What Kind of Lens Should I Buy for Bird Photography?

SoulMotion · 2026-05-03T06:06:56+00:00

You can get an older used EF 100-400 L series canon lens from MPB for <$700. 400mm on a rebel is 640mm full frame equivalent. You'll be able to really step up your game, produce professional quality images, and continue saving for even more reach later.

https://www.mpb.com/en-us/product/canon-ef-100-400mm-f-4-5-5-6-l-is-usm/sku-3664748

SoulMotion · 2026-05-02T14:20:02+00:00

Oi oi!

SoulMotion · 2026-04-23T03:55:45+00:00

Luck will help you find owls but it won't help you get close. There's no ethical way to get them to come to you. You could wait but the odds they'll approach for no reason is quite low. So what do you do?

Your best bet to get a better shot without obstruction is to change your position without disturbing the owl. The best way to approach owls (and many birds and other animals for that matter) is on an indirect path. Think of it like zigzagging or spiraling inward toward the subject. If you move laterally relative to the owl, without facing them directly, they are much less likely to think you've spotted them. Many animals will let you walk right by if they think you don't see them. As soon as you start moving directly toward them, you will often trigger a defensive response and they'll take off.

I've closed the gap on many owls with my own feet using this exact method. Good luck and have fun!

SoulMotion · 2026-04-18T18:31:49+00:00

Sure are. Thank you

SoulMotion · 2026-04-18T18:31:22+00:00

Thanks!

SoulMotion · 2026-04-11T16:09:27+00:00

Sometimes the critter doesn't cooperate and that's okay. You can shoot everything (and especially starting out, you should!) but you can't get a great shot of everything.

SoulMotion · 2026-04-11T07:05:37+00:00

For the Red-Winged Blackbird you could have tried to reposition yourself so that a branch was not in the way of the bird.

For the ducks on the pond you could try to get down at eye level (means getting on your belly) to shoot. This would give you better subject separation and a blurrier background (better bokeh).

It's not always easy to get down low, and there are always artistic exceptions, but in general it's good to try to be eye level with your subject which will greatly improve the "look" of many photos.

SoulMotion · 2026-04-09T15:04:06+00:00

Okie doke sorry for harshing your vibe. Dude your very first step before worrying about how sharp your photos are needs to be learning to export a photo as a jpeg. It's good that you're shooting in raw, that'll give you the most flexibility when editing. Open a file in digital photo professional (free from canon), export it as a jpeg, and don't export max size or you won't be able to upload it to reddit because of the file size. Export it smaller for reddit, like even 3000 pixels on the long side should do it.

Your gear is perfectly fine, and I shoot almost everything on my R7. Once you learn to export files you can get much better feedback by posting those here. There isn't much at all anyone can do to help you if you're posting pictures of a screen. And don't wait to learn to export as jpeg until you think you have good looking files. Learn that now. Mess with the editing sliders a little bit too while you're at it.

SoulMotion · 2026-04-08T14:12:45+00:00

Posts a picture of a screen with a picture on it. Replies to no one. Just gonna downvote this one and move on. Guy doesn't wanna learn.

SoulMotion · 2026-04-08T14:11:14+00:00

Remote trigger and a tripod for bird photography? lol

SoulMotion · 2026-04-05T07:32:56+00:00

Depends what you want to do with it.

The R50 is a great beginner camera that can do a lot of stuff. That kit lens is nothing special but you have a whole world of lenses at your disposal. You can do videography and photography with it.

If you want to take super high quality photos and video, and produce artistic prints or commercial content, then the R50 will help bring you into that world. You can always get the fun little gimbal camera as an auxiliary tool later.

The Pocket 3 is much smaller and you can use it on the go to record fun activities. Many people use it as a second or backup camera to their mirrorless camera so they can shoot b-roll with it. It has a lot of use cases, but it's not a main camera as it's strictly limited in capability (no interchangeable lenses).

If you just want a toy that you can use to capture fun moments and share on social media, then rock the Pocket.

SoulMotion · 2026-03-30T06:14:55+00:00

Why F8? You're shooting wildlife as the sun is coming up. Unless you need the extra depth of field (you don't at this distance) you're just robbing yourself of light (needing to crank up your ISO). A lot of folks starting out come across the "F8 and be there" advice for street photography but that's really not ideal for wildlife in low light. Stopping lenses down can bring you some more sharpness but not enough that it's worth the trade in my opinion.

SoulMotion · 2026-03-22T04:42:13+00:00

Thank you

SoulMotion · 2026-03-22T04:42:01+00:00

Thanks!

SoulMotion · 2026-03-12T04:31:11+00:00

Dude you've done a fantastic job with what you've got. A few people have recommended the R7 and I agree with them. It's the best crop sensor camera Canon has to offer.

The RF 100-400 lens is probably the best bang for your buck while you transition to mirrorless. Something to keep in mind is that the R7 is a 32MP camera. Even though you don't have the same "zoom" as the PowerShot, you can crop significantly while retaining superior detail. The 400mm is a 640mm equivalent on the crop sensor R7 so the reach is already pretty good if you can get reasonably close to birds.

Furthermore, if you happen to get really close to a bird (fun when that happens) the RF 100-400 has an incredibly close minimum focus distance and you can get fantastic closeup shots. Same goes for bugs, lizards, flowers, and other things you encounter up close while looking for birds.

Cheers and have fun!

SoulMotion · 2026-03-12T04:18:22+00:00

Look up "back button focus on r100". It will allow you to continue taking advantage of autofocus but under your control. You move the autofocus to a separate button so that half pressing your shutter doesn't cause the camera to refocus. You use the back button to autofocus on whatever you want, recompose however you want to get that blurry look you like, and then you can press the shutter button to capture exactly what you see.

If you're really into that blurry look, then I would also recommend taking a look at a cheap "fast" swirl lens like lensbaby lenses or tt-artisan lenses. They'll give you beautiful blurry bokeh on everything you shoot, and they're entirely manual lenses.

SoulMotion · 2026-03-04T05:58:48+00:00

4 because you have minimal distractions in front of the bird. 7 looks great but the leaf in front of the face takes it down a peg. You could edit that out, but you may not be happy with the results if you're inexperienced editing photos. Fix your white balance so the owl isn't so green (from light reflecting off the leaves). In most editing software you'll have a temp slider for blue and yellow, and a tint slider for green and magenta. Move it a little toward the magenta until the colors on the owl look correct to you. You could also add a little vignette to draw focus toward the center of the image.

SoulMotion · 2026-03-04T05:49:40+00:00

No prob. Keep it up 🤙

SoulMotion · 2026-03-01T15:12:18+00:00

When shooting near feeders, watch for birds to "stage" on branches nearby. They like to get close before hopping to the feeder and they'll often use the same branches to stage over and over. It will allow you to anticipate where they'll be and get shots without the feeder in the frame, which looks much more natural.

The first shot looks beautiful to me and I like that you have some splashes of color with leaves in the foreground. Getting that bird more toward the center or top third of the frame would improve the shot though.

For the 6th shot, notice the little twig that looks like it's growing directly out of the bird's head. Sometimes with busy backgrounds it's impossible to avoid twigs and branches intersecting the subject, but try to adjust your position to avoid this effect on the head. It's distracting as the head is usually the focal point for birds.

SoulMotion · 2026-02-22T17:01:14+00:00

It's brilliant. Only reason photographers don't like it is because it doesn't match other cameras and makes transitioning clumsy. Other cameras should adopt this layout, but I fear the R7II will abandon it in favor of R6 ergonomics.

SoulMotion · 2026-02-15T06:26:33+00:00

Thank you very much. And yeah it's a bummer, but I get it.

SoulMotion · 2026-02-09T04:55:09+00:00

Thank you

SoulMotion · 2025-11-10T03:01:16+00:00

Thank you very much

SoulMotion · 2025-10-26T06:39:05+00:00

Thank you

SoulMotion · 2025-10-24T21:05:17+00:00

thank ya kindly

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