Here is the way I get close up pictures without an exceptional camera. This picture was taken with 1.5 MP with a 12 power zoom Panasonic CMC FZ5 that cost under $200 six years ago. I just bought a cheap Canon PowerShot ELPH 130 IS 16.0 MP Digital Camera with 8x Optical Zoom for less then $100 that I think will take even better long range picture.
The picture of the ducks was taken from my kayak at such long range that all I could tell was that there was some kind of movement almost out of my sight. The top picture is at 12 power zoom. Then I zoomed in with an old PhotoShop 7 program given to me to the two ducks on the right. and came up with the much closer bottom picture. The new Cannon camera has only 8x zoom but with the far greater 16 MP resoulution I can get much more detail before I use PhotoShop for a final closeup. I use this cheap technic a lot.
