Need easy, great SLR for polar trips, wildlife

[grassye]

I am going to Canada to photograph polar bears in a few weeks and then to Antarctica next year-- I need a good SLR for wildlife photography and also any equipment/photography advice on polar conditions, thanks!

Budget

* What budget have you allocated for buying this camera? Please be as specific as possible. Preferrably under $1000, but reliability and quality is most important.

Size

* What size camera are you looking for? Or does size not matter at all to you?
Does not matter. Lightweight might be nice for travel but image quality is more important.

Features

How many megapixels will suffice for you? Not sure. I would like to blow some pictures up to 16x20 or greater.

* What optical zoom will you need? (None, Standard = 3x-4x, Ultrazoom = 10x-12x, Other - Specify) Ultra- will probably need to purchase a separate lens, advice would be appreciated!

* How important is “image quality” to you? (Rate using a scale of 1-10) 10

Do you care for manual controls? Sure but hopefully relatively easy to use since trip is in 4 weeks

General Usage

* What will you generally use the camera for? Wildlife photography, travel

* Will you be making big prints of your photos or not? Yes

Will you be shooting a lot of indoor photos or low light photos? Low light- yes. I have had a lot of trouble with this in the past with point and shoots.

Will you be shooting sports and/or action photos? Yes

Miscellaneous

Are there particular brands you like or hate? No

Are there particular models you already have in mind? No

(If applicable) Do you need any of the following special features? (Wide Angle, Image Stabilization, Weatherproof, Hotshoe, Rotating LCD) Wide angle (lens suggestion?), maybe image stabilization, a brand that is reliable and not prone to problems

[jekostas]

Oh wow...

uh, well, hm...

You're going to need to up your budget considerably if you expect to get a dSLR that will survive both the Arctic and Antarctic for wildlife photography. As in, unless you're wanting to spring for used, you're looking ~$1300 body only for either a Pentax K7 or Olympus E-3 (which are the cheapest weathersealed bodies out there). That's before lenses. You WILL need a weathersealed body, or an external casing - temperature shock will probably keep anything else from starting up, let alone working properly.

Also, "small" is out of the question.

[grassye]

Thanks for the response. I have been reading trip materials which seem to suggest that a "regular" camera (without weathersealing/casing) will work as long as it is slowly acclimated to temperature change (such as by leaving it in the case in your hotel room until it warms up to avoid condensation) and as long as you pack extra batteries (as the cold zaps the life quicker than in normal conditions). Someone who has traveled there before used the Canon Xti, for example. I was hoping to avoid buying a camera just for these 2 trips... but I've been wanting to upgrade to a dSLR for wildlife/travel photography for a while, so I definitely don't want to go with just a point and shoot. So if we take out the weather element, any suggestions? Camera, lenses, filters? Thanks!

[K1W1]

Thousands of people visit the Arctic or Antarctic each year as tourists and the majority go quite happily with standard P&S cameras. Unless you are planning on recreating Robert Scotts journey and living in a seal skin tent weather sealing should not need to be your primary consideration. Your budget will however need revision. You are not going to be standing in a blizzard in 100mph winds taking photos.
As I see it you have two options;
1. Ultra zoom. Something like a Panasonic FZ-35 will get you the reach, size and price. It may fall down a little in the quality expectations in some areas.
2. DSLR. Virtually anything on the market will do because the lens and filters will be the key here. Personally I'd be looking at the Nikon D90 as a start because of the features it has but as I said virtually anything will do as long as you are happy with the performance / price. What you really need to invest in is a decent telephoto or zoom lens. The absolute minimum length you will be 300mm and realistically something longer again may be better. My suggestion would be the DSLR body, a standard type zoom lens in the 18-55 or 18-70 type ranges for people and scenery shots and then a long zoom for animals and close ups something like a 70-300 or even the Sigma 150-500 would be worth a look, it's used a lot be bird watchers.
You will also need to learn about filters a cirular polarising filter will be a must for the extreme bright light that occurs in both areas. Do some research and make sure that you are comfortanle with using it before you go.

[grassye]

Thanks! I actually looked at the Nikon D90 today as well as the new Nikon D300s. They seem similar although of course the 300s is more advanced. The salesman also pointed out that the body of the 300s is more rugged. Anyone used the 300s or know of any reviews on it? Thoughts on which way I should go? I think I'll probably go with one of these two, which seems in line with your suggestion, K1W1. Thanks also for the input on lenses- the sales associate suggested 2 lenses, a 16-85 wide angle and a 70-300 zoom... seems like the 70-300 zoom might not be enough?

[tim11]

.... The salesman also pointed out that the body of the 300s is more rugged. ....

...and more heavier....
I thought you want lightweight? Do you need the advanced functions of the D300s? D90 is a very capable camera.
How far is far enough? You should ask the salesman to show you how far 300 mm there and then.
For measure, here is a shot at 300 mm of a car from across a surburban street. No cropped, just resized.

[K1W1]

The D300s is basically a D300 with some tweaks and the addition of video recording so you will get a fairly good general overview if you read D300 reviews. In use the difference in size and weight between the D90 and D300 is noticeable. Image quality wise the D90 and D300 were pretty much on a par with some people saying the D90 had very small improvements in some areas I guess because of newer algorithms, I assume the D300s will probably be just a small step forward again so from an image point of view either camera would work. The main difference is in advanced manual control features the D300s will have more but you need to ask yourself are you going to use them? Do you need to be able to program 4 different camera shooting bank modes and 4 different custom bank settings? Do you want to?
The 16-85 is a great lens I would have recommended it but I was trying to keep your spend vaguely close to your budget. Nikon also make a 18-105 lens that you might want to look at, not as wide but longer and it has a good reputation.
Yes I agree 300mm may be a problem but unless you go for something like the Sigma I mentioned you probably don't have a lot of options, at least relatively inexpensive options. Sigma (I'm not pushing towards Sigma but they just seem to have things that may work) make a 120-300 f2.8 lens that will autofocus with a 2x teleconverter thus effectively giving you a 240-600 f5.6 lens. Something like that may well be an option.
Don't forget the CP filters that will be very important.
To be honest I would go the D90 route to save a few dollars which I could then put into lenses. As they say glass is forever, camera bodies change.
Sorry for totally destroying the budget.

[Screenclutter]

It kind of depends on what kind of polar travel you are doing; there is a difference between part of some sort of boat or escorted tour where a company will greatly assist in bringing you to the Antarctic/Arctic and something like a full hiking expedition where you will have almost no contact from with the outside world for several days.

Presumably, you will be travelling to the polar regions in their respective summertimes and this means you will be experiencing the midnight sun where is no night timeime for weeks or even months-the only low light photography for you may be indoors or in your tent. A great day time point and shoot camera may be all you need in this instance.

So for polar bears, maybe the AF-S 70-300mm VR might just work and for scenery, some sort of ultrawide to standard zoom lens will work.

If you are on a full hike and hundreds of miles away from the closest sign of civilization, a dSLR may add weight you should not be carrying when it cuts into your food rations.

Not sure what the state of telephoto lenses are for those 4/3rds systems, if they have the right lenses available, this may be a good compromise since I think they are smaller...but I also don't really know much about these.

[tim11]

I just picked up a bargain brand new 70-300 G for $200 AUD (incl. postage). If you are on a budget don't count it out. It's harder to hold than the VR version; VR is optical stabiliser for Nikon, just in case you are new to this. However for the price I paid, it's more than worth it and I can use it without a tripod even at max. zoom.