I will be happy to answer
Attention All GWC Camera Nuts!
I am thinking seriously about upgrading my ability to shoot indoor sports photograhy to capture my daughter’s competition dance (mostly high school indoor gyms) and my son’s ice hockey games (indoor ice rinks). Both are about the most extreme fringe of photography requiring very expensive equipment. I’m talking a no-flash, dimly lit environment with fast moving subjects. I know the lens will most likely be more expensive than the camera body. I know I need a lens F/2.8 or less with under F/2 being preferable. But I’m not really familiar with currently available hardware nor where a good place is to get it.
I currently own an aging Cannon Rebel XS with the original 18-55mm lens and a 70-300mm telephoto lens. Unfortunately these lenses are not adequate and as far as I can nobody ever made more expensive lenses that fit this camera body. I currently shoot on Av mode, rapid shot, with not using the zoom at all. My results are less than optimal.
So my questions are:
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What is a good Camera Body to obtain what I need. I’d like to not spend money if I don’t have to but realize it may be in the $1000s range.
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What is a good lens to compliment whatever camera body you are recommending?
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Where is a good place to pick this stuff up?
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Baring anything else, I’ll take any suggestions on how to set my existing camera up to take better action shots in low light, no flash conditions.
My apologies if I have already posted this a year ago or so but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Plus a lot changes each year in the photography field.
Thanks in advance for anyone’s response. I truely appreciate and value your response. GWCers are truely the most amazing group of folks I’ve ever been associated with and I know someone in here knows how to help me and has the answers to my questions that can help move me forward.
Thanks again!
~Shooter
So I did a little research today and apparently my Rebel XS is indeed compatible with EF and EF-S canon lenses. After a little investigation it appears that this lens would be a better fit for what I need it for: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM Telephoto Zoom Lens. It’s not the biggest lens and it’s not the most expensive by far but it should help out more than my current 75-300 zoom that only goes down to f/4.
I also am eyeing a 35mm lens to take care of near field stuff that the 70mm won’t be able to fit into it’s field of vision: Canon EF 35mm f/2 Wide Angle Lens.
Let me know what you think!
~Shooter Out.
note: Original thread and posts merged into this forum - S
This post reminds me I need to get active on the Forum again. Sorry buddy.
Photonutz is truly the man. I have bounced every camera question off of him with good results. I can address some basics, but for the exact specific details and recommendations look to him. (he undoubtably will correct any missteps I make) I’ll also merge this in his thread.
After years of photography I have found that 3 lenses do the trick. If you can spend some cash you can make it 2.
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18-35: This is my indoor party lens. Going to 18 means I can take in a great deal of the room without awkwardly positioning myself. I’ll add pictures to this post later to illustrate what I mean.
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30mm Prime lens. This is the lens that changed my life and came recommended from Photonutz. It is my understanding that before the 1960s all lenses were prime. Then the zoom was invented and casual photographers forgot about them. Ever notice why close up wedding pictures from professional photographers look so good? Prime lens aka portrait lens. In short it tightens the field of of focus so your subject is crystal clear and (in general without adjustment) subjects further away blur making the subject pop. I love the lens for this as well as its ability to drink in light. The aperture is enormous. When I take pictures with this when I get the focus right the results can be literally breathtaking.
Note the tightness of focus can also be frustrating. I have several pics of my kids where Lil’ Solai is holding Baby Tightpants. He will be in focus, she will not. I have been working to brush up on my manual adjustments to compensate
- Zoom lens: 28-200. (this is the one where with a little cash you can get an 18-200 which would be awesome. Party lens and sports lens.) Everyone needs a zoom. Period.
Those are my thots. Photonutz, take it away.
Hi Shooter,
Ok step by step for each question;
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You don’t need a new body unless you are looking to shoot sports professionally. What you need to do is switch the AF from One Shot to AI Servo. AI Servo is a special AF mode for tracking moving objects. Use it only when tracking motion. The Rebel XS can be set to Continuos shooting, shooting a total of 53 JPEGs at 3.5 per second until the buffer fills. Granted that is not as fast as my camera (7.5 fps for 175JPEGs) but for you it will be fine. What you will need most to be honest is a monopod.
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Well the Canon 70-200/2.8L is nice, but doesn’t have IS which helps a lot. Unfortunately the 70-200/2.8 IS L II is about $2,100. For about $200 less you can get the 70-200/4 IS L. Your Rebel actually has decent High ISO shooting capabilities and a constant f4 lens is much lighter as well. The Canon one is excellent btw. Here are high ISO comparisons of your camera (also known as the Canon 450D) - http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos1000d/32
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Discussed in point 1
Hope this helps!
Hi Photonutz,
Are there resources out there where I can build up my iPhone camera Kungfu?
Hi Cylon.
Well you can do a search on “iphoneograpghy” which is what most kids do lol! The thing about the iPhone is that it has little if any control over aperture, shutter or ISO. As with anything there are exceptions. 645Pro is definitely a great Camera App, allowing for RAW development of the image (bypassing the iPhone’s internal JPG engine) and allowing for out put to TIFF - a lossless image file format. Of course these files tend to be much larger than the JPG that the iPhone normally generates. Afyer that for post work apps like Snapseed, Taadaa or my personal favorite Camera Bag 2 are available. Please note that both Snapseed and Camerabag are also available as desktop apps for Macs.
Oh, here is a great iphoneography site - http://www.iphoneography.com/
Thanks Photonutz!
This thread is great. I’m interested in photography and have been reading and playing around with the settings on my rebel too. Threads like this are very helpful 
Thanks daSnarf. Ask a question!
I have a few beginner-level queries, and a little background.
I have had a Canon EOS 1100D (a.k.a Rebel T3) for just shy of a year. I call it “just enough Too Much Camera” for me, as it gives me more control and has room for me to improve, although I fully admit I am barely scratching the surface.
The camera itself, just by being a DSLR, takes far better pictures than my old compact and, through trial and (much) error I am starting to figure out how to take better photos with it. Although, at the moment, when I figure out what does and doesn’t work I don’t always understand why.
My main questions really boil down to me now wanting to learn how to really take advantage of it. When I search for information, though, I find a lot of jargon (that I wish to learn) and so many places to look that I don’t know where to start?
Currently my knowledge of the terminology is very limited. As a techie I am not averse to learning new jargon.
Are there some good and reliable resources out there that will help me to understand the terminology and give some good hints on how to take better photos?
Also, are there any useful but small books out there? I say small not just to keep the prices down, but to have something that I could easily sling into my camera bag.
Tiggs
(via Tapatalk on iPad)
Hi TiggsPanther,
To fully understand what you can do with a camera there are just three technical things you have to learn and understand to control;
- Shutter Speed
- Aperture
- ISO
Everything else is just BS bells and whistles. Why $8000 dollar pro cameras have for the most part only those three controls! Rebels tend to have a lot more “user friendly” (more like user confusing) features.
This site is the Photography Glossary - http://www.peterashbyhayter.co.uk/glossary.html it will help you with the terminology of photography, but with digital as well as film the three I mentioned are the most important.
As far as how to control these three to take great photos you should check out http://www.photography101.org/, great site that goes over the basics.
Now for a quick review here is what I know of these three parameters.
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Shutter Speed - is how fast the camera takes an image. This is usually represented in fractions of a second or whole seconds something like 1/60 or 5. The shorter the duration the easier to freeze motion, but the less light reaches the sensor. Of course the longer the duration, the more blur you get, but the more light reaches the sensor.
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Aperture - is the size of the hole in the lens letting in light. The is usually represented by an “f number” or “f stop”. The lower the number the more light it lets in to reach the sensor. So say a 50mm lens set to f1.4 will let in 32x more light than the same lens set to f8. Each difference in stop is a halving or doubling of light reaching the sensor. fstops usually run as follows - 1.4,2,2.8,4,5.6,8,11,16,22 with some lenses going as high as f128 and some going as low as f0.95. Aperture also controls depth of field - that is the amount of the photo that is in focus. The higher the fstop the more that is in focus, while the lower the fstop the less that remains in focus.
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ISO - this is how sensitive the sensor is to light. The higher the ISO the more sensitive, and therefore less light is required for a proper exposure. The lower the ISO, the less sensitive. Of course there are trade offs. The higher the ISO, the more noise and therefore image degradation you get, while the lower the ISO the cleaner an image.
All three of these parameter are interrelated. A change in one requires a change in either or both of the other parameters to achieve a proper exposure, but more on that later Hope this gives you a good start.