Lense for Rome..?
Discussion
After taking expert advice and going for the Canon 1000D (which was in my price range) I am really happy with it.
I need advice on which lense to go for with regards Architecture and buildings, needs to be as sharp as possible really? Im going to Rome for a week and would like some great pictures to bring home.
Another question I have is, what website would you advise for the novice, basically I have read through my manual and taken a lot of pictures so far, but I still cannot fathom 'Aperture' and 'ISO' and 'FPS'?
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Thank you in advance!
I need advice on which lense to go for with regards Architecture and buildings, needs to be as sharp as possible really? Im going to Rome for a week and would like some great pictures to bring home.
Another question I have is, what website would you advise for the novice, basically I have read through my manual and taken a lot of pictures so far, but I still cannot fathom 'Aperture' and 'ISO' and 'FPS'?
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Thank you in advance!
For your first question, I doubt too many people would argue with the suggestion of a Sigma 10-20mm. It's a lovely wide angle lens which will be particularly valuable for somewhere like Rome which is constantly swarming with people, as you can get much closer to what you want to shoot and cut out a lot of the people and other stuff you might not want.
FPS is Frames Per Second. Only relevant if you're shooting in bursts, such as capturing racing cars or a bird on the move or similar. The faster the FPS, the more shots it can take in a second, thus the higher chance of getting the car right where you want it in the frame.
Aperture and ISO are two parts of a triangle, with the other being shutter speed.
To correctly expose a photo, a certain amount of light needs to come through the lens whilst it is open and land on the sensor. The shutter speed governs how long the light has to get in, and the aperture governs how wide the lens opens, thus also controlling how much light gets in.
ISO is a bit of a throwback to film days when you would have to buy a film with differing chemical sensitivity depending on the sort of shooting conditions you expected to find. The higher the ISO number, the less light needed to get your shot, but the more grain & noise you'd get in the shot. The same sort of thing applies with digital sensors, but you no longer have to guess for a whole film - you can change the ISO for each shot.
The next question should be why does this matter?
If you increase the lens aperture (which actually means selecting a lower f number as it's actually telling you how wide the aperture is as a fraction of the focal length of the lens) then you will get more light coming in during any given period, so can have a correspondingly faster shutter speed, but you will also get a much shallower depth of field (the distance from front to back of whatever you're shooting that will be in focus). You would tend towards a wide aperture when you're taking portraits and want to throw the background out of focus, and a narrow aperture when you want as much as possible in focus, such as in a landscape.
If you increase the shutter speed, then you freeze the action, whereas if you decrease it, you blur the action. Think of photos you've seen of waterfalls where every little drop of water is perfectly defined, and others where it appears to be flowing mist. Those are the two extremes.
You need to make sure that you have the shutter speed fast enough to avoid camera shake if you are shooting handheld. For most humans, this means roughly 1 over the focal length of the lens, so if you've got your 18-55 kit lens, you'd need a speed of no slower than 1/18 seconds at the 18mm end, and 1/55 at the 55mm end.
With the ISO, you generally want to keep the number as low as you can, as this will produce clearer, less noisy pictures. If you've decided on the depth of field you want, and you've selected the shutter speed you want to freeze/blur the image and the resulting shot is under-exposed, then you need to increase the ISO. If the image is over-exposed, then you need to decrease it.
Hope that helps?
FPS is Frames Per Second. Only relevant if you're shooting in bursts, such as capturing racing cars or a bird on the move or similar. The faster the FPS, the more shots it can take in a second, thus the higher chance of getting the car right where you want it in the frame.
Aperture and ISO are two parts of a triangle, with the other being shutter speed.
To correctly expose a photo, a certain amount of light needs to come through the lens whilst it is open and land on the sensor. The shutter speed governs how long the light has to get in, and the aperture governs how wide the lens opens, thus also controlling how much light gets in.
ISO is a bit of a throwback to film days when you would have to buy a film with differing chemical sensitivity depending on the sort of shooting conditions you expected to find. The higher the ISO number, the less light needed to get your shot, but the more grain & noise you'd get in the shot. The same sort of thing applies with digital sensors, but you no longer have to guess for a whole film - you can change the ISO for each shot.
The next question should be why does this matter?
If you increase the lens aperture (which actually means selecting a lower f number as it's actually telling you how wide the aperture is as a fraction of the focal length of the lens) then you will get more light coming in during any given period, so can have a correspondingly faster shutter speed, but you will also get a much shallower depth of field (the distance from front to back of whatever you're shooting that will be in focus). You would tend towards a wide aperture when you're taking portraits and want to throw the background out of focus, and a narrow aperture when you want as much as possible in focus, such as in a landscape.
If you increase the shutter speed, then you freeze the action, whereas if you decrease it, you blur the action. Think of photos you've seen of waterfalls where every little drop of water is perfectly defined, and others where it appears to be flowing mist. Those are the two extremes.
You need to make sure that you have the shutter speed fast enough to avoid camera shake if you are shooting handheld. For most humans, this means roughly 1 over the focal length of the lens, so if you've got your 18-55 kit lens, you'd need a speed of no slower than 1/18 seconds at the 18mm end, and 1/55 at the 55mm end.
With the ISO, you generally want to keep the number as low as you can, as this will produce clearer, less noisy pictures. If you've decided on the depth of field you want, and you've selected the shutter speed you want to freeze/blur the image and the resulting shot is under-exposed, then you need to increase the ISO. If the image is over-exposed, then you need to decrease it.
Hope that helps?
Presumably you bought the camera with a lens, something like an 18-55mm? If so, that will be fine. By far the biggest parts of getting "great pictures" is technique and creativity, not the kit. That said, if you want to take another lens, a telephoto lens would probably be most useful. You can spend anywhere from £100 to £2000 on one of these. This one's reportedly quite good at the lower end of that range:
http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-canon-ef-s-55-...
Re. websites, how about this:
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/
http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-canon-ef-s-55-...
Re. websites, how about this:
http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/
SamHH said:
That said, if you want to take another lens, a telephoto lens would probably be most useful.
So much for my assertion of not many people arguing with my suggestion of a 10-20!
To the OP, as SamHH and I have just demonstrated, the answer depends on what sort of shots you want to take. If you want to get whole facades of buildings in narrow streets, then go for the wide angle. If you want to capture a single gargoyle on top of a cathedral, then go for the telephoto.
I know where you're coming from with the manual - it's a good reference but not the right thing to learn the basics of how to exploit a DSLR from.
There's a Dummies Guide to the 1000d - I'd give that a try.
From where it sounds like you are with your photogtaphy, I'd be investing in leaning to use what I've got rather than spending money on lenses for the time being. The 18-55 kit lens is surprisingly good (assuming it's the IS version). If you're going to be taking pictures inside Churches and dimly lit buildings then I'd be adding a 50mm f1.8 to your kit for low light and/or shallow depth of field stuff - most of these places don't allow tripods or flash so you'll struggle with the reasonably slow 18-55.
If you're looking to burn money that the EF-S 10-22 or Sigma 10-20 are excellent for architecture but lots on money.
There's a Dummies Guide to the 1000d - I'd give that a try.
From where it sounds like you are with your photogtaphy, I'd be investing in leaning to use what I've got rather than spending money on lenses for the time being. The 18-55 kit lens is surprisingly good (assuming it's the IS version). If you're going to be taking pictures inside Churches and dimly lit buildings then I'd be adding a 50mm f1.8 to your kit for low light and/or shallow depth of field stuff - most of these places don't allow tripods or flash so you'll struggle with the reasonably slow 18-55.
If you're looking to burn money that the EF-S 10-22 or Sigma 10-20 are excellent for architecture but lots on money.
Edited by Seight_Returns on Monday 20th September 14:06
Chicken Pox said:
itsnotarace said:
Seight_Returns said:
I'd be investing in leaning to use what I've got rather than spending money on lenses for the time being.
This/thread
Mmm... pepperoni and cheese...
(it's Pisa btw
)OP - do you have a lens just now that you are looking to add to or will this be your first ?
dibbly dobbler said:
Chicken Pox said:
itsnotarace said:
Seight_Returns said:
I'd be investing in leaning to use what I've got rather than spending money on lenses for the time being.
This/thread
Mmm... pepperoni and cheese...
(it's Pisa btw
)OP - do you have a lens just now that you are looking to add to or will this be your first ?
o/p having made the mistake of more lenses than talent (tbh if I cut it down to 1 lens still lack of talent) I'd recommend keeping it simple nice walkabout and Tamron is a good shout to try out longer reach
inkiboo said:
Horrocks said:
inkiboo said:
Horrocks said:
Thanks for all the input, I will take everything on board. Il update in 3 weeks time with the pics!
Also for future reference, it's lens not lense.
Seight_Returns said:
If you're looking to burn money that the EF-S 10-22 or Sigma 10-20 are excellent for architecture but lots on money.
The Tamron 10-24mm is very good value for money, about £379 ish if I recall correctly. Think the Sigma 10-20mm is about £420 ish.Edited by Seight_Returns on Monday 20th September 14:06
Also, as above, the 50mm f1.8 is astonishingly good for under a ton.
The chap is asking the equivalent of :
"I've got an MX5 but I'm new to this driving game and am a bit confused by all this talk of double de-clutching, cadence braking and torque curves - I'm off to drive some Alpine passes next week, what sort of performance mods do you think I need ?"
Surely the answer to this and to his question is "you don't need to spend any more money, you've got the perfect tool for the job, get out there and enjoy it you lucky bugger - when you're bored or feel you're being held back by what you've got come back and tell us why, but it's going to be a while before that happens".
"I've got an MX5 but I'm new to this driving game and am a bit confused by all this talk of double de-clutching, cadence braking and torque curves - I'm off to drive some Alpine passes next week, what sort of performance mods do you think I need ?"
Surely the answer to this and to his question is "you don't need to spend any more money, you've got the perfect tool for the job, get out there and enjoy it you lucky bugger - when you're bored or feel you're being held back by what you've got come back and tell us why, but it's going to be a while before that happens".
Horrocks said:
Another question I have is, what website would you advise for the novice, basically I have read through my manual and taken a lot of pictures so far, but I still cannot fathom 'Aperture' and 'ISO' and 'FPS'?
Can someone point me in the right direction?
Not a website, but an oft-recommended book, which I found very useful and oftern refer back to:Can someone point me in the right direction?
"Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson.
Will give you a lot more insight into aperture, ISO, shutter speed and how they can all be used when taking photographs (both in terms of arriving at the 'correct' exposure and for creative effect).
Horrocks said:
inkiboo said:
Horrocks said:
inkiboo said:
Horrocks said:
Thanks for all the input, I will take everything on board. Il update in 3 weeks time with the pics!
Also for future reference, it's lens not lense.Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff