What Lens is Best for Wildlife Photography

What Lens is best for wildlife photography?

When you are considering what lens is best for wildlife photography there are many things to think about. If you want advice on equipment in general then you can read an article here or if you want specific advice on what to look for in a camera you can read an article here. But this article just covers lenses.

Lenses are even more important than the camera choice, if you buy a cheap lens and put it on an expensive camera, you will not get the results that you hope for. When picking a lens, it really depends on budget.

Lenses can be split into 2 categories zoom lenses and prime lenses:

Zoom Lenses

The main advantages of zoom lenses are:

Flexibility

Zoom range is by far the biggest advantage that zoom lenses offer and that alone could beat all of the advantages of a prime lens depending on your needs. The possibility of changing focal length without having to change the lens is incredibly useful in wildlife photography. It is easier to achieve the images that you want if you are not distracted changing lenses.

If you are going on a safari to somewhere like Kenya then a zoom lens can be essential, often the guide will be trying to position the vehicle with other vehicles around and will attempt to get you in the best position, but if the subject moves and walks towards you or away from you and it is not possible to reposition the vehicle then a zoom lens can make things much easier.

 

Practicality

Having multiple focal lengths in one zoom can be very practical. For example, you don’t have to plan, think, and carry multiple specific lenses that could cover all your possible needs.

You can just grab your camera with your zoom lens and you’re ready to go. Also, in some outdoor situations, it’s uncomfortable and impractical having to change lenses. Every time you do, you risk getting dust or water in or damaging the sensor. Having just one lens that serves multiple purposes spares you from that.

 

Ease of Learning

If you’re just starting in photography, it’s very difficult to know what type of photos you’re going to be taking the most and zoom lenses make it a little easier to learn and improve.

Zoom lenses when you start out are ideal to help when practicing and experimenting with composition for example you can go from a nice tight cropped portrait to a wider frame that shows the subject in the environment without changing the lens. I always teach beginners to take 3 images of each scene – one zoomed in as far as they can go with their lens, one as wide as possible and one in the middle. This really accelerates the learning experience when it comes to composition.

Price

Zoom lenses also come at very different price points, the cheaper lenses often give you a larger zoom range for example 80mm-400mm or 50mm-500mm but the aperture is likely to be f4 at the lower range and then go to 5.6 or higher as you zoom in. The more expensive zoom lenses like the 180-400 or 70-200 have a fixed aperture throughout.

I would always recommend zoom lenses to new photographers just starting on their wildlife photography journeys.

If you combine a zoom lens with a cropped sensor you get even more reach on your lens. Read more here.

Prime Lenses

The main advantages of prime lenses are:

Lens Aperture

Large aperture lenses focus faster than smaller aperture lenses do.

In wildlife photography, the action is fast, so to capture fast action, you need a quicker focusing lens. Therefore, it’s preferable to use a lens with a large aperture in Wildlife photography.

The maximum aperture can be f/2.8 and f/4. The lenses with a fast aperture (smaller number) can focus fast.

This is particularly important when photographing in low light, however with the advancement in post processing noise reduction software like Topaz Photo AI, this can be worked around.

Focusing Speed

In general, a fixed focal length lens focuses quicker and performs better than a zoom lens because of less moving glass elements.

Image Quality and Sharpness

Generally prime lenses will offer a better image quality and will be sharper. They produce a beautiful bokeh effect behind the subject.

Prime lenses are out on their own when it comes to image quality and you will see a noticeable difference with images taken on for example a 300mm prime lens vs a 70-300 zoom lens being used at its full focal length. This is not so evident in the professional high end zoom lenses. The 180-400 zoom lens which I have now been using for a year is incredibly sharp and there is very little difference in image quality if any compared to my 600mm prime lens.

Most of the entry level zoom lenses you will generally find are sharper at the mid aperture range around f8 whereas prime lenses are sharp all through the aperture range.

Other Considerations

Image Stabilization

When we talk about image stabilization and photography, we’re normally talking about optical image stabilization, which is found in a lot of high-end lenses. Canon calls the feature Image stabilization (IS) and Nikon calls it Vibration Reduction (VR). With optical image stabilization, part of the lens physically moves to counteract any camera movement when you take the picture; if your hands are shaking, an element inside the lens shakes too to counter the movement.

As a general rule you should always look to shoot with a shutter speed equivalent or higher than the lens focal length. For example, a 100mm lens. You should shoot with 1/100 or higher.

With image stabilization turned on, you can use a shutter speed between two and four stops slower than what you otherwise could.

Using the 100mm lens example. Instead of a minimum shutter speed of 1/100th of a second, image stabilization would allow you to use a shutter speed as slow as about 1/10th of a second and still have a sharp image (at least in ideal circumstances). 

As a new lens is launched the Image stabilization is usually improved with the advances of technology. So, in Nikon for example you will see VR1 or VR2 with VR2 being the newer one.

3rd Party Lenses.

3rd Party lenses. These are lenses made by other manufacturers that fit the various camera bodies. Sigma and Tamron make some great lenses to fit the main camera systems and they generally come at a cheaper price point. In the past the quality of these lenses was way below buying the own brand lenses, but recently the improvement in 3rd party lenses is significant. Read the reviews and consider these when making your decision.

In Conclusion

Prime Lenses generally have a higher price tag than zoom lenses. Image stabilization also adds a cost to the lens too.

As I stated earlier in the considerations you need to make when choosing what to buy. Budget is a big factor, and some absolute bargains can be picked up in the used or 2nd hand market.

I started out with a 70-300mm zoom lens, then upgraded to an 80-400mm zoom lens, then I upgraded to a 200-400mm zoom lens.  I invested in a 600mm prime lens 10 years ago.

I now have a 70-200mm zoom lens and a 180-400mm zoom lens and a 600mm prime lens and find that the majority of the time I shoot with the 180-400 lens.

My advice to anyone starting out is to buy a zoom lens as it offers so much flexibility for the price. You can add other lenses as you develop as a photographer and if a hobby starts to become a profession.

Here are a few of my suggestions for lenses to suit any budget. These are just for the lenses and not camera bodies. But you can read a separate article on camera bodies here.

My suggested equipment based on budget:

Under £100 – Used Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED. Approx £94

Under £300 – Used Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED VR. Approx £209

Under £750 – Used Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR. Approx £739

Under £1000 – Used Nikon AF-S Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR. Approx £830

Under£1500 – Used Nikon AF-S Nikkor 200-400mm f/4G IF-ED VR II Approx £1200

Under £2000 (if mirrorless ) – New Nikon Z 180-600mm f5.6-6.3 VR. Approx £1600

Under £3000 – (If mirrorless) –  Nikon Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 S. Approx £2400

All of the above are examples of Nikon equipment because that is what I am the most familiar with but a simple google search of Canon/Sony/Olympus equivalent should give you a relevant comparison. 

These are the companies that I would recommend  when looking for equipment.

Used – MPB
New – Cotswold Cameras

Please note – I am not affiliated to either company and are not paid for links or clicks. These are just my recommendations based on my own experiences when buying camera equipment and who I would recommend based on my experiences.

Another option is to consider going on a workshop, on a workshop the photographer should help you with the camera and lenses that you have and help you get the best out of them. There are lots of photographers that offer workshops so consider this as an option and if you are Scotland based or willing to travel then consider one of my workshops where I will set up your camera and lens with you for wildlife and talk you through all of the relevant settings and let you know what your camera and lens can and can’t do and we will develop a way for you to shoot to mitigate any limitations and really get the most out of your camera.

To view my workshops then click here

To read an article on general advice on buying equipment for wildlife photography then click here

To read an article on cameras for wildlife photography then click here.