Newbie Lense Question

[flat-planedCrank]

As others have said, I'd also probably not go for either of your selected lenses..


Tbh I had to check the 100-300 page, not seen that lens around, guessing its an older design... There is a review here
(btw, its £288.99 on warehouseexpress.com)


For any motorsport lens you'll want fast focusing speed, might be best to go have a look at these lenses in a shop. Take your camera & mem card, get a feel for the relative focusing speeds then review the shots to see which performs best.




I'd probably go for the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f4-5.6 IS ( review here. Its £221.89 on warehouseexpress.com), its a lot of lens for the money imo.
Downsides?
Focusing speed may be an issue - doubt it'd be much different than the other options.
Reduced range over the other options - Whether you can live with the range really depends on which circuits you are visiting...



Hope this helps,


Cheers.

[kybo]

To give you a sense of range:
Taken with my Sigma 50-500mm (latest shots)
1/ Silverstone: Luffield A: 313mm
http://www.infinitography.co.uk/F1GPSilverstone200...

2/Silverstone: Luffield A: 226mm
http://www.infinitography.co.uk/F1GPSilverstone200...

3/ Silverstone: Abbey: 226mm
http://www.infinitography.co.uk/F1GPSilverstone200...

Taken with a Sigma 28-300mm (£200 lens). My 1st real Motorsport shots (+ poor editing skills)
4/ Silverstone: Luffield terrace: 300mm
http://www.infinitography.co.uk/F1test2007/album/s...

5/ Silverstone: Pit Straight: 195mm
http://www.infinitography.co.uk/F1test2007/album/s...

6/ Silverstone: Pit Straight: 300mm
http://www.infinitography.co.uk/F1test2007/album/s...

Hope these help - sorry they're all Silverstone - only pics uploaded of Donington are inside the fence so focal length would be inaccurate.

Scott

ETA: sorry they're links but I couldn't get the pics to appear for some reason (at least there's more image data )

Edited by kybo on Friday 17th July 00:24

[kybo]

flat-planedCrank said:

Whether you can live with the range really depends on which circuits you are visiting...

Which circuits were you thinking of? Maybe I or others could posts more relevant pics with focal lengths to give you better examples. (Well, maybe someone ese could actually post pics this time, not links )

Scott

[GuildfordPaul]

Guys... thanks so much for your help, its hugely appreciated, can't believe how helpful you are in this forum.

Each year I go to Spa, Silverstone, German GP next year, maybe Donnington, and occasionally Monaco.

Thanks again guys, I’m looking into all the recommendations, and have forgotten about my original 2 options.

[GuildfordPaul]

Kybo.... your photos are exactly what I’m hoping to achieve, absolutely love them!

[lowdrag]

Being a Nikon person and not Canon, I know that teleconverters can't be attached to the consumer lenses. Can you add them to the Canon or Sigma lenses in this price range? I know that a 1.4x converter loses one stop so it would call for a pretty high ISO level but it could be a further option to lengthen the range which would be useful no matter what circuit. I use them quite often on the Nikon equivalent to the Canon L series. Just a thought.

[GuildfordPaul]

lowdrag said:

Being a Nikon person and not Canon, I know that teleconverters can't be attached to the consumer lenses. Can you add them to the Canon or Sigma lenses in this price range? I know that a 1.4x converter loses one stop so it would call for a pretty high ISO level but it could be a further option to lengthen the range which would be useful no matter what circuit. I use them quite often on the Nikon equivalent to the Canon L series. Just a thought.

thanks lowdrag, i'll look into that idea, i'm new to all this so it doesn't mean a lot to me, i'm going to Jessops in Bluewater tomorrow (sorry if that's frowned upon!), so hopefully they'll have some good pointers on that.

[GuildfordPaul]

a bit more money again, but any thoughts on this lense as a good starter?

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Acc...

[sidaorb]

Keep your eyes peeled for a s/h Sigma 100-300mm F4 HSM, a friend picked one up recently for £325. Stunning lens and add a 1.4x later on for 140-420mm F5.6.

[GuildfordPaul]

sidaorb said:

Keep your eyes peeled for a s/h Sigma 100-300mm F4 HSM, a friend picked one up recently for £325. Stunning lens and add a 1.4x later on for 140-420mm F5.6.

where from?... just doing a search on this lense and they're coming back £900 ish... can't justify that as a new starter!

[Kermit power]

GuildfordPaul said:

I'm going to Jessops in Bluewater tomorrow (sorry if that's frowned upon!), so hopefully they'll have some good pointers on that.

I got a couple of my lenses from Jessops because at the time they were the cheapest (once I'd persuaded them to give me a £30 promo discount on each lens which I only later discovered excluded lenses!) for those particular lenses. That's not always the case though, and especially on things like memory cards and filters, they are hugely more expensive than the web.

Before you go, find the lenses you want on www.camerapricebuster.com and print out the prices so you'll know how much difference there is between Jessops and other places. They obviously don't have absolutely everywhere on there, but I've not yet found many things where they don't have the cheapest price available.

[GuildfordPaul]

Kermit power said:

GuildfordPaul said:

I'm going to Jessops in Bluewater tomorrow (sorry if that's frowned upon!), so hopefully they'll have some good pointers on that.

I got a couple of my lenses from Jessops because at the time they were the cheapest (once I'd persuaded them to give me a £30 promo discount on each lens which I only later discovered excluded lenses!) for those particular lenses. That's not always the case though, and especially on things like memory cards and filters, they are hugely more expensive than the web.

Before you go, find the lenses you want on www.camerapricebuster.com and print out the prices so you'll know how much difference there is between Jessops and other places. They obviously don't have absolutely everywhere on there, but I've not yet found many things where they don't have the cheapest price available.

thanks kermit, good tip, i've found some really good prices on some of the kit i'm looking at on www.simplyelectronics.net, i'll check out the pricebuster website and see how i'm doing, just need to decide on the telephoto lense and i'm good to go.

[Mini1275]

Have you considered a Tamron 70-300mm

Heres a few i took with it:

[GuildfordPaul]

Mini1275 said:

Have you considered a Tamron 70-300mm

lovely pics mate, but looking at the lense reviews i suspect it wouldn't do quite so well further away from the action.

[GuildfordPaul]

does anyone have any experience of this lense, or any feedback as to whether they think it would be a good starter lense for some motorsport shots, i know you have to pay serious money for great high speed shots, but this really is top of my budget for a lense, especially as i'm a beginner.

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Acc...

Thanks again for all your help guys.

[lowdrag]

http://lens-reviews.com/Lenses/Canon/Canon-EF-70-3...

DP reviews are unbiased and here they don't exactly sing its praises.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-E...

Slow focus isn't what you want when motor racing! If you give us a maximum budget we'll do our best for you though!

[sidaorb]

GuildfordPaul said:

sidaorb said:

Keep your eyes peeled for a s/h Sigma 100-300mm F4 HSM, a friend picked one up recently for £325. Stunning lens and add a 1.4x later on for 140-420mm F5.6.

where from?... just doing a search on this lense and they're coming back £900 ish... can't justify that as a new starter!

They are £900+ new but frequently come up secondhand for just over a 1/3 of that price, its just a case of keeping yours eyes peeled.

[GuildfordPaul]

lowdrag said:

http://lens-reviews.com/Lenses/Canon/Canon-EF-70-3...

DP reviews are unbiased and here they don't exactly sing its praises.

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-E...

Slow focus isn't what you want when motor racing! If you give us a maximum budget we'll do our best for you though!

Thanks mate, struggling here, so top wack price would be £450, would prefer £400 max, for a 450d.

[Mini1275]

GuildfordPaul said:

Mini1275 said:

Have you considered a Tamron 70-300mm

lovely pics mate, but looking at the lense reviews i suspect it wouldn't do quite so well further away from the action.

Cheers mate, i know a couple of weeks ago their was a guy chucking out some cheap canon telephoto lenses on ebay.
Good luck on your search

[grumpy bear]

GuildfordPaul said:

does anyone have any experience of this lense, or any feedback as to whether they think it would be a good starter lense for some motorsport shots, i know you have to pay serious money for great high speed shots, but this really is top of my budget for a lense, especially as i'm a beginner.

http://www.jessops.com/online.store/categories/Acc...

Thanks again for all your help guys.

I'm not a Canon shooter so cant be specific about the above lens but I use the Nikon 70 - 300 VR and a Sigma 150-500 on a pair of D300's although they are not fast in aperature terms, the AF on both these lenses is very quick. At first glance the 80-400 F4 AF Nikkor covers both of these and would have been only a little more expensive than the Sigma, but is so slow as to be unusable. The camera will never adjust quick enough.

A lot of the problem with pictures of cars at speed is identifying why an image is'nt sharp. Camera shake is a factor and anything with the Canon equivalent of Vibration Reduction would get high on my list. The other is good old AF speed, if the lens can't catch up you will get a blurred image at any shutter speed. From experience of shooting with them most of the pro Nikon shooters use the 300mm f2.8 Af-S VR prime and the 70-200 f2.8 AF-S VR. The reason isnt the f2.8 although in certain circumtances it can help it is because they both have great glass, both have quick AF and both have VR.

Most of the motorsport shots I take are at lower shutter speeds. I pan at anything from 1/60 up to 1/180 and 3/4 shots will be 1/250 to 1/500 depending on the speed of the car and the corner or part of the track, IMHO anything shot over 1/750 sec looks too static, when we select shots to go forward to the car club magazine we use the term 'Parked' to weed these out and delete them. The only exception is to get to 1/1000 for 30 cars going into the first corner as you dont want to miss the choas but that is one shot per race. For my money the 70-200 L series at f4 with a 1.4 converter would give f5.6 as a starting point and on most days 400 ISO will get you to around the 750 shutter speed. So wide aperature is'nt the king here, as has been said autofocus speed is as is image sharpness. I would try to get one of these secondhand or even for a bit more the 100 - 400 L it seems a lot of money but add the old adage of buy cheap pay twice comes into play.


If you look at my site clickmotorsport you will see a progression in the shots as the season has progressed. TVR Challenge Cadwell was in April, Rockingham in May and Brands in June. All of the TVR shots are those that were NOT selected to go to the magazine so these are all slightly less crisp. The latest shots are from the HSCC Superprix at Brands. If you look at picture 11 of this set you will see what I mean. It was shot at 1/750 and the cars look a bit static, it is only in there because I loaded the wrong image to the site. If you compare that to the first image of that set. The progression is from practice, practice and more practice.

Edited by grumpy bear on Friday 17th July 12:45