Tekforums
Chat => Photography => Topic started by: Kunal on July 19, 2007, 23:19:50 PM
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So Ive the 18-55mm that came with my EOS 300D and also a 75-300mm which they chucked in when I bought it. Havent purchased a lense since then and sort of lost motivation to do so for a while until recently.
It looks like Im going to Peru in October for a couple of week so Id like to get my kit sorted as it were. That and Ive just started playing with HDR and am having lots of fun :)
So Im looking for recommendations in general. The sheer number of lenses out there baffles me (and the cost!), I know Id like a decent wide angle and maybe a fixed (50mm?)
Looking for bang for buck.
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-Lens-50-1-8-II/dp/B00007E7JU/ref=sr_1_1/026-7026137-9486069?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1184884833&sr=8-1
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Canon EF 10-22 EF-S f/3.5-4.5 - if you want to splash out
or
Tokina AF 12-24mm f/4 AT-X Pro DX - for a little bit cheaper...
Remember you pay for good glass...
A 50mm lens is the equivalent to an 80mm, good for portrait work and generally low light use.
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I cant bring myself to spend that much to be honest. Ive got a holiday to pay for.
What about used lenses? Or do the usually hold their value quite well.
Just after a decent beginners lense really. Dont want to go too far north of 100 pounds.
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I cant bring myself to spend that much to be honest. Ive got a holiday to pay for.
What about used lenses? Or do the usually hold their value quite well.
Just after a decent beginners lense really. Dont want to go too far north of 100 pounds.
Then look at used manual focus lenses..
Zeiss are probably the best from what Ive read
ton of info
http://www.mflenses.com/content/category/4/13/29/
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Just after a decent beginners lense really. Dont want to go too far north of 100 pounds.
Your present ones should cover you quite well for most situations. Go onto fleabay and get an X2 converter and a standard 50mm f1.8 Canon lens, a suitable autofocus one if you can afford it. The X2 will double the focal length of your present lenses, useful in good light.
Dont worry too much about wide angle, you can just step back a bit* ;)
* unless you are on the top of a cliff, in which case stepping back may be inadvisable.
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Dont worry too much about wide angle, you can just step back a bit* ;)
* unless you are on the top of a cliff, in which case stepping back may be inadvisable.
Heh I was thinking about the wide angle for sweeping panoramics, when Im up in the Andes or at Machu Picchu.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9012492@N07/781553743/
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hmmmm that looks rendered
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hmmmm that looks rendered
Its an HDR shot, 3 or 4 pictures at different exposure settings merged together.
Most DSLRs have a setting to do this automatically - Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB).
http://www.flickr.mud.yahoo.com/search/?q=hdr&w=all&s=int
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Dont worry too much about wide angle, you can just step back a bit* ;)
* unless you are on the top of a cliff, in which case stepping back may be inadvisable.
Heh I was thinking about the wide angle for sweeping panoramics, when Im up in the Andes or at Machu Picchu.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9012492@N07/781553743/
You should be able to do that with the present wide angle of your 18-55 Gives you about a 28mm (1.6x conversion) which is good enough for most shots like that.
If you go too wide you end up with fish eye effects that you dont want.
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also look into Hugin
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
its a very powerful panorama stitching suite. Just lock the focus, exposure and white ballance (not strictly needed but makes it easier), take as many shots as you need to cover your desired image and stitch them together later. I have also used it for lining shots up for HDR without a tripod.
With my Pentax kit lens it works best if you use about 35mm, minimum distortion and vignetting that way and just take a couple more shots to get the extra angle of view. It is likely that your lens sweet spot will be in about the same place but my advice would be to play around and see what works best before you get to the trip of a lifetime.
If there are things close in which you want in the final image, its best to rotate around the nodal point of the lens. There are two ways of doing this
1: buy a highly expensive and hard to get panoramic tripod head. This is better but involves expense and lugging a tripod about.
2: stick your thumb underneath where the aperture ring would be if the lens had one, try to keep that thumb still and rotate around it. This is less accurate but will produce low enough parallax errors that it will come out in the wash about 9/10 times (with practice). This is how I always do mine.
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1: buy a highly expensive and hard to get panoramic tripod head. This is better but involves expense and lugging a tripod about.
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Panoramic-Tripod-Head
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1: buy a highly expensive and hard to get panoramic tripod head. This is better but involves expense and lugging a tripod about.
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Panoramic-Tripod-Head
neat! good find Egg, I may well give that a go.
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Ive used hugin with some good results :) No panorama head, just a plain ol normal tripod.
Clickys:
One: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=427954680&size=o
Two: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=427954685&size=o
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Another option is sterioscopic images. For a single camera it needs a thin bit of wood, bolt (you need the nut too) to fit bottom fastening hole on camera and a tripod.
Simply drill a hole through the wood drill another hole further along fasten one to the tripod with the nut, the other to the camera with the bolt. That should allow you movement in a circle. Take a picture, move the camera by the distance between your eyes and take the second. Works best with still subjects.
A pair of cheap digital cameras fastened to a bit of wood can be used too. just make sure the gap between the lenses is the same as your eyes. You need to operate both at the same time.
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Ive used hugin with some good results :) No panorama head, just a plain ol normal tripod.
Clickys:
One: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=427954680&size=o
Two: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=427954685&size=o
yup, hugin rocks. Ive even had passable results when the shots werent taken from quite the same place. Not quite perfect, but close enough that a little photoshoping hid it.