more photography questions...

Dan,
Can't answer all your questions bute here goes on some...

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Why are longer lenses (130mm etc) good for portraits?

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I believe that the perspective is more flattering, faces appear 'flatter' (No pun intended !) and it is easier to throw the background out of focus. Not sure that 130mm is necessary, my understanding is that 85mm-90mm is more the norm.

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Why do people use lens hoods?

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They stop stray light from coming into the lens and bouncing around causing 'flare.' Significant generally if shooting in the direction of the sun, but with the sun (just) out of frame. It is obviously possible to get flare with the sun in frame, but then the lens hood is doing nothing useful.

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What should be my first telephoto lens?

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Depends what you want to do. I used a 135mm a lot when climbing since it was very compact, but still moved the action usefully closer. I now fly gliders and the 135mm is hopelessly too short (For most things.)

Sorry I can't help on the split screen question. (Those in the know might also light to explain how autofocus works.)

/dl

Dan,
I would agree with David that a lens in the 80-100mm range is rather good for close head and shoulder shots of people but for candid shots of people where you are a bit further back then a 135mm may be better. I tend to travel with 85f2, 135f2.8 for people shots and a X2 doubler on the 135f2.8 to convert it to a light and slightly longer telephoto for views, building details and such.

Roy

My favourite portrait lenses are an 85mm F1.4 (very effective wide open for portraits), 80-200 F2.8 zoom and 135mm F2.8. Manual focus versions of the latter can be picked up very cheaply in Pentax fit and it's a very useful lens to have.

Regards
Steve

David, Roy and Steve,

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking of getting a telephoto to take pictures of our new dog running around without having to get so close she'd be too distracted by me, but still have her quite large in the frame. However, I dont think I need one suitable for African safaris quite yet. Also, I have been asked to send some family pictures back to the UK and would like to use the self timer to take some group shots. Sort of like this From the above comments, perhaps a 135/F2.8 would do double duty. Or would a 80-200 zoom give me more flexibility (I imagine fast zooms are quite expensive). Any thoughts on buying a few manual primes (85,130) vs.one 80-200 zoom?

cheers,

Dan

"They stop stray light from coming into the lens and bouncing around causing 'flare.' "

Hoods also help maximise your contrast as well avoiding gross errors like flare.

"but for candid shots of people where you are a bit further back then a 135mm may be better"

135mm is a good portraint length but candid shots with longer lenses often look like spy or stalker photography. Most good street photogrpahy and candids is done with normal or wide angle lenses IMHO.

Matthew


Taken with a 75/2.5 Color Heliar

Matthew,

Do you snap shots for a living? I've noticed your pics in a few threads and they're all very nice. My other guesses- journalist, or web producer.

Ludwig

I am a rank amateur Ludders and create a false impression of my aptitude by posting 1 out of every 10,000 pics I take .

Thanks for the kind words.

Matthew

FWIW My pictures appear here

Dan,

Forget prime lenses for telephoto and buy a 70-200mm ish range zoom. Prime lenses are unnecessary and don't offer much difference in quality in the 35mm format.

Nice pic Matthew.

Suerly the advantage of a owning/using a prime lense is that you will have a faster lense. Eg F1.8 instead of say F4. That opens up a lot more options.

Regards

Mick

Mick,

You're quite right about the advantage of primes sometimes having the ability of a wider aperture, but I was really just answering Dan's request for the most practical way to photograph his dog, etc.. Trying to capture his dog with a 200mm prime is not easy. A zoom is far more flexible.

As far as apertures go, I have three zooms which I use all the time. A 20-35 f2.8, 35-70f2.8 and 70-200f2.8. My primes I bought years ago never come out of my cupboard. I think f2.8 is fast enough.

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Please don't forget prime lenses! Get a decent 85mm/1.4, 100/2 or 135/2.8 and learn to use it and frame picture properly. A zoom lens that will even come close to one of these (would have to be an f2.8)will cost you four or five times as much (particularly if you go second hand where primes are far more plentiful) and it will be much heavier and more obtrusive.

Forget the zoom, spend the money on a great prime. Lens quality matters a great deal in 35mm (far more than in large format, for example) and you will always sacrifice it with a Zoom lens.

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One reason why I don't tend to post about photography very often.

Zooms are expensive - you are getting the whole range of primes in one lens.
Zooms are heavy - rubbish.
F2.8 is enough for anyone.
Zooms are less quality - rubbish. The recent range of Nikon zoom lenses I have are superior in resolution and contrast range to the Nikon primes that I have.

"Learn how to frame properly" - When Dan's dog/daughter/family are in a perfect candid position and he cuts their forehead off because his prime won't allow him to get back quick enough, I hope he'll think of you.

Count me with the Count!
I have to agree with Count.d on this one. I have a mixture of Nikon and (quality) Sigma zooms.
I think ejt may have had a valid point say 20 years ago regarding the quality of primes versus zooms, but nowadays the quality difference is very marginal, and more than outweighed by the flexibility that zooms have.
I used to work in the newspaper industry, and at one time, press photographers carried a great raft of prime lenses. Nowadays, most tend to have maybe 2 f2.8 zooms for anything other than specialist work.
Steve D

There is no real answer on this.

Photographing a dog is not easy and a zoom will certainly make life a lot easier.

I find my fixed Leica lenses unbeatable for facial portraits and landscapes but they were useless when trying to photograph animals in the Kruger last year.

I had to use a canon autofocus with a zoom 80-200 and it was great.

Regards

Mick

I think for children and pets, a zoom is the way to go, particularly since they are most often photographed outside where maximum apatures are of less concern.
As for primes v zooms, well, I used to have a full compliment of fast primes for my Nikon and Zuiko (Olympus). "Zooming with your feet" wasn't really an option in the above situation.
I certainly wouldn't argue that primes are "faster" and weigh less than zooms, but for me it was becomming "hair shirt" photography. I get much better pics using zooms, but mostly because my subjects required the change of technique. Kids and pets outside -zoom. Right tool for the right job.

Mick,

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I find my fixed Leica lenses unbeatable for facial portraits and landscapes but they were useless when trying to photograph animals in the Kruger last year.

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Surely the issue here is not primes vs zooms; it's whether rangefinders, not Leicas specifically, are suited to telephoto photography. With a rangefinder, unlike an SLR, you don't look through the lens, so it's difficult if not impossible to make a viewfinder system that can accommodate a long telephoto lens, at least of a length suitable for pictures of lions and giraffes on the savannah.

If you're after wildlife shots an SLR is the best bet and Leica can certainly help you out with a suitable R body and any one of several long telephotos (as could Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Pentax, etc.)

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ejt,

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The prime lens is a quarter of the price, a third the weight, a quarter of the size and over twice as fast as the zoom.

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Agree with every word. Primes also tend to have better contrast (because they have fewer elements) and better bokeh than zooms, another reason to choose a prime if either of those are important to you.

Joe

Wow, great discussion! Seems that perhaps my best course of action is to buy a 80 or 85mm fast prime for interior portraits (relatively cheap on ebay), and a 70-200 zoom for chasing my dog (and relatives) around outside.

thank you all,

Dan

"Canon, Nikon, Pentax etc all do lenses in the 70-200 range at around F4-5.6"

I can't speak for Canon or Pentax but if you are buying a Nikon 70-200 you really should buy the 70-200/2.8 if you can. Its big and heavy and not cheap but its one of the best quality telephot zooms you can get.

Remember that the arguments above are about primes versus pro/prosumer quality zooms -- such as hte Nikon f2.8 constant aperture zooms count.d is talking about -- not the f4-5.6 consumer zooms which are generally of significantly lower quality.

Also before a 70-200/2.8 I'd be tempted to buy a wide-to-medium telephoto zoom first. In Nikon terms this (currently) is the 24-85 f2.8-4 AF-D or possibly the (now discontinued) 28-70/f2.8 although all camera makes have an equivalent AFAICT. They make for fantastic all-purpose do anything lenses and a perfect for travel, holidays, casual wedding photography, etc.

Also its a much better lens for photographing kids than an 80-200 IMHO in my experience as generally speaking you get better pictures of kids if you get in closer and interact with them. I think you'd miss the wide-to-standard range and shots from a distance with a longer telephoto can often look impersonal, you get lots of pictures of people's backs, no eye contact, etc. Finally a 80-200 is *BIG* lens and if you point it at young children it can be quite intimidating in my experience esp. if they don't know you.

I doubt I'd pick a lens on its ability to take pictures of a pet dog. I mean how often does one do that?

Matthew

Matthew - I know of two women who MOSTLY take pictures of their pet dogs --------

Sad to say I have taken several thousand pictures of dogs over the last three years, from dogs getting cash out of ATMs to dogs opening drawers to dogs helping people to dress to dogs removing clothes from washing machines and a wide-ish zoom is very useful....

Derek

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I doubt I'd pick a lens on its ability to take pictures of a pet dog.

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Matthew,
Wegman has made a career of it , but agreed -- that's not my sole purpose of course. I would have other uses for a telephoto, such as nature photography, taking pictures at local bike races, and some building photography. I'm just looking for recommendations for a lens where just getting closer to an object is not an option. To date I have taken all my photos with an SMC M50mm/F1.7 (seems like a great lens to me and can be found for less than $40), and been quite happy with the results.

The beauty of picking up inexpensive manual primes from ebay (usually $30-$80) appears to be that I can experiment with what different lenses do. At some point in the future, I should probably evaluate what I use most, sell the lot, (sort of the free hi-fi concept) and put my money in prosumer quality lenses and a new body. At that time I might switch from Pentax to Nikon and I'll certainly look at the high quality zooms you list -- we'll see.

cheers,

Dan

The art in photography is in discussion.

Spot the difference.

As well as colour and saturation differences I think count.d has also burnt the corners in a bit.

Matthew
Wondering why we were fobbed off with the second-rate non "digitally enhanced" version

And for those who miss Vuk's bird shots, I've used the "add booby -- blue-footed variety" feature.

Joe

On the first one the grass area was masked off and more yellow added.

The corners were burnt in.

Slight increase in saturation.

The second one has the above but;

The grass area was masked off and more red added.

It has a Diffuse Glow.

It was cropped slightly along the top of the sky.