Photography

[Genie]

Thanks h'biki!

I'm a wantin one of those lenses!!!

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by h'biki
Now its got me all inspired to peruse various lens catalogs to decide what I should buy next. I'm thinking a fixed lens -- 28mm? Fast. Wide. Gives me the discipline of working with a fixed focal length. [/B]

Reminds me of astronomy. Eyepieces just like lenses are quite expensive for the best ones so you have to decide what you can afford now and will give you the best all around experience while you work on getting the other eyepieces later. Also I don't always bring all my eyepieces as you have to consider the environment you're going out in. If I'm worried about damaging them I bring my cheaper lenses. This is useful for camera lenses also. It's always good to have a basic less expensive (beater/work horse) lens.

[h'biki]

Originally posted by MacBandit
Reminds me of astronomy. Eyepieces just like lenses are quite expensive for the best ones so you have to decide what you can afford now and will give you the best all around experience while you work on getting the other eyepieces later.


Yup. You also need to consider whether its false economy to get the 'cheaper' lens now and get the 'best' lens later, when you can afford a 'pretty darn good' lens now and you'll never really need the 'best' lens anyway! (Who needs a superfast, telephoto with manual defocus control besides the profs?)

Although, the cheaper lens can often become your workhorse/kickabout lens.

[/BB] It's always good to have a basic less expensive (beater/work horse) lens. [/B]

Indeed. Which is why I recommend people get the standard lenses with the body. They're good lenses for a good price, cause I think they're partial 'loss leaders' for the various companies. They make a bit of a loss on them (or at least very little profit) in order to get you to buy the kit and into the Nikon/Canon/Pentax lens system. Cause once you're in that system its very hard to change brands...

Procrastinating is fun :)

[Genie]

So for my Eos300D (which came with the stock lens), which zoom lens should I buy?

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by h'biki
Yup. You also need to consider whether its false economy to get the 'cheaper' lens now and get the 'best' lens later, when you can afford a 'pretty darn good' lens now and you'll never really need the 'best' lens anyway! (Who needs a superfast, telephoto with manual defocus control besides the profs?)

Although, the cheaper lens can often become your workhorse/kickabout lens.



Indeed. Which is why I recommend people get the standard lenses with the body. They're good lenses for a good price, cause I think they're partial 'loss leaders' for the various companies. They make a bit of a loss on them (or at least very little profit) in order to get you to buy the kit and into the Nikon/Canon/Pentax lens system. Cause once you're in that system its very hard to change brands...

Procrastinating is fun :)

That reminded me of something else to do with telescope eyepieces. After a lot of research I found a brand of eyepiece that offered 90-95% the ability of the highest end eyepieces for a 1/4-1/3 the price. When you reach the top level of anything the benefit return for the dollar goes down sharply. You have to decide at what level you really need. I am not a professional astronomer and I am not in a place where the air or the conditions are ever in a situation where the highest end eyepiece will really show any benefit so I opted for the next best.

This line of logic is fully applicable to camera lenses as well. Just because the lens costs 4x as much doesn't mean you get 4x the performance.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Genie
So for my Eos300D (which came with the stock lens), which zoom lens should I buy?

I throw the question back at you. What sort of shooting are you doing? Most of what I have seen from you is close up stuff so a short focal range is probably better but maybe you want to do more landscape stuff.

[h'biki]

Originally posted by Genie
So for my Eos300D (which came with the stock lens), which zoom lens should I buy?

Well... it depends on what you are photographing and in what conditions?

Are you doing portrait shots? macro photography? Wide shots?

Are you doing them in daylight? In interiors? At night? Are you shooting on a tripod or handheld?

Are you doing much post work? Or are you quite happy to shoot at 400 ISO? Or do you prefer 100 ISO in RAW? :)

Do you tend to shoot with more or less depth of field? (Less blurry background, or more blury backgroud!)

[Genie]

Originally posted by MacBandit
I throw the question back at you. What sort of shooting are you doing? Most of what I have seen from you is close up stuff so a short focal range is probably better but maybe you want to do more landscape stuff.

I have noticed two problems in shooting so far:

1) Really close-up facial shots get dog-nose distortion.

2) Sometimes something very far away, lke a face 100 feet away, won't be clear with the stock lens, so longer zoom would be nice in those times.

[h'biki]

Originally posted by MacBandit
This line of logic is fully applicable to camera lenses as well. Just because the lens costs 4x as much doesn't mean you get 4x the performance.

Its fully applicable to *everything* I think. Computers, Cars, Hi-Fi Equipment, Mobile Phones, Women...

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Genie
I have noticed two problems in shooting so far:

1) Really close-up facial shots get dog-nose distortion.

2) Sometimes something very far away, lke a face 100 feet away, won't be clear with the stock lens, so longer zoom would be nice in those times.

Sounds like you need two lenses. A good macro and a longer lens. Something else you need to consider is the light levels you are doing these shots.

As I am not the current camera lens expert here I'll just leave it at that and see what people recommend.

[Genie]

Originally posted by h'biki
Well... it depends on what you are photographing and in what conditions?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by h'biki
[B]
Are you doing portrait shots? macro photography? Wide shots?

Mostly Portrait / full body shots

Originally posted by h'biki
Are you doing them in daylight? In interiors? At night? Are you shooting on a tripod or handheld?

Mostly interior and I tend to go handheld.

Originally posted by h'biki
Are you doing much post work? Or are you quite happy to shoot at 400 ISO? Or do you prefer 100 ISO in RAW? :)

I think it gets blurry at 400? because of hand shake, so sometimes I set it to 100... Did I get that right?

Originally posted by h'biki
Do you tend to shoot with more or less depth of field? (Less blurry background, or more blury backgroud!)

I like the background REALLY blurry. Like in your shots above.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by h'biki
Its fully applicable to *everything* I think. Computers, Cars, Hi-Fi Equipment, Mobile Phones, Women...

I can vouch for all of those but lucked out on the women department so I don't know from experience.;)

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Genie
I think it gets blurry at 400? because of hand shake, so sometimes I set it to 100... Did I get that righ? Yes, the smaller the number the slower the film.



I like the background REALLY blurry. Like in your shots above.

So you like wider aperture settings. So you need a lens that can handle the lower f-stop settings.

[h'biki]

Originally posted by Genie
I have noticed two problems in shooting so far:

1) Really close-up facial shots get dog-nose distortion.


Right. You're probably experiencing "distortion". Wider lenses make everything feel 'further apart'. They're great for giving wide shots a lot of depth... but bring them up close and you distort natural facial proportions. (FWIW, Jeunet [the director] loves his wide angles, even in close-ups... he just puts the camera in 'interesting' positions).

Longer lenses 'flatten' the image... they make everythign feel closer together. They're quite painterly. They're great for portraits, because they 'even out' any strange facial proportion and isolate the subject from the background. (Depth of field, but we won't go into that).

So you either need to do two things to fix this:

1. Get a great macro lens, so you can bring the camera in close and not get that much distortion. The lens I recommend before (the 28-135mm Canon) will do this just fine.

2. Get a long zoom lens. You put the camera far away and let it 'flatten' the image for you.


2) Sometimes something very far away, lke a face 100 feet away, won't be clear with the stock lens, so longer zoom would be nice in those times.

I think I've found the lens for you!:

http://www.canon.com.au/products/cameras_lenses_accessories/telephoto_zoom_lenses/ef100_300mmf4556usm.html

Its a 100-300mm zoom lens by Canon. (or 160mm-450 on your camera). Its quite fast (4.5-5.6), has a good number of aperture blades (8), and its NOT an extending barrel... and it has image stablisation... which is important considering you shoot interiors and handheld.

This lens:

http://www.canon.com.au/products/cameras_lenses_accessories/telephoto_zoom_lenses/ef55-200f4556iiusm_specs.html

Also seems quite good. Its a little wider than the other lens, but with the 'shift' of the digital cameras... it'll become a 75-320mm equiv... which is a good range.

Also got image stablisation... I think.

(To get the background blurry you need to 'open up' your aperture, shoot at 2.8 or so... but if you'r eshooting interiors that's probably not a problem :)

[zync]

I found this a little late but you can view my site (in my sig) if you wish...I just wish I had my own server and a boradband connection....then there'd be tons of stuff up there...everything on that site was shot from a Canon S400....I'm thinking of getting an AE-1 (My friend currently has one and I've been wanting one for a while....we use it to do night photography among other things...) with the money I'll get next semester, though I really wish I had a studio, but a thousand plus won't cover that (unless that plus is a few more thousand of course) :D

[tazo]

Welcome to the ever-growing photography thread, Zync! :)

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by zync
I found this a little late but you can view my site (in my sig) if you wish...I just wish I had my own server and a boradband connection....then there'd be tons of stuff up there...everything on that site was shot from a Canon S400....I'm thinking of getting an AE-1 (My friend currently has one and I've been wanting one for a while....we use it to do night photography among other things...) with the money I'll get next semester, though I really wish I had a studio, but a thousand plus won't cover that (unless that plus is a few more thousand of course) :D I have an old Canon AE-1. i busted the lens that came with it when i drove off with the damn thing on my roof, but i still have a 100-300mm zoom lens that fits on it, and the camera itself is fully functional, amazingly.

that photography is amazing. very nice work :D

[Blackhawk]

Here is one I shot the other day just before a Rain Storm Hit.

[Moxiemike]

Originally posted by Blackhawk
Here is one I shot the other day just before a Rain Storm Hit.


Looks like hell.... great shot. I like hell

[shadowfax]

Well, eye, i can't light candles in the dorm :rolleyes:

so this is the best i could do:

[shadowfax]

i also played with my glasses:

[shadowfax]

and here's my sweet mag lite :D

[shadowfax]

last one for now...

i love this tripod. it's really opened up the world of lowlight photography to me, sans flashes.

[Mr. Anderson]

nice shots shadowfax - I love the glass.....what was the light source?

Genie, as for lenses (discussion a few pages ago), you might want to look into Sigma lenses for your 300D. Cheaper and just as good, if not better. Check out the reviews/specs at www.dpreview.com

D

[Moxiemike]

Right on Mr.A

The Sigma 50mm macro and 105mm Macro (both of which I own) are AMAZINGLY sharp, contrasty, built nicely and fast (f2.8)

m

[eyelikeart]

Nice shots shadow. I like that first light best.

here's one along the same lines...

[eyelikeart]

another weird one...

[Blackhawk]

Genie, I would have to agree with Mr. A & Mr. M, Sigma's are a good buy. I have been using a 50-500 4-6.3 EX APO Lens for awhile now and I'm very pleased with its performance. The one I'm using may be a bit much for your purposes, but there are several that might work better for you as suggested by Mr. A & Mr. M

[Genie]

Wow- thanks so much for the info on the lenses!

I was thinking about a Sigma but then H'Biki indicated they were not as good as the Canon ones.

I'm still a little fuzzy on what all the spec's mean, but I'm going to re-read the posts above.

Thank you all so much!

Your pictures look beautiful!

[eyelikeart]

I'm also using Sigma lenses. I have a 24-70 & 70-300 that I'm very happy with thus far.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
nice shots shadowfax - I love the glass.....what was the light source?

D thanks for the props, Mr. A and eye.

as to the light source, it's in the second photo :D here is another shot (not good, but should explain it)--look at the top of the glass. i just sat the thing on it like that.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
Nice shots shadow. I like that first light best.

here's one along the same lines... two can play at that game :D

[Backtothemac]

Here is one from today.

[shadowfax]

cool, B2tm, the texture on the petals seems really odd.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by shadowfax
cool, B2tm, the texture on the petals seems really odd.

There appears to be a very fine dew on them.

[shadowfax]

Originally posted by MacBandit
There appears to be a very fine dew on them. yeah, i noticed the dew, but the weird part to me was on the edges of the petals in focus--it looks fuzzy--not out of focus fuzzy, just fuzzy.

[Backtothemac]

Well, there is dew on it, but your right. It is like little hairs on the petals. It is a wierd little flower ;)

[Mudbug]

Seeing as how this thread is growing like a weed, in order to keep it somewhat manageable, it's continueing in another thread here. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46799)
This is by no means an effort to shut this down - just an effort to keep it a little more "user friendly :D"
Thanks :)