Photo Club 2: Bags, Compact Flash, and Lenses

[Joey_V]

Alright photo-hotshots... I'm looking for several items now that I've gotten my loot and made out like a bandit!

1. Need a decent sized bag for my new Rebel XTi 400D camera. I don't want something overly large and bulky but I want something that can fit atleast one other lens. I went to bestbuy today, but I couldn't find anything that really fit my needs like a glove and was wondering what you fellas used.

2. Also, I was wondering if the speed of the compact flash card matters... what is the consensus? Can I get away with a regular CF card but larger storage capacity? They are cheaper...

3. Lastly, can you guys recommend me lenses for my XTi? I want something that has some range with decent telephoto capability. An overall improvement over my current kit lens is a welcome change and I want something with Image Stabilization (IS). Does not have to be a Canon lens...

Thanks all!

 

[Joey_V]

Oh.. and are there any photography magazines that are good (kinda like stereophile and TAS for us audiophiles)?

Thanks again!

 

[MickeyVee]

Ahhh.. the madness begins..

For the CF, get the biggest and fastest you can. eventually, you will be shooting RAW. The cards pretty cheap these days.

As far as lenses go, it really depends on what you will be photograhing. One awesome lens that I recommend is the Canon L 70-200 F4 IS. This may be one lens that you would never replace. It really depends on your needs and budget.

My recommendation is to forget about the big box stores. Find yourself a dedicated camera shop and begin to forge a relationship. Hopefully you will get good recommendations based on 'your' needs. Similar to audio, everyone has their own opinions.

magazines.. I love Outdoor Photographer, Digital Camera Pro and especially the British photo magazines. They are a lot more informative and down to earth relative to the North American rags.

You forgot to ask about software.. to start with, Photoshop Elements v6.0 will do nicely for a while. As you grow, you will have an aresenal of software for different applications/processing.

Good Luck!

 

[Yang1815]

For the memory card, I'd get at least a 4GB card at the fastest speed. I have a 2GB card and a 6MP DSLR and that only holds about 300 pics at RAW. It's kind of enough since I delete shots quite often AS I SHOOT. However, if I don't do that, I average about 500 shots/day when I shoot. And for format, you should ONLY shoot in RAW.

As for lenses, I'd say play around with the kit lens for a few months and see what your needs are. By summer of 08, look at your pictures and see if you shoot more outdoor/indoor shots, portraits, sports, objects, seneary, day/night shots or whatever it may be.

However, if you really want to get new ones now, I'd recommend the same setup as far as lenses go that MickeyVee mentioned. An all-around lens (20 something to low 100 mm) is convenient but you're most likely going to get better picture by splitting a longer range into 2 lenses. I personally have a 18-50 F2.8 lens and a 55-200 lens to cover many situations. The Canon L 70-200 F4 IS is an AMAZING lens and I agree that that would be one lens you'll probably never replace. After these 2 lenses, you could probably get a fisheye and a prime lens for portraits. Then after those lenses, it would really depend on what you shoot mainly.

As far as bags go, I carry a Nikon bag that's big enough to fit 2 cameras and since I only have one, I have enough room for the camera, another lens, and some other accessories.

Happy shooting!

 

[Joey_V]

1. CF card - done. I bought a Transcend 2gb 133x CF card from newegg.. not bad at 14.99$. Checked reviews and it should be faster than the SanDisk Ultra II.

2. Bag - also done. I bought two sets of bags - one smaller for on the go shooting, and a larger one for storage and extra lenses. Both are Case Logic cases - newegg and buy.com were both offering them for good prices. $29.99 for the larger one and 6.99 (awesome!) for the smaller one.

Small and top-loading...

Larger case... also top loading...

Check out the Case Logic SLR case line up... looks nice!

3. Lenses - still looking for a good IS lens. I think the price for this is about $500, which is a lot meaning I need to scale back in the audio hobby a bit.

 

[twich54]

3. Lenses - still looking for a good IS lens. I think the price for this is about $500, which is a lot meaning I need to scale back in the audio hobby a bit.

Joey, don't forget your camera has a aps-'c' size sensor which gives you a focal length multipier of approx 1.5 or 1.6. So be sure to take that into consideration when making lens descissions. Example...a 70-210 lens would equate to 105-315 (focal length).

 

[Joey_V]

Joey, don't forget your camera has a aps-'c' size sensor which gives you a focal length multipier of approx 1.5 or 1.6. So be sure to take that into consideration when making lens descissions. Example...a 70-210 lens would equate to 105-315 (focal length).

Ooh... good call, Pops....

Must do more reading.

 

[Rich]

O.K., Joey, here are my thoughts as a lifelong photographer. First of all, the lenses you buy now can easily outlast this camera body and are much more important to the quality of the pictures and the experience than the camera body is. Cameras come and go, but lenses will stay with you a long time. What I'm saying is: Don't skimp on your lenses. It is better to use the kit lenses to get experience and buy new lenses slowly, saving up to get the best one you can buy, one at a time. For your camera, that means buying Canon L series lenses. I wouldn't consider anything else if I were you. IS is great and I highly recommend it. The next thing to consider is to buy the fastest lens you can afford. By fast, I mean widest maximum aperture. F4 is great. F2.8 is better. Buy the best you can afford. Let me say that again: Buy the best lenses you can afford.

I have the Canon 24 to 105 f4 L series lens and it is a great general purpose lens. On a 1.6 crop view camera, it translates to about 38 to 168, so it is good from normal up to medium telephoto. I just got for Christmas the 17 to 35 f2.8 L and I think it is going to be a great wide angle zoom lens. The 70 to 200 f4 recommended above is a great zoom telephoto lens. I have the f2.8 version and it is awesome, but a little bulky to carry around. If you like to shoot closeups, it is also helpful to eventually get a good macro lens. Canon makes a couple of these.

I also encourage you to learn to shoot RAW format and post-process your pictures using good software. I use Aperture from Apple. Adobe Lightroom is also supposed to be excellent. And you probably got some software from Canon included with your camera. I also agree that Photoshop elements is a must. The beauty with shooting RAW is that you can do non-destructive editing, meaning your original data is never lost and you can go back later and change things again and again if necessary. Shooting JPGs, data is lost automatically with the compression scheme and some things you cannot easily go back and change (like white balance, for example).

Start slowly and take lots of pictures. Learn about depth of field, framing, composition, how to vary speed and aperture to get the effects you want. Read some books and just experiment. You will enjoy it.

Here is a great link for Canon lens reviews:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/

A great article on using Canon flashes:

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/

And a good general photo site:

http://photo.net/

Good luck and enjoy.