Wildlife Photography Camera?

[decoy451]

I am interested in taking close up shots of wildlife in low light conditions. I will be within 25 Yards of the subject. I need a digital camera that will have silent zoom, silent focus, and make no sound when the picture is snapped. The Camera must also have a flash that can be turned off with a shutter speed to match the low lighting conditions. Any suggestions?

[timmciglobal]

It doesn't exist.

Simply put low light + point & shoot + no sound = doesn't work.

You need high ISO performance and you WILL have mirror clap "Click" sound on dSLR's and point and shoots won't have ISO performance to use long zoom + no flash in low light.

Tim

[j26]

Check out the Kodak Easyshare DX6490 or 7590 as an outside possibility of something that might be of use to you.
The zoom and focus make a little noise, but no too much. You can turn off the click sound when the picture is taken and it has a 10x zoom for long shots.
The ISO runs up to 800 on the 6490, it might be better on the 7590.

[John_Reed]

I am interested in taking close up shots of wildlife in low light conditions. I will be within 25 Yards of the subject. I need a digital camera that will have silent zoom, silent focus, and make no sound when the picture is snapped. The Camera must also have a flash that can be turned off with a shutter speed to match the low lighting conditions. Any suggestions?My Panasonic DMC-FZ15 is "rigged for silent running," meaning that I can turn all electronic sounds off for shooting and playback. Its zoom and shutter are very quiet. It certainly makes less noise than you'd make if you stepped on a twig, for example. The flash won't flash as long as you haven't manually pushed to button to pop it up.

If you're talking about low lighting conditions like night-time, that could be a problem for almost any non-dSLR camera you look at, for the ISO reasons already mentioned. The FZ15 can shoot reasonably well at ISO 400, but with a dSLR like the Canon 20D, you can shoot up to ISO 3200. dSLR are also blessed with optical viewfinders, unlike ultra-zoom fixed-lens cameras (like the FZ15) that have an Electronic View Finder (EVF), which tends to become difficult to see through in very low light conditions. If your camera is to be tripod-mounted, the OIS (stabilizer) system of the Panasonic won't be of use to you, and you'd be better off looking for a camera whose EVF "gains up" in low light conditions. Do you have an idea of what sort of shutter speeds you'd need at this "low light" level you're envisioning?