What camera do you use?

What is the camera I should buy?

While I'm out and about photographing wildlife in nature or while I'm leading a photography tour in Grand Teton or Yellowstone National Parks, those are the most common questions I get asked.

Great Gray Owl in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
 

There are several situations that a "wildlife camera" must be able to handle. Once you know what they are, you can look at a camera's features to determine if it was made for wildlife photography.  You see, not every camera is made to handle all the demands that photographing wildlife requires.  Don't assume you can simply buy the most expensive camera out there and call it a day. 

The more expensive flagship cameras are typically built to handle a specific situation really well, unlike the lower-priced cameras that can do many things acceptably well - things like shooting your family vacation or pictures of your pet in the backyard - but fall short of the expensive, specialized camera models.  Some flagship cameras are purpose-built for sports photography, others for wildlife, others for weddings, etc.

While each brand has their own "wildlife camera," my favorite is the Nikon Z8. (find it here at a great price)

Young grizzly bear with a mouthful of clover, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
 

So what makes a good wildlife camera?

Here are the things I look for when buying a camera:

• Frame rate: to get the perfect pose, I typically shoot my camera at a fast frame rate.  For large mammals, this is 10 frames per second (or faster), for birds, this goes up to 15 or 20 frames per second.  For my shooting, I look for a camera that can handle at least 15 frames per second.
  
  The Nikon Z8 shoots 20 frames per second in RAW and up to 120 frames per second in JPG!
   
• Low light: wildlife is most active during dusk and dawn so your camera has to be able to handle high ISO well.  Whereas that meant buying a 16 or 20 megapixel camera a few years ago, today's higher megapixel cameras are as capable of dealing with high ISO shooting.
  
  Whereas I previously used Nikon's low megapixel flagship cameras, I am amazed by how clean the Nikon Z8 shoots at higher ISOs!  I don't hesitate to raise the ISO to 6400 when needed.
   
• Pre-capture: a magical feature that allows your camera to go back in time.  This is a real game changer for wildlife photography where you rarely know when the decisive moment will occur.  With pre-capture, simply push down the shutter button half-way and, when the action happens, push the shutter button all the way down.  At that point, the camera will go back one second in time and record everything that just happened!
  
  The Nikon Z8's pre-capture feature works especially well when waiting for a bird to take off, or for lightning to strike!
   

• Autofocus: animals are typically partially obstructed by tall grasses, branches, ... so your camera needs to have a great autofocus system to find the animal in the frame.
  
  The Nikon Z8 has a dedicated AF system for either animals in general or birds.  Both work great in finding the animal in your frame and focusing on it!
   
• Weather sealing: wildlife photography is done outdoors in every kind of weather and environment.  Pouring rain while shooting bears catch salmon in Alaska, snow while photographing moose in the Rockies, blowing sand while photographing snakes in the desert ... Your camera has to have adequate weather sealing to handle all of this.
  
  Like its bigger brother, the Z9, the Nikon Z8 has great weather sealing and it hasn't let me down in any situation.
   
• Megapixels: since wildlife is typically (very) shy, it really helps to get a camera with enough megapixels so you can crop the image after the shoot.  If you start with 20 megapixels, that doesn't give you much room to crop in a lot before the image becomes too small to create large prints.
  
  The Nikon Z8 has 45 megapixels which provide great flexibility for cropping.  And, as part of the magic, Nikon was able to keep the file size of the Z8 similar to my older D500 which was only 20 megapixels!

Did I miss anything? What do you think makes a great wildlife camera?  Let me know, thanks!