New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

[bexman]

Hi Guys

I'm a relatively new photographer, I'm half way through my first course in photography and I'm using a Canon 400d and at present ahve a 50mm prime lens and an 18-55mm lens.

Now my question is i'm going to see an NBA match at the O2 in London in October and I want to shoot some pictures, I also hold a season ticket at a football ground and want to shoot some pics there too. My problem is I dont have hundreds to spend on a zoom lens, and my photography teacher seems to recommend I go for a zoom with Image Stabilization on it. I've seen the Canon 70-300mm III lens for about £100 widely available but ofcourse they dont have IS. I can get a 55-250mm canon lens with IS for about £140 but will this have the length to shoot sports reasonably well? And will it be any good? Or can anybody recommend an alternative for a max budget up to £200? ($250)

Thanks in advance guys

[colin C]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Here's some good news.

With respect to your photography teacher, you don't need IS to shoot sports or wildlife. Many people consider IS to be a magic wand to get sharper shots, but it only achieves that under specific circumstances. Image Stabilisation reduces, or stops camera shake when you are using slow shutter speeds, by between 2 to 4 stops, depending on the lens. This means that if you are handholding the camera and shooting a stationary object, if there wasn't enough light to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/250 sec, you could still get an acceptably sharp picture by shooting at 1/15 sec, assuming a 4 stop IS (1/60 sec if a 2 stop IS).

What IS will not do is stop motion blur if the subject is moving, so you need a high enough shutter speed to freeze the action. Normally, that would mean setting a shutter speed of at least the focal length of the lens to stop camera shake, plus an extra amount to counter motion blur. If you use the 70 - 300mm without IS, you will need to use 1/300 sec to stop camera shake and an extra allowance to stop the action. I would suggest 1/500 sec as a minimum shutter speed, higher if you have enough light.

Therefore you can buy the 70 - 300mm MKIII without IS if you wish.

Hope that helps.

Colin

[briansquibb]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Is the NBA game under lights? If so neither lens will be fast enough

Brian

[bexman]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Here's some good news.

With respect to your photography teacher, you don't need IS to shoot sports or wildlife. Many people consider IS to be a magic wand to get sharper shots, but it only achieves that under specific circumstances. Image Stabilisation reduces, or stops camera shake when you are using slow shutter speeds, by between 2 to 4 stops, depending on the lens. This means that if you are handholding the camera and shooting a stationary object, if there wasn't enough light to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/250 sec, you could still get an acceptably sharp picture by shooting at 1/15 sec, assuming a 4 stop IS (1/60 sec if a 2 stop IS).

What IS will not do is stop motion blur if the subject is moving, so you need a high enough shutter speed to freeze the action. Normally, that would mean setting a shutter speed of at least the focal length of the lens to stop camera shake, plus an extra amount to counter motion blur. If you use the 70 - 300mm without IS, you will need to use 1/300 sec to stop camera shake and an extra allowance to stop the action. I would suggest 1/500 sec as a minimum shutter speed, higher if you have enough light.

Therefore you can buy the 70 - 300mm MKIII without IS if you wish.

Hope that helps.

Colin

Thanks Colin, thats very helpful. I guess my next question is what sort of zoom range will the 300mm give me? I suppose what I'm trying to say is how would a 300mm lens compare to a compact zoom of say 30x?

[bexman]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Is the NBA game under lights? If so neither lens will be fast enough

Brian

Brian, yes its at the O2! So I need a quicker lens?

[colin C]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Thanks Colin, thats very helpful. I guess my next question is what sort of zoom range will the 300mm give me? I suppose what I'm trying to say is how would a 300mm lens compare to a compact zoom of say 30x?

It is generally considered that a 50mm lens gives a similar image and angle of view to the human eye, therefore a 300mm will be a 6x magnification.

For compact zooms, 30x sounds good on paper, but on further reflection there are deficiencies:

• A true 30x zoom has too many compromises in the lens design to focus well at all zoom lengths.
  
• It may not be a tue optical zoom. Some compacts have the initial optical zoom, then a digital zoom does the rest. In effect it stretches the existing pixels to give you the effect of a longer lens and you can do that much better by cropping on your computer.
  
• The sensor on most compacts are much smaller than DSLR's, so quality is likely to suffer.

I have generalised, because some compacts have multi X optical zooms and some compacts have larger 1.6 crop sensors, but you get the picture.

Hope that helps.

Colin

[bexman]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Thanks again Colin, regarding Brian's point about the lighting for basketball indoors do you think I'd be better off with the EFS 55-250mm F/4-5.6 IS? Or is there an alternative lens you think may be suitable?
I'm thinking now should I spend a bit more and get something reasonably decent?

[colin C]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

Brian is absolutely right about the lack of light, so without the right equipment it's down to compromise. You can boost the ISO setting to get the shutter speed that you need, but it will adversely affect quality and increase digital noise. Both of the lenses you mentioned have a maximum aperture of f5.6, so there is no advantage to either in that respect. Going up in quality to a 100 - 400mm f5.6 L IS is also no advantage. Although it is a much better quality and sharper lens, the cost is around £1,268.

To move into faster lenses so that you don't have to crank up the ISO too far, you will need to use prime lenses and the cost starts to jump. Only dedicated photographers, or pro photographers tend to go that route ................ unless you have very deep pockets!

The following prices were taken from the Warehouse Express site:

300mm f4 L IS £1,169
300mm f2.8 L IS £3,878
400mm f4 DO IS £5,549
400mm f2.8 L IS £6,659

As you can see from the prices, you have to be a bit keen to take that jump. There are less expensive alternatives available from other manufacturers such as Sigma, but I am not familiar with them.

Colin

[briansquibb]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

How close can you get to the action? If you at the front then possibly a 100mm f2 would be sufficient with some cropping - but even that comes in at £386

[bexman]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

How close can you get to the action? If you at the front then possibly a 100mm f2 would be sufficient with some cropping - but even that comes in at £386

I'm reasonably close but we're also heading to Longleat soon and I was thinking of a zoom lens for that. Do you think I might be better off renting a lens for the basketball? From what you and Colin have told me shooting outdoors with a zoom may be fine with the cheaper lens

[briansquibb]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

outdoors a 70-200 is excellent for less than £400 on fleabay

[bexman]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

outdoors a 70-200 is excellent for less than £400 on fleabay

Thanks, is that the L range?

[briansquibb]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

yes - I have not found a need for IS either

[Millie]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

yes - I have not found a need for IS either

I pride myself on being able to hold a camera steady at slower shutter speeds.

With the 70-200 the IS is very handy for static subjects @ 200mm at speeds less than 1/250 sec
especially were sharpness and detail are absolutley critical.

This is the sole reason I upgraded from the 2.8 non IS - not cos I enjoy wasting money :-)

Millie

[MX5]

Re: New photographer - Zoom Lens help please!

I've also come to similar conclusions about IS. But being old school trained ... you learnt how to handhold a telephoto lens AND Focus the thing ...

Someone recently told me (in jest I should say before I'm flamed) he thought IS, AF etc were for wimps ... and real men (and women) still used manual everything ...

That all said I do use the IS on my bins and when appropriate on the lenses.