorless models to choose from—some even with pre-release capture. The Z9 is the all-singing, all-dancing version for Nikon users, but the Nikon Z8 is much smaller and lighter if you don’t need the built-in battery grip.
If you’re a Canon user, you’ll need to make a choice. The 45 MP R5 Mark II has a higher resolution (and Pro Capture), but the R3 can shoot at 30 fps and up to 195 fps in short bursts! If you don’t want to compromise, you’ll just have to splash out on the flagship R1, which offers 40 fps with Pro Capture…
Canon and Nikon have a more limited range of mirrorless lenses than Sony, and both companies have chosen to make life difficult for third-party manufacturers to release compatible lenses—although that’s changing over time. My favourite at the moment is the NIKKOR Z 600mm f/4 TC VR S, which is the longest available lens with a built-in 1.4x teleconverter, making it ideal for wildlife photography.
Filters are less important to most people, but if you’re a big fan of the slow pan (as I am!), you might want to think about buying a camera with a built-in Neutral Density filter. Who wants the bother of having to take filters on and off in the field when you can do it with the press of a button…?!
I hope all this camera info has been helpful. If you’re ready to take the plunge, you might want to read my guide to the best lenses for wildlife photography…!
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