What lens to get ?

[OldTimer]

First time out today to actualy take a photo of something moving happy with the results, but it was pretty overcast and had to use Iso 400 to get a decent shutter speed.






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[Jonathan]

Looking good.

Interesting you say about having to go to ISO 400. I would say though that there is simply no need to go lower than ISO400 at all. I did sample shots at 100,200 & 400 when I got my Canon and this backed up what the reviews said.

I also wouldnt be affraid of shooting 800 or 1600 for action racing shots as what your tyring to capture isnt pixel perfect colour or detail. Sharpness however for makes a killer shot. Use a noise filter program such as noiseware and the results are amazing.

[jimmy]

You will likely find that at ISO extremes the colours are not so nice - so if at all possible stay below 1600 unless you are indoors. Same goes for ISO50 on my canon.
I generally shoot at around 400 iso outdoors as it gives some flexibility in what I can do quickly.

[Stu]

I've had no problem with ISO800 on the 350. 1600 is very dodgy tho' (check out my pics from Durham indoors), I'm sure more dodgy than with the big 1d.

Pics today an Pendle rally-X are all at 800, it was very overcast so I had no option, they are fairly good tho - minimal noise.

[jimmy]

Ive seen the 1d and 350 / 20D compared and I don't think theres much in it stu. The 1600 on my 1d is crap, looks nasty and is a little blurry too. The D70 was better and sharper.
If I had to use 1600 all the time I would give up!

[mole2k]

Bah Brower ate my post

I havnt compared a 1D to a 350d and my 20d but my comparisons have shown slighly better responce noise wise but the colour's you get arnt nearly as good.

I try not to go over iso800 even when shooting indoors, with my local track that gets me down to 1/50th sec for the most part so you get very limited. The alternate is to edit the photos with some undersaturation and you dont notice the lack of vibrance as much.

Also since jimmy mentioned the iso50 on the 1D, like the iso3200 mode it is only an effective iso and not actually a real one. ISO3200 is an underexposed iso1600 pushed to 3200, iso50 is an overexposed iso100. The digital processing is what kills the colour, I assume that iso1600 on canon's have too much in-camera noise reduction killing the vibrance and sharpness.

To use iso3200 I would nearly always be shooting for B&W final output as the colours are usually horrible.

[jimmy]

I shouldnt have mentioned 50, I'll keep it as higher real iso's have worse noise. Thats what I meant to convey, not mentioning pretend iso values.

Pro cameras tend also to have less vivid colours and softer output than entry level cameras - something that surprised me. You can read about it in various 1d guides and the reasons behind it. This would apply to any high end cameras I guess. I dont like it.

[mole2k]

The pro cameras would have files with more scope for post processing I would imagine.

[OldTimer]

Just habit shooting at the lowest iso i can, when i had the D30 it was noisey at the higher iso's but from when i had the 1d mk2 and onwards iso 800 is very usable and iso1600 if you are not printing large is ok.

The pro cameras are about very accurate colour reproduction, the red on a F1 ferrari is very hard to get spot on. Most consumer cameras are a little more punchy when it comes to colours and have a little more in camera sharpening.

And i always shot in raw format on the 1D's so i can edit all aspects of the image.

[jimmy]

I always use a medium quality jepg rather than raw, its too time consuming and the colours are never what I like. I like them vivid I have to say.

[OldTimer]

I used raw when i got paid for the photos, and i need to use a shot i had screwed up a tad, but now as its for fun jpeg is fine

[mole2k]

I always shoot raw too, I dont like shooting JPG's as they are 8bit and posterise if you try to do any major levels changes.

Although I dont do a lot of event work anyway so I tend to spend more time per image than somebody shooting large amount of photographs at events would.

[thatcanadianguy]

G'day all

First time posting here. I've been taking pictures for eons and have recently gotten into RC so hope to shoot more of it in the coming weeks/months/years. Generally speaking the ISO I shoot at usually depends on the lens I'm using. Wider the lens = lower the ISO.

So far with RC, outdoors I've never had to go above 400 with a f2.8 lens and indoors I will occasionally shoot 800, but generally stay at 400 and shoot either my EF50 1.2L USM or the 70-200 F2.8 IS USM if I can't get close enough to use the 50. Image stabilization helps noticibly.

For those of you shooting RAW, what are you processing with? I've been using RAW Shooter Premium 2006.

Cheers,

Ed
(a Canadian in Australia)

[jimmy]

Welcome!

What sort of shutter speed can you get indoors 2.8/iso400 ? 1/15th? Sometimes the only option is 50mm 1.8 and iso 1600 to get a half decent bit of light in there. not to mention the horrible colours of those lights. bring on the outdoor season.

Medium quality jepg all the way! 16 million colours is more than I can count already!

[mole2k]

I shoot raw and use Adobe Camera RAW to process them from within CS2. As for the RAW vs JPG debate, I shoot raw because the halls I race at are so dark I sometimes push the ISO so I need to lift the photos a bit a 16bit raw file gives you a lot more colour information to do this without posterisation.

I do shoot RAW+small JPEG though and for web previews I quite often just use the jpeg file, unless im going to print the RAW file often isnt used.

[thatcanadianguy]

equivilant to 1/500 with stabilization turned on and whenever practical/permitted a flash with slave.

From the fantastic photo's I've seen here the indoor location is substantially brighter (it's a doomed tennis court and the dome acts as a large diffuser). I prefer using the 50 1.2L as much as I can indoors or out as it's such a great piece of glass.

[jimmy]

Blimey that 50 1.2 isn't cheap is it Don't think vicky would approve of me getting that hehe..

[JCJC]

Any thoughts on the 55/200 ?

Just picked up a new 400D, with the 18/55, would it be a good idea to "complement" the standard lens with the longer lens, or would the 24/105 cover most options, is changing a lens something to be avoided or is the f4.5/F5 on the 55/200 a bit high. Any thoughts ?

[Punisher]

Jimmy,
What fisheye lens do you use?


Thanks,
-Mike

[jimmy]

I use the nikon 10.5mm F2.8 - it's great.