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The Amazing Kit Lens

7/17/2014

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I am on a number of photography forums on line. Many of these forums are very active with beginners, pros, and everything in between. There are a lot of questions asked on line that cover many different topics. However, it seems like there are a lot of questions that center on photography hardware and what should the person buy. Often the questions are somewhat vague. Hint for you, if you ask a question like - What camera should I get - What lens is the best - or Do I need to move to a full frame camera - please add some additional information in the question. Please make sure to list what you currently use. List the types of photography you do, like portrait or landscapes or sports. Say if you do it professionally or as a hobby. And yes even those that shoot professionally (for pay) ask some pretty basic questions. Everyone starts somewhere. Also list your budget. Are you wanting to stay with an inexpensive solution, or can you lay down a stack of big bills to get whatever your heart desires.

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Once the question is posted you start to see people immediately jump on and list their favorite camera body or lens etc. They don't ask what the person is using currently, what they think they are lacking, or what types of photography they do. They also seem to have the same answer for every single question. The answer is most often also suggesting some of the most expensive equipment. Sometimes you will even see jabs at lesser equipment. Of course you can expect that kit lenses, especially those that come with a lower end DSLR will get special ridicule. Don't misunderstand, I don't think that the kit lenses are the be all and end all of lenses. However, some of the most recent ones are quite surprisingly good, especially for something you get free with the camera. The mushroom images in this blog were shot with the Nikon D5100 and the kit 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. They were shot at around ISO 2000 (I was using auto ISO), a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second, and an aperture of f/5.6 at 55mm. I was VERY close to the mushrooms. Some of the extreme closeups I was like a foot or less to the subject. So I was basically shooting the kit lens like a macro lens at that point.

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There are a number of lenses I will often recommend to people. It is not uncommon at all to hear me tell people to take a look at the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens for a crop sensor DSLR (it will vignette on full frame) for $500 new or about $250 on eBay. It is a stunning lens. The optics are extremely sharp. And the consistent wide f/2.8 aperture is so nice, especially for portraits. Even that lens is considered a lesser lens by a lot of the photo geek squad. Some go as far as to say you should never put any lens on your camera that was not made by the same company that made the body. They will regularly recommend the very expensive Nikon or Canon lenses, and really look down on the mention of Tamron or Sigma, etc. This football shot was taken with the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 lens on the D5100 at ISO 1250 and 1/320th of a second. The print of this is even more incredible than looking at it on the computer. Oh, yes I was on the sidelines for the shot. If I had to be in the stands I would use the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens (and yes a Tamron). You would need the extra focal length. And this is one of those cases where the kit lens, or even the 55-200mm "kit" lens would suffer since even the widest aperture is several stops "slower" than the f/2.8 I could get on this lens. The stadium on Friday nights is very dark and you need a good fast shutter speed for sports.

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Sometimes the really good lens is actually pretty inexpensive too though. If you are able to move around to frame your shot a prime or fixed focal length lens can get you top quality for a very low sticker price. It used to be quite a number of years back that the "kit" lens for a 35mm SLR was the 50mm f/1.8 lens. I have a 50mm f/1.8 D model that I still use, although it does not auto focus on my D5100. I just have not been able to justify spending the just over $200 for the G model that will. So I still shoot it for portrait work quite often. Here is a shot with my friend (and an amazing model) Jasmine that we took during a group shoot with Beauty with Brains in Kalamazoo (yeah the town from the Glenn Miller song). If I had used the kit lens here she still would have been very sharp in focus and looking good. But I would not have been able to get the shallow depth of field that I was able to get on the "nifty 50" at f/1.8 aperture. The thing is that the D version I shoot with is only $130 brand new! And even at $200 to $250 the 50mm is a bargain.

So bottom line is that you don't have to spend a load of money on your equipment to get good photos. Often to improve your photos you simply need to change technique. A lot of people have not mastered the equipment they currently have, and they are under the idea that they just did not spend enough. What you need to ask though is what are you currently dissatisfied with? What are you not currently able to do? Then find out if maybe it is technique that you are struggling with. Or, if you do need something else to help you get where you need to take your photography make sure to define well what you want to do. There is no "perfect lens". Keep in mind too that one of the reasons the lenses can be swapped out on a DSLR is that no one lens will do it all. The superzoom lenses (like an 18-200mm) are built with a load of compromises to get the lens to work at so many focal lengths. So it is really good at a lot of things (or some of them are not even really good if they are the really cheap ones) but they are not great at any of it. I like using the Sigma 18-200mm if I want to just grab the camera with a single lens for a walk about all day with the wife and don't want to schlep my computer bag everywhere (and get dirty looks for constantly stopping and changing things). But I would not use that lens for shooting models or doing portraits of people. I would definitely not use it for night time sports photography. You could shoot your kid playing soccer on a sunny Saturday when you are shooting f/8 and it would do pretty well though. But if you are wanting to shoot sports for getting published in a magazine you will need the better resolution of something like the Tamron, Nikon, or Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, even if you are shooting it at f/8 aperture. It is all about the right equipment for the right job, and sometimes that can be the lowly kit lens to shoot macro photos of mushrooms at your local nature center.

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What is the best camera to buy????

3/4/2012

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I regularly get asked what is the best camera to buy. Or I will be reading different internet posts talking about the same thing. Most of the time when other people answer they simply will say whatever camera they use. Either that, or they will say some expensive camera. Usually their reasoning for the expensive cameras is some take on one of the popular photography cliches. You know them... "oh you need lots of megapixels for a large print"... or "you need the DSLR so you don't get noise in the photo" etc. They fail to do the most important thing that needs to happen before answering the question. They don't ask what you want to do with your camera. So this post will actually break down why you would want different types of cameras. 

Point and shoot and camera phones

The least expensive cameras are the point and shoot cameras and the camera phones. These are really good to have tucked in a pocket or purse and have available for those quick shots when you are just out and about. These are also the cameras to get if you simply want nice snapshot photos of family and friends. Camera phones have gotten quite good, and for many people will be good enough. Any of the name brand point and shoots will work pretty much just fine. So something from Nikon or Fujifilm or Canon are great choices. Kodak are pretty nice, but with the future of the company up in the air are hard to recommend at the moment. There are some really cool point and shoots that will have features like being waterproof (to like 10 or 20 feet), or shooting in 3D. So you can get some fun additional features. 

Bridge/Superzoom cameras

The bridge cameras (also known now as superzoom) are some of the most overlooked options. Most people don't even know the term bridge or superzoom. These are the cameras that at first glance look like a DSLR, but the lens does not come off the camera. The camera will run between like $200 and $500. The biggest feature is that they can zoom to extreme telephoto lengths. You will see stickers on them showing values like 20x or 35x zoom. The Fujifilm HS20 will zoom all the way to 720mm equivalent. The cameras will also do macro, and wide angle focal lengths. Most of them will allow you to shoot full manual, aperture priority, shutter priority, and program mode, along with full auto. Many will also save the image in either RAW or JPG format. Pretty much any of them now will do full HD video too. 

My advice is that if you want something better than a point and shoot, want a lot of different features like extreme telephoto, and like the idea of the control of manual mode or aperture priority etc. but don't want to invest a small fortune in camera equipment, then the bridge camera is totally the choice for you. I definitely like both the Nikon and Fujifilm bridge cameras. I have not had a chance to play with any of the Canon, Panasonic, or Sony versions. I would assume they would be good too. 

A year ago I had a friend that asked my advice. I told him to get the Fujifilm HS10. He was going on a trip to Alaska. When he got back he said that it was the best camera he could ever have imagined getting for the trip. His photos were stunning, and he did not get sore muscles from lugging lots of equipment around. And yes, you can make huge prints from any of those bridge cameras. I will write in a later blog post about printing and some of the stupid stuff you will hear a lot of people say. But that is way beyond this blog post. 

Digital SLR (DSLR)

The DSLR is that fancy camera that a lot of people buy. They are most notable for having interchangeable lenses. The biggest name brands are Canon and Nikon. Sony has a really nice lineup now with their Alphas. Panasonic and Pentax both have some really nice cameras, but you don't see them nearly as often. Personally I shoot Nikon. I love my Nikon. I almost went Pentax, but no local retailers carried them. That was probably the biggest reason I went Nikon instead of Pentax. It was like my second choice. Nikon does have a lot of options in lenses and other accessories that Pentax won't have because of more market share. 

When trying to figure out which manufacturer to go with consider a few different things. First, do you have other family that uses a DSLR and whom you will want to share equipment back and forth with? This is a good way to save some money on equipment purchases. Second, see if you can find a camera store that carries the ones you are considering. Take some photos with them. Change the settings. Which feels natural to you? Are the buttons in places that seem to make sense? Third, what type of shooting are you going to do most? If you are going to do a lot of sports then you want a camera with fast frames per second. If you are doing sports inside then you want something that will do great high ISO. For most beginners pretty much any of the name brands will work well other than those stipulations for sports. If you want to do video also then it is really important to have an external mic jack on the camera (vital!). 

I find that the Nikon and Pentax have the best high ISO results of any of the cameras. The Canon low end have a mic jack on them where on the Nikon you need to be in at least the D7000. The Sony Alpha do the best for frames per second for continuous shooting. Personally I like the menuing and button arrangement of the Nikon by far the best. The other thing with the Nikon that I have seen is that they tend to keep the controls in the same places on all models, so moving up to higher models later is easier to do. 

Keep in mind with the DSLR cameras that once you pick a manufacturer you will pretty much stick with them throughout. The reason is that lenses and many accessories are specific to a particular manufacturer. So you get a Nikon and some lenses that fit Nikon, if you switch you need to buy all new lenses too. So take some time with picking your first DSLR body. One nice thing though is that if you decide after 6 months you want to go a different way then usually you can get most of your investment back from a DSLR and equipment on eBay to make the switch. So it is not all money lost. 

Other types of cameras and final notes

There are some other types of cameras coming out now. The Nikon V1 is a good example. It has removable lenses on a camera body that is more like a point and shoot (but not really like it either). There are some cameras that are going back to the old rangefinder cameras for construction and styling. There are a number of mirrorless cameras out now. Sounds like some future blog posts to talk about those eh? 

I have not gone into lenses and such for DSLRs. That is a fairly involved discussion that will probably be a number of different blog posts in the future. In future posts I will also cover things like filters, straps, tripods, and other accessories. Feel free to tweet me @onewithcamera or post comments below if you have specific things you would like me to write about. I also plan to have a number of additional video postings soon on all of this. 
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    My name is Rusty, and I am on a journey, almost more of an awakening, to really learn photography. Years ago I did a lot of photography in high school. After raising a family I find I have time once again to pick up the camera. The art form has changed a lot since my high school days. I am also finding that I desire to take my art to the next level. This site is a combination of documenting my journey and teaching you things that I am learning. So in the process of my becoming one with the camera I am hoping to also help you find that inner artist that is inside you as well. 

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