ITT photography

[Bioture]

The Sigma is for my digital SLR. And Nikon and Pentax have different mounts, anyway.

But I really want that extra 2mm on the wide end--it's amazing the difference it can make.

From experience the extra 2mm (actually it's 8mm, since the 12mm on the other lens is multiplied by 1.5) does give you a better edge for super landscape shots, however you pay for it with a lot of vignetting at the edges. This doesn't happen in the 12-24 because of the 1.5 crop factor. I did a few comparison shots and found the 12-24 to be slightly sharper. But otherwise if you're just going to use it exclusively on your dslr, go for the 10-20mm. I like film sometimes, so any lens that doesn't give me full frame is out of the question.

I'm not much of a landscape photographer. I think the 24mm is about as wide as I go 95% of the time since I focus primarily on nature, nature macro, and portraits.

[Saturn V]

Bioture--

Personally, I'm not a big fan of macros, and I simply hate macro flower shots, so don't get too offended here. I'll try to remain objective. :P

The first shot is confusing--difficult to find or tell what the subject matter is. And the glare on the green part is distracting.

The two flowers, well, I hate them obviously, but... the blue one it's a shame the top part of the leaf wasn't in the frame. Also, if you could some how better distinguish one from the rest it might be better. The second one, I think you might want to get a bit of a wider shot on.

I really like the first ladybug shot, but I imagine it could be cropped better. Consider saturating the colors a little, too.

[Galleleo]

Mirr, all the houses on your pictures are askewed!

[MirrorriM]

Blame the buildings not me! :grin:

[Sufficient]

I like the pic with the pages of the book in the shot. Specifically seeing the details in the lettering and texture of the pages is pretty neat.

[Fit of Rage]

and one more that is cropped. I took this one by pure luck, actually. The ladybug takes a fraction of a second to take off, and there is a .2 second shutter lag from my a700. So just being able to get this (and having it be sharp) is amazing.

That's pretty sick.

[Squeezer]

I guess this would be a good thread to bring this up, but once I get my tax returns, I plan on investing it into a digital camera.

Any recommendations? Methinnks it needs to at least be 10 megapixels, and I'm not looking to spend more than a grand, but I figure someone like Scurvy or Saturn would probably know.

I definately do not want to deal with film however. I have to endure working with that shit everyday because my school's Journalism program is too cheap to move forward into the age of technology.

[Bioture]

I guess this would be a good thread to bring this up, but once I get my tax returns, I plan on investing it into a digital camera.

Any recommendations? Methinnks it needs to at least be 10 megapixels, and I'm not looking to spend more than a grand, but I figure someone like Scurvy or Saturn would probably know.

If you're looking for an entry level dslr, they're all pretty much the same, actually. try www.cameralabs.com, and see their reviews of the a100 vs. D40 vs. Canon Rebel xti (or something like that). It's not the megapixels, but the quality of the megapixels that count. A minolta 7D with 6 megapixels would completely blow a canon xti's 10 megapixels out of the water, provided that they used simliar lenses. My only advice is to maybe stay away from a kit lens, and do a bit more research and invest in a better lens (a standard 50mm 1.4, for example) to start out with.

Another thing to consider is the lenses. A $600 camera with a $1500 lens would take far better pictures than a $8000 camera with a $300 lens. Basically the sky's the limit here... and once you have a few lenses you're bought into the family of lenses since they're aren't interchangeable between brands unless you get an adapter, which kills some of the image quality.

sorry if I took the liberty to answer. I know I'm not scurvy or saturn.

[Scurvy]

I guess this would be a good thread to bring this up, but once I get my tax returns, I plan on investing it into a digital camera.

Any recommendations? Methinnks it needs to at least be 10 megapixels, and I'm not looking to spend more than a grand, but I figure someone like Scurvy or Saturn would probably know.

I definately do not want to deal with film however. I have to endure working with that shit everyday because my school's Journalism program is too cheap to move forward into the age of technology.

http://en.leica-camera.com/photograp...tem/digilux_3/

depends on how big your tax return is

kind of cool that your journalism class uses traditional. in the 1920's the first photo journalists would keep a mini darkroom in the trunk of their cars so that they could get the images out right away


edit: bio knows what he's talking about. you can spend as much money as you want on a camera--make sure you do some research and get a decent lens. a canon rebel would probably fit all your needs fairly well, and its pretty user friendly. Ultimately though, a camera is only a tool and any quality images that you produce will be a result of you as a photographer. so dont break the bank on a camera....

[FarScape]

Nice photos!

[Scurvy]

i haven't done any photography in a while aside from senior portraits, and god knows nobody wants to look at those

[Saturn V]

Squeezer--

Don't get caught up in megapixels. It's a bigger deal if you're going to do a lot of large printing (H3D.....).

If you have friends that have Canon or Nikon, I'd recommend maybe getting what they have so you can swap lenses and accessories. Brands don't matter. Get what body you can afford, even if it's an XTi or D40 with a kit lens. It's always good to get a basic lens like that and use it, use it, use it. Then you can decide what you wish you could do with that lens but can't because of the limitations (maybe the kit is too slow, or doesn't have a long enough reach for you, etc). I just think that it's better to spend a little money on a somewhat versatile lens and then figure out what you want from there instead of trying to do it the other way around.

A $600 camera with a $1500 lens would take far better pictures than a $8000 camera with a $300 lens.

True in theory, not always in practice. I know several people who got jealous after I got my entry-level DSLR with a kit lens and went out and dumped big money on some pretty serious equipment. Their pictures don't come close to mine (not to brag, but they don't).

Just don't expect magic from your camera just because you drop a grand or five on it.

[Squeezer]

Wow thanks Bio, Saturn and Scurvy.

I now have something to do before work.

[Bioture]

True in theory, not always in practice.

Obviously "the most important part of the camera is the twelve inches behind it." No amount of equipment you buy is ever going to run around and compose pictures for you. But it is important to eventually invest in order to get what you want after you know what you're interested in shooting. For example:



This simply would not be possible with a kit lens that tops out at around 50-70mm. It won't happen no matter how good you are at composition, or how well you understand exposure, or how much you crop your photo.

this is shot handheld at 1000mm with 2x teleconverter, sigma 50-500mm, a700 @ f11. wasn't until after processing did I notice the amount of tags on this bird's leg. photo has not been cropped.

[Pressure Drop]

nice pics mirror Italy looks beautiful ^_^