500MM F7.2

[Ballistic Banana]

Would this sort of Lens be good for Motorsport. may be able to get my hands on a reasonably priced on
As a Photo Numpty a need to rely on you educated PHers

BB

[CVP]

BB

As in many things in life, it depends on how cheap it is

Seriously my key worry would be the maximum apperture of f 7.2. It will need to be seriously bright for you to really make effective use of this lens. Another downside of the small apperture is that it can make the image in the viewfinder quite dark making focussing more tricky.

You may be a lot better off with a 300mm f5.6, or a 400mm f5.6 if you want somehting with a decent amount of "reach" but not too pricey.

If it's really cheap then try it and see if it works for you.

HTH

Chris

[parrot of doom]

oooo at 7.2 you're going to need to be a pretty good cameraman, and you'll find it more difficult to get the background nice and static when you need to, and has already been pointed out its going to be hard to 'find' objects. Go for a 70-300mm at 5.6, plenty around on Ebay for 50 squids.

>> Edited by parrot of doom on Monday 10th January 18:44

[Ballistic Banana]

Cheers guys, I have a 80-200 but I just seem to far away with it.

will look for the 300mm


while I am at, any recommendations for portable Tri-pods

BB

[ehasler]

f7.2 really is too slow for motorsport use - f5.6 is really the slowest you'd want to go as otherwise you'll really struggle to get fast enough shutter speeds.

What do you want to do with the tripod (i.e., how heavy will the camera/lens be, will you need it to hold the camera close to the ground etc...), and how important is weight to you?

If it's for motorsport use, I'd say that a monopod would be more usable as a) it's smaller and lighter and b) easier to use when panning.

If it's for a lightish (eg., Canon 300D+standard lens)camera and lens, then something around the £50 mark from Jessops or Velbon should do the trick. If you need to put much more weight on it, or you want the lightest you can get, then you could go for something like a Gitzo carbon fibre lightweight tripod. They're not cheap, but they are very good.

Take a look at www.warehouseexpress.com - they list the weight capacity, size and weight of various different types of tripod.

[joust]

Manfrotto do lovely monopods

http://db.manfrotto.com/product/itemlist.php3?manufid=1§ionid=14

I have this one
www.digital-cameras.com/shop/Camera_Accessories-6_sc/Tripods-40/Manfrotto_Monopod_Junior_676B-430.html

J

[joust]

Manfrotto do lovely monopods

http://db.manfrotto.com/product/itemlist.php3?manufid=1§ionid=14

I have this one
www.digital-cameras.com/shop/Camera_Accessories-6_sc/Tripods-40/Manfrotto_Monopod_Junior_676B-430.html

J

[HughGabriel]

Sorry to hijack the thread; I was planning to get a Centon 500mm f.8 mirror lens from eBay. It would mainly be used for wildlife photography and occasionally for taking sailing photos (from land so steadiness isnt an issue). Would this be suitable? I have a reasonable tripod and dont mind having to lug that round. I could use a faster DIN film but then I would get more grainy photos.

Thoughts appreciated

Hugh

[rico]

I've just bought a tripod from Jessops. Just over 30 notes and i'm very pleased with it. All the features i could imagine i'd need. Extra foot of adjustment. Very stable too.

LINKY

[CVP]

HughGabriel said:

Sorry to hijack the thread; I was planning to get a Centon 500mm f.8 mirror lens from eBay. It would mainly be used for wildlife photography and occasionally for taking sailing photos (from land so steadiness isnt an issue). Would this be suitable? I have a reasonable tripod and dont mind having to lug that round. I could use a faster DIN film but then I would get more grainy photos. Thoughts appreciated Hugh

Hugh

Only one key issue with the mirror lens is the fixed f8 apperture. It does give great reach but if you're trying to use a fine grained film ISO 50-100 you might find the shutter speeds a bit low with a maximum f8. Often wildlife has this nasty habit of moving a tiny bit when you've just got it framed right. Resulting picture is 90% sharp with a little blur as the beak moves or something like that - most frustrating. You really need to shoot with as fast a shutter speed as possible for your desired depth of field.

You can of course go for a faster rated film and there are some crackers up to I think about ISO 200-400 but above this you will start to get grainy images.

Maybe a 400mm f5.6 is a good starting point? Plenty available second hand that have been looked after. I know you will not get as much magnification with this but it does give one stop more light capturing ability. I've used a 400mm f5.6 and been able to get some reasonable wildlife images on film before I converted to digital which has helped further.

On the upside the 500mm f8 mirror lens can be found really quite cheaply, they are quite light and do give a nice doughnut shape to out of focus highlights. Also for your sailing pictures you should have enough light bouncing around off the water and so should get a high enough shutter speed to enable good use of the 500mm.

HTH

Chris

[abenbow]

http://db.manfrotto.com/product/templates/templates.php3?sectionid=14&itemid=2042

lovely bit of kit

joust said:

Manfrotto do lovely monopods http://db.manfrotto.com/product/itemlist.php3?manufid=1§ionid=14 I have this one www.digital-cameras.com/shop/Camera_Accessories-6_sc/Tripods-40/Manfrotto_Monopod_Junior_676B-430.html J

[neilr]

A few years ago i used a 500mm f8 lens on Olympus OM kit for motorsport, granted its far from ideal but it did the job pretty well and with a bit of practice you can do it (unless its really dark!) The limiting factor in the end came from the image quality (slightly soft) but it was cheap as chips and i was skint back then! (come to think of it not much has changed!

Depends how deep your pockets are i guess.