Photgraphy beginnings ....

[Karl J]

Would appreciate any comments / opinions as I'm considering stepping into the world of photography.

The main subjects would be birds, butterflies, dragonflies, wildflowers and scenic / landscape type photos .... that sort of thing.

I don't really want to go down the road of £1000 + digiscoping kit.

So, as I see it, it'll be a 35 mm. The problem is that I know very little ( bordering on nothing ) about cameras or photgraphy - terms such as f-stop, apertures, ASA are, in all honesty, meaningless. Nor do I know anyone who does know.

So, is this a sensible road to take ? Or, do I know so little I shouldn't even be allowed near a camera ?

I have, though, looked round a few shops and come up with a couple of 'deals' ( ??? ) .... Any comments / opinions on these ?
1 ..... Nikon F65 with 28-80 mm & 70-300 mm lenses .... £270
2.... Nikon F55 also with 28-80 & 70-300 mm lenses .... £290


I did look in a local camera shop but was more expensive, can't remember exact prices though. Anyone have experience of 2nd hand equipment ?

One question I've not really had a satisfactory answer to yet is about magnification. When you buy bins / scope it says X 15 ( or whatever ), cameras seem to come with XX mm lenses - been told a couple of times to divide the XX by 50 and that'll give you the magnification - is that correct ? If it's correct then 6X magnificaton is the most I'd get from the 2 above, would the addition of a 2X converter then work ok ?


As I said ...any suggetions / comments would be really useful.

Thanks in advance

[Andy Bright]

You're in luck Carlos, BF Photography forums are about to be joined by one of the U.K's best wildlife photographers, with articles and maybe direct replies to your questions. Hang in there and you can get some advice from the best.
Andy

[birdman]

Hi Carlos,

I can't help you with the technicalities - far better to wait for expert advice - but the recent photos I have put in the Gallery, and attached to my Northumberland trips are 35mm photos.

I have absolutely no technical expertise, so they will give you an idea of what can be achieved from a zero knowledge base.

You must be aware, of course, that the Farne Island photos were easy close subjects, where I used my camera (Minolta Dynax 500i) on one of its preset settings, with autofocus.

If you come across the photos of the Redshank and the Reed Bunting, they were taken using a Cosina (not a good brand) 400mm lens with a 2x convertor, which necessitated manual focus.

The subjects were a good few yards away, but having seen IanF in action with his digi-scoping kit, I know that he would have achieved images of far greater quality than that.

I already had my 35mm kit, and so I am very reluctant to put it to one side, and rather, I am trying to put myself in situations where I can maximise the effectiveness of my kit.

So from your point of view - and I fully understand your reluctance to commit yourself to a grand's worth of gear - it would be a shame to spend £200-£300 (maybe more?) and then end up spending a further grand to go digi-scoping anyway.

Just my thoughts.

[Karl J]

One more I should have put in my orig. post :

Canon eos300 with 28-90 & 75-300mm lenses - £300



Yes, Birdman, what you say does have a ring about it. Been looking round again this morning ( jessops and a few others ) and it seems the camera itself isn't the end of it; a macro lens (never heard of it before ! ) for small things like flowers etc, extending shutter release lead thing, tripod, and if I wanted a converter or other extra lenses they don;t seem particularly cheap. So though not quite at digiscoping levels yet, the cost is now rising well beyond the orig. price.

Hmmmm ????

Is there a single definitive answer to this ( without opening too big a debate ! ) ; Which produces the best results : 35mm ( at the level of camera I've mentioned) or digiscoping ?

[paulh]

Carlos, I don't think there is a definitive answer. It depends what you want to do.
If you want nice large close-ups of birds for record shots the a 300mm lens is frequently going to be too small (as you said it's about 6x magnification).

What the SLR kit will give you is greater flexibility and control for things like landscapes and moving subjects.

Somebody (I think Andy Bright) summed it up in another thread. Digiscopes for record shots, SLR (or DSLR) for traditional wildlife photography.

[Scott67]

Carlos,

Thats quite a varied range of subjects there, from Landscapes to Macro and everything in between, I originally started out taking photgraphs with just an SLR and one standard lens, learning the camera and lenses abilities as I went along, once I decided on a particular subject ( In my case Wildlife) I began to invest more money down that route.
My own set up is simple, One Canon EOS 50e, a 300mm f4 Telephoto and a fast 28-70 mini zoom, all can be packed in a small holdall/rucksack.

Dont be too put off by second-hand equipment especially if you are on a tight budget, I have bought and sold many items of equipment and in the main all have been very well looked after.

Try and learn about good field craft, Andy Rouse has written some good stuff in his books and inspired me to think more carefully before I set out to take photographs.

Like wise for Landscapes, look at well established photographers work and try to visit the places they have been too.

Best piece of advice I can give is to remember that its you taking the picture not the camera, so learn as much about you surroundings as well as reading the instruction books.

Scott.

[Karl J]

Yes, thanks for those Paul & Scott.

Certainly I'd prefer a simple set-up, I really don't want to go lumping great loads of stuff round. Not owning a car my trips out generally involve a combination of train / bike / walk. So I need a trade-off between the amount of gear and portability.

I seem to remember also a post somewhere stating 1 usable shot for every 10 shots taken digiscoping is a good average. Ok when you're 'learning the ropes' I guess but in the long term I'm not sure I have the patience for that.

Then there's the cost - £1000 for digi stuff. Not sure I want to spend that much. So, thinking aloud, digiscoping isn't sounding too good.

Guess I have some more serious thinking to do before I get to the point of parting with the cash.

There are a couple of respectable looking camera shops dealing in 2nd hand gear in Norwich, I think I'll have a look in them tomorrow.

[Adey Baker]

Carlos

The advantage of digiscoping for the average birder is that, with the equipment that they will probably have anyway (i.e. a decent scope) they can get good photos of birds from the same 'safe' distance that they are viewing them from. With an SLR camera and even something big like a 600mm lens you've really got to work at getting closer to the bird - only you can decide whether you've got the time/commitment for such a venture. I've certainly managed to get quite a few good photos with an all-manual camera (Olympus OM1) and good quality lenses (Olympus 300mm firstly then Sigma 400mm APO) but it's taken me years to do it! Also, many of my subjects were opportunistic shots - if you walk around the same area regularly then sooner or later something will pop up closer than normal, but again this takes time! I've got far more photos over the last couple of years with a digicam and I can carry it in my pocket!

The close focus end of some of the lenses that you've mentioned such as the 28mm-80mm or 28mm-90mm wil often be sufficiently close for good-sized images of Dragonflies and the larger Butterflies but you'll need something closer for the smaller insects.

If you decide on an SLR whether new or second-hand, provided that it's reliable, the most important thing is the lens you stick on the front of it! And if you add a tele-converter, get the best you can afford and remember that they usually work better with a 'prime' lens rather than a zoom.

Adey

[Karl J]

Been out and about today, and in honestly was struggling to comprehend the 35 mm set-up. Just so much gear that I just don't understand.

On top of that there's carrying the stuff; camera, tripod, however many lenses .... as well as bins, fieldguides, camera books, sarnies etc

... and then the idea of changing a lens down at the reserve ..... I sense real disaster looming there !

May have found an answer though, in Jessops, Olympus C-740 digital camera. Which I think I'll put in as a seperate question thread.

Thanks to those replies above.

[MikeMules]

Hi Carlos, I've recently (in the last week!) bought a camera outfit, and I went for an SLR (Minolta Dynax 3) for the following reasons:

1) I'm heading over to France in December, and need a reliable camera for touristy stuff. Digital is too expensive to take backpacking, and then there is the problem of how to store images when the camera is full. With the SLR, I just put a new roll of film in.

2) I needed a camera which allows me to take portraity shots, tourist shots and landscape shots. A decent digital to do that costs in Australia well in excess of $1000AUD. I bought a new SLR, and a second-hand Tamron 28-200 lens, for under $500AUD, with a 2-year warranty. My next purchase will be a T-mount to go on my scope.

3) The interchangeability of lenses was the other thing that sold me on SLRs. I just feel that an SLR is more flexible in allowing me to extend and develop as a photographer (bear in mind I am an absolute beginner with an entire week and four rolls of film behind me.)

Also, if you attach your camera to the scope with a T-mount, you can't be carrying anything more than with a digital setup when you're in the field.

Then again, all the above is what I chose for a camera that I probably won't use much for wildlife photography. I'm more interested in seeing and finding the birds than waiting for a decent shot - too impatient I guess. Although, already I have half-decent piccys of Tawny Frogmouth and E. Yellow Robin, just from the nearby parks.

For what it's worth,

[normjackson]

Hi everyone. Below (in inverted commas) is a post I tried to post Friday morning but haven't been able to because of some techie fault had since Tuesday/Wednesday. It would have been the first response in thread and was intended only to "get the ball rolling". For me this will be a test message. I'm not ignoring subsequent posts, just didn't seem much point in producing a reponse which I'm still not sure will be able to get through. I've since looked at the following link which I think is interesting and relevant :

www.stevesforums.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11700

Regards Norm.

"If you want to make photography your hobby, presumably you'd be happy to read about it. So a good place to start might be a good introductory photography book. Any recommendations anyone?

Given the ease of use and quality of results of the current crop of digital cameras (and the fact that they are supposedly "the future") I think you would be doing yourself a big favour if you went down this route. A £1000+ digiscoping setup is not the only digital camera setup suited to nature photography. (In fact, notwithstanding the generosity and excellence of advice on this forum, going straight into digiscoping is probably not a good idea for a complete novice) For example, if you do a search in the gallery for c720, you'll see some excellent nature photographs taken with an Olympus C720 camera (in some cases with an additional tele convertor) which cover most of the range of subjects you are interested in. And they were achieved with a camera outfit which would fit in the palm of your hand. 35mm (or even roll or sheet film) might ultimately get you pictures that make better big enlargements, or (at a reasonable price level) be better at nature "action" shots. But perhaps these don't really belong to the domain of the novice anyway.

The advantages as against disadvantages of digital vs film are listed in many places. In summary, the disadvantages list for digital is shrinking all the time and, for the most part, the disadvantages are irrelevant to a novice.

My quarter-farthing's worth."

[Aitch]

The things you need most for bird photography don't cost a lot. A good book on bird behaviour. Get to know your subject before even pointing a camera at it. And the one thing that I don't have but is absolutely essential and for which good bird photographers have my utmost admiration, patience. The patience to wait for hours (sometimes over a period of days) in cramped and unsavoury conditions.
I went to a talk given by a first class bird photographer. Someone asked him how much a particular photo would sell for. " About £125." he said. "How long did it take to get it?" I asked. "About 60 hours." he said.
You have to be dedicated.

Good luck and good shooting, Carlos.

H

[walwyn]

Originally posted by Carlos GY
Certainly I'd prefer a simple set-up, I really don't want to go lumping great loads of stuff round. Not owning a car my trips out generally involve a combination of train / bike / walk. So I need a trade-off between the amount of gear and portability.


Know what you mean. I have a soft camera bag which I've had for 23 years, into which goes 70-210 macro zoom, 50, and 28 mm lens, 2X converter, macro extension tubes, camera body, filters, lens cleaning stuff, spare batteries, flash gun. My left hand shoulder is about 4 inches lower than the right. Because I used to walk everywhere, with it drapped over my shoulder too.

So how much of it do I actually use? Well the 70-210 macro zoom and 2X converter are permanently attached to the camera, and the rest is lugged about just in case. Occasionally I'll use the 28 mm lens for location shots. The thing is having got all the equipment I'm loath to leave any of it behind, just in case. But really I don't use it and I suspect that it true for everyone else.

[Karl J]

Thanks for all the replies, some very worthwhile stuff there.

normj - yes, very interesting link.

Although it's still being thought through, I think I'm slowly heading toward slr, for various reasons.

[tarves57]

Hi Carlos,

Just to say that I have been using digital cameras for the past year or two. BUT I just bought myself a Canon EOS 300 (35mm film camera) for about £100 (body only) off Ebay. I then bought a 50mm lens (standard lens apparently), again off Ebay for £66 (only costs £79 new, so by the time I paid postage it wasn't quite a bargain). I now intend to buy a 28mm lens and stop there until I actually use the blooming thing and learn to use it!

Even though I love digital, I'm very excited about learning to use a film camera and I believe the negatives/slides can be scanned, so that takes care of my need to play with my photos in Photoshop. (eg crop, brighten, resize, etc).

Do be careful if you are using Ebay. Look at the seller's feedback and DONT buy anything from outside the UK. (Because you may have to pay a whole lot of import taxes that they don't tell you about).

Susan

[Karl J]

Hi Susan, missed your post originally but thanks all the same. I'm now the owner of a Canon EOS 300 myself.

Couldn't actually reach a unanimous verdict, but decided even if continued thinking about it for many years to come I prob still wouldn't have been any closer to a definite decision ! But after plenty of reading from the library, various BF posts/threads and outside websites, I found that the basic tech bits really weren't that tough after all. Another big factor was the speed of the digital technology advance; I didn't want to spend £300 + today and have it out of date next year, so out I went and bought an SLR.

Have took a couple of rolls of film and am fairly pleased ( allowing for my total lack of experience) with the initial results.

Thanks to all who replied.

[roadrunner]

Good choice, Carlos. You must be excited, being able to capture an image of a moment in time that no one in the world has experienced except you. Equally exciting is being able to share that experience with others through the recorded image. Hope to see some of your efforts posted here and in the galleries.

Did you also purchase the two zoom lenses you mentioned?

I suspect that if and when you decide to go digital, you'll probably give serious thought to Canon's digital SLRs since you already have lenses for it.

Good shooting,
roadrunner

[Karl J]

Roadrunner - Cheers for that. Yes it came with the 28-90 & 75-300 mm EF lenses, I did put a couple of wildflower pictures up this morning which were taken yesterday.

Excited ? ..... Well yes, but I think 'absolutely amazed' that they actually came out in focus is more like it !

As for digital SLR - I did see them when looking about but for the time being at least it's too serious ( and expensive ! ) a bit of kit. Although of course if I ever do go for it & the lenses fit, well that'll be quite a head start. So, yes I'd give Canon SLR serious consideration

[tarves57]

Hi Carlos,
I took my first pictures yesterday, however I won't be able to hand them in for developing till next Saturday.....(one of the minor disadvantages of film!).
What I want to ask is how did you get them developed? Did you get photos and scan them youself or did you ask to have them scanned on development? And what sort of quality digital image did you get? e.g. if the original photo was sharp, was the digital image just as sharp? And what size digital file was it?

Questions... Questions......Questions........

Oh and was it slide or negative film?

Sorry! o:)

Thanks,
Susan

[Karl J]

Hi Susan, yes the one drawback of film I guess. Presumably in the future digital & film will sort of merge somehow and get rid of that problem .... hopefully.

Anyway, developing .... I had them done on the Asda 1 hour service ( on a fuji machine ) as I couldn't wait any longer for my first set & I scanned them myself. Asda will scan onto CD if you want but they turn into read-only files and you can't do anything with them ( cut / crop ... etc ).

Asking me about my scanner is a bit of a lost cause I think, it's new ..... errrmm .... I know I scanned them at 300 something or other and then had to reduce them as they came out enormous. But after that the image is almost as it is on the film & I'm fairly sure with a bit more experience of scanning they'll come out as the film is.

Slide or negative film ????? Well, I presume it's negative, don;t really know for sure. It's 35 mm and came in one of those little round black film pots. I've got negatives with my photos if thats any help. Sorry as I said this is all new.

Hope thats of some use, if not ask away & I'll do my best.

Cheers
Karl

[walwyn]

Carlos,

Transparency film gets processed as the slides which you saw at school or in lectures, and is normally projected onto a screen, though you can get a small hand held viewer. You don't get negatives just a box of little bits of celluloid encased in cardboard or plastic mounts.

For all its inconvienience as a display medium slide film is very easy to home process and can be done quite cheaply. Also for the home darkroom enthusiast colour slides can be printed more easily than negatives. My experience was that by the time you had got the colour filtration sorted out to reverse the effect of the orange mask that you get with negatives, you had either ran out of developer and needed to make up a new batch, or you had ran out of paper and needed to open a new packet. Both actions requiring you to restart the process or filtering out the colour mask.

[tarves57]

Thanks Karl, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

One thing that might be useful....although you can't change or do anything to "read only" photo files on a CD, you can "copy" and "paste" them into a new folder on your hard drive.

These can then be opened up in Photoshop (or whatever image manipulation programme you use) and played about with, i.e. cropped, lightened, darkened, enhanced, etc.

The scanner I have is rather primitive, so I think I'll get them scanned at the shop, but I'll try to scan them at home too. Does your scanner have a special attachment for negatives/transparencies?

Thanks for all the useful information. Were your photos what you expected? I tried to find the wildflower pictures you said you had posted, but they must be on your own website.

By the way, I was sitting reading a bit about the EOS 300 tonight and I discovered a little button to the bottom right of the lens (looking from the front) and wondered what it was for..... Apparently once you have set up and focused your picture, if you press this button, it shows you how much of your picture will be in focus. It's called the "depth of focus" button. Thought you might like to know, as it took me ages to work out how to use it. (My camera didn't have a manual, but I found a set of instructions online).

Regards,
Susan

[Karl J]

Oh right, didn't know that about copying the pics onto my hard drive. No I haven't got one with those attachments - just a plain scanner.

the photo's are in 'my gallery' ... click on this link http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showgallery.php?ppuser=1066 It's only the 3 flowers, the rest were taken with my old kodak advantix camera, I was pleased with them.

yes, that little button .. it only works in certain modes I think, haven't really got that far yet


Walwayn - thats interesting to know. Dont think I'm quite at that stage yet !

[walwyn]

Carlos,

Just so that you know ... its exactly the same as baking a cake ... measurement, temperature, and timing.

[Karl J]

Ah, thats language I understand now !