 Kelly Riehle |
Help !!! I am a complete novice at photography. I love to take pics and my main interests are birding and family. I have a Cannon Digital Rebel XT and a EF 75-300mm lens. The thing is that all that EF 75-300mm means absolutely nothing to me. All I know is that it zooms in on things. I'm wanting a lens with a greater zoom but since I dont' know telephoto from supertelephoto or the difference between EF 300mm or EF 70-200mm I have no idea what to get. Can someone explain to me what all the EF and numbers mean? What's a good lens to get that will enable me to get in close to the birds. And, please, please, if you elect to answer this question do not use a bunch of technical wording. I'm so confused already that I'm ready to hang it all up. If you can help me out I'd really appreciate it. Thanks,
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Kerry L. Walker |
I'm not a Canon owner so I really can't tell you what the EF stands for except that it is a Canon lens designation. I can tell you that Canon makes a 100-400 zoom, but it will set you back a little over $1,300.00. With the digital crop factor, the 75-300 should be getting you pretty close already.
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Brendan Knell |
Like Kerry, I'm not a Canon user, so I can't tell you anything about EF except what Kerry said. My Sony DSC-F828, is also a 8MP camera. It has a 28-200mm lens and it does a pretty good job of zooming in close, so your 75-300mm should be even better. About the EF 300mm and the EF 70-200mm, I'm going to try to explain this the best I can, so if there is anything you don't get, let me know. How zooming works is you move the end of the lens away from the digital sensor(which is like the film). The numbers are how far away the sensor is from the end of the lens. So a 300mm lens, the end is always 300mm away from the sensor, so to get closer or further away, you would have to physically move the camera. The 70-200mm lens, the end of the lens can either be 70mm to 200mm away from the sensor. So like I said before if there was anything unclear, let me know and I'll try and make it clearer, or let me know if there was anything that I skiped. Ok and all of you pros out there, correct me if anything in there was wrong. Hope this makes things clearer. Brendan
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Travis Fouche |
EF is Canon's designation for their system of lenses. Any EF or EF-S lens will work with your camera. The numbers in the lens description define the focal length of the lens. All you really need to know is that the bigger the number the closer it will get you. Canon has a comparison tool at http://consumer.usa.canon.com/app/html/EFLenses101/focal_length.html that gives you an example of how close various focal lengths will get you. For a zoom lens you will see two numbers, they define the range of focal lengths that the lens has. A 75-300mm lens can be any focal length between 75 and 300. A 300mm lens can only be that one focal length. As mentioned before if you want to get closer you are going to need a lens with a longer focal length, but this lens does not need to be a zoom lens. The least expensive lens made by Canon that will get you closer that I aware of is their model 2526A004 which is fixed 400mm lens.
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Kelly Riehle |
Thank you very much, Kevin, Brendan and Travis. You explained very clearly and I certainly appreciate that. I especially like the information on the Canon site that will let me see examples of the focal lengths. To Kevin and Brendan, I looked at your galleries. Very, very nice. Hopefully someday I'll actually know enough to take a picture worthy of posting :) Thanks again, Kelly
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Terry R. Hatfield |
If You Want To Take Pictures Of Small Birds You Need At Least A 600mm Lens Or You Wont Be Happy With What Your Getting:-)
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Kelly Riehle |
Thanks Terry H. I appreciate it. Quick, to the point and basically tells me exactly what I need to know. :)
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Brendan Knell |
Kelly, Thanks for the comments on my gallery. On average how far away are the birds? Because if they aren't very far, you wont need one that big. You might want one close, but not that big. Because they can get quite pricy. Also you have an 8MP camera, so if you aren't wanting to print huge, you could just crop them.
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Brendan Knell |
I just looked in the ads in shutterbug, and some of those big lens, are more than your camera.
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Kelly Riehle |
Hi Brendan, it's hard to say how far away the birds are. It depends on where I am and how close I can sneak up on them to get the picture. I'm currently planning a trip up to a marshland where some of the birds will be quite a distance away. I do think I need to get a bigger lens since I've found several instances where the 75-300 I have just doesn't get me in close enough. However, you hit the nail on the head when you talk about the price. It's a little disheartening to want a lens and then go and see the actual prices they ask for them. I'm currently shopping around and looking for the best deal. I look on e-bay a lot but so far haven't seen what I'm looking for. I'd like something around the 400. The 600 would be great but the prices on those are way out of my leaque. Thanks for everything. Kelly
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Justin G. |
Kelly, Hey I shoot Canon, not digital though. I shoot that thing they call film, lots of people aren't aware it exists! No I'm just playing anyways...a 600mm lens is going to run you something like $2500 - $6000 or something ridiculous. Might as well buy a car and drive closer. But don't get discouraged, Canon isn't ripping you off for charging that much, a 600mm lens is going to be extremely expensive to make. Well 300mm is about the most zoom the average photographer is going to get, but 400mm isn't unheard of and still in a decent price range. Well anyways there is something you can buy to double your focal length (75 - 300mm). Its called a teleconverter. You can buy one (a 2x) at KEH at the following link. http://www.keh.com/shop/SHOWPRODUCT.CFM?CRID=11438490&SKID=CE10999049109M1&SID=new&BID=CE&CID=10&SOID=N&curpic=0&dpsp=0 What this teleconverter does is you put it on your camera and then the lens on top of the "TC". The TC has magnifiers in it to multiply the lenses focal length. The most common are 1.4x and 2x. I've seen a 3x once but probably isn't worth a dime. Well anyways the price for the one above is $275. Now I know it sounds like a dream come true, did to me to, but everything has its ups and downs. Ups, its price; being in reach for Average Joe, you and me. Some downs are light loss. You will have to shoot at slightly slower speeds because of this light loss, but a fast ISO setting on your camera should overcome this. Search on here for some more threads on teleconverters, there's a lot of info in this site on them. The downs are slightly more complicated then what I have mentioned but if it was a horrible invention it wouldn't be sold. Make sense? Well anyways best of luck bird shooting and hopefully this helped a little. V/r Justin P.S. If there's any constellation, I'm going to be buying one in a couple months when I save up. P.P.S. I'm going to make another response so this one isn't so long but there's an easy way to get birds to eat from your hands and I'm sure you could get some shots of family members and things, maybe even of you if you do this.
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Justin G. |
Alright here's how you get birds to eat from your hands. This might be kinda hard to explain but keep your imagination up. Find some wood and nail it together to make some sort of flat silhoutte type deal of a human shape (the body). But make it with the legs bent so you can sit it in a chair. Well anyways buy two pairs of clothes that cheap and the same. both pants are the same, both shirts are the same. well anyways dress up your "dummy" and sit him in a lawn chair and set him out in the yard. Hint: use a hat to hid the face so you can hide your face later so the birds don't recognize. Place a plate with bird seed on his lap or the arm of the chair or something and then bird seed all around him. Now keep up on the bird seed everyday to keep the birds coming. Well basically the point here is that the birds (after a couple weeks) will get used to this "man" sitting out there with seeds and start eating from his lap and the ground around him. Well now you (or someone) get dressed up in those same clothes and you physically replace the wooden man with your body (don't forget the camera). well make sure you stay still for a while and the birds *should* start eating from your lap or right next to you. Well it was extremely difficult to explain but once you get the idea you should be able to figure out the idea of it. This should get you closer to the birds and hopefully some good pics. Happy shooting and best of luck. Don't get discouraged at jargon or EVER EVER give up. We're here to help! V/r Justin
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Justin G. |
P.S. I found your lens. Canon 600mm f\4.0 with Image Stabilizer. Found it at www.uniquephoto.com Its gonna run you $7,199.95. Buy me one while your at it!! Justin
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Kelly Riehle |
Justin, sorry it took me a couple of days to respond to your messages but I just woke up after passing out from shock over the price of the 600 lens. I guess I will not be getting one of those anytime soon. I'm sure it's well worth it but my budget just isn't going to stretch that far anytime soon. I like the idea for getting birds to eat near me. I have a ton of birds in my backyard and plan to employ your method to get some really up close shots. I think I'll explore the teleconverter also. It sounds like a reasonable option. I don't think I'll ever give up. I get very frustrated trying to figure out a lot of the photo jargon but I spend most of my time with my camera in my hand just waiting for that perfect shot. I have the photo bug bad. Thanks for everything. I really, really appreciate it. Kelly
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