Bird Watching Equipment

We use the following equipment on all our bird watching trips:

Lumix FZ150 Bridge Camera - Ideal for carrying around as it's extremely light and offers excellent performance due to the high quality Leica lens. In use the Panasonic (Lumix) works well although cropping images down does reveal the limitations of the small sensor. High ISO noise performance is also noticeably worse than the Canon DSLR, which excels in this area. See our Lumix FZ150 versus Canon SLR test for more information

Canon EOS 500D DSLR camera - This camera produces pretty decent results in all but the lowest light conditions. It even works well with little image noise at ISO800 and is usable at ISO1600. The camera is well built and easy to use. We love it - especially when mated up with the Canon L Lens below.

Canon 100-400mm L IS Lens - This is a semi professional lens and it performs well with no chromatic aberration even when taking dark subjects against a white background, the usual acid test! The lens cost about £1100 and is very heavy, but we are delighted with the pictures we've taken with it and so far we've had no problems with dust ingression, which is a common complaint about this lens.

Swarovski EL 10x50 Binoculars - Pretty much the best binoculars you can buy and the most expensive, at almost the same price as a second-hand car! They offer fabulous image quality even in very low light conditions close to total darkness! They are so good you soon realise the light grabbing limitations of your own eyes when you put them down!