So I occasionally hang around airport fences and shows looking at the planes and taking pics. Nikon D3100 DSLR with the 18-55 kit lens and a 70-300 which has no image stabilisation. Since people have asked me about Christmas presents I got to pondering. Initial thoughts would be to just get a VR 18-300 (£550ish) and carry on with DSLR. Switching to mirrorless, megazoom and bridge cameras are all options. WWSTWD?

Somewhat outside budget but my goto camera these days is a Sony RX10 mkIV. Just does everything so well and is the most convenient camera I have ever used.

I did have a nice Canon 5D mkIII with some serious L series glass and it was lovely but carrying everything around was just a pain. The Sony is 24-600mm 35mm equiv. with a really decent quality lens and a 1″ sensor.

Sure you lose out a hair in IQ but you gain so much in having a camera with you that can do macro through to birds in flight with ease.

As an alternative to a vr lens, tripods can be had pretty cheaply . . .

I’ve got a Nikon P900 which has 83X zoom. Great for stuff like that ^^ but crap for low light due to its small sensor & fast focussing on birds in flight or background clutter.
I mentioned a decent camera & a big fat lens on the Xmas pressie to ones self thread as well.

I use a sigma 150-500 on my canon 7D mk2 for wildlife and airshows.

I have a Sigma 100-300 F4 on a Pentax body with IS. It’s effective range is 150-450 on the Pentax DSLR and works really well down to medium light levels. My main photography interest is birds and planes so I have had plenty of practice with panning.
My brother has the equivalent lens on his Nikon DSLR body (D7500?)bought this year which has IS built into the lens. The results he has been getting photographing birds in low light are amazing, showing how the body technology has moved on in the past few years

I’m a photographer but don’t like lugging kit around.

First question I ask myself with any project is ‘what do I want from the file?’

ie

Is the image for:

Hobby/reference?
Art/fine art?
Professional technical reference?
Social media?
Large/wide-format print?
To test my skills as a Photographer?

Planes as with birds ideally require a decent fast-as-possible lens with long focal-length (400 or more) and a tripod.

I like to a use DSLR optical viewfinder with moving objects, but DSLR is a heft to carry and lot to invest in a decent long lens.

If it was just to see how close I could get to the plane and take a half-decent image of mostly static daytime stuff to show online or keep in my library then I’d probably opt for a Coolpix superzoom. Less weight than a DSLR and quite bonkers optical zoom/reach for the money.

A good used P900 from a decent supplier would be ideal, I reckon. See how it goes?

I use Park Cameras and would recommend.

Otherwise (freeze-frame fast planes in overcast light) then DSLR and fairly deep pockets, although again you can get decent used kit. A decent shout @ https://machloop.co.uk/tag/aviation-photography-equipment/

A good used P900 from a decent supplier would be ideal, I reckon. See how it goes?

As I said, that’s what I’ve got but There’s the P1000 available. 125X zoom.
😳

Great for stationary stuff 5 miles away!

I just bought a used Tamron 70-300 VR lens for my D3100 for less than £200 on eBay – it was near immaculate, works perfectly. Bought it for bird and wildlife photography.

From experience I would say if you’re shooting moving objects then a DSLR does an infinitely better job than mirrorless cameras of any quality including the RX10 mk 4 and micro 4/3 ‘SLR’s.
Canon 100-400L Mk 2 is what I use for wildlife and planes in the sky. Lovely lens to use but not compact! Not sure what the equivalent would be for Nikon, or what similar lens Sigma do, but it’s hard to beat the autofocus and general awesomeness of the 100-400L. It also has amazing close focus so works well for macro eg butterflies and insects etc as you can get really good images without having to get too close as you would with a standard macro lens.
If it’s on the ground then you can be less picky, but if you’re used to SLRs then I’d predict you’ll eventually get super annoyed by a more compact camera.
Nikon 80-400 VR looks nice.

Having used gear from all the major DSLR & Mirrorless manufacturers over the years – and having owned an eye watering amount of lens combinations – I can now honestly say that it is incredibly rare that gear is holding anyone back*

You specifically mention not having VR – so I’ll ask a question. When do you think not having VR has resulted in you missing a shot that VR would have saved? Certainly most aircraft in flight won’t need it although there are benefits when you are shooting helicopters and prop planes.

I don’t think you will find a mirrorless system for your budget that would give you equal performance. I had to go to a fairly modern sony full frame to beat the focus performance of my old Nikon D750 and that is quite a wedge of cash.

If you swap lenses a lot, it’s hard to fault your logic on the 18-300mm. If you don’t, maybe look at either a higher spec 70-300mm or a newer body with some of the improvement that brings.

*usual caveats apply.

Thanks all, on VR and tripods. I’m well covered for tripods with a nice chunky Manfrotto 055 and a Manfrotto monopod. It isn’t always possible to use them though, like when your lens is right up to a chain link fence, or like the Antonov pic above I was standing on the car roof rack to get the tall fence out of frame. I also like to have the camera in the bike bar bag and go mooching around perimeters and car parks for better angles, so I don’t want big heavy kit. One lens is appealing, but two is manageable. DSLR with optical viewfinder preferred, as I have a perfectly usable body and kit lens already, but the P900 looks like fun too, catching a few over fliers too.

You just need the dx pf vr version nikon 70 300. Cheap as chips and highly rated. Don’t buy a 18 300 for this it’ll no better at the long end

I would imagine getting the P900 to focus reliably on a moving object would be bordering on impossible. Plus the manual focus will be awful to use, and combining that with an EVF will be difficult to actually tell if anything is in focus or not. Imagine it has focus peaking to try to give you an idea, but trying to manual focus with superzoom compact cameras is something that drove me to distraction and back to SLRs again.

Planes as with birds ideally require a decent fast-as-possible lens with long focal-length (400 or more) and a tripod

Very very few of the air show photographers (including a couple of professionals) that I know use tripods for moving planes, for the simple reason they get in the way of the fast panning required. Some might use for static

If you’re tracking moving objects then VR helps a lot, if you’re doing static stuff then it’s not needed unless you have really shaky hands eg Parkinsons.

On something like the Mach Loop you probably don’t want to go much bigger than 300mm as panning it by hand is getting hard as the lens will be really heavy. If you’re just peering through a perimiter fence then a tripod and a 500mm lens will be fine.

Auto focus is worth considering, don’t know much about the latest mirrorless, but the pro Nikon bodies have very fast autofocus (if you use decent glass eg f2.8). They are designed for Sports journalism where you just want to track a moving object and the camera always keeps it in focus (well almost always). But then you’re paying £5k+ for the body alone.

From experience I would say if you’re shooting moving objects then a DSLR does an infinitely better job than mirrorless cameras of any quality including the RX10 mk 4 and micro 4/3 ‘SLR’s.

Hi Andy, what is making the difference here? I see lots of fascinating birds up here and am interested in if I have optimal kit for what I’m trying to do.

Just don’t do it in Greece.

In your situation I would look at the secondhand market, Canon 1dmk4 and a sigma 150-600. Careful shopping will get very good examples of this set up for 1000-1200.

Second hand Sigma 150-600 Contemporary? Has a lot more reach than your 300, has image stabilisation built in and will work fine with your existing body. If you fancy it, upgrading your body further up the range with Nikon will give you more focus points and other advantages too. Only downside with the lens is that it’s very heavy. They start at sub £600 at MPB.

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/used-equipment/used-photo-and-video/used-lenses/used-nikon-fit-lenses/sigma-150-600mm-f-5-6-3-dg-os-hsm-c-nikon-fit/++

**EDIT** – I do have the 18-300 dx vr and it’s a great general purpose lens. Not super sharp at the long end but pretty good and so light and compact. Expensive though.

Hi Andy, what is making the difference here?

Yep, I was surprised by that statement, I had assumed mirrorless was on a par with full frame DSLR cameras now in terms of image quality. Afterall, Sony make Nikon’s full frame sensor, so you’d think they could match it in their top end mirrorless bodies.

Mirrorless has pretty much caught up with DSLR now, but only recently. So the worthwhile mirrorless cameras are very expensive (Canon R5, R6 etc). Whereas the older DSLRs like the 1D4, 1Dx etc are relatively cheap and have better image quality (and ease of use for birds and planes) than older mirrorless.

It’s only with the most recent mirrorless options that wildlife / bird photographers have started switching over.

Edit: Also, up until recently, the mirrorless options weren’t designed for sport or wildlife, so even if the IQ was great, the handling, frame rate, AI focus etc would not have been suitable.

frame rate

Again, that surprises me as a DSLR has to move the mirror out the way, which is a lot of mechanical complexity esp at > 10fps and with a shutter lifetime of > 250k.

And cameras like the Sony RX10M4 have the same autofocus system as the Sony A9 and can shoot pretty much continuously at 24FPS. The focus tracking is ridiculously good as well. I shoot birds in flight with ease with my RX10M4 and it wees all over my old Canon 5D mkIII.

I wouldn’t go back to a mirrored system and given how capable the RX10 is I can’t see me moving back to an ILC system even unless I get back into semi-Pro stuff. It just does everything so well, weighs a shade over a kilo so I can have it with me at times and has a focal length range that is hard to beat for the shear convenience of the thing.

Sure in very low light it suffers against a pro FF camera but it is as good as any aps-c camera I have ever used.

can shoot pretty much continuously at 24FPS

I used to shoot a lot of field hockey and the 10/11 fps of my Nikon D4s just wasn’t quick enough to always catch the moment the stick struct the ball and it shot off. Only got the ball impact about 50% of the time, so I reckoned 20 fps was what I needed to get it every time…

Well I spotted a Nikon 18-300VR on ebay for not too much, so jumped on that for now and will see how it goes. I know my D3100 is getting on a bit now and won’t play with the AF-P lenses. The new lens is chunkier, but only 13mm longer when not extended than the 18-55 kit lens, so it still fits in my existing holster case and together with the body is only 1140g total. Still not jersey pocket size, but no biggie to stash in handlebar bag or saddlebag to take riding. I like compact, in the film SLR days I used a Pentax MX which was about as small as you could get.

That Sigma looks great, but it’s a bit chuffin huge. The superzoom all in ones still appeal, but in the back of my mind are the three or four compact digitals we had in the early 2000s which all eventually failed on the zoom and had to be binned, so if I went smaller I’d need some convincing they were robust or repairable. I’m not sure any of the mirrorless DSLR style cameras would make the overall package smaller and lighter enough than my current setup to be worthwhile, the Z50 body is bigger and heavier. I do see some use in a more modern body with more extra focus options and fancy wifi connections, so maybe I’ll set up an ebay search for D5600 body bargains.

If you don’t win the lens on eBay e-Infinity have it for £459 brand new.

https://www.e-infin.com/uk/item/2082/nikon_af-s_dx_nikkor_18-300mm_f/3.5-6.3g_ed_vr_lens

d5300 is a little less spendy than the d5600 if you want one with a few more focus points. d5600 is a little bit smaller and has a touch screen and WiFi too, the d5300 doesn’t. Either would be a good upgrade to the 31. Also worth looking on FB marketplace for either, there seems to be a fair few about.

I used to shoot a lot of field hockey and the 10/11 fps of my Nikon D4s just wasn’t quick enough to always catch the moment the stick struct the ball and it shot off. Only got the ball impact about 50% of the time, so I reckoned 20 fps was what I needed to get it every time…”

If you double the frame rate won’t you half the missed-shot rate, so still maybe not every time?

Midlifecrashes, looks like we hang out in similar places.

I didn’t want to start lugging lenses and a DSLR, and have had a number of bridge/superzooms which resulted in some OK’ish images, but last year took the plunge and bought a Nikon D810 along with the Nikon 200-500 and a Nikon 28-300.

Took a while playing with settings, but I now wish I’d that bought a DSLR years ago.
The speed of focus is the biggest advantage in most moving situations. The 28-300 is the great compromise for most flying images as the bigger zoom is clumsier to pan.

Battery life on a DSLR is a winner over most mirrorless as well, I’ll get over 1000 shots on a charge without using a battery pack.