Practical Difference Between Nikon 80-200 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8?

Question

As a photographer for my college's newspaper, most of what I shoot is either low light (concerts, dances, etc.) or sports, so I'm looking into getting a low-light/high speed telephoto zoom for my Nikon D7000. I already have a 35mm f/1.8 that I use for most low-light photography when I have the opportunity to get close to my subject, but I can't always get a press pass for campus events (passes are handled by individual campus clubs who don't always respond to emails), and so I often wish I had some zoom besides my kit 55-200 (from a D40 kit several years ago) that would still be clear in low-light.

I've come across two lenses by Nikon that seem to be mostly the same for my purposes: The AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED, and the AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II. I ask, because there's nearly a $1300 dollar difference between them: Is there a practical difference between these two lenses?

I'm aware of the obvious technical differences, AF vs AF-S, and the lack of VR on the 80-200, but I was curious if either of these features made a practical difference in focus speed and usability. From what I understand, on my D7000, the AF vs AF-S shouldn't make a difference, but is VR really worth the extra $1300?

On a related note, I've also heard some people mention cheaper Sigma and Tamron lenses in the same focal range and aperture size, and I was curious what some of the differences would be between those and their Nikon equivalents?

Asked by Jake M

Answer

I used that 80-200 for quite a few years, and currently use the first iteration of the the 70-200.

I think the 80-200 is a steal! It's optically very good, built well, and focuses quickly on a capable body. I don't hesitate to recommend it in the least. (Regarding autofocus: on an N65 and D50 it's not slow to focus, but it's clearly not fast. On an F100, D70, D200, and D300 it focuses quickly. I don't know how the AF motor of the D7000 compares.)

The 70-200 is a great step beyond the 80-200. With AF-S it clearly focuses faster, VR is a big advantage, and optically it is also clearly superior. A fantastic lens, and I think it's worth the price. I don't have experience with the current "II" iteration of the lens, but based on other reviews I think it's equally excellent.

Is it worth the price difference? On a great day, shooting in ideal conditions and stopped down, I would say that no the 70-200 is not worth an extra $1300. Want to shoot wide open in difficult conditions with continuous-focusing action with questionable shutter speeds -- go for the 70-200 and you'll enjoy the outing more.

Answered by Dan Wolfgang

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Canon extender 2x III with 70-200mm F4L vs 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L for wildlife shooting

Question

Photography.SE, hello there, this is my first question, hence please pardon my inexperience of phrasing the question.

I am about to go to Yosemite and Yellowstone for 3 weeks next month, and exhilarated to do some wildlife shooting. I currently have an EF 70-200mm F4L which is the entry level Canon telephoto lens.

Now I wonder either to buy an extender or to buy a new lens(supposedly the entry level supertelephoto lens EF 100-400mm F4.5-5.6L)? also I am somewhat concerning with the performance of these two choices performing on my 6 years old 30D, how about the focusing speed of each?

Or there are other greater lens choices of wildlife shooting for my 2k budget?

Asked by Jon

Answer

This is going to depend very much on what camera body you are using. Canon cameras do not focus past f/5.6 unless you are using a 1-series body (or are willing to do some warranty-voiding pin taping to force f/8 AF on unsupported bodies...which is usually a moot exercise anyway). Slapping a 2x TC onto a 70-200 f/4 is going to give you an f/8 aperture, and you are most definitely going to lose AF on anything other than a 1D something. Given that you are on a 30D, the AF speed will be a perfect zilch with the 70-200 f/4 + 2x TC combination, which is pretty much a no-go for wildlife and birds.

I'm a die-hard bird/bif/wildlife shooter myself, and I currently use the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS. Its a great lens, has decent IS, and is pretty easy to carry around for a few hours at a time (or pretty much all day with the right kind of strap, such as a BlackRapid R-Strap...or better yet, a more durable home-made version of the same.) The IQ of the 100-400 is great. The lens is definitely getting a bit dated...the IS mechanism is good up to about 2 stops at most, however when it comes to birds, its maybe good for 1 to 1.5 stops at best. Canon is rumored to be working on an f/4-5.6 replacement with 4-stop IS, which would be a significant improvement to any replacement...however expect it to come with a heftier price tag ($2000+ vs. the current f/4.5-5.6 $1600 street price).

For wildlife shooting, the 100-400L is superb in pretty much every respect. You don't need as much IS for hand-held shooting of wildlife as you do for birds/bif. It offers good reach with a modern high-res cropped sensor (it offers an FoV effective 160-640mm), however with the 30D's 8.2mp sensor, the benefit of extra reach is not really going to be as great as if you were using a 600D/60D/7D with their 18mp sensors (roughly 75lp/mm vs. 113lp/mm spatial resolution.)

You could certainly try to manually focus for wildlife...and so long as what your photographing is fairly slow-moving, you could probably get away with that on a 30D. Its lower spatial resolution means its not going to be capturing fine detail to start with, so it will be more forgiving of less precise focus. For anything that is moving that you will want to track, AF is pretty much essential. To that end, the 70-200 f/4 + 2x TC is a non-starter, especially if you were considering the non-IS version. For hand-held tracking, both IS and AF are pretty much given essentials for wildlife and birds, so the 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 L IS is really the only option here.

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There are also other options you could look into if you can expand your budget a bit. A 300mm f/2.8 L or 400mm f/2.8 L, IS or non-IS, with a gimbal-type tripod head and a sturdy tripod, offer a LOT of flexibility with TC's. An f/2.8 lens can take a 2x TC and still be only an f/5.6 aperture, so it will still AF on any Canon body. These are certainly more expensive than the $1800 100-400 L, but older used ones can often be found on eBay and Craigs List for around $3000 to $3500 (original non-IS versions), and starting around $3500 to as much as $6000 (IS versions). A 300mm with 1.4x TC is 420mm, while with a 2x TC is 600mm. The 600mm reach is pretty much the ideal sweet spot for a LOT of birding, as it lets you frame birds pretty tightly without encroaching their comfort zones. A 400mm with 1.4x TC is 560mm, and with a 2x TC is 800mm. At 560mm you have some great reach and excellent IQ to frame wildlife at a safe/non-intrusive distance. At 800mm you can frame wildlife and bird portraits without intruding into safe/comfort zones. All the while, any of these focal lengths would be at an f/5.6 or f/4 aperture, and plenty capable of supporting AF on any Canon body.

If you have the funds, a older 300mm f/2.8 with a 2x TC could offer a lot more than the 100-400, greater reach with better IQ.

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PhotoSE is currently running a "lending library" of sorts that allows our members to try out gear rentals and be reimbursed for it, at the cost of having to ask questions related to the gear or write a few blog entries on the PhotoSE blog about your experiences with the gear you rent. You could use this offering to try out the 100-400 to see if would work for you, and if you were willing to chip in a little money and some extra time writing more blogs, you might even be able to try out a 300mm f/2.8.

Answered by jrista

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What does “the telephoto end” and “the wide angle end” of a zoom lens mean?

Question

In the Canon Rebel T3i Manual, page 59, it's mentioned that "If you have a zoom lens, use the telephoto end to fill the frame with the subject from the waist up." Same note on page 61 and another one for landscape telling to use the "wide angle end".

I have EF-S 18-55 mm IS II lens which is a zoom lens. I've googled "telephoto end or wide-angle end", but all the results were lenses not an end. I don't know if I got it wrong but I thought that "end" would mean something that can be mounted on my zoom lens itself.

Asked by Akram Mellice

Answer

'End' in this case is just referring to the end of the zoom range available. So zooming in on an 18-55 lens would take you to the 55mm end of the zoom range, which would be the telephoto end, and the 18 mm end of the zoom range would be the wide angle 'end' (although on this lens the telephoto end isn't very telephoto). So while it may sound like a physical 'end' they're referring to, it's just the ends of the zoom range of the lens they are referring to

Answered by Dreamager

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How does one track action with a fast telephoto prime lens?

Question

With my normal-range prime lenses, I tend to shoot with both eyes open — what I see in the viewfinder has a high correspondence to what I see with my other eye. With my 70mm (105mm in 35mm-equivalent terms), it's a little trickier, but not so much that I really ever have to think about it.

With the Pentax DA★ 200mm f/2.8, though, it's a different story, for two reasons. First, at 300mm-equivalent, the field of view is so radically smaller than my unaided vision that it's just confusing to operate with two eyes. And second, the depth of field is so small that if I move away from my target, there's good odds I'm just looking at blur.

If this were a zoom lens, I might consider tracking the scene at a wider focal length and then zooming in. But that's not an option.

Clearly, people use these lenses for sports and wildlife photography all the time. What's the trick? I was at a not-so-fast-moving kung fu demonstration, and kept losing people. I can't imagine catching a bird in flight; do people just point at a flock and hope something is in the field of view? Is this just a matter of really learning to know the lens, or is there something I can do?

Asked by mattdm

Answer

Based on the last two answers I may be missing the point of the question here, but instead of worrying about aperture, your question more directly relates to how do I track action.

Tracking abilities I would split into 3 categories.

1. The Camera
2. The Lens
3. You

Part 1: The Camera

Some cameras just wont do tracking particularly well. You really need one that can do continuous auto-focus (not all do). This is the AI Servo mode if you're in Canon land, or on Nikon there is a C/S/M setting that does this (you want C for Continuous). I'm afraid I can't comment on Pentax, but refer to your manual. So set your camera to continuously focus.

The next thing to check is to ensure it is using all available AF points. Again, this varies by camera, but you may have a diamond of 7 or 9, or be lucky enough to have more - 19, 51, 61.....depending on make and model of camera. Just make sure all of them are enabled.

Also, think about the metering mode you choose. for things against the ground, or landscapes, you may want evaluative or full metering, but for a bird or aircraft in the sky, choose centre-weighted or spot metering.

Finally, choose your shooting mode appropriately. For action shots you will want shutter priority mode. I think Pentax use the mnemonic "Tv", as do Canon. Nikon and others just use "S". Then set a shutter speed appropriate to your action. Fast moving = 1/1000th or more. Slow subjects = 1/250th maybe? The benefit of your fast lens will be felt as you can keep the ISO low whilst still getting correctly exposed shots.

Part 2: The Lens

I'm not sure this pertains to you as its about image stabilisation, and I think the Pentax uses in body stabilisation. But in the Canon/Nikon world long lenses with IS/VR modes also have a stabiliser "mode". If you have this, ensure the mode is set correctly for your shooting type. Mode 1 is generally for overall use, handholding, normal shooting. Mode 2 usually only tries to correct vertically, so is useful for panning. Perhaps in the body of the Pentax you can select the mode too??

Also, the AF of the lens must be sufficiently fast to keep up with the constant refocussing by the camera body. But the lens you suggest has an SDM motor which seems to be well liked and fast.

Part 3: You

Practice your panning. Practice following targets across the ground and sky. It doesn't have to be in the dead centre of the frame but there's nothing worse than a raft of photos of your favourite car, plane, bird, etc with it's back end cut off! You may find a change of stance helps, or to hold the lens differently, or use a Monopod. Also, I would not tend to keep both eyes open as when you are tracking action, it only serves to distract you. Concentrate on whats in the viewfinder as thats what the camera sees.

I hope that helps?

Answered by Mike

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Apart from birds/wildlife and sports what are some “artistic” uses for telephoto lenses?

Question

I mean no offence to birders and sports shooters, but I don't practice those types of photography.

So what other types/styles of shooting can be done with long (200-300mm+) lenses, other than the obvious?

Please provide example photos to better illustrate your point.

Asked by Instantkamera

Answer

Pigeon-holing lenses is not always a worthwhile exercise. Any lens can work in virtually any setting.

Long lenses can be excellent in landscape situations, for example picking out and isolating a particular feature. The long focal length also has the effect of compressing perspective. They can also be used in street photography, where the length allows you to discreetly capture scenes.

Answered by ElendilTheTall

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How can a telephoto lens take great landscape photos?

Question

I've read in various answers on this site people mention that telephoto lens can be used quite nicely for taking landscape photos. How is this possible, as my (beginners') understanding of landscape photos is that you generally want them to be with a wide-angle lens?

Asked by mundeep

Answer

my (beginners) understanding of landscape photos is that you generally want them to be with a wide-angle lens

My understanding of landscape photos is that they should contain some landscape! I can understand the association with wide angle lenses, though. You typically want to get a lot in, a photo of a rock is not a landscape photo.

Any focal length can be used, the key is that if you use a long lens, the subject is far enough away that you still get a lot of landscape in. Here's is an example of this (note I'm not claiming this is a "great" landscape photograph ;)

This was shot from the top of Mount Snowdon, the ridge and background hills were a long long way away. The telephoto creates a different composition and compresses the scene.

• You do need good atmospheric conditions to take telephoto landscape shots, fog, haze, heat-haze and other effects that might not show up in a wide shot can seriously degrade sharpness and contrast.

The temptation when getting into landscape photography is to go as wide as you can. This is perhaps motivated by seeing panoramic format images with a wide field of view. However it can actually be difficult to get results if your lens is too wide. You end up with vast amounts of foreground and structures in the distance shrunk down.

Better results can often be obtained by shooting a medium focal length and cropping to a wide format to give the impression of a wide field of view.

Answered by Matt Grum

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Can telephoto lenses cause the background to be darker than the foreground in the same light?

Question

I took this photograph yesterday afternoon at around 5:15pm EDT, about two hours before sunset:

The sky, in my perception, was bright, and my little subject is standing in the same lighting as the bushes behind her. She's well-exposed, but the sky and background foliage appear darkened — even though they were most definitely not in the shade. To my eye, everything was bright, and while I'm not unhappy with the contrast in the final result, it seems a bit strange.

This is a linear histogram of just the foreground subject (selected by hand):

and here's the same for the background:

and for completeness, the full-image histogram:

Here's an iPhone snap taken a few minutes later; she's in the shade in this, but when the above picture was taken, she was in the bright sun by the shrubs you can see in the center background, as are the shrubs themselves.

That's far from a technically-great image by any measure, but you can see the brightness of the sunny areas.

Here's the key EXIF from the image:

Date                            : 2012:03:23
Time                            : 16:12:54
Camera Model Name               : PENTAX K-7
Lens Type                       : smc PENTAX-DA* 200mm F2.8 ED [IF] SDM
Focal Length                    : 200.0 mm (35 mm equivalent: 300.0 mm)
Flash                           : Off
AF Point Selected               : Center
Metering Mode                   : Multi-segment
Effective LV                    : 13.5
Exposure Compensation           : 0
ISO                             : 160
Aperture                        : f/4.0
Shutter Speed                   : 1/1000

What's going on here? Is this somehow an effect of the 200mm focal length I used? And if so, how could that be? (I wouldn't think this to be the case, except it's not something I've really noticed with my more-typically-used shorter lenses, even in similar outdoor situations.) Or is it simply a matter of the difference in tones and reflectivity of her bright clothes and light skin as compared to the green bushes? Are my eye and brain compensating for the dynamic range such that my judgment of the scene doesn't match reality? That seems plausible, but the sky was definitely bright — we've been having uncharacteristically lovely spring weather in Boston — and it appears rather dim in the photo.

Asked by mattdm

Answer

I don't think that focal range has anything to do with it.

I think that the issue is that different materials reflect light differently. Althought the different elements of the picture are illuminated by a uniform light source, they do not reflect the light equally. The green foliage is normally about 2/3 stops darker than neutral (18%) grey. The white part of the dress is of course much brighter than neutral grey. The colors in the dress look very vibrant, so I would suspect that would also reflect more light than neutral grey. And she does look like she has bright skin, so I would think that she would also reflect more light than neutral grey.

So I think that the darkness of the background is simply due to the fact that it reflects significantly less light than your main subject that the exposure has been metered for.

When you are physically present at the scene, your brain makes up for this, and what you perceive is that they are of equivalent brightness. But when you take a photograph and look at the photograph, it will reveal the difference in light reflection.

Answered by Pete

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Are mirror lenses good for wildlife photography in daylight?

Question

I've recently seen these rokinon/opteka mirror lens with whooping focal length (like 500mm, 600mm, 800mm, 1000mm) at a cheap price. And I have seen some of their same pictures in flickr and vendor sites. But the only thing is that they usually starts from smaller aperture (f/5.6 and upwards)

Now what I was wondering, as they are cheap with quite good IQ - are they good for any bird photography or wild life photography in proper daylight?

looking forward to your replies. Thanks

Asked by Hasin Hayder

Answer

There are several related questions here.

• Are mirror lenses good at all (opinion)

• Are mirror lenses good for wldlife shots in daylight.

• Are cheap mirror lenses value for money.

Relevant: I own a Minolta 500mm AF f8 "Reflex" lens- the only model of AF "mirror" lens ever made AFAIK and one of the better quality ones around. I think that as long as you accept its known limitations of fixed aperture, fixed focal length and different than refractor-bokeh then it's utterly marvellous.

(1) Are mirror lenses good at all (opinion)

It's largely a matter of what you think of their Bokeh - aka out of focus background.
MiKe W says "The out of focus background will be poor. Horrible donut-shaped bokeh".
This is partially only selectively true and partially a matter of taste. Bright point sources outside the depth of field range do create "donut" shaped images which are characteristic of mirror lenses. View many many examples across the range here. This can look downright nasty - ie dominate the image unintentionally , or be an intended part of the "image as art form" OR can be entirely pleasantly acceptable. The latter is entirely a matter of my personal opinion and I am aware that some people will never accept that a donut element in the boken is acceptable. This is a matter of opinion and, as in most things, where the law does not disallow it, opinions are free and allowed. Such people are, by definition, "bokeh donut snobs" (just as people who insist you MUST ONLY EVER drink long blacks are coffee snobs) and the argument is not worth having from either point of view. If you like the result and people who you hope will like the result do like it, then the result is fine. If you want to win competitions that are judged by donut hating boken snobs then the donuts are not fine.

BUT about 10 minutes serious playing with a mirror lens will show you that in most cases strong and explicit donuts can be avoided inmost cases by controlling image content.

Along the way you get images like the one below whose bokeh is a clear product of a mirror lens if you know what to look for. But most people would look at that image and see narry a "donut". If you do and you don't like the effect then you are entirely entitled to your opinion, you're a bokeh donut snob, nothing to see here, move along please.

Here's an excellent page on the Reflex-Nikkor C 500mm f/8 catadioptric lens. Some excellent examples, and he loves it. Donut bokeh snobs need not apply.

Apart from the above, all mirror lense are fixed aperture, fixed focal length and, except for the Monolta / Sony 500mm, manual focus. If that is not acceptable then they are not acceptable to you. Also light weight and very compact.

(2) Are mirror lenses good for wldlife shots in daylight.

That's easier.
As long as f5.6 or f8 is acceptable then yes.
Especially if you have a D700 :-).
I find my 500mm mirror lens is useful in many cases. I travel overseas reasonably often on business. I take an 18-250 f3.5-5.6, a 50mm f1.8 and my 500mm f8. The latter gets least use of the three BUT when I do use it I am very very pleased to have it.

One of mine. YES you can see the donuts. I like it. DBS's will not.

(3) Are cheap mirror lenses value for money.
This is definitely subjective but, in my opinion IN SOME CASES the answer is, sadly, no. The quality of all lenses is of course variable and of course somewhat governed by price, but I have seen some cheap mirror lenses whose quality of image was worse than you'd get from an entry level kit lens. Which is not good enough. I'm not familiar with brands, but you can assess IQ independently of the above factors and decide if it's adequate. Also, look at the many images in the samples from here which is the same as above. This is simply Google image search using
mirror lens donut bokeh
orhere using mirror lens bokeh.

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Also see this excellent page which discusses what causes bokeh to appear at it does and what constitutes (they say) good and bad bokeh. From there -

Answered by Russell McMahon

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How to select lenses for sports photography?

Question

I would like to get into sports photography, and would probably want a better telephoto lens so I can get better close up shots.

What other factors should I keep in mind as I make my choice? Does IS (or VR) matter? What is a good focal length?

I'll probably be shooting mostly little league baseball/softball, church softball leagues, and kids soccer.

Asked by chills42

Answer

Sports in general means stopping the action. Kids are slower than pro athletes, but you still need a good range in shutter speed.

With that in mind, IS/VR is no use because both technologies prevent camera shake at slower shutter speeds, and obviously slower shutter speeds does the exact opposite of stopping the action. However, IS/VR is nice for low-light, handheld use for other purposes, so if you plan on using your lenses for more than sports, you may wish to consider getting IS.

So, what do you need in a good sports photography lens? Lenses with wider apertures (aka faster lenses) give you more light to work with, allowing faster shutter speeds. In addition, the faster the lens, the better your camera's AF will perform. On most prosumer bodies, the AF points require at least F2.8 to achieve their best performance.

Focal length's will depend on how close you can get to your subject, as well as how much cropping you can get with your body. If money is no object, then a 300, 400, or 500mm prime will do you well, but they're really expensive, so a zoom around 300mm might be a good start, or even a good 70-200 with a TC in a pinch (though the latter option does reduce your working f-stop).

Answered by Alan

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Can the sun damage the camera sensor? Under what conditions?

Question

I want to experiment taking photos where the sun appears. I'm afraid of what might happen if I take one with a narrower angle (where sun would be bigger). Can the lens act as a magnifying glass and burn the CCD or CMOS sensor?

EDIT

Since my query is a little bit obvious, I will reformulate it to:

Under which circumstances (zoom, exposition, aperture, etc...), can the sensor be damaged by the sun?

Answer

Taking direct photos of the sun can destroy your camera, not to mention your eyes. It's exactly as you are afraid, the lens will act as a magnifier and multiply the suns intensity right on your cameras internals. What this effects can vary. Long exposures against the sun can cause permanent damage to your camera's sensor, but besides that, your camera's shutter curtains, and af sensors are also at risk when shooting right at the sun.

Now, taking photos of sunset and sunrises is okay, as is taking photos in direct sunlight (though this does require some finesse to get a good exposure), but pointing your lens right at the sun is not recommended (especially for long exposures).

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What does it really mean that telephoto lenses “flatten” scenes?

Question

This is another perspective distortion question. I understand that perspective distortion is primarily a function of capture and viewing distance, but I am still working on fully understanding the causes of the "flattening" of scenes that is credited to telephoto lenses. This seems to refer to the fact that our ability to discern the differences in size attributable to differences in distance from the lens for subjects beyond a certain distance from the lens. If this is correct, then is it just that with the longer distance from the subject when using a telephoto lens, this compression happens closer to the foreground, rather than in the mid- or background with a wide lens? Is it fair to say that the compression effect occurs at a certain distance from the photographer regardless of lens, but the field of view influences how close to the foreground this effect takes place? Can you share any information to help people like me understand this?

Answer

The flattening or compression effect is not caused by a particular kind of lens, it applies to all lens in the same way. Actually, this property of lenses applies to our own eyes as well. The factor that affects flattening is the distance from the camera to the subjects.

Consider the following exercise:

Place two friends 1 meter away from each other. Place yourself in line with them, so that you are 1 meter away from one of them, and 2 meters away from the other. Move a bit to the side, so that you can see both. From this position, you can easily estimate what the distance between your two friends is. Now walk 100 meters back along the imaginary line determined by your two friends. Again, move a bit to the side so that you can see both. Can you really tell now how far away from each other they are? Will you see your friends in a significantly different way if one of them moves an additional meter apart from the other? You won't, because from 100 meters away, a difference of a meter is not significant.

The thing is, our eyes have a fixed field of view, so in addition to flattening, we experience a scale reduction as we move farther away from the subjects. With a camera you can magnify the effect by using a long lens. But the compression will be exactly the same no matter what lens you use.

There are a few good examples on the Wikipedia page on Perspective Distortion.

From that page, I like this animation of a cube that goes from extreme extension to extreme compression, when changing the focal length and distance to camera:

_{Image copyright 2007 SharkD, licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0}

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Which telephoto lens should I get for Nikon D3000 to take close-ups?

Question

Context:

• I have a Nikon D3000 with it's kit lens, 18 to 55mm, f3.5-5.6.
• I find that I am not getting close enough to subjects and want to force myself to get more close ups by getting a telephoto or zoom that starts no wider than 50mm (equiv)
• I don't like carrying a lot of equipment
• I want to spend $200 to $350

I would appreciate it if you could you recommend a choice of lens for me!!

Thanks

Answer

The Nikkor 18-55 has minimum focusing distance of 0.9 feet (0.28 m); if you really want to get closer, you'll need a macro lens. There are very few options in this price range. There's the Nikkor AF-S 40mm f/2.8. Other options, such as a used Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 Micro or a new Sigma 50mm f/2.8 Macro, would leave you with manual focus (which is actually quite okay for close-up shots).

However, if you meant that you want to magnify your subjects more without actually getting closer to them, these focal lengths will obviously be too short (you already have those). If you had asked for image quality and low light performance, I would have suggested the Rokinon 85mm f/1.4, which is praised for those properties, but its rather heavy weight (1.4 lb / 635 g) and lack of AF will probably put you off. I don't know any other primes worth considering in your price class (the Nifty Fifty is cheaper).

So in this case, you're left with zooms. On Nikon, I have only used 70-300 VR which was quite impressive for its focusing speed and image quality, and it seems to be available $380 used. Perhaps your budget can be stretched a little or some hunting around will find a better deal.

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What is a 200mm lens good for?

Question

I just found that there is a 200mm lens at my school. It is a Canon with Image Stabiliser (with red detail). It is old, at least 10 years. It has been great playing around with it, but I really don't know what it is good for. What type of photos is it built for. I recall vaguely a friend telling me that a lens with no room to change the zoom will give you better focus... but apart from that I am not sure what type of photos it is good for. I want to take it to the sports field and capture some sports in action.

Update: The lens is a "Canon EF 200mm 1:2.8 L II Ultrasonic". It does not say anything about image stabaliser :(

Answer

A 200mm lens is in the category of lenses called "fixed focal length" or "prime", which cannot zoom in and out. The more common lens type is the zoom, which does allow you to zoom in and out.

The primary tradeoffs between prime and zoom lenses are:

• Aperture - Typically, prime lenses tend to operate at wider maximum aperture than zooms. For instance, Nikon makes 50mm, 85mm, and 105mm prime lenses that can expose down to an aperture of 1.4, whereas the best zoom lenses that cover that range can only focus down to 2.8. In terms of the photo, that can be a noticeable difference in the Depth of Field, which controls how much of the image is in focus and how much is in blurred out.
• Optical quality - Prime lenses are almost universally better optically than equivalent zooms. They achieve better sharpness by usign fewer optical elements. You can think of this as fewer pieces of glass between you and your subject, thereby reducing the amount of distortion, letting more light through, and having more fine-tuned control of the final image.
• weight - Prime lenses are always much lighter in weight than their zoom counterparts

You asked specifically about the 200mm lens. This lens is often used for:

• Wildlife - When you are on safari, or birding, your subject can be as far as 50 to a few hundred yards away, and if you still want to fill the frame of your image with that subject you need a hefty zoom. The 200mm helps accomplish that.
• Sports - Same as in wildlife, if you are standing on the sidelines of a sports game, you need to zoom in to capture the action up close in your frame.
• Portraiture - This lens is also useful for portraiture, but it requires standing very far from your subject. Some professionals will do this to achieve a very dramatic effect and a maximal blurring of the background.

This lens is best used with a tripod or monopod because when you are zoomed out that far, even the slightest bit of camera shake will significantly impact your image.

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What is the right lens for shooting car racing with a Nikon D90?

Question

Friend of mine goes on track days quite a bit, and since I no longer own a race-worthy car, I was thinking of tagging a long to get some fun shots of the action.

The track has a few good lookout spots, but you are probably 300-400 meters away from the action. What type of lens would you recommend for a D90 in order to get some good up close shots of the cars in motion, as well as just the overall race?

Answer

300-400 meters is too far away for decent pictures -- you'd need something like a 1200mm lens to get about a 10-meter field of view (which is a lot if you're shooting cars anything but side-on). And acquiring and tracking a moving target with a lens that long is nothing like fun, not to mention the difficulty involved in getting saturated colours at that distance (you'd need to do some post-processing -- haze will suck more life out of the colours than you can imagine if you're not in the desert).

You should be able to get a pass that lets you get into the marshals' area if you ask ahead of time and make it clear that you're there for photography rather than entertainment. That will let you use lenses that are considerably smaller, lighter and more agile. You'll probably still find a good use for a 70/80-200mm zoom (perhaps with a teleconverter) if you're working the corners or hills. The faster, the better if you're shooting cars head-on or tail-on -- for passing shots, you can rely on panning to make the car(s) sharp and the background blurred, but when the cars are moving almost directly toward or away from you, you'll need to rely on a limited depth of field. If you don't own such a lens, you can rent.

You will probably find less use for a wider lens except at the start and finish, but bringing a normal zoom (moderate wide to moderate tele) will cover that if you need it. If you're shooting static vehicles, something on the wide side (16-18mm) will usually add more visual interest than a normal or tele length. Again, whatever you have for a normal zoom will probably cover the territory at the wide end.

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What is a “2.2X Pro Telephoto” lens?

Question

I am looking to enter the world of SLR cameras and learning some more about lenses. I came across a package that has a 2.2X pro Telephoto what exactly does that mean and how does it work? (Please explain it in lay terms I am new to the lingo here)

Answer

'm assuming you mean this: Raynox DCR-2025, Pro 2.2x Telephoto Lens for Digital Still Cameras. In this case, beware of the word "pro", as it doesn't mean anything — Raynox just sticks that on all of their similar products to make them sound fancier. It's also disingenuous and confusing for Raynox to call this a "telephoto lens", because it isn't really.

This isn't a stand-alone lens, but is rather a "teleside converter" made to increase effective focal length of a "real" lens. It's made to give additional options for digicams and camcorders without interchangeable lenses, and it works by using lenses to increase the width of the incoming beam of light. You could conceivably use this on an SLR lens, but I don't think you want to.

In general, they're not really a good deal, since even when you can't change lenses, you can often get better image quality just by cropping. That's because the additional optics destroy detail, so you loose image quality. Might as well lose image quality for free by cropping the image to just the detail you're interested in.

If you really want to use a teleconverter, the kind which goes between your primary lens and the camera usually offers better image quality, although that kind also restricts the effective aperture. But I think probably what you actually want is a real telephoto lens.

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What are particular potential problems to watch for when using a telephoto zoom?

Question

I recently got the Canon EF-S 55-250mm IS II lens as a complement to my 18-55mm kit lens for my 550D. I was looking for some advice\best practices for using a telephoto zoom, any associated accessories like hoods that would be useful and any gotchas that I should watch out for. My intended usage for the lens is to shoot stage shows and portraits.

I found a similar query for Point & Shoot cameras

Background

I decided to buy this lens based on the advice to an earlier question I had asked. The lens is fairly light for a telephoto zoom (~400g), and not too large either. However, it is considerably longer than the kit lens. One of the main reasons I picked up this lens was to understand the longer focal lengths better without investing in a high end lens right away (photography is a hobby).

The 70-200mm f4 L IS was one lens I did consider, but that was in a different league - both in terms of price\quality and size\weight. I wish to explore the longer focal lengths before I make serious investments on pro quality lenses - zooms or primes.

Answer

Main thing you have to be careful with is to make sure your shutter speed is high enough for the longer shots to limit blurring due to camera shake. The rough rule of thumb here is it should be at least 1/n of a second where n is the focal length with IS turned off; note this would be the effective focal length so for a crop body you have to apply the crop factor of 1.6 for Canon. With IS on it gets you maximum 3 stops reduction in this but in my experience you should only ever really halve it. One thing to note about IS is that it takes a little time to settle down after activation so when you take a shot half press the shutter button then pause for a second before taking the shot to let the IS settle down.

Outdoors its always a good idea to use a hood because on bright days it lowers the chance of lens flare and also protects the end of the longer lens from hitting things; it does happen and a damaged hood is easier/cheaper to fix than damaged glass. For indoor work extra focal length gives you a lot of possibilities but with a slower lens like this you will have to pay particular attention to lighting. This is why pro photographers go for faster and way more expensive glass like f/2.8 because it makes lighting less of a concern.

Best thing to do is just start using it as it will take you a little time to get used to the weight and balance of the new lens on your camera.

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How to use a telephoto zoom?

Question

I recently got the Canon EF-S 55-250mm IS II lens as a complement to my 18-55mm kit lens for my 550D. I was looking for some advice\best practices for using a telephoto zoom, any associated accessories like hoods that would be useful and any gotchas that I should watch out for. My intended usage for the lens is to shoot stage shows and portraits.

I found a similar query for Point & Shoot cameras

Background

I decided to buy this lens based on the advice to an earlier question I had asked. The lens is fairly light for a telephoto zoom (~400g), and not too large either. However, it is considerably longer than the kit lens. One of the main reasons I picked up this lens was to understand the longer focal lengths better without investing in a high end lens right away (photography is a hobby).

The 70-200mm f4 L IS was one lens I did consider, but that was in a different league - both in terms of price\quality and size\weight. I wish to explore the longer focal lengths before I make serious investments on pro quality lenses - zooms or primes.

Answer

Main thing you have to be careful with is to make sure your shutter speed is high enough for the longer shots to limit blurring due to camera shake. The rough rule of thumb here is it should be at least 1/n of a second where n is the focal length with IS turned off; note this would be the effective focal length so for a crop body you have to apply the crop factor of 1.6 for Canon. With IS on it gets you maximum 3 stops reduction in this but in my experience you should only ever really halve it. One thing to note about IS is that it takes a little time to settle down after activation so when you take a shot half press the shutter button then pause for a second before taking the shot to let the IS settle down.

Outdoors its always a good idea to use a hood because on bright days it lowers the chance of lens flare and also protects the end of the longer lens from hitting things; it does happen and a damaged hood is easier/cheaper to fix than damaged glass. For indoor work extra focal length gives you a lot of possibilities but with a slower lens like this you will have to pay particular attention to lighting. This is why pro photographers go for faster and way more expensive glass like f/2.8 because it makes lighting less of a concern.

Best thing to do is just start using it as it will take you a little time to get used to the weight and balance of the new lens on your camera.

Check more discussion of this question.

Would a fixed or zoom telephoto lens be better for learning?

Question

My daughter has a Nikon D-90 camera body and two prime f1.4 lenses 50mm and 35mm. She is interested in learning more, and I am curious which of a zoom or fixed telephoto lens would help her best? Is getting a low f-stop lens important in a telephoto lens?

Answer

It depends on where she's feeling the limitations. I have a kit made up of 15mm, 40mm, and 70mm prime lenses (on a dSLR with the same 1.5× format as the Nikon D90), and for me, that's just about right. (I'd probably trade the 40mm for a 35mm were I starting over — tough call.) For my style, I don't miss having a zoom at all.

Since she has (and is presumably comfortable with) two prime lenses, she may feel the same way, and would just like to increase the range of focal lengths she has available. For that, another prime covering either wider-angle or more telephoto would fit nicely.

On the other hand, she might want to explore the convenience of a zoom. Having flexibility of framing can remove one-more-thing-to-worry-about from the learning process, and remove the potential need to switch lenses in the middle of the action.

Back on the first hand, though, there is a school of thought which argues that prime lenses have inherent advantages for learning composition. Mike Johnston's Case Against Zooms articulates this view well. The idea is that by learning to know a particular prime lens's inherent viewpoint, that limitation actually becomes a freedom.

Since I use my 40mm most often, I can attest to this: having used it to take thousands of photographs over the course of several years, I can know what photo my camera will make without having to actually put it to my eye. That's very useful, and helps me concentrate on taking the photographs I want to take with the view I want to have.

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What does “the telephoto end” of a zoom lens mean?

Question

In the Canon Rebel T3i Manual, page 59, it's mentioned that "If you have a zoom lens, use the telephoto end to fill the frame with the subject from the waist up." Same note on page 61 and another one for landscape telling to use the "wide angle end".

I have EF-S 18-55 mm IS II lens which is a zoom lens. I've googled "telephoto end or wide-angle end", but all the results were lenses not an end. I don't know if I got it wrong but I thought that "end" would mean something that can be mounted on my zoom lens itself.

Answer

'End' in this case is just referring to the end of the zoom range available. So zooming in on an 18-55 lens would take you to the 55mm end of the zoom range, which would be the telephoto end, and the 18 mm end of the zoom range would be the wide angle 'end' (although on this lens the telephoto end isn't very telephoto). So while it may sound like a physical 'end' they're referring to, it's just the ends of the zoom range of the lens they are referring to

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How to avoid soft image at longest focal length with telephoto zoom lens?

Question

I have a Tamron 70 - 300mm lens. I have noticed that the best focus I can achieve at the 300mm setting is not as sharp as the focus I usually get at a lower setting. Is this a common problem? Is there any way to work around this? The camera I use is a Canon 1000D.

Answer

Every lens has a different sharpness. Some zooms are better at the beginning of the range, some in the middle, some at the end. Maybe yours isn't at its best on the end. Check online reviews, there sure be someone who noted that.

If not, some other things can be checked:

• sharpness change depending on the aperture size. How is the sharpness when closing aperture two or 3 stops down? For example, going to f8 or f11 if your lens is max f4.
• at 300mm and more, any move can produce a slight defocus. What speed are you shooting at? A basic rule is to use 1/zoom seconds. In your case, use a speed greater than 1/300 of a second.
• back or front focus problem: if the back/front focus is not correct, you will lose focus while changing the zoom factor. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check with a pro. Most of the time you can't do anything about it on your own.

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