Bridge Cameras - Discuss
 

I have now owned my first bridge camera for 1 year a Canon SX40 HS. It is light and compact, gets close to the moon and I like its image stability for those long shots. HD video is clear and steady. . I have a spare battery for it and find it lasts me about 1 month in between charges. Canon upgraded the range to the SX50 HS with a more powerful superzoom and added on RAW abilities. Knowing Canon I suspect the SX50 HS will be upgraded again very soon. I got good advice from Canonite Coolcat and Rocket on the forum on what to look for. This helped me decide to try the Canon.

Woof25 is a good mate. He also helped and I know he has a Nikon P510 or is it a P500. He knows. The downside of the SX40 is that it has an electronic view finder, no remote. and it's ability for fast action shots in sequence cannot match its big brother. Grandly has just bought the SX50 and I will be interested to see how he gets on with it. Gary do post up the results.

Hi Gary

How photography has changed over the years since you had your own lab all those years ago doing black and white on film and doing your own developing. Some of the guys here still use film and that is fine.

I held off from going digital as long as I could and bought my first DSLR about 2 years ago. My first SLR was a Zenith E, then a Pentax and a Minolta.

Enjoy your new camera Gary and get clicking！

Canon sx50 hs
 

yes ok Phil will do,i realy needed guidance before i bought the canon sx50 hs as i have been out of this game for such a long time, i have forgotten all my secret settings not that they would be of any use in this day and age,you must bear with me guys i will get pics up but not just yet,need to learn all over again.i don't think i have made a bad choice as the camera pretty well does it all for you these days,[ i can hear you from where i am sitting WRONG]and yes agree i have some catching up to do but am willing to learn,when i think my photo's are worthy then will post photoes up,because i have seen all your wonderful pics been watching for a long time and each and every one of you are good with a camera,and john Atkinson you got a real photographer's eye your composition is perfect,all the best for now guys I WILL BE BACK. GARY. ps just thought of a question what size do you cut your photoes down to i am using 800X600 is that ok?

Hi gary I tend to use aroun 300x200 generally but I think you can load higher on the forum, Like phil I am not so enamoured by the electonic eye viewer so I often use my Nikon DSLR instead as it normal viwer on that !!!
but both provde good pics I tend to use flash with the bridge camera to fill in on most days now & then sort anything else out in the editing suite !!!.

Like you I believe get the compostion right and the rest will fall into place not always possible of course I realize, and yes I do still yearn for the days when I spent many hours in the dark room dodging and burning my b/w and sepia prints one programme you might like to try thats free gary is Photoscape its excellent and has so many good features including a plethora of filter effects the other one many use is Picasa bith are good and compliment each other so worth trying

Hope to see you at HH soon


Mike

Done in photoscape
 

I took this picture 3 years ago in bideford of the kathlenn and may a 19th cent schooner and I thought it would look good as a sepia antiqued print and I used the tools available in photoscape to produce the effects I did leave rear of a car in the pic in case anyone accused me of trying to pass it off as an original which some might !!!

sorry file was too big LOL has to size down

It's the one thing I do love about full frame and 35mm, the sensors are large so you get a very good view of the scene through the viewfinder.
I also have a Canon SX30 but never use the EVF, i'm so used to a much larger view I always use the screen instead. I know that uses more battery but at least I can track subjects better. When shooting HD macro I have to make sure i've got the subject in focus as it moves so the EVF is a complete no no for me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJtbs...zYtudMp6RuIpTw

It's not that often I take the SX30 now, it all depends what i'm doing. As technology has moved on so much the Panasonic TZ series make a much more pocketable solution for an SLR companion. I generally take 4 cameras out at all times so I have everything covered, but again as I said it depends what i'm shooting.

hi guys,thank you for your posts Phil Alan Mike great stuff i know at the moment i can't hope to be at your standard and Alan what great HD MACRO it realy has made me more excited about what's to come in the summer months and mike that's a great shot taken from the right place looks great in sepia,i have uploaded my car to the forum at 800x600 but will do as you say Mike get them down to your recommendation,don't forget it's all so new to me this tech was not around when i was doing it all the buttons and settings on the cameras tend to frighten me a bit , if i switch to manual setting will the camera go back to where it started before i changed the settings when i turn it off? i know there is a button on the canon sx50 that lets you keep a favorite setting, oh and Phil yes you sead something about not having automatic on your canon SX40 ,well the 50 has a side socket that you plug into so you can take photoes without touching the camera,but surly yours has got this feature, i was looking on [you tube] and watched the tutorial on this camera and the guy zoomed onto the moon very clear,and yes will be at the halfway house meet in the summer with my camera so you can guide me then give me a few tips,as you will probably all know it's only 2 miles from me as i live in BASILDON had to leave the last one early as i had to be at BAS hospital at 2 o clock to visit the wife.yes she is ok at the moment but refuses to stop smoking, so enough sead on that.so looking forward to the next chapter my first love was golf was quite good handicap was at one time 7 .had to give it up health reasons,going now been on here to long look forward to seeing you guys this summer,regards GARY.

Hi Gary,
Glad your enjoying your Photography:}
You know the next Halfway House meet is Sunday week don't you?
http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...d.php?t=131677
Quite a few of us photography types will be there as well:D
Golf hey! My Dad is the Manager of Crondon Park Golf Club in Stock just down the road from you and also an Mg Zt owner:}

hi Jeff,nice of you to drop in great i do love this club, sunday week halfway house well yes will stick it on calender when i get up out of my chair, right so dad is manager of crondon park golf club might come in handy Jeff as i can still play but need a buggy , i know buggys are off this time of year but perhaps in the summer will go for a game ,i am not entirely knackered just run out of puff quicker than i used to. yep looking forward to this summer get my photography going again , halfway house will be entirely weather permitting be great in the summer though take some great pics at southend, thank you for posting to me Jeff . ----GARY.

Hi Gary,
No problems, glad your enjoying it on here Sir.
If you look further into this part of the forum you'll see that I post up Motorsport photos mainly.
Spend a lot of time going to the Btcc, F1, Dtm etc and try to post up on here some of my stuff.
Link to one of my threads: http://www.the75andztclub.co.uk/foru...d.php?t=127386
Yep, bit wet for buggys on the fairways at the moment :}
Don't worry about the weather a the Halfway as we can all pile into the Pub or the Little Chef if need be:drool4:

just amazing Jeff, great photography there is a bunch of you that are realy realy good at this lark , Phil is good but what a selection of subject matter he has got nice. every one i have seen so far are great,clever bunch on here, ---GARY.

Don't know about clever, just enjoying ourselves me thinks:D
We should get a proper camera club going on here sometime and go out on some jolly boy outings :}

Thanks Gary for the info about the remote compartment at the side of the cam. When the SX40 was launched it hardly had any accessories. I see on Amazon it now has an array of them including add on filters. a wide angle lens and a magnification one. I can't order any being in Africa as Kenya is not the best place to send camera equipment to. I will revisit Amazon and see if they do a remote for the SX40. One of the guys here took some wonderful bird photos from the comfort of his home as he had set up the tripod, the camera and the remote in his garden. A handy trick I find appealing. I am sorry that Mrs Grandy is in hospital and won't stop smoking - what a worry as there is a great deal of help available. All you can do is your best. I am going away tomorrow from the forum for a week up country way up north by road and into the mountains and bush on safari living out in rough and camping. It is summer here. Hot by day and cold by night. The tropical rains are still around with sudden downpours then humidity which makes everything nice and green - I hope to be able to take a range of photos of what I get to see. Thanks to you and the guys for talking about photography, bridge cameras the pros and the cons.

Hi Phil,
That sounds like a lot of fun, really looking forward to seeing your photos on your return Sir:}
When are you back over in Blighty as it would be great to meet up with you, maybe at one of the Halfway House get togethers:)

Thanks Jeff. I am back in London on 9 March. I have my scan on the 13th, the national meet is on the 17th and I would love to meet up at H H ... I am trying to swing it to be here for the POL in April but as the missus won't be coming back with me she has given me a right old bashing about it lol. Anyways I will be back in the UK at the end of July for 3 - 4 months. I want to get up north and visit the moors as I have never been and Rod has promised to show me the sights. I am still to get to an F1 circuit as that is also something else I have never been to :)

went shopping today ended up in jessops,can't resist it only one guy running the shop and he is so helpful, nice young man he is a friend of my grandsons did not buy another camera but as i am a bit shaky at my age bought a monopod great little thing will be a great help ,i am not that shaky that i can't hit a golf ball Jeff,----------- role on summer,be nice Phil if you could manage to get to H.H when you are next in uk,going to bed now it's gone 7 so i am off, lol bye for now guys,oh just to correct you Phil [GRANDY] is a nick name my grandsons gave me years ago and it sort of stuck,the wife is not in hospital at the moment but soon will be i expect,mrs stephens just sead hello and don't get eaten by a lion and stay well clear of the crocks.--all the best for now GARY.

Hi Gary and thanks for putting me straight about Mrs Stephens being out of hospital and I will be sure to follow her advice about the crocs and lions :) those crocs are very crafty as they tend to blend in with the river banks ever so still and it is easy to walk into them. So far we have been lucky with the lions not coming too close to our tent at night. We see them watching sometimes, if I shine a torch into the bush their eyes light up like cats eyes, so we stay close to where we camp. We park our 4x4 close to the tent with the doors unlocked and we keep the tent zipped up. We heard of a camper who left his tent open at night and a lion got wind of him taking him out and killing him. I usually keep a machete in the tent and a crossbow, a catapult. We are just about to set off. Jeff invited me to join him on a car racing meet last summer and I never made it. Years ago I used to smoke and drink, led a wild life and I remember smoking a cigar called Grandee which kind of reminded me of your name where as your family have fondly given you that for other reasons :) take care and bye for now 　，

I really can't see how Jessops is still operational on a High Street level. Their prices have always been considerably higher than elsewhere. When the chain was rescued from administration a few years ago I noticed how the quality of the staff dropped, having chosen to make redundant or relocate photography enthusiasts to employ any Tom, Richard or Harry willing to work for minimum wage.
My last two dealings with our local store were not good, the poor lad on the receiving end was way out of his depth in a camera shop and couldn't answer the most simple of questions about some film I was after.
This tarnishes the good name, as previously I could rely on the staff for sound advice and good tips.

Back on the subject of bridge cameras, my friend was burgled. When the insurance paid out he's now the owner of a Nikon P510 and his Canon 350D was replaced with a new 600D.
He now wants to come around to mine so I can show him how to work it. I've had this before when I gave him advice on a quality budget telephoto, where I tried to explain the pros and cons but I feel it fell on deaf ears as we're back to square one.
I recommended the Canon 70-300mm IS, probably the best of the budget Canon tele lenses. He didn't think it was good because it was an EF lens and not an EF-S lens which he'd been told (Jessops) meant it used ED glass and was better quality....

How long did it take people to understand how cameras work? Or rather, how long did it take to understand aperture? I sold this guy my old 350D several years ago now and with the questions he's asking I don't think he's learnt anything.

Hi Alan,
How I know that feeling of trying to explain things for it to fall on deaf ears!
It's like :flog:
Funny how people start up hobbies, ask loads of questions/advice and then promptly ignore everything you tell them.
I get it all day at work, people these days come in asking advice but really they're just spoiling for an argument half the time:shrug:
I gave up on Jessops many moons ago, now I use either Lce ( London camera exchange ) or Camera World in Chelmsford, they only have one other branch in London so only relevant to peeps in this neck of the woods.

How odd is this now...Jessops just filed to go into administration. Whoops.
Pay peanuts ya get monkeys ;)

I had good and bad experience with Jessops who have not been able to compete with the lower priced lower price margin competitors. Years ago I would go into their main store in central London and in those days the guys knew their stuff. They had a good range of telescopes and marine binoculars as well even if they were high priced and out of my range it was fun to look. Back to bridge cameras. I tried the SX40 for the first time out in the bush and used it tangent with the Nikon DSLR 5000 for comparison taking the same subjects now and again. I took about 1000 photos and am still to sort through them even though I have them uploaded.

Im not surprized Jessops has gone to the wall they have been skating on thin ice for many years being brought back from the brink but this time there is no hero to step in. It is our fault of course as buyers we go to jessops and others to see touch and hold the products we desire and then we get on the net to find it at cheapest prices, Blockbuster, HMV, Comet, we all are resposible in large part for their demises. I remember the old films about a western town deserted except for tumbleweed blowing down the main street, thats the fate of most high streets I think & yes I do bu online

Mike

This is not the fault of the consumer, it is the fault of High Street chains not being able to compete with the online retailers. Jessops were never cheap, nor were Jacobs but I still bought from them as I could always go back to the shop if I had a problem. When Jessops last brought the administrators in I thought they'd be rescued to become an online only retailer and prices would come down but lessons were not learned.
Once all these High Street shops have been closed down people are going to regret not using them.
All we'll be left with is Currys.

Anyway, back on topic....bridge cameras are great. I've been increasingly impressed with the latest Panasonic TZ series of cameras. As a Canon fanboy I had an SX200 pocket camera with a 12x zoom, was great back then but now the TZ30 has a 20x zoom (intelligent 40x zoom) all in a small pocket sized unit.

I had a look last year at the TZ range and tried one out at Jessops St.Albans. Whilst the zoom range was not up to the Canon at the time the TZ image quality was superior in that it was clearer and did not have the blue abberation ( a blue tinge around the edge) which the Canon SX40 had at max zoom. I also liked the TZ having stereo mike sensors. I have found that wind break control on the canon is not that great so I am keeping an eye on the Panasonic range again.

It's mainly down to the Leica lens in the Panasonics, extremely good quality stuff. All Canon bridge cameras have always suffered from chromatic abberations, it's just one of the characteristics of their tiny sensors when coupled with a long reach lens.

I did not know Alan that all Canon cameras had that problem. I encountered the blurring on max zoom and had tried to reduce it in editing.

I am putting up two photos I took last week using the Nikon DSLR and the Canon bridge cam. The lens I used on the Nikon was a Tamron AF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 Tele-Macro (1:2). I had it set on max zoom and the Nikon was set on sports mode as was the Canon. The weavers in the photos were about 50 feet away nesting above a river bed and a stream out in a swamp. The birds would not keep still and I could not use a tripod as the location was too risky from predators. In a nutshell it was a chance opportunity and quite unplanned.

Sunlight was strong and it was excessively hot at 37c :}

Had I had a more powerful lens on the Nikon, I think I could have brought more details of the Weaver and its nest into the picture. The nest is made from plains grasses and stripped palm leaves.

Clearly not all of us have the weather conditions or variety of wildlife philip to photograph, indeed if my memory is right the number of species indigenous to the uk has fallen significantly in past years.
But both photos are excellent backgound nicely diffused and hopefully colours not touched up too much !! Im with cartier bresson untouched by human hands lol.

Good to see the lions arent spoiling the shots maybe a monopod be useful ? for hitting them on the nose if nothing else lol just kidding

may ur lum lang reek

Really like the shot taken with the canon Phil. Iam feeding our birds in the garden like crazy at the moment as we have a blanket of snow. The bird feeders look like a scene from the film "Birds"

Mike I am in anticipation of you and M. Bresson blowing off yer cobwebs and getting your Nikon bridge and Nikon DSLR out hehehe

If you can't get out because of the weather, you could tease and entice us with some of your SLR shots from the old days as a comparison :} When I enlarged the Nikon photo I did get quite a lot of noise and used Lightroom 4 to smooth everything it out where it showed. I left the yellow alone.

Haste Ye Back!

That's very kind of you Paul to look out for the birds at this time of year with the bird feeder and I hope the horses are bearing up.

Of course Mike is right when he says not everyone can enjoy the variety of wildlife. He is correct about bird numbers going down. I am equally concerned with the damage done by human predators to the environment and to the animals. Poaching is a big problem in Kenya and I am more worried about the rustlers/poachers when I am out in the bush than any old Lion or croc.... :)

Here I am diverting away from the thread. Apologies peeps

It's one of those things ive noticed with all my compact Canons, all compacts will have it even at low ISO. Getting the balance between sensor size, aperture and ISO can be hard. I think Canons attitude has always been a case of giving punters the big numbers, thinking they can edit the results if they look bad. It's refreshing to see that Panasonic have resisted temptation to challenge Canon SX50 for the big zoom stakes, instead choosing to refine the lens they already have on their new FZ200. So shooting an equiv 600mm at f2.8 is a very interesting move. Cant wait to see some sample images from it.

Very nice work Phil, the one shot with the Canon does appear a better image but there is still a fair amount of noise in it, look in the sky and on the breast area of the bird.
I was going to ask of there's been any smoothing done, then read on the next page you'd used some noise reduction, this really shows.

I will have a look at the Panasonic FZ200 to check out the specs and images.

You made some strong points Alan about Canon bumping up the numbers against image quality with post editing correcting the Canons short comings. I think that it what you said.

I just revisited the images I did of the birds and you are right about the noise in the Canon picture. I did not edit it in LR 4 which has noise reduction. I did not think it looked too bad, so left it. Having just seen it again, on reflection and to be fair to the Nikon photo, I really should have gone back to take the noise down on the Canon pic then it would have been a fairer comparison. I tried different filters and twiddled but could not make up my mind, so just left it as an original pic. So in the final analysis, the Canon photo was not touched up. The Nikon was.

A lesson learned that you guys see everything!

I have some more images and subjects I took which I am still to edit and will bear this in mind. Mmmmmmm lol

I see that Gary had to return his Canon SX 50 HS as it had a problem and he got a refund. I do not know who he bought the camera from but I am glad for him that the refund was honoured in full. It will be interesting to see what he decides to go for should he decide to get a bridge or a DSLR or just wait and see.

A lot do it to a point, but i've owned most of the top end SX superzooms and they've always tried to outdo the competition, this was always in the zoom range. I do regret buying this SX30, it is so limited in comparison with the older SX1 that I had before. That had a CMOS sensor with RAW shooting, real 4fps till the card was full and shot HD video, it may have only had a 20x zoom lens but this was more than adequate when paired with the Canon or Raynox teleconverters as you had the CMOS sensor.

The one rule of thumb I go by when out and about is that it's better to capture a noisy image than a blurry one. Keeping the ISO low down is good for overall image quality, but if the natural light isn't good, for example in a woodland, then low ISO will need a longer shutter for correct exposure.
The problem with bridge cameras is their tiny sensors have limiting factors. What they are good at is combining a long range zoom lens with high resolution in a small affordable package. They are never going to compete with SLR sensors and dedicated and specific lenses. You just have to work with the limitations of what the camera can do rather than using it like an SLR.

Canon have always gone for bigger numbers, it looks more impressive on paper and people think that more megapixels means better images when it doesn't. Generally they downsize the sensor to allow it to be amplified more, to give bigger range. I larger the zoom the more artefacts you'll find in the images.
When I owned Nikons I was always slightly envious of Canon owners, they had a whopping 8.2mp as opposed to my 6.1 on the D70, and in my naivity I felt I was missing out.

What Panasonic have done is take a step back and thought, "600mm is close enough, how far away do you really want to be to get a shot", so their lens is the same 25-600mm of their last few 24x zooms. An f2.8 constant aperture makes shooting at 600mm a much more pleasant affair and opens up the possibilities of actually getting a shot in the bag rather than missing out because of longer shutter speeds creating blurry shots.
Compare this with the Canon SX50 HS which at the same 600mm zoom setting is only giving a widest aperture of f5.6, shutter speeds are going to be much quicker so you'll get more shots that are keepers.

It's funny how Canon have gone the other way with their G series of compact cameras in that they've wound back the megapixels in favour of less noise on the sensor.
Also, the new 5d mk3 Dslr they haven't pushed the megapixels and for once its Nikon who have done this with their new D800!
Wonder why Canon haven't done the same in their Bridge cameras:shrug:

It's a fact that cameras with high zoom ratios and/or high mega pixel counts sell well. The above features are of course important but a camera with less magapixels and a lower zoom ratio may take a better pic.


For my amateur efforts 12 meg is fine. I would much rather have good glass and good noise control in my camera. Of course if you have good/fast glass the noise is less of a problem anyhow. Hence I try and shoot with fixed focal length lenses but this can be inconveniant and not always possible.


It's worth pointing out that the conveniance of a high zoom ratio may be a loss of quality.

The above is a general comment and of course may not be true in every single case.

Having said all that, bridge cameras and compacts can take excellent pics. They tend to struggle more in difficult situations.

The warts and all isnt that bad an approach I think good composition is a huge part of the feelings the pictues evokes in the viwer, as for noise I felt both pics were of a high standard phil and a blind man would have been glad to have seen them. I still have my minolta rokkor lens and with a adapter I can use them on my nikon DSLR the rokkors are excellent lens but again more weight to carry around hence the bridge camera, it always going to be a compromise specially as you get older I used to use a aluminum camera case which I could stand on if in a crowd those were the days !!!

Phil knows my editing programs are simple and also free !! one I still use from 1998 is Livepix its simple and very effective i think Paint shop pro 7 is my second call and finally photoscape which is excellent for effects and worth a try I think.

Meeting cancelled for tomorrow so no piccies but next weekend hopefully
weel I off to watch Stargate Ark of Truth LOL


Mike

I bought a new photography book yesterday called 'Birds of Kenya, the photographers guide and it suggested buying the best DSLR camera one can afford with the priority being sharpness and clarity of detail for capturing birds and action shots.

The SX40 gets closer than the Nikon I use but it does suffer from noise even with the Canon's new digic 5 processor at max zoom.

I had a look at the new Panasonic FZ200 at photoblog.com and it gave a detailed review. I won't go into the review as I suggest people read it for themselves and then decide how it matches up.

I have come to the conclusion that bridge cameras are more convenient for carrying around but they can not match the quality of a good DSLR and lenses, although they are coming close to it. Feel free to agree/disagree :}

I take on board all of your comment Mike positively. Who would have thought a blind man would be pleased to see my photos :getmecoat:

Bad luck the meeting at Halfway House was cancelled. Maybe you made it to the Little Chef :}

Here are some more photos I took using the Nikon DSLR and the Canon Bridge. All needed some work to reduce the noise. Both cameras by coincidence are rated at 12.1 megapixels. In the last shot, the young eagle turned its head as the shutter went down. I waited and waited for it to fly away as I wanted to capture it in flight - but no luck.

I will post my other bird and wild game photos in the Out of Africa thread I started some time ago in case there are any members who appreciate bird life ;)

Spot on Phil

They are very handy and take acceptable pictures in normal conditions but in essence they are a compromise. For the average punter taking snaps of the kids etc they are great.

If you really want to take the best pics possible of far away birds you will need a setup like you see photograpers at sports events. The lens alone may cost several thousand pounds.:mad:

Also, your nikon can only be as good as the lens you have on it. I don't know anything about the camera itself so cannot comment.

I don't have the equipment to take fantastic long range bird shots myself.

Most people who get seriously into photography end spending lots of money and have a bagful of lenses. I don't think any of the newer breed of cameras has changed that.

Edit: Here is guy I seem to end up on the same page on flickr quite a bit. He uses averagely priced DSLR gear and takes lots of good wild life stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerbosma/

Thanks Paul for the link to FlickR and those excellent photos taken by the poster. He is in another league and I can see I have still have a allot to learn. I am not downhearted when I compare his to mine. I admire such quality. I will revisit those pics again.

I suspect that Alan and Jeff have big lenses for their DSLR's

For now, I am not able to afford to be able to buy a big lens costing KKK. No worries. I will plod on and get as much satisfaction as possible from what I have.

One thing which has been bugging me is the tripod issue. Some use a monopod and my next purchase will be one with a tripod with good head, as I need to be able to swivel it without any jerky movements. It needs to be robust and tough.

Any ideas?

Big Lenses, Moi !!

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...5CEEF47A8B.jpg

Never;)

Phil, this is a picture of my old Lens.
Sigma 150-500mm Bigmo !
You can pick this Lens up for around £700 new and around £500 on the second hand market.
As far as I remember its available in Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony mounts and maybe others.
It's not the fastest lens in the world, if memory serves me right it was 5.6-6.3 !
I sold it last year to help fund a faster Lens costing quite a bit more.
But in good light and using the optical stabiliser if hand holding it bagged me good results with Motorsport and I'm sure would make a good wildlife lens especially with the good light you have there.
If your tracking and panning animals in reasonable light I would suggest a monopod instead of a tripod.
Tripods tend to be used when using very slow shutter speeds and usually of static objects.
I very rarely take mine when shooting fast cars and use the monopod instead.
My tripod is a Manfrotto 055xbpro with trigger head and I use a Manfrotto 681b with matching quick release head.
Hope that helps.

This is the Lens I use now, modelled in great fashion by my nearest and dearest Ros.
http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...05ED71169A.jpg
This is also a Sigma Lens 120-300 f2.8 constant aperture.
Much faster lens but less reach although I do have a teleconvertor that extends it by a factor of 2 giving it a 600mm reach not including the crop factor of my cameras sensor.
The converter costs me two stops but is still faster than my old lens.
Downside is.....it's rather heavy and not really suitable for hand holding for any great length of time.
We won't mention the costs except it runs into four digits, Don't tell Ros that ;)

Yours is indeed huge Jeff. You are a lucky man.

I am still mulling over whether to get the tamron 90mm macro. It does not matter at the moment as I only venture out with the camera when the temperature is more acceptable.

I may well sell 2 or 3 of my old manual lenses to help fund it. I know the Tamron will be useful for insects, flowers, horses and my way of shooting birds (from about 6-10 feet). I have a 135mm Takumar that could go and I use another old lens on extension tubes for macro work, that may well be redundant also.

Mind you selling lenses is not something that comes easily. :}

That is one big mother you had there Jeff :}

I will keep an eye on the London Cam Exchange to see what they have got in the way of the lenses at the right price and size. I am in 2 minds about another bridge cam or to get a bigger lens for the Nikon. It is just as well I did not give my Nikon away when I bought the Canon.

I take the point about a mono pod being more handy for popping out to various shoots. Most of my shots in the wild I take from the front seat of my car with the window rolled down and the cam on a bean bag or I ask my wife to take the shot because of my tremor. On the odd occasion I am able to get out and get close to a wild animal. I have rules where I do not get out and they apply to lions, elephants, rhino and buffalo. We know people who have ignored this and suffered. The photos I took of the crocs last year I took on foot and one did give chase, so I am not always so sensible LOL

The tripod would be handy for the night shots like the moon and so on. I think Paul uses a tripod for some of his shots?

My wife likes to paint people and wild life for fun and sometimes paints from the photos I take.

How did the meet at the Little Chef go?

I know how you feel.
If I could I would keep all my lenses but the bank balance doesn't stretch to allowing that:shrug:
To afford the Sigma I had to sell the other Sigma and my Canon 10-22mm wide angle, that one really hurt!
But it only got used occasionally where as the telephotos I use all the time for my Motorsport photography.
I do intend to buy a wide angle again at some point but the old one was an ef-s lens and only fits crop bodies and the ef lenses aren't really wide enough for the crop sensor.
I shall stick to using my 24-105 at the wide end and stitching photos together for the moment!
The lens I really really want is the Canon 70-200L 2.8 i.s:drool4:
Oh well, what next to sell;)

It didn't :shrug:
The Halfway house meet was cancelled due to the weather conditions.
It has been rescheduled for next Sunday, weather dependent :}

Thought you were going to say Ros was the lucky one for a minute there;)
I wish:getmecoat:

I have never tried using extension tubes and would not know how to go about it Paul. I have seen the macro shots on here you have produced and although I did not like the fly shot, because of my phobia of flies, it was an excellent study. The family here has a small holding of cows, geese and chickens and there are lots of flies. Too many for my liking ;)

Bad luck Jeff

I did see on the news today that a blanket of snow is expected to cover the UK next week. I hope it clears up in time :)

Lol

I'll avoid posting fly shots in the future. I prefer butterflies, bees, hoverflies etc. The are much more attractive.

Extension tubes are just tubes/rings that go between the lens and the camera, they just position the lens a little further from the camera.. They work in a similar way to pulling your glasses further down your nose to give more magnification. They sound complicated but are in fact quite simple.

Fingers crossed Phil,
Hope to see you at one in the near future Sir:}
This thread has gone off topic on bridge cameras somewhat hasn't it:D

I do tend to agree in principle with your comments phil and although I do not perceive myself as a 'punter' rockets thoughts are true for the majority of the public & thank goodness for that or we all be sitting here with our manual film camera still.

I think we tend to forget that back in the day of film photography it was down to the lens makers the ASA of the film we used then we were at the mercy of the film deveelopers & I saw some shocking results !! which is why I mostly worked in transparency film and black and white so I had control of the process and you have seen some of my early work phil and I think i had got the hang of B/W printing mainly. For true telephoto lens you are talking very large sums of money and a monopod or tripod is a must and for the 'average' photographer the situation doesnt warrant the costs.

No I didnt go to Little Chef as we had another heavy fall of snow on early hours of sunday morning, hopefully the weather will have improved by sunday


These are the thoughts of the man on the clapham omnibus

Mike

Mike, thanks for sharing your thoughts and for casting us back to the old days of black and white film (which some still use). I have seen the work you did from that era - Glamour and so on, tastefully done. Good point about the lens. Now it has all changed and for various reasons photography has been forced to move in another direction.

I am waiting for reviews to see how the generation of mirrorless interchangable lens and the micro four thirds systems go.

What a choice the punters have and how confusing it can all be.

Interesting Paul. How do you manage to get the bees and the butterflies to stay in the one place for that special shot?

I don't Phil.

I shoot in bright sunlight as to get high shutter speeds. (also helps to get a smaller aperture for greater depth of field, this becomes a balancing act) I also set the camera to max fps (6 frames per sec for mine I think) About one in 50 comes out as a keeper. I'd hope to be able to get a small number of good ones per hour.

Some may frown but I use the facillity to take 6 pics per second quite a bit. I even used it at the recent christening I attended. If you take a group photo you can bet your life someone will blink or move, so just keep you finger on the button and take 12 pics. One will look better than the other 11. Same goes for most wildlife as they have no intention of posing.

Digital photography allows one to do this with no extra costs :}

You still have to think about things as if you were just taking the one shot but you end up with many almost the same. One or two will always look better.

:wot:
I concur, for my panning shots of fast moving cars I use machine gun mode nearly all the time, as you say it costs you nothing and you can cherry pick the best one from the sequence.
The only difference for me is using a slow shutter so not to freeze the background but hopefully the car whilst showing movement in the wheels still.
Paul, if your using fast shutter speeds with small F numbers do you use Nd filters to achieve your desired exposure?

Thinking about blinking eyelids and buzzing bees, it makes sense to take a burst of shots at high shutter speeds in bright sunlight over 6 - 12 secs come to think about it. I can do it on the Nikon but have not tried it out on the Canon.

I am still trying to imagine this with the bellows on.

No special techniques Jeff, just really bright summer days for max light. It becomes a juggle to get no blur and reasonable depth of field (this is for macros) If it is cloudy it becomes really hard to get good results. The colours look more vibrant in bright sunlight which is great on insects.

Of course with my extension tubes and old manual lens I have no auto focus. (auto focus is nigh on impossible for fast moving macro work anyhow), so many of the shots are out of focus. I end up bobbing my head backwards and forwards trying to get focus rather than using the focus ring. I must look quite impressive pushing my head backwards and forwards into the bushes.


I remember talking to a top polo photographer at a local match. He had some wonderful gear that must have cost the earth. He said he uses the machine gun method most of time during matches.

Thanks guys for your thoughts, tricks and tips. It is highly valued and I hope this theme continues even though we have diversified from the header. However as I instigated the post I am happy with the direction it is taking. I hope I do not appear too pompous in saying this :}

I also hope that people reading this will feel they are able to continue sharing their experiences and knowledge in this thread and in others. I am still learning even though I have been interested and dabbled in photography since the 1970's.

Big lenses are a serious investment, when you're shelling out £1000 and up you need to at least be able to get the best out of them.
I had the Bigma 50-500mm OShttp://farm6.staticflickr.com/5285/5...b3b7ac45_z.jpg

I then got rid of it and bought the Canon 100-400mm f5.6 as I preferred the push/pull zoom action and the f5.6 was more usable than the f6.3 of the Bigma. I don't get too wrapped up in the differences of camera bodies as technology is so fast moving, buy one that does all you need it to, but always always buy the best lenses you can afford. Lenses for most people will stay with you as you change camera bodies over the years. Only when you switch to full frame would you need to change your EF-S or DX lenses.

On the subject of macro I have found it hard to use my SLR, and took most of my best macros on a set up which uses a Canon SX1 that i've mentioned before. There was just something about this camera that I just bonded with and it was a perfect tool for stalking insects etc.
When I visit RSPB sites i'll generally spend all day hunting and stalking the creepy crawlies. This is one of my favourite macros of a Hoverfly in flight:
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4115/4...da81fb84_z.jpg

While it's not technically brilliant and has some image noise it's still a hard thing to capture. The beauty of the SX1 is that even at these extremes is that it can shoot 10mp RAW files at 4fps, which is a rarity for bridge cameras.

hi Phil, sorry have not posted of late some changes i have no longer got canon sx50 Phil it had a fault and had to go back got full refund on it though, so am thinking of not a bridge camera, it's been not a very nice since i last spoke to you have been ill myself but am over it now,will no doubt get in touch with you when i have got my photography head back on ,need to sort out the paintwork on my 75 first, oh just before i sign off your question how do you get the bees and butterflies to stay still in one place?the answer is JAM. GARY.

I own the descendant of the Canon SX50, the pensionable S3 IS, I can use a friends SLR when I need better image quality, and the S3 is still reasonably good quality, I enjoy transport photography mainly, and continuous shooting is a must for this type of work, as with a fast moving object you'd need to be David Bailey to hit the shutter at exactly the right time!

Don't show Stu ( leopard680 ) that picture , he'll come over all excited :}

The S3 was a great little camera. You can get the later S5 IS on ebay now for less than £40.

You will be pleased to know that there are umpteen members on the forum who are transport buffs. Just keep your eyes peeled :}

I agree with you there Alan, such an insect in flight is hard to capture. I had a go recently with the SX40 and all is could manage was of a red dragon fly at rest beside a pond. I have not posted it up. Not quite the same action shot as yours.

Oh I will :)

Does Motorsport count as transport :D:getmecoat:

Of course it does Jeff. We have seen interests and affiliations to Old Buses, Aircraft, Steam Engines - Rail and Tractors, Caravans, Yachts. Not so many of the latter but we do have a few sailors in the club. When the season picks up I hope we are going to see some more of those racy and dramatic photos. I know you have a library of thousands of car pics :} In contrast to that I have childhood memories of holidays in Eire getting around in a horse and trap with my folks. In those days, not many people owned a car and photography was something completely different with b+w being very popular. Apologies for diverting away.