Canon SX 50 HS for Bird Photography: I love this camera!

Hi there, 

Great News, my The Stokes Guide to Finches of the United States and Canada (with coauthor Matt Young) is now available, BUY NOW, CLICK HERE. 

It's all things finch for all bird lovers! It has 353 stunningly beautiful photos from top bird photographers, some full page. 91 million people feed finches at their feeders, if you are one of them, this book is for you!

MY ten pages of tips are still available, email me, email is at the top right of the page. If you are reading this here's what you need to know.

1. The Canon SX 50 is still better than the new Canon SX 60 and I have both cameras. I still think the SX 50 is a great camera. If you can, get the Canon SX 50. A good used or refurbished one is worth it. Canon now has the SX 70 and I have not gotten it. From what I hear it is still not as good as the SX 50. Read more here,

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62061542

2. I will still give you my 10 pages of very extensive tips on how to use the SX 50 for bird photography if you email me for them. They are much better than the manual for learning how to photograph birds. My email is on the top right of this page. I have given my tips to thousands of people all across the world. My tips are much more extensive than this blog post and will help you much more than the SX 50 manual.

3. If you bought the Canon SX 60, some of my tips for the SX 50 will help you. The Canon SX 60 does not produce as sharp photos at full telephoto extension and Sports Mode does not work as well as with the Canon SX 50. See my review of the SX 60 here.

4. You need to ID what you photograph and our photographic guides are the best help, so get now 

The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds, eastern edition 

or The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds, western edition.

Here are a few sample photos I took recently with the Canon SX 50.

American White Pelicans

Snowy Egret

Mottled Ducks

Pied-billed Grebe

Here is a Dark-eyed Junco in my crabapple tree. Photo is untouched except for cropping.

I'm Lillian Stokes, prominent American bird author and photographer who, along with my husband Don, have written 35 best-selling books on birds and nature including the best-selling and one of the most comprehensive national photographic field guides ever written, The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America. Also available are the regional east/west editions of this mentioned above.

News Flash: My new book, The Stokes Essential Pocket Guide to the Birds of North America was recently published! It has fantastic large photos and covers 250 North American bird species. At just the right size, you can slip it in your pocket when you go out to photograph birds. Get this book, it is perfect for beginning and intermediate birders. Amazingly, two of the main photos in this book were taken with my Canon SX 50! Here they are, this Western Kingbird and this House Wren.

Western Kingbird

House Wren

By the way, Canon does not pay me to say nice things about the SX 50 and I am not paid by Canon to endorse this camera. I just happen to have gotten the camera, like it, and want to tell you about it you so you will come to enjoy birds and photography because of this camera. The more people become attached to birds the more they will want to conserve them. Over 130,000 viewers have read my original post and then thousands have gotten this camera and are enjoying it. This camera has converted many people to bird enthusiasts.

The information below is all about the Canon SX 50 HS. 
Just for fun, here is a photo I took in winter with the Canon SX 50, from a car, of a preening Snowy Owl on the NH coast.

Here's my Original Post written Feb. 1, 2013,

Warning! Reading this blog post could cost you money. I just got the new Canon SX 50 HS point and shoot super-zoom camera and I love it. It's in my right hand, my Canon 1D Mark IV with the 300mm lens and 1.4 teleconverter is in my left hand. The SX 50 HS has a 12.1 megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor, DIGIC 5 image processor, image stabilization, ISO 80-6400. The focal length when optical and digital zoom are combined is as follows (35 mm equivalent) 24-4800 mm (24-1200mm with optical zoom alone.) It can shoot RAW. Here are some of the reasons why I like the SX 50 HS.

It shoots birds in flight fairly easily in Sports Mode, as I found out yesterday when I tried it out on Brown Pelicans and got this photo.

Or how about this photo of a White Pelican I took recently.

Recently I took the Canon SX 50 for a test spin to Harn's Marsh in FL. See the ducks in the pond near the far shore?

Here are the ducks zoomed in a little closer, they look like black spots.

Now here are the Ring-necked Ducks photographed with the lens zoomed all the way in, past the optical zoom range, into digital zoom of 200x. Camera was set on Smart Auto photo is untouched.

There were a number of other birds that were just too far away for my other DSLR cameras, such as this Limpkin in the far cattails.

The Limpkin was preening then stretched. 

This Black-crowned Night-Heron was way out of the reach of my usual cameras. There is something immensely fun and powerful in being able to zoom in on very distant birds and get a photo.

The camera has a great ability just set on Smart Auto and people should have little problem photographing close, or relative close, birds in decent light. The harder part is hand holding the camera still when you are zoomed all the way, or a good part of the way, in on a bird. Many people may not want to or be able to do this, but that is where the fun is for me. 

Here is my tip for steadying the camera while hand holding and shooting with the lens zoomed in closer on the bird. To steady the camera look through the viewfinder with the camera braced against your head. Do not shoot while looking through the back screen. Hold the barrel of the lens with your hand all the way out on the barrel and tuck your elbows against your body, making a tripod of your body. Try to hold as still as possible. Depress the shutter halfway to focus on the bird, then take the photo quickly. If you then lose the bird in the viewfinder,  zoom back out to give you just a wide enough field of view to find the bird again, zoom in, then get the bird in focus and take another photo. 

To refined a bird you lost in the viewfinder, you can also use the uppermost button on the left had side of the camera near the base of the lens for Framing Assist-Seek. Hold this button down and the camera zooms out, allowing you to find and reacquire the subject. Take multiple photos, some shots will be sharper than others.

Another place we went recently was the Bailey Tract on Sanibel. See the Wilson's Snipe on the far shore?

Here it is with the camera zoomed in to 200x.

The Mottled Duck was closer than the snipe, see the dot in front of the island? I am standing on the bank taking the photo with the camera on 24mm.

Here is the Mottled Duck taken with camera on Smart Auto and the photo only slightly sharpened in photoshop.

There were Gulf Fritillary butterflies at my feet and it was so cool to be be able to take their photo as well as the distant birds.

The view from my back deck in my FL home. See the eagle?

Oh, here it is with the camera zoomed in... 

Here it is zoomed even closer. 

Note, with many of these photos I have pushed the camera to its limit at 200x, and at this range, photo quality drops. I have steady hands so for me, it's fun to zoom all the way.

To get good photos, use the camera in good light and keep it in the optical zoom range of 24-1200 mm. This camera does best in good light and photo quality diminishes in low light. If you are really not steady, you could use the camera on a tripod, but I do not advise this. 

To zoom closer to the bird, use the Digital Zoom which lets you apply up to 1.5 or 2x (up to 2400mm) worth of digital zoom beyond the optical zoom with a minimum drop in image quality, sort of like applying a 1.5 or 2x teleconverter. To access this feature on the regular camera menu, set the camera to AV or P mode and scroll down to where it says Digital Zoom and your choices are to set it at Off, 1.5x, 2.0x or Standard. Standard lets you zoom all the way in 200x, but there will be a loss of image quality at this far range. You can also use the "Framing Lock" button (on the bottom of the lens barrel) which helps stabilize the image when you take it.

At these extreme zoom ranges, such as 200x, the photo quality is not usable for many things such as fine prints. However, for use on blogs, a facebook page, etc., and the internet, which only require photos of 72 dpi, these photos may be usable. Most of these photos I took had minimal processing just a little sharpening in photoshop. Images shot closer, at lower ISO and within the optical range would be much better. I mainly wanted to show some of the extreme things this camera is capable of.

Don't get me wrong. The Canon SX 50 HS does not produce the same quality images that DSLR cameras do and you should consider purchasing these if you want high-quality images. I really like my Canon 1D Mark IV, shown here, and I have gotten incredible photos with it, many used in our national field guide, The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America and our just published regional guides based on the national guide, The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern and Western Region. I now use use the Canon 1D X or my new Canon 7D Mark II with a Canon 100-400 IS II lens or my Canon 500mm IS lens with 1.4 teleconverter, Gitzo 1325 Carbon Fiber Tripod and Whimberley head. The Canon SX 50 is not in the same league with the big, professional, or near professional DSLR equipment. Then again, it costs around $430 vs. the Canon 1D Mark IV originally cost around $5,000. 

At Harn's Marsh I had my Mark IV with the 300 mm lens with 1.4x and in seconds got this Harrier shot. I could not have gotten this with the SX 50.

There is nothing like the thrill and adreneline rush of capturing something like this Osprey with fish with pro equipment. You photographers with similar equipment who are reading this know what I mean.

However, the Canon SX 50 HS can make decent bird photographs within the reach of even a novice bird photographer just by shooting on Smart Auto, then Sports Mode for birds in flight. You can do even better if you learn to use it in AV mode. In the hands of more experienced photographers, it can provide great fun and the ability to capture good bird photos, even when birds are impossibly far away. It will make getting record shots of birds more possible because the reach of the camera is so great. It may convert many to bird photographers/birders and give them a love for and appreciation of birds. That would be a great thing.

It is interesting to me that just about every birder, experienced bird photographer, or novice birder/photographer I have shown this camera to in the last week has said they want one. The light weight of the camera and the ability to zoom in so close on a bird just blows people away.

There is so much more to say about this camera which does so many things. If you want my much, much, more extensive tips on this camera, including what setting to use and info. on bird photography, email me. Email link is on top right of this blog.


Make sure and read the complete original reviews here at,

DPREVIEW

and

photographyblog.com

Here are some of my basic tips.

- Start with Smart Auto, especially if you are a beginner. It is excellent for many situations, especially if there is good light and the bird is not moving very fast. It may overexpose white birds.

- For flying or fast-moving birds, or even birds in vegetation especially if they pause, choose Sports Mode which shoots at about 5 frames a second. The camera chooses the exposure for you. In this mode, you can use Exposure Compensation which allows you to adjust for an over or under-exposed photo. If the bird you are photographing appears too light, or too dark, go to the Exposure Compensation setting (looks like a ruler) and move the indicator to the plus side to lighten the photo or to the minus side to darken the photo. I use this Sports Mode setting frequently, even for warblers! 

- For more control over photos, use Aperture Priority (AV). You choose the aperture and the camera picks the shutter speed. The range is F3.4-F8. I often use this mode and set ISO and Exposure Compensation as needed. Make sure you set the "Continuous Shooting" menus choice in AV to give you a faster shooting speed of about 2.2 frames a sec. Some people use Program Mode (P), where the camera sets the aperture and shutter speed for you and there is access to all the same menu options that are available in AV. I prefer AV since you can still set the aperture here. Most bird photographers I know use AV.

- Even though this camera shoots, RAW, I do not use it that much as most of the photos I take are for use on the internet, which uses lower resolution .jpeg images.

- You must read the manual, which you download to your computer as a PDF. Read it multiple times and learn all the dials and how to set the camera functions.

However, as I said, if you have this camera and want my much more extensive tips on how to use it, email me. Email link is on top right of this blog. The manual won't help you know which setting to use for bird photography.

If you are interested in photographing birds you need to accurately identify the birds you photograph, so get our photographic field guides. Our guides have outstanding bird photos taken by the top bird photographers in North America, look at them for inspiration and learning! 

The Stokes Essential Pocket Guide to the Birds of North America, is great for beginners  BUY Now! click here. So handy you can slip it in your pocket.

The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, the most complete photo guide available, which contains 3,500 stunning photos (many of them from me and other top bird photographers).

Buy Now! The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America

It is also available as split into portable, regional guides,

Buy Now! The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region

Buy Now! The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Western Region

These beautiful photographic guides are the best way to identify all the bird photos you take!! 

Practice and most of all, have fun!!!

Lillian Stokes