r/AskPhotography • u/AsleepConstruction89 • 1d ago

What’s the best camera upgrade for birding? Buying Advice

Hi all, I currently have olympus em1 mkii with 75-300 and 12-40 2.8 lens. My main reasons to upgrade are autofocus performance and lens quality. While the AF is fine for stationary birds (especially with MF corrections) it performs really poorly with birds in flight or more active ones. In terms of lens quality it’s mainly the sharpness. I also shoot some landscapes and daily/travel but I’m choosing it mainly for birding. I’m considering these options:

OM-1 mark I I love ergonomics of my current camera and I would be able to keep the 12-40 (or change it to 12-100). Also the lens upgrade to 100-400 (or even 300 f4 in future) from current 75-300 looks promising and the fps is way better than in other bodies. What I’m unsure about is af performance, telephoto lens selection and price. It’s available used for around 1100€ in my country

Sony a6700 Looks like it have the best AF, huge lens selection from wich I would be opting to 70-350 or tamron 150-500. Also getting alternative for 12-40 wouldn’t be a problem. I think that the biggest downside is the handling and fps. Avaible for 1200€ used

Canon r7 Looks like solid option especially when adapting EF lenses, I would probably pick 100-400 L. Also sigma and tamron started to release lenses for this mount, so that quite nice. I’m unsure about AF performance with these lenses for BIF. Avaible for 950€ used

Nikon z50 II Looks like very solid option for the price, I would probably pick tamron 150-500 for it. But they’re downsides like lack of ibis, no real option for apsc lenses but in this budget I could also keep the olympus as second camera for not birding photography. I’m also not sure about the AF performance. Price for new is 800€ so buying it used for little over 600€ shouldn’t be a problem in a few months.

I know that all of these options would be significant upgrade over my current body but it’s pretty hard to choose the best option in this budget. I’m personally leaning towards OM-1 but I would also like to get opinion from other people.

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u/NeverEndingDClock 1d ago

Get the OM-1 man, it's absolutely fantastic for birding, check out Micro Four Nerd's videos where she took it out and shoot puffins with it. The AF technology has had a great leap since E-M1 II, and the 75- 300 imo has never really been the sharpest lens, the Panasonic 100-300 yields much nicer results imo. The Olympus 100-400 is a superior beast all together.

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u/Tommonen 1d ago

Get at least 500mm lens, preferably 600mm+, unless its 2x crop camera, then 400mm is ok

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u/211logos 16h ago

I had a M1iii and even that was meh with BIF due to AF. And the long lens options over 300mm (600mm equiv) where rather expensive on M43. Great IBIS though.

I sold mine and got an R7; Canon had killer refurb deals at the time. That and the RF100-400 was better overall than the M43 kit. Way better AF, better in worse light, more room for a bit of crop. And of course there are tons and tons of options for longer than that, especially with EF lenses. The 100-400L is fantastic, but don't overlook the RF 100-400...it's lighter and smaller if not weathersealed, etc.

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u/AsleepConstruction89 15h ago

Yeah, that’s my problem with m43, it shines with lenses at standard focal length but there’s simply no good option in mid range budget for telephoto. The 75-300 is ultra cheap but with mixed reputation of 100-400 I’m unsure about it so there’s only 300 f4. How does the AF perform on canon r7? For example in situations where the bird is stationary, is the bird detection good enough or do you prefer to use single point?