I live on the coast and love animals. The subjects would be seals, birds, and also forest animals. In most cases I would ideally be able to get reasonably close but sometimes from afar, like an eagle a couple hundred feet up in a tree.
I’ve been told I take great pictures, but usually these are landscape photos taken with an iPhone 13 Pro Max. I think I have a decent eye for framing (not sure if I’m using the term correctly), lighting, and I’m often opportunistic. However, I am of course a complete amateur and know nothing about proper cameras and the hobby looks quite daunting to me. I’ve been looking for a new hobby and photography never interested me much before but I’ve been getting bored and would love to be able to get out into nature more often and take some quality pictures of animals along the way.
My budget would ideally be less than $700USD, but I could be flexible.
Any advice, or resources to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated! I hope I’m in the right sub. Thank you all in advance.
Get a crop sensor camera and a long lens. Buy everything used from KEH, Adorama, B&H, or if you know what you’re doing: eBay.
$700 is a tight budget for wildlife, but is doable. You’ll have to buy used; I buy all my camera gear used from reputable dealers or manufacturer refurbished though, and I’ve never had a problem.
I think you have two good options at that price point - a used bridge camera like the Nikon P950, or a used DSLR with an older long focal length lens. The former is going to be smaller and offers more magnification at the expense of image quality, while the latter is going to be larger and heavier.
For the latter option, no matter the brand, you should try to spend as much of that budget on the longest and widest max aperture lens you can find, and then get the cheapest compatible camera body that has the minimum features you need. When it comes to wildlife, money goes much further on lenses than it does on camera bodies. I’m only familiar with Canon though, where your best bet might be an EF 400mm f5.6 (~$600) and a 40D camera body (~$70). That combo is a little low on megapixels and you won’t be able to zoom in and out with that lens, but it will still be more than capable of capturing stunning images at a good distance; wildlife photography YouTuber Duade Paton uses that camera to great effect in a number of budget-oriented videos.
You’ll want a long lens, ideally something that goes to at least 200mm. I use a 70-300mm lens for wildlife.
I would say look at Sony mirrorless like an A6000 and see if you can get an older used camera and lens for that budget. They had superior autofocus in the camera body years you’ll be able to get with that.
Suggest you learn more about photography in general with the aim of wildlife photography. There really should be some understanding of the basics (iso, aperture, shutter speed, focal lengths, etc) Having the knowledge of what it means to have “good composition” “framing” and so on. $1000 (assuming USD) is doable to start your photography journey. Per the other posters…buy used to start
Learning the basics of photography will give you more insight on WHAT you might want to buy. Crop sensor or full frame. Start with a bridge camera? or DSLR?