Best Telephoto Lens For Bird Photography

Birding with cameras is one of the most cherished chores that many birders would love to perform repeatedly. With enabling birders to capture stunning moments, a telephoto lens allows them to watch birds flying, nesting and playing from afar.

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But every wildlife photographer won’t be so lucky to store precious moments due to not having a good quality camera or having the wrong one. On the flip side, many bird watchers avoid going in the wild with bulky cameras on their hands.

So, as a solution to this problem, many avian enthusiasts use telephoto lenses. They attach this birding gear to the back or front of their handheld smartphones and start shooting beautiful nature and wild species.

That being said, this article is all about the best telephoto lens for bird photography. So, without delaying more time, let’s start reading it.

Related Review: 5 Best Bird Houses | Read here

What Is a Good Lens for Bird Photography?

First, we need to know thoroughly about the types of lenses used in bird photography. Then we need to have in-depth knowledge regarding the key attributes of these lenses to determine the criteria a lens should feature to be the best-suited one for bird photography.

Birding Lens Types:

Primarily, you will find two types: prime lens and zoom lens. The prime lens offers fixed focal length; wait, now you may be wondering what focal length is, right?

Well, it indicates the distance between the lens and image sensor when the target is in focus. While looking for a birding lens, the focal length should be the first feature you need to inspect.

However, let’s get back to the lens types; as we said, prime length features fixed focal length; it doesn’t allow you to get closer to your focused object without moving physically.

But this lens will help you capture images in low-light conditions as it comes with a comparatively wider aperture than a zoom lens.

On the contrary, a zoom lens offers a wide variety of focal length range that you can utilize according to your needs.

It enables observers to bring the object as close as possible without losing any image quality and, of course, without requiring you to move physically. This lens type is appropriate for beginner birders.

So, these are two main bird-photography lens types. Now let’s discuss what other key functions a good lens should house to deliver you a rewarding bird-photography experience.

Material:

A good quality birding lens’s housing should consist of robust and durable material, such as aircraft-grade aluminum alloy. It needs to ensure optimum tensile strength in adverse environments.

Plus, no matter how harsh the environment gets, the lens housing should always protect its entire construction and lenses from being damaged.

Glass:

An ideal birding lens should contain glasses made from superior quality material. Most top-notch lenses boast ED, UD, or Fluorite glasses. These types of glasses ensure excellent light transmission in various light conditions.

Also, they always yield high-quality, razor-sharp images with impressive color fidelity. So, we can say any lens featured with one of the mentioned glass materials should be enlisted in the ideal lens category.

Zoom:

Zoom is one of the crucial functions of any birding photography lens. So, keeping that in mind, many manufacturers have partaken in a race of delivering lenses with unimaginable zooming functionality.

But while providing such an intense zoom option, some manufacturers fail to maintain image quality, and you should avoid choosing this kind of camera lens.

Like other novices, you shouldn’t also think that the more zoom your camera lens provides, the better you can enjoy birding from a far distance. In essence, it’s all about the sharp image you can get in various situations during birding.

Anyway, we recommend you choose a telephoto lens that comes with at least a 28X zoom feature.

Best Monocular Telephoto Lens For Bird Watching

Key Features:

Aircraft-Grade Aluminum Alloy Housing
Multi-Coated Premium Optical Lens
28X Magnification
Focus & FOV Adjustment Rings
Adjustable Lens Screw Ring

Designed to tolerate the harshest conditions and manufactured to capture stunning, life-like images in adverse weather, this XZDWH Phone Bird Watching Camera Lens is perfect for avian enthusiasts and other outdoor adventurers who want to enjoy their exploration trips to the fullest.

Material:

This bird camera lens is manufactured from high-quality, aircraft-grade aluminum alloy, ensuring unrivaled rigidity and optimum longevity, which you may never find in other optics of its price range.

Whether it’s sunny outside or drizzling days, this one will always accompany you to snap mesmerizing moments regardless of outdoor situations.

Lens, Magnification, FOV:

Equipped with multi-coated, premium-quality optical lenses, this bird telephoto lens can capture razor-HD images in low light conditions. And those images won’t have any darker spots.

Instead, they will be free from color fringing, lens flare, ghosting, or any other image-related issues. Speaking of Magnification, the phone camera lens provides 28x Magnification to help you observe birds from afar.

It also eliminates the probability of losing sight during exploration as it’s got a wide field of view.

Adjustment:

This telephoto lens boasts a focus ring, enabling you to adjust the sharpness during viewing. It also comes with a FOV ring, which lets you change the field of view of the captured picture according to your preference.

Apart from all these features, this mobile camera lens contains an adjustable lens screw ring, allowing you to access your phone camera by sliding the birding telephoto lens.

Compatibility:

The telephoto lens is compatible with all the top-of-the-line smartphones of recent days, from iPhone11 XS Max, Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus to Google Pixel 3 XL to other Android Phones.

Last but not least, this phone camera lens works on the front, rear, single or multi-camera phones.

To conclude, with robust housing and mirrorless camera lenses, this birding gear will always help you get the best view in your outdoor adventure. Surprisingly, this fascinating stuff comes at a reasonable price that you may check here.

However, alongside this one, we have found another best telephoto lens that has everything you need to experience a remarkable outdoor trip, and that is the XZDWH 48X Monocular Birding Telephoto Lens. Let’s check out its functions here.

Wrapping Up

That’s all for this telephoto lens article. After conducting thorough research and spending countless hours, we have found this above-listed telephoto lens, which boasts all the necessary functions and is extremely useful for bird photography.

In essence, it suits almost all other recreational activities, from birding, hiking, to even hunting. If you decide to put it in your birding arsenal, you know you are gonna get good value for your money.