Canon 450D (couldn't afford the petrol version !)
Has the standard lens, looking for something a little more powerful - to take photos of things in the mid-distance - low flying aircraft, mountainsides and maybe bikes at the races....
What sort of Doom lens do I need ??
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As alway it depends on what you want to spend.
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I've no idea - 200 pounds maybe ?
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i got a 70-200 (with the image stabiliser) and to be honest never use anything else. Ideal for portrait work (e.g. can get rid of the perspective effect of someone's big hooter by standing further back and zooming in) great for medium range stuff in general.
Can't remember how much it cost but probably not 100% relevant anyways (Nikkor).
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Yer 70-200 is the one lens i would go for. I did have a 400mm in my 35mm days but of limited use, you needed a tripod or very good light for a higher shutter speed to prevent camera shake.
Nothing beats getting as close to your subject as you can tho, by whatever means you can figure out.
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Thanks Zero - You're right, but the standard lens is a little to distant even close up - Two Chinooks came up the valley in formation yesterday and the Canon was to hand but the resulting image was a tad disappointing.
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Some additional research clinches it - got one from Amazon for a 114 squids - bargain I think. A second hand one from a dealer on e-bay was 90 quid. Something nice about new.
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Left elbow to ribs Focus - well perhaps not !
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Practise the old "left elbow wedged in ribcage, cocked left wrist under lens body" grip then PU.
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b*****, changed my mind and gone for the 55mm-250mm - some more money but still on budget.
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The (i think) 70 to 300mm zoom lens we had on the old 35mm Canon SLR is incompatible with the 450D, keeps coming up with an error message on screen.
I'm looking for something similar to the one you purchased PU, but concerned unless the advert states for Digi camera then may have the same problem again.
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My later choice will work with the 450d........it's mentioned in a review...glad I read it now.
"I'm by no means a photographer, I bought this lens as part of my first DSLR kit. I'm really very pleased I did though, it offers great picture quality (when attached to my Canon 450d), focus is quick and sharp, the zoom range is pretty decent and starts off where the 450d kit lens leaves off, manual focus is easy and accurate, and the inclusion of image stabilisation is a real winner for a lens in this price bracket.
For a lens at under two hundred pounds you can't really go wrong with this one! For any other DSLR newbies like myself, don't be put off by 250mm seeming quite short, don't forget to multiply that by the focus multiplier of your camera (typically 1.6 for a Canon), making this lens a much more respectable 400mm lens in 35mm equivalent all in the size of a 250mm. "
The review that sold it for me. Thanks to CGNorwich - his link was spot on.
Last edited by: Pugugly on Thu 24 Jun 10 at 21:00
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Check out ffordes photographic too. They have lots of good second hand gear.
Sometimes you can get errors showing from older lenses if they're set to the wrong aperture when you attach them to the camera. Can't remember where I read it or what the cure was...
I've just got a second hand sony alpha and I'm most pleased to find out my old sigma lenses work just fine with it and the vivitar ring flash also sort of works :-) Camera itself has the image stabilisation in it which I prefer. Went out earlier in the week and took 500 photos! Couldn't have done that with film...
I did wonder about going for a canon and have been trying not to drool over the 550d!
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I can recommend the 450d - it was a present to myself after some very hard work resulted in some hard cash tail end of 08, for a number of reasons I haven't done as much with it as I wanted and only now getting to grips with it - it is a cracking bit of kit underserved by the standard lens - hopefully this new one will bring out the best in it.
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Another, non zoom, non telephoto lens worth considering.
www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-EF-50-1-8-Lens/dp/B00005K47X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1277413410&sr=8-1
For normal shots in low light this will give you quite a few more f stops to play with.
I bought one a few years ago for my film Canon and now use it on my 450D
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What about a Sigma or Tamron 18-200 lens? Should get one on a Canon mount in your budget.
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I want to make certain that there was full compatibility with IS and AF and some other abbreviations that escape me now !
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>> What about a Sigma or Tamron 18-200 lens? >>
My Nikon D80 was supplied with a 18-70mm lens so, as part of the deal, I took up the offer of a Tamron 55-200mm. The lenses worked fine but it was a faff carrying the extra lens around and swapping over. Then, when closely reviewing a series of pictures, I realised that some specks of dust had settled on the sensor during a lens swap. I wasn't aware of how easily this could occur - and I had been doing some shooting at a steam engine rally where there were dust, smuts and sawdust (from a steam powered circular saw) in the air. OK, this was a particularly difficult environment, but dust can be thrown up at many outdoor events - e.g. motor racing.
Last year, we went on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Galapagos Islands and I couldn't afford to jeopardise taking photos so, on the advice of a friend, I invested in a Nikkor 18-200mm lens. The experts will tell you that it's a compromise - but I don't think it's been off the camera since.
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I bought a Nikon F401 body with a Tamron AF 28-200mm zoom lens 15 years ago; it cost not much less than its digital replacement, a D90 with the 18-105mm lens.
The Tamron, apart from proving excellent all the way through from wide angle to reasonable telephoto, had the added advantage that it's not much larger overall closed down than a standard Nikon lens and can/could be used with a normal case.
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Luckily for me the one I bought fits neatly into a Lowpro Case I bought for my original Fuji - sometimes things work just right....!
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Thanks - may dabble with that in a couple of months.
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This months photography something reviewed the 550d and mentioned they thought the standard canon lens was a bit of a let down. Any of the canon mount other brand lens should be fine that come up on lens lists for that model. I tend to favour sigma and their ex series are the pro versions so they are more robust (but more expensive)
lens-reviews.com/ Worth having a mooch on there.
Friend of mine has just ordered a 7d and several lenses. I'm slightly green :-)
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"my" lens gets very good reviews there - thanks GC and all.
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Pleased to be of assistance PU
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I used to take a lot of photos, but realised that we very rarely looked at them, and even less so once digital came along.
Last week we were out on a walk, and met up with a group of very keen expert naturalists, all armed with huge lenses and associated kit. Hunting butterflies. So we chatted.
When I asked what they did with their pictures afterwards they all looked a bit shifty, and one or two actually said they never bothered to look at the photos afterwards, it was just the taking of the picture that counted.
There was also the general feeling that "in the old days" you couldn't beat a slide show on a big screen, and even if you do make the effort to look at digital photos the experience is not so good, all crowding round the tv or whatever.
Be interested to know what you keen photographers actually do with all your photos? Frame them? Exhibit them? Do a "slide show" with a digital projector? Leave them consigned to a folder on a hard drive never to see the light of day?
If someone has a good answer I might be persuaded to take up the hobby again. At the minute we take a few and put them in a 12" digital photoframe, which is ok but not very thrilling.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Fri 25 Jun 10 at 08:24
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My camera comes "out once in a while", usually as an afterthought when going someplace - I'm not one for happy snapping.
For pre-digital pics we used to have large albums and choose a picture or two from each reel of film to go in the album - just how many depended on subject, quality, occasion etc etc.
Since digital, I have certainly taken more pictures per event, and not culled them as heavily. My computer set up here means we can sit comfortably round the large screen TV to look at pics. I also from time to time set up my pics (portions thereof) as a screen saver on my work laptop, to have a slide show.
Being involved with a bunch of reasonably well heeled motorsport fans I did go through a phase of wanting some very expensive equipment, but thankfully I got over it and have recently bought a non-SLR digital as I recognise that it suited my needs better, and much of the spending thousands on camera equipment would, for me at least, just be another form of willy waving.
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A slide show would have bored the arris off me! Glad those days are gone :-) Do miss people handing round prints though but photobox is really cheap so you can at least get a load done in one go at something silly like 5p a print and about £2 for postage. They also do photobooks, calendars, posters etc so you can make use of your favourite pics in new ways. There is also www.blurb.com which also provide a similar kind of thing but have more book options.
I tend to upload mine to facebook to share with friends and it is there as a reminder of wherever I've been. Lots of my friends upload theirs so I get to see where they've been which I may not necessarily have done before as you don't always get a chance to see people often and for long enough for their photos to come out.
Very best ones go on a stock site. Not that I've sold a single image but I can hope!
I do sometimes need images for websites I'm doing so I'll flick through. I keep even the duff photos as sometimes you never know if it might come in handy. Also it shows you how much better you have become as the ratio of duffers to decent pictures changes.
There are other sharing sites like flikr which are worth considering. They can do slideshows so you can send links to people you know (everyone is on t'internet now!)
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Lens arrived yesterday morning from Amazon - brilliant service. Works perfectly with the camera with all functionality including the superb Image Stabilizer - exactly what I wanted. Thanks all.
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It's worth remembering that if you find any Canon lenses (it applies, of course, to any brand) that were used with film cameras and are compatible with a digital model, then you have to multiply the focal length(s) by 1.5.
So a 50mm lens would be 75mm on a digital and an 18-105mm zoom, for example, 27-153mm.
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I have the 75-300mm Canon USM lens on my 400D. Works well, and readily available for around the £130 mark. I've had some great shots out of it.
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Well it couldn't have worked better - two Chinooks came down the valley again, the camera was warmed up and to hand - and I managed to fire off a few shots, far better now I'll post the results soon.
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Try to better what this photographer captured:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east_orkney_and_shetland/10412257.stm
The picture was taken in Snowdonia.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 29 Jun 10 at 17:47
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It was Facebooked to me that - my BiL is a pilot - but he does silly but not stupid.....he has a few tales to tell, including creeping up on Police patrol cars and "alerting" the driver to his "presence".
Last edited by: Pugugly on Tue 29 Jun 10 at 17:51
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It's also worth remembering that many digital cameras use image correction software to counteract lens distortions etc.
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>> It's also worth remembering that many digital cameras use image correction software to counteract lens
>> distortions etc.
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Which means the image is correct. One example is the Panasonic Micro 4/3rds cameras. Lenses need correction but there is no problem with images.
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Lens suggestions. - CGNorwich
