***DSLR/Photography MegaThread***

Sweet! Hopefully my local shops will have the Sigma to rent. I think I will rent both for a weekend and work from there...
 
kozak said:
So I won a Nikon D5000 at the company Christmas party. I am a total DSLR newbie. Have always had point a shoot cameras.

It came with 2 manuals and 2 DVD's to teach me how to use the thing. Since I don't have the patience to study all of this, can anyone offer advice, websites, magazines that can give me pointers on how to use this new toy?
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Fing good for you mate.

Time to talk lenses...
 
Jeffrock said:
All signs seem to point to me purchasing the 70-200mm 2.8L IS lens in order to handle action/low light situations.

My question is this: Is there another lens I should be considering that can handle hockey as well as portraits? My wife is a wedding planner, who is interested in possibly becoming a wedding photographer.
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santiclaws said:
I've heard good things about the Sigma 50-150 f/2.8. Much lighter and easier to handhold than a 70-200 beast, much cheaper, and gives you the same coverage on an APS-C body. That said, it is only for crop frame cameras so if she ever upgrades to FF, you're out of luck. The Canon will also probably give you better quality wide open, but at double the price, it should.
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If she is serious about being a wedding photog, then EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS (II) without question. The IS isn't going to do much good for hockey (players are moving to fast for it to be of use), but for low light ceremony shots where you can't use a flash, it is extraordinarily handy. Also, she is going to need at least two bodies for wedding work (no skimping here, at least two bodies is critical, not just for focal length coverage, but for backup, bodies go bad at the worst times), one of those is probably going to want to be either full frame or 1.3x frame (1D). You are going to want a stable of lenses that will work on all her cameras.

Now for the nerdy talk (skip all this if you like :) ):
Here are the MTF charts for both lenses. What you are looking here is the lenses ability to resolve fine detail (green lines for Sigma, fine black lines for Canon ) and contrast (red lines for Sigma, bold black lines for Canon). The contrast line will indicate how much "punch" and clarity a lens will deliver, the detail line will indicate how much fine detail (personally I find that while both are important, the contrast line is the more important of the two). If you are wondering what dotted vs. solid means, it is the direction of the test line on the chart. Lenses have a harder time resolving lines which run perpendicular to a line drawn from center of frame to edge of frame.

Y axis (height of chart) is contrast (1 would be perfect contrast), X axis is distance from center of frame, so the left side is center, the right side is the extreme diagonal corner of frame. One important thing to note, the sigma chart ends at 13.5mm on the X axis (because it is for cropped cameras) while the Canon chart extends to 21.6mm, just keep in mind when comparing the two charts to look at the same X value.

Sigma:
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Canon:
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So what you can see is that in fact on wide end, the Sigma has slightly better contrast while Canon has slightly better detail across frame.

On the long end the Canon really shines. Better contrast, and much more detail resolving power.
 
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A couple of things to also keep in mind: on a crop sensor, the 50-150mm is equivalent to about a 75-225mm on a full frame lens. The 70-200mm is equivalent to about a 105-300. In some situations the extra length will be an advantage, in others the shorter focusing distance.

Also something to keep in mind if using a crop-sensor camera and a lens designed for FF, like the 70-200mm: the corners of the full frame lens won't even be in the shot on an APS-C camera, so what you're getting is just the "sweet spot" of the lens.
 
Thanks for the extra info. I will try to absorb some of it later today when I recover from a wicked unintentional headshot from someones knee last night in pickup. :(

f things workout and she decides to go full force with this, I am guessing that the 50D will end up being a back up camera.
 
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I call it the King Slayer:

1 Part Stone RIS
1 Part 2% Milk

In a coffee mug...1 1/2 min (microwave)
 
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Very nice! Just a few comments:

#2 I think the hand holding shot would be great if you rotated it slightly so your bricks weren't sloping down on the left.

#3 for I think could use some tighter cropping to get that tree out of fame on the left. Maybe try a 1:1 crop and see how that looks. For me the background is distracting, and the more you can crop out the better. It may be because it is also slanting off to the left. If you have time / ability, stamp out the plant growing out of his shoulder.

#4 Nice connection between the two. The very bright magenta lens flare is distracting to me though. I also wonder if you could paint in a little more contrast in the faces as you have lost some with the flare.

Nice work and thanks for sharing in a thread that has gone a little dormant :)
 
HeShootsNScores said:
I did an engagement session for some friends.... thoughts?

CRAP: They're all watermarked... stupid Zenfolio... oh well... sorry!

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I like them!!! Really nice comp. I'm with VF concerning the horizons on both 1 &2.

#1 might be nit picking but the horizon is slightly off about 1 degree. Im thinking the shed roof and the asphalt/shed wall lines are running away from each other heading towards the left. I think a nice zoomed in crop removing all of the sky (just below the shadow line of the roof) and 2/3 rds of the asphalt would look killer. Bring in the left and right lines into the shed as to frame just the 3 center peices of the art and your subjects. I think they're facial expressions are killer and are somewhat lost because of the distance. Love the color pick up in the corrugated steel.

#3. I think a tight crop around their faces would be really strong.

#4. The flare is too much. I actually think I squinted when I looked at it at first. :)

#5 It may just be my monitor but the contrast and the brightness/whites seem too high. I'm losing a bunch of detail in her hands.

Like I said, the composition and the staging are really nice. Bravo.
 
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Happy Birthday Photoshop!

Just thought I'd chime in to say,

Happy Birthday Photoshop!

:congrats::congrats::congrats:

Today, Feb 19, 2010, Photoshop turns 20 years old! Where would we all be without it?
 
Just stumbled on this thread and am very impressed with some of the pictures posted. Here are some of my best shots that I have taken with my cannon X1i
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Grasshopper I found snacking on a leaf

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Huntington Beach at night

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The hummingbird pictures were taken with a 75-300mm lens on manual focus with the camera in sport mode.
 
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Now Chirping

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