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Monday November 26, 2007
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Got a photogenic pet? How about kids who play indoor sports or perform in band concerts? If you've graduated to a digital SLR and if you anticipate one heck of a holiday bonus, here's what should be on your wishlist : a 70-200mm zoom lens with a generous f/2.8 maximum aperture (lens opening) and optical image stabilization (OIS).
Whether you're halfway back in a school auditorium, shooting from the sidelines to the middle of a playing field under night lighting, or following your pet romping in the yard, you'll have enough magnification at 200mm to fill the frame. Indoors in an arena or auditorium or outdoors at dusk, you can turn the digital film speed (ISO setting) all the way up and have enough light for decent exposures. An image stabilizer offsets camera motion and lets you do good work at one-quarter to one-eighth the shutter speed you could otherwise. Translation: If you can hold a non-OIS lens steady for 1/200 to 1/250 second (not as easy as it sounds with a telephoto lens), stabilization could give you shake-free photos at 1/30 second. Here's who makes them:
- Canon 7042A002 70-200mm f/2.8, $1,600 street
- Nikon 2139 70-200mm f/2.8, $1,600 street
- Olympus N1698792 35-100mm f/2.0 $2,200 street (equal to 50-135mm on the other cameras)
- Sony SAL70200G 70-200mm f/2.8, $2,000 street
Canon OIS lens are marked IS; Nikon lenses, VR (vibration reduction); and Olympus and Sony build stabilization into the camera body. With Canon and Nikon, you can buy 70-200mm lenses without image stabilization or with an f/4 aperture that admits half the light, saving about $500 for each giveback. But you also lose the ability to take unblurred, low-light pictures without resorting to flash. At 8 inches long and 3 pounds, a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is not an everyday bring-along. Still, most of us will take better photos with a lower-cost DSLR and higher-end lenses.
Post by Bill Howard
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November 26, 2007 7:02 PM
Funny y'all should bring this up. I've been shooting photos of my daughter's high school varsity volleyball games with a Nikon D80. I recently acquired a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 that's got a pretty fast motor and can be found at about one-half the cost of the Nikon variant. It lacks VR, but that's fairly useless for sports photography. Usually fast panning and action is more of a problem than vibration.
Instead, I shoot at ISO 1600, 2400 or 3200 (depending on lighting), using a monopod for additional support. I disable the D80's built in noise reduction so I can shoot at the full 3fps of the D80.
I then use Imagenomic's (http://www.imagenomic.com) Noiseware noise reduction software to take out most of the noise from the resulting photos. It's much better than trying to use the built-in Photoshop noise reduction. Some of the results are just phenomenal.
November 26, 2007 8:16 PM
Good point, Loyd. The Tamrons and Sigmas of the world make pretty good lenses for far less than what you pay for a Nikon or Canon lens. I think (personally) that they're pretty close on glass quality but the housings in a $1,500-plus Nikon/Canon lens are more durable. In my case, IS or VR was essential because I do a lot of car show shots indoors for www.Technoride.com, and one of our kids is a pretty talented musician, so the stablizer becomes necessary.
BTW 3 frames per second is painfully slow for sports. You ought to have 5 or 6 fps and you really need 10 fps, but that's the province of $4,000 camera bodies. Rather have a 3-5 fps camera body and a solid lens for low light work.
November 27, 2007 8:24 AM
I also shoot with the D80, but the D300 is definitely on my chrsitmas wish list this year, to reach slightly higher ISOs and for the increased frame rate. With the added battery handle you're getting close to the 10fps limit, and you're still very far from that 4000 range you mention Bill. Of course I drool on the D3 with the new 14-24 full frame, but not being a full-time pro I can't really justify it.
November 27, 2007 10:26 AM
Higher-end cameras and lenses seem cheaper if you think of them not as sometimes costly tech tools (which they are) but as an incremental cost of raising children and pets. Quicken tells me we spent something unbelievably high in the past year on hockey goalie equipment and skates, titanium lacrosse sticks and helmets, ice time, summer sports camps, music lessons, and vet bills. One more lens, no big deal. I was just at our boy's first hockey game yesterday using the 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom and got great photos; the woman on the photo stand next to me, shooting for the other team, had a Nikon D80 (lot of that going around) and a 100-300mm f/4 - f/5.6 lens and she couldn't get enough light even with the ISO speed turned all the way up.
The Nikon D300 does 6 frames per second and 8 with the battery pack, which is pretty darn good, as it should be for just under $2K. If you're going that route, you really do want a high speed CF card such as the SanDisk Extreme IV. The comparable Canon 5D is 3fps, although I suspect there'll be a much faster 6D or 7D in the not too distant future. (Competiton really improves the breed.) The one feature I really value in a DSLR is the auto-sensor cleaning. That's a feature worth waiting for.
January 9, 2008 12:05 PM
Pentax K10d and K100d DSLR cameras have OIS built into the camera rather the lenses. You can use your old Pentax lenses on the K10 and K100 also.
The K10 camera also has auto-sensor cleaning.