Hello Everyone,
I have been asked to recommend gear suitable for bird photography with a budget of about $3000. I am thinking about suggesting the Nikon D7200 + 200-500 mm f/5.6 which can be purchased from Camera House and Michael's Camera right now for under $3000. Does anyone have experience with this combination? I am wondering about how well a smallish DX body like this will handle with a big FX lens. Any other suggestions welcome.
Thanks Ian

Hi Ian,
I have that set-up sitting on my couch right now.
To answer your question honestly means that I can only talk from my own experiences with this combination.
The D7200 is a fantastic little camera with 24Mp sensor and around 8 frames per second, it also has 2 SD UHS II card slots and it writes the info to these cards with impressive speed. RAW buffer is about 12-15 shots, depending on file size and card speed. Jpegs you can just keep banging away. For BIF, the AF system is not quite up to the standard of the D500 but certainly acceptable and also note the buffer capacity.
This body is fully customizable and indeed has tow 'My Menu' options to set it up how you like, maybe one for stationary birds and one for BIF, but it requires the turning of a wheel on top of the camera.
The 200-500mm zoom is supposed to be F5.6 and it is certainly stamped that way, however, my example seems to be at least a half stop darker than a Prime F5.6 and this might have something to do with the extra glass in the zoom, maybe I don't know? It is certainly a heavy lens but a lot lighter than a prime of the same size, discounting the PF version due to cost. Out of the box, you will receive a beautifully made and functioning lens with a zoom range ideal for birds. I set mine at 500mm and thought that it was a cheap buy for a 500mm lens but then found out that 500mm was too much on occasions and the zoom has come in very handy on many occasions. You cannot rely on the lens being 'spot on' straight out of the box and indeed my example requires a setting of +5 on the AF Fine Tune. The only niggle with the lens is the lens hood and unless you add a little bit of gaffer tape to help secure it, you can guarantee on sending Nikon $80-90 for a replacement !!!
As a combination, I cannot think of a better 'budget' set-up and if you check the Nikon Forum on Fred Miranda there are hundreds of very happy users continually posting images from this exact set-up.
I think that anyone who uses this set-up will find it necessary to be cautious about wandering into high ISO territory as noise can be a problem but it is a problem for all cameras and careful choice of settings plus some noise reduction in post processing shows great results.
I use this system as my 'back-up' gear and quite often l will grab it and take it out when I can't be bothered carrying the 'big' gear around.
I hope that this helps Ian and anyone else considering getting hold of this camera and lens. For under $3000 it is serious equipment at a great price. . .
Cheers,
Bruce

Thanks Bruce, I appreciate you sharing your experience with this combination. How does it feel hand-held, in particular, does it feel reasonably balanced? The user will want to give BIF a go so a well-balanced rig would be an advantage.
Regards, Ian

Thanks Ian.
The D7200 body and 200-500mm zoom lens is a wonderful 'Birding' combination but it does have a couple of points that should be noted and I'm sorry, I should have included these points in my original piece.
When the D7200 is used with the 200-500 the combo is lens heavy and when you compare the weight of the two items separately, this should be obvious. To combat this, I fitted the MB-D15 battery grip to the camera body and this helped to even things up quite a bit. It also gave me an extra frame per second shooting speed and longer battery life.
The 200-500 is not the fastest focussing lens for birds in flight, however, what it loses in speed it makes up for in accuracy.
I carry the battery gripped D7200 and 200-500mm zoom with an aftermarket sling and have no problems carrying it for long periods without any neck or shoulder strain. I find that I can carry this combo for long periods and it can be brought into action quickly and swings smoothly with the slightly heavier lens dampening any jerky movements. I am very happy with this combo and have no trouble in recommending it, but it's not my money and other opinions might vary. . . .
HTH,
Bruce

That combination was one I looked seriously at when I was first purchasing a camera set up specifically for bird photography. I was put off by the weight although it looks to be a very cost effective way of getting to 500 mm (which with a crop factor camera is some serious telephoto). So I can't add to Bruce's personal experience.

At $3000 it seems that the 80-400 Nikon zoom is out of the price range, as it its slightly cheaper Canon 100-400 II. Although the Canon 80D is available quite cheaply at the moment, the 100-400 would take it to the $4000 range. However the old Canon 400mm f5.6 is quite inexpensive as these things go (but no image stabilisation, I think).

The only other zooms I am aware of which might fit the bill are the Tamron and Sigma long zooms eg the Sigma 150-600 (available in two versions). I have no experience with these although I expect they are also quite heavy (particularly the Sport version of the Sigma), and have slow apertures at the long end (f6.3). I expect the big Nikon zoom to be better value for money, and probably at least as sharp at the long end.

Value for money aside, as you would be well aware 500mm is quite a demanding focal length to get right. You don't mention the skill level of the person seeking this, but it might be challenging for a beginner.

Left field suggestion - one of the Panasonic Lumix 'DSLR-form' Micro Four Thirds models plus the well regarded 100-400 Leica zoom? 800 mm field of view equivalent, would be within the $3000 budget I think.


Cheers
Simon

Ian,
The other thing that I forgot to mention is quite an important and sometimes forgotten, point.
The lens, being as heavy as it is, can put quite a strain on the camera to lens mount, for this reason it is strongly suggested that the user carries the combination around by the tripod foot.
Nikon doesn't supply any mounting points on either the lens or the foot for a sling, but some sling manufacturers overcome this by mounting the sling to the tripod foot.
I have an aftermarket foot fitted to my 200-500 lens and connecting a sling is an easy step for this mount.
Sorry for the late inclusion and hope that this 'in field' experience is of some use to you. . .
Bruce