Photography / Camera chat thread.

Well i just stumped up £185 for a Sony A200 with a 15-55 lens which i thought was a pretty good price. Need a lens now to cope with distance. I have had a read and there is a nice something-300 that seems to be a good choice (will have to trawl through the things i`ve read to find the brand). Really looking forward to some hopefully good pictures soon

Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 APO seems to be very popular.

[Richie]

stickied, renamed and cleaned up a tad or 2 :0)

Originally Posted by Richie

stickied, renamed and cleaned up a tad or 2 :0)

Anyone know much about this micro 4/3 mullarkey ? thinking of getting a 'compact' style camera for a trip next year, would love something like a Leica M9 but a bit out of my league tbh and actually its not 4/3's I think but want something I can slip in a pocket and get some grab shots with.

The Leica M9 uses a full frame Kodak sensor, so it's actually bigger than the APS-C (1.5x / 1.6x crop ratio) sensors in the current consumer / prosumer DSLRs...

The m4/3 sensors are smaller than APS-C, with a 2x crop ratio, so not too big but not that small either, and allowing for smaller lenses to be used. Excellent ratio between portability and quality, but still expensive, and depending on the lens(es) you get, it might stop being pocketable really quickly... I believe only the 17 mm (35 mm equivalent) pancake lenses are small enough to still be considered pocketable, but then again it always depends on how big your pockets are
May I suggest taking a good look at the Nikon P7000 / Canon G12 instead? Smaller sensors, but a lot more compact than an m4/3 system, and cheaper when you consider the lenses you'd have to get to cover the whole range the P7000 provides. Of course the image quality might not be as good when you start shooting in low light, but it might be the difference between getting a shot or none at all because you left the camera at home due to size...

Cheers Filipe, its a bit of a minefield out there tbh with every week a new updated upgraded model hitting the stores,just need something small and light with good optics that I can pull out at a moments notice, a pancake lens would defo be on the shopping list, saying that it doesnt have to be digital either, I still use film and might even go for something like a voigtlanger or rollei even, although digi has certain advantages I suppose.

Originally Posted by stewie

Cheers Filipe, its a bit of a minefield out there tbh with every week a new updated upgraded model hitting the stores,just need something small and light with good optics that I can pull out at a moments notice, a pancake lens would defo be on the shopping list, saying that it doesnt have to be digital either, I still use film and might even go for something like a voigtlanger or rollei even, although digi has certain advantages I suppose.

Voigtlander.... mmmmmm....... drools..........


Right, back to the real world.
While I do like shooting film (and being driven insane with the results, especially when trying to scan them into something I don't mind seeing on a screen), I have to admit that it wouldn't be my first choice for a carry anywhere camera, not only because of camera size (35mm rangefinders can be small, but still bigger than a digital compact) but also because of the digital convenience niceties like the ability to change ISO on the fly.

While it's true that raising ISO on a small sensor compact will degrade image quality faster than on a bigger sensor thingy, the choice is there for you to make should you need it. Of course, with film, changing ISO means changing the roll (potentially wasting some film if you need to change it mid roll), or pushing it in development if you're shooting stock that will respond well to doing it, and again if you need to do it mid-roll, you just lost the pictures that were shot before that... unless you know a lab that will split the film and process each bit according to the ISO it was shot at. If you do, give us a shout and I might consider moving to the UK!

On the other hand, the lenses on the compacts won't be as good as what you can get from the likes of Voigtlander, and they're slower. The P7000 has a variable f/2.8-5.6 28-200mm equiv zoom, which is decent on the wide end, but I can imagine by the time you get to 50mm equiv you're already at f/4 or near... in a funny way this negates the higher ISO advantage because you'll be 2 stops slower than a normal 50 mm f/2 prime, and 3 stops slower than a decent f/1.4 prime... If you go for the f/1.1 Nokton then you're pushing into 4 stops territory (and no depth of field, but that's a different matter! ), which if you're shooting 100 ISO film would be close to shooting 1600 ISO on a compact, and I don't think you want to do that! Maybe film isn't such a bad idea after all, then!

Or just go back to your first option and take a look at the Panasonic GF2 with a decent set of lenses. The offer is growing, and while you won't get Voigtlander or Rollei quality, you get decent high ISO performance and fast-ish glass to go with it! Oh, and HD video!

Just a heads up for anyone looking at buying a camera in the near future.

Had an email off jessops...

D90 with 105mm lense now £679 (i paid £799 1 year ago)
D5000 with 18-55 and 55-200 lenses £569

Some good packages around at the moment

Originally Posted by specialone

Just a heads up for anyone looking at buying a camera in the near future.

Had an email off jessops...

D90 with 105mm lense now £679 (i paid £799 1 year ago)
D5000 with 18-55 and 55-200 lenses £569

Some good packages around at the moment

cheers mate am checking it out now they were 769

Originally Posted by Filipe M.

I've also heard some praise for Tamron's newest 70-300, but have never used it before so it's just hearsay.

is this the one you are talking about Filipe? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TAMRON-AF-70-3...item1c19140912 cos it's £99 from jessops

Originally Posted by bluefishman

is this the one you are talking about Filipe? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TAMRON-AF-70-3...item1c19140912 cos it's £99 from jessops

Nope, that's the cheap version without optical stabilization (they call it VC - Vibration Compensation). The other one will be a bit more expensive than that...