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looking to get a new camera... suggestions

Qman

Qman

Monkey
Feb 7, 2005
633
0
Garrett 0 P said:
well if i did buy that cannon, id probly only look into buying a fisheye lens or a really wide angle.

ill probly go with the canon.

unless you can convince me to go nikon

what does 70-300 mean?
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Unless something has changed in the very recent past, I don't think there's a fisheye that will give you the full effect on the cropped sensor Canons. So unless Sigma makes one or Canon comes out with an EF-S fisheye, you should look at Nikon or a full size sensor Canon if you really want the full fisheye effect.

Bang for the buck seems to be the D2X right now. There's a lot of info but www.dpreview.com is a great place to research cameras and get completely overloaded with choices.
 
C

ChelanDHer

Monkey
Jan 6, 2004
181
0
Lynnwood, WA
You can only get a true 12mm fisheye on a full frame camera, which is going to be Canon's 5D ($2800) or 1Ds Mark II ($6700), pretty expensive. Nikon doesn't produce a full frame sensor body, so you're stuck with the crop factor if you go Nikon. You can buy a 12-24mm fisheye, but the widest it would be with a crop factor of 1.6x is roughly 18-19mm when compared to a film body. The crop factor is great if you're looking to stretch your long range lenses, but not so great if you're looking for fisheye. My advice? Buy whatever suits you best that's in your budget, buy a good, super wide lens, and go with it.

Edit: Nikons 10.5mm prime lens does offer a 180 degree fisheye whereas Sigma's 10-20mm is only 102 degrees. Canon has a 14mm prime, but it only gets to about 114 degrees. Looks like Nikon is about the only manufacturer (as far as I can tell) making a true 180 degree fisheye. Now, this lens would work great on a 1.6x crop factor camera, you'll just have to stand back a little further is all. At 10.5, you're sitting at 16mm or so with a 1.6x crop factor, that's about as low as they come.

Here's a link to buy the 10.5, it's only $600, I would have guessed it would be more. http://www.adorama.com/NK105DXU.html
 
Five

Five

Turbo Monkey
Mar 8, 2003
1,506
0
West Seattle, WA
ChelanDHer said:
Edit: Nikons 10.5mm prime lens does offer a 180 degree fisheye whereas Sigma's 10-20mm is only 102 degrees. Canon has a 14mm prime, but it only gets to about 114 degrees. Looks like Nikon is about the only manufacturer (as far as I can tell) making a true 180 degree fisheye. Now, this lens would work great on a 1.6x crop factor camera, you'll just have to stand back a little further is all. At 10.5, you're sitting at 16mm or so with a 1.6x crop factor, that's about as low as they come.
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I have the Nikon 10.5 f/2.8 lens - It's awesome!

Here's a sample:
 
G

Garrett 0 P

Monkey
Sep 10, 2006
174
0
sammamish
jimbo_the_biker said:
Yeah, I did that on purpose. 1/13th of a second is quite slow. That was at skatebarn, I usually shoot 1/200th there.. or faster if I bump the ISO a little.
The photo was also taken w/ my flash set to 2nd curtain sync, hence the nifty ghosting.

Here's one shot a bit quicker.

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yea thats sweet. what camera and lense you use for that?
 
J

jimbo_the_biker

Monkey
Sep 8, 2004
394
0
That was taken with my canon 30d and the Sigma 15mm F2.8 Fish. After the 1.6x crop factor its effectively 24mm, but I find it to be plenty wide.

-James.
 
MinorThreat

MinorThreat

Turbo Monkey
Nov 15, 2005
1,630
41
Nine Mile Falls, WA
Five said:
Doug - just get a new camera. The lens will fit on the body, but you won't have autofocus capabilities and metering might be a problem. Plus you'll have a fancy shiny new camera/lens and you can take a picture of me biking for a change :brow:
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OK, one more dumb question and I'll leave you guys alone. When I read this the first time my mind was thinking about auto-aperature when I was reading 'autofocus.' So now my twofold dumb question: I'm not sure that losing autofocusing capabilities would be that important to me. Isn't that a bit overrated when doing fast-acting sports photgraphy anyway? Don't you usually wind up setting up focus (like at a certain course feature) manually ahead of time anyway? Part 2: If metering is an issue, that's bad indeed; and I guess my other concern is if I'd lose the auto-aperature function, or is that something that can be retained using old analog optics on a digital body?

I know, I know, "just buy the whole thing;" but I wanted to get those niggling questions cleared up. Thanks!
 
Netguy

Netguy

Monkey
Nov 8, 2004
609
0
Whistler
MinorThreat said:
OK, one more dumb question and I'll leave you guys alone. When I read this the first time my mind was thinking about auto-aperature when I was reading 'autofocus.' So now my twofold dumb question: I'm not sure that losing autofocusing capabilities would be that important to me. Isn't that a bit overrated when doing fast-acting sports photgraphy anyway? Don't you usually wind up setting up focus (like at a certain course feature) manually ahead of time anyway? Part 2: If metering is an issue, that's bad indeed; and I guess my other concern is if I'd lose the auto-aperature function, or is that something that can be retained using old analog optics on a digital body?

I know, I know, "just buy the whole thing;" but I wanted to get those niggling questions cleared up. Thanks!
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Autofocus is extremely important with sports photography. Canon uses AI Servo mode, to continually track a moving subject, and I know Nikon has their own version of this, as do most DLSR cameras.

What AI Servo mode does, is locks the focus on a moving subject. So regardless on which direction the subject is moving, as long as you have your focal point, on the subject, he/she will always be in focus. Usually to track, you half press the shutter button down, so when the subject is at the desired location in the fame, you simply fully press the shutter.

Yes, you can manually focus at a certain point, however its far less accurate, as you are now setting the focal point, not a computer.
Even if you prefocus your subject standing at the location first, there is no guarantee that your subject will be exactly that focal length away from the camera, when he/she comes by on a bike. When your subject does come by on the bike, if he/she is 1 foot closer to you, than the pre focus point, you will most likely have an out of focus photo.
Also, if it is successful, pre focusing is only really going to work, on subject that move from one side of the frame to the other, so the focal distance stays about the same. If the subject is moving towards you, there is no accurate way for you to determine where the focal point was.

Just get a DLSR. Your other option will be a struggle/frustrating at best.
 
66

66

Monkey
Jul 17, 2003
489
0
east of Seattle
Garrett 0 P said:
the background on that picture above this looks a bit pixelated and not much definition. is that normal?
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That image is 65k and was probably about 8000k to begin with. When putting images on the internet it is necessary to degrade the image when resizing. That give the image the pixel look. In it's original state you would not be able to see the pixel edges but that would have taken a very long time to load (plus you would see it if it was RAW).

The sky is clipped. The white is all white. There is no data. That is not so much the camera as it is the photographers choice. If he chose to keep the detail in the bright sky, the subject (biker) would have been very underexposed (dark). Better cameras have better range but no camera could have exposed the biker and the sky in that shot.
 
MinorThreat

MinorThreat

Turbo Monkey
Nov 15, 2005
1,630
41
Nine Mile Falls, WA
Netguy said:
Autofocus is extremely important with sports photography. Canon uses AI Servo mode, to continually track a moving subject, and I know Nikon has their own version of this, as do most DLSR cameras.

What AI Servo mode does, is locks the focus on a moving subject. So regardless on which direction the subject is moving, as long as you have your focal point, on the subject, he/she will always be in focus. Usually to track, you half press the shutter button down, so when the subject is at the desired location in the fame, you simply fully press the shutter.
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Wow, shows you what I know about DSLRs - - didn't know the autofocus was so smart. That alone is enough to make me want to switch.

Netguy said:
Yes, you can manually focus at a certain point, however its far less accurate, as you are now setting the focal point, not a computer.
Even if you prefocus your subject standing at the location first, there is no guarantee that your subject will be exactly that focal length away from the camera, when he/she comes by on a bike. When your subject does come by on the bike, if he/she is 1 foot closer to you, than the pre focus point, you will most likely have an out of focus photo.
Also, if it is successful, pre focusing is only really going to work, on subject that move from one side of the frame to the other, so the focal distance stays about the same. If the subject is moving towards you, there is no accurate way for you to determine where the focal point was.
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That's less of an issue for me. Lots of years of shooting motorcycle races. Plus, that's what a good depth of field is for (admittedly not very much w/the telephoto on).

Netguy said:
Just get a DLSR. Your other option will be a struggle/frustrating at best.
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I know you're right. Thanks for all the advice everyone. I'm just glad decent ones are getting down in a price range that's realistic for me.
 
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