Team-BHP - The Digital Camera Thread: Questions, discussions, etc.

Hello Friends,

Does anyone know whether it will be possible to buy second hand Minolta glasses for my Alpha, in India? I want to buy the legendary Minolta 70-210mm F4 'beercan' lens. Any information greatly appreciated. I have seen some of them in ebay.com but not in ebay India. :-(

The prices of old Minolta lenses are rising due Alpha range of SLRs from Sony.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dadu (Post 1181969)

Experts: Whats the best technique to capture Stage shows ??, conditions: varying lights(coloured), Moving people (dance performance), no time to retake or proper autofocus, Dark hall, lights on the stage.

What settings will work in the best manner for this.

One suggestion: If the light conditions vary, then shoot in RAW mode. Later you can adjust the white balance. If I am shooting in Jpeg mode, then I'll adjust the white balance to tungsten if the lighting is that. If you are capturing dances or so, you might want to increase your shutter speed, ISO and turn on flash if there's no proper lighting. On the other hand, I've seen some real nice long exposure effects on stage performances in flickr.

Black and white shots will be a good idea for some stage shows.

I have a small query: I have a Canon Powershot G9 which takes great pics, has 12MP, but 6X zoom. I think there are some accessories which can make it better. My sister-in-law is coming from the US in 3/2009 and may be able to get it a cheap rate (the rates quoted below are much lower than when I bought the g9 in 12/2007). These accessories include:

Canon TC-DC58C Tele Converter Lens (US$100): This basically doubles the zoom to 12x optical, but requires LA-DC58H Conversion Lens Adapter.
Canon WC-DC58B Wide Converter Lens (US$145) : This basically converts the focal distance of lens by a factor of 0.75x when attached to the camera, making it ideal for group shots or panoramic nature photos.

Both the above require:
Canon LA-DC58H Conversion Lens Adapter (US$20 on amazon us): This allows use of Wide Converter WC-DC58B and Tele Converter TC-DC58C with G9

I would love to have a bigger zoom on my G9. Can experts here and ROC in particular advise how do I spend my money wisely and achieve better results. The G9 is a great camera and the cost incurred in spending on these accessories would be much less than buying a new superzoom/DSLR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steeroid (Post 421101)

Has anyone here heard of this brand called 'Sigma' (if its an esoteric one, forgive me for I know not). There's an SD14 offer from this manufacturer here - looks rather nice and impressive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 421119)

So it is out finally, the SD14 was announced long back. It uses the Sigma mount obviously, so your Nikon lenses won't work. They use a very revolutionary sensor called Foveon X3.

But, Sigma is well known for its inexpensive lenses. Therefore, they do have lots of lenses available for their DSLR family. This one is a pro dSLR with 14 MP sensor. Wait for some reviews before you consider it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steeroid (Post 1186710)

Sometime back I posted a query on Sigma cameras at a time when I hadnt seen any from the brand. They were launched with great fanfare about a year or two ago.

Any idea what happened to this venture? I havent come across a single person using a Sigma SLR so far.

Well, 6 months back they annonced SD 15, not yet available in the market though.

The SD14 however, has been massively discounted. The originally $1699 priced body is now available for $350. Obviously, it didn't do well in the market.

Amazon.com: Sigma SD14 14MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only): Electronics

Quote:

Originally Posted by rupinder (Post 1181759)

i wanted to know how good is 10-22 mm canon . what is its price cos i was checking out jjmehta and couldnt find the price of this. i also wanted to know if there are any cheaper alternatives by sigma or tamron .btw the canon site doesnt show a 10-22 mm lens so it means that it is not officially available through canon.
thanks

Since you have a 400D I am going to assume that your other lenses are the 18-55 IS and 55-250 IS (or the 17-85 IS and 70-300 IS or 17-55 IS and 70-200 IS) not the 24-70 or 24-105 mated to the 100-400.

If you wide zoom can go wider than 20mm then I would take the Tokina 11-16 over Sigma or Tamron. Canon would be nice ofcourse but it is pricey.

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Originally Posted by navin (Post 1188989)

well that was a very good educated guess .yes i have these two.

what is the price of tokina 11-16 and where can i get ,any reliable dealer

Quote:

Originally Posted by rupinder (Post 1190732)

what is the price of tokina 11-16 and where can i get ,any reliable dealer

I saw a dealer's name on the back pages of Better Photography. I assume Silk and Tokina would have the same dealer.

Still remember the Canon has better CA and distortion the Tokina is a stop faster (on average). Nikonians use more Tokina that Canonians. (1) because Nikon does not have a superb 10-22 like Canon does (2) Tokina engineers are ex-Nikon and hence their lenses have fewer focus problems withNikon bodies than Canon bodies.

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Originally Posted by tsk1979 (Post 1191366)

CA is easily correctable on PP. So I don't really consider CA a problem. Moreover CA shows its worst mostly in architecture shots.

this explains why I had an issue with the Tokina when I am using wides I am ususally shooting architecture and distortion is apparent.

navin, distortion will happen with any wide angle lens. You can correct it in PP, but effect is weird. So for architecture, a longer lens is actually better.
50mm (in 35mm format) is actually optimal for architecture.
I know a guy who shoots architecture with 35mm prime. Since he is near the building, he takes around 30-40 shots with his D300. Then he stiches them together to get a 40MP extremely high resolution image :D

I am planning to buy a digital camera. I am not very fond of photography and will only be using occasionally. I have narrowed down to two model, Canon SX10 IS and Canon Powershot A2000 IS. I will be sourcing them from US. I think Powershot suits the best to my choice as its cheap. What do you think guys?
Any idea regarding their price in US will be great help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsk1979 (Post 1191449)

There's a CA correction in Photomatix as well. Results are pretty good.