Whether you are using Nikon, Canon or any other brand, this article can still be very helpful as it goes through how I took decisions on getting my equipment and not about models of each brand. In my opinion, the first step is to define where do you want to focus on in photography: portraits, landscapes, wildlife, and it goes on… The first set of photography that I had was the Nikon D7100 + Nikon 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6 which was a good all around set.
When I was getting into wildlife photography I wanted to keep my equipment flexible enough to avoid changing lenses all the time, carrying too much weight and not spending too much money from scratch. That’s how I got my first “telephoto”, a Tamron 70-200mm f/4.0-5.6, which felt like a big upgrade from the Nikon 18-140mm as it had much more reach. It was convenient to not constantly change lenses when I was traveling and if I needed a wide angle lens for landscapes I used my other lens: the Nikon 18-140mm (which I upgraded to a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 that I still have to get better shots of landscapes).
After a while I wanted to get closer captions of wildlife and thought it would be a great time to see what was availalable in the market and get a new lens. That’s how after 1.5 years with the Tamron 70-200mm I got the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6. A significant upgrade as I was able to get much closer to the subjects and opened so many opportunities for bird photography. I knew the aperture was a limitation in low-light conditions. But on a bright day the performance was stunning! This is an amazing lens for a budget of under $1,300 and thinking about an upgrade does not even come to my mind right now as I would really need to dig in my pockets (Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8: >$2000; Nikon 500mm f/4.0: >$12,000; Nikon 500mm f/4.0: >$10,000; Nikon 400mm f/2.8: >$12,000).
The Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 lens fulfilled everything I was looking for in a telephoto lens, but the main challenge was getting sharp and luminous images in low light conditions. I started paying more attention to ISO performance of the camera and the buffer (time it takes until images are processed in the camera and written in the memory card). That’s when I started looking at my camera (Nikon D7100) as a burden to take better photos: I needed a better ISO performance and I needed a camera with better buffer (the Nikon D7100 was taking over 10 seconds to store a series of raw images in the memory card). As you can imagine, 10 seconds is an eternity when taking wildlife photos and I couldn’t lose time while my camera was processing the images. That’s when I got the Nikon D500, a big improvement from the Nikon D7100 as it has much better autofocus, ISO performance, buffer and quick access buttons to avoid spending too much time changing camera settings.
As a last comment, when taking wildlife photography the camera needs to be stable. Carrying a big lens (Nikon 200-500mm: 2.3kg) and camera (Nikon D500: 0.8kg) for hours will be a great workout, but not good results if I needed sharp images! Having a tripod or a monopod is as important as having a great camera/lens.
A few things to keep in mind when getting equipments for wildlife photography:
Lenses
How many lenses to carry (changing lenses constantly increases the chance of dust getting in the sensor). Having a wide angle and a telephoto is more than enough for me.
Autofocus performance
Image stabilization
Maximum aperture (this is important in low light conditions and bokeh)
Camera
Frames per second (the higher the better to capture actions of wildlife)
Buffer (camera has to be fast to not miss an important action)
ISO performance (key element for low light conditions. I always check reviews of other photographers to see what’s their preferred ISO range)
Megapixels (important for image quality when printing!)
Number of autofocus points (higher flexibility of focusing on subjects in the image)
Customizable quick access buttons (very helpful to change settings quickly)
Enjoy shooting!