New-ish To Photography

[tom_lincs]

Hi, I recieved a Canon EOS 500 for a birthday present 6 years ago as i was going on a trip to china. I've sinced used the camera now and again for holiday shots etc. but am now wanting to get more into photography as a whole. I was just wondering if there is a recommendation as to what lenses i should look into purchasing, if necessary (i currently only have the standard lens. Thanks.

[Polyglot]

I have an idea most people are going to ask what kind of photographs you are interested in taking. Can you narrow it down a bit, such as macro, portraits, candid shots, architecture, sports and so on? To do all of these would ideally call for two or three lenses, so it's best to try and define your needs rather than opt for something that's too general-purpose and possibly not ideal for what you want.

[tom_lincs]

Oh right sorry! I think the main chunk of photos that i take/will be be intending to take will be architecture. However, after browsing the forum and people flickr pages street photography is something that interests me a lot. Thaks for any advice people can give.

[Mojo_66]

You might be better off just going out and shooting what interests you with what you've already got. That way you'll soon realise as you learn whether you'd need something wider or maybe a telephoto.

[Wheelu]

You don't say what your standard lens is, and I don't know what they fitted to the EOS 500.

For a full frame camera such as yours, a good 24-70 f2.8 zoom is possibly the most useful general purpose lens, although such wide glass is heavy, bulky and pricy. The Canon L variety is very good but horrendously expensive. The Tamron and Sigma versions are more affordable. Add to that a 70-200 f4 and you should be able to cover most eventualities. If your general photography follows a simuilar pattern to mine, the 24-70 would be on the camera most of the time.

You might consider a cheap and cheerful, but optically sound, f1.8 50mm for low light shooting, but a small tripod might be more generally useful.

Thinking this over, for the price of a Canon 24-70L you could buy a nearly new digital Samsung GX10, or Pentax K10D two lens set up, and have enough money left over to pay for half of your fare!

[Rhys]

When I had my old EOS 100 I only had a couple of lenses which did me OK for what I wanted and they were a 50mm and a 28mm (plus a 70-210 which I hardly used). Our lass has an EOS 5 with a 28-90 USM II which isn't bad.

[Wheelu]

I think the main chunk of photos that i take/will be be intending to take will be architecture. However, after browsing the forum and people flickr pages street photography is something that interests me a lot. Thaks for any advice people can give.

On further reflection the best lens for architecture is probably a reasonably wide shift lens, but they are very expensive and you can, as a second best, do perspective correction in PS. I mainly use 28mm and 35mm lenses for the purpose. It is also useful to have access to a medium telephoto for picking out detail on buildings and I use a 75-150mm zoom for that. There's a few architectural images on my Flickr site (below) and I normally specify the lens used.

With regard to film based street photography you want a reasonably large depth of field combined with a wide maximum aperture! Too short a lens and the subjects can look distorted. I feel that a good compromise would be something like an f2 35mm, but failing that any 35mm.

My 35mm film cameras are Pentax, I don't know if there are equivalent Canon lenses available.

Hope this helps

[tom_lincs]

Thanks for all the advice its been very helpful especially wheelu (gret photos on your flickr) so cheers. i think the standard lens on my camera (haven't checked yet) is a 35-80mm lens. Is this ok for just getting back into it or would you recommend getting another lens?

[Wheelu]

i think the standard lens on my camera (haven't checked yet) is a 35-80mm lens. Is this ok for just getting back into it or would you recommend getting another lens?

Appreciate your kind words Tom. I am not familiar with the 35-80 lens that was fitted as standard on the Canon at that time, but I suspect that it will not have a very wide aperture, and that may become smaller as you approach the long end of the focal length range maybe f4-f5.6. This keeps the cost down and allows reasonable quality.

You will probably get sharper, more contrasty, photos from a better lens or lenses, but I am pretty sure that it will be OK to begin with. I once exposed a roll of HP5 using a similar Pentax lens, and if used stopped down (f8/f11), it gave perfectly acceptable results. Using a faster film does allow you to use the lens in this way.

For architectural shots the lens may produce some distortion (straight lines appearing curved), while 35mm is not all that wide.

However why not just get out and take photos? If you really catch the bug you will probably want to buy something better, for example a 24-70 f2.8 zoom, or a few fixed focal length lenses, depending upon your budget and what you want to achieve photographically.

[Larry Shone]

When I bought my canon EOS 300(twice successor to the 500) it came with a 35-80, which was a useful focal length range but it suffered from quite a bit of distortion and was soft when used wide open-its best stopped down but being a f3.5-4.5 optic this is quite limiting! Having quite a bit of experience under my belt I decided to part exchange it for to the 50mm f1.8. It may seem a backwards move to many but it was one of the best decisions I ever made! Quality glass is what counts, and the 50 is a corker. My only niggle is the lack of a distance scale and the general build quality(same with the 35-80 though). If you can look for the earlier version of the 50,(Mark I) which is more sturdy and has the distance scale just like a conventional lens.

[tom_lincs]

Thanks. Thought i'd ask a couple more questions in the same thread rather than start a new one so here it goes:

1) I've recently had some films developed but got them onto a CD rather than prints (i wasn't sure what was on 3 of the 4). After collecting the prints i noticed that the images are rather grainy - does this always happen when films are put on CD?

2) Also on the film that i was aware of the content (the most recent of the 4) there appears to be water/damp marks on the images. Is this due to the film, the lens or the processing?

http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?i...7100002wl4.jpg

i've attached a link to one of the photos and if anyone could help me out with what the blemish is i'd be very grateful.

[Larry Shone]

tom, a wild guess here but did you use Jessops for processing? I had a similar experience recently when I put in a roll of Jessops 200 for D&P and the results were shocking! I got the prints too though which were even worse!

[tom_lincs]

i used KodakExpress. The thing that confused me was that the other 3 films - although grainy did not have the smear mark (as the top/centre of teh example linked)?!

[Larry Shone]

What film did you use? And are you used to using a digital? I'm often surprised how grainy my film shots look compared to those taken on digi,but thats probably because i shoot on cheap 200 film.

[Wheelu]

Looks like a processing fault but can't be sure, if it were damage to the emulsion within the camera you would expect to see it on all of the frames.

Your image does not look grainy to me. There is no connection, that I am aware of, between the use of a CD and the graininess of an image. Typically you get noticeable grain if you use a fast film, push the development, or scan with the sharpness turned up too much.

[tom_lincs]

The images that have the fault on them were from a much more recent film than the other films i had processed. Is it likely that it could just be the film i used or is it more likely to be the scanning? if so am i entitled to go back to the shop and ask them to do it again?

[Larry Shone]

am i entitled to go back to the shop and ask them to do it again?

If you're at all unhappy with the results from any lab then yes,you are entitled to complain! Wheelu did you see any of the pics I posted recently,taken on film using a vivitar 70-210? I thought them grainy as hell but that could be because i'm used to grain free digital shots!

[Wheelu]

Wheelu did you see any of the pics I posted recently,taken on film using a vivitar 70-210? I thought them grainy as hell but that could be because i'm used to grain free digital shots!

[/QUOTE]

Sorry Larry I missed them. I quite like the appearance of grain in some circumstances, and I find some digital B&W shots to look strangely inert without it, but each to their own!

[Larry Shone]

While i love grain in B/W and night shots in colour i don't like it in general colour shots,especially close ups of plants etc.

[Mojo_66]

Scanning can enhance the graininess of a film compared to traditional wet processing and printing.