My wife insisted I post this. I wrote all this in e-mails the past couple days trying to help a technologically-challenged sister buy a camera for her starting-out-photo-student brother, and they are in different countries, so cannot shop together.

Here is the little background: because these suggestions are for a specific situation. The student-photographer-in-question will have access to loaner lenses through the photography department. So, one, he does not need anything more than a workable lens for himself. And two, all that glass is Canon. So, regardless of my opinions, he needs a Canon camera and should put most of the investment in the camera.

The sister almost bought a Canon 5D mark II and a lens for $2000…and that is about $1000 too cheap. Thankfully, the lens they ordered was an EF-S and would not work on the 5Dmk2, so they were able to cancel the order, which was most certainly some sort of scam anyway. Then, they started thinking about the new 7D or a 50D. And that is where we pick up the story.

Dear Concerned-Sister-Who-Loves-Her-Brother-Enough-to-Give-Him-a-Good-Photographic-Start,

Here are some links for you to look at before we call tomorrow morning. First, PLEASE do not buy from any non-trusted source. There are lots of scams out there, and it is tempting. I will try to lead you in the right direction here. Basically, if you see a huge variation from the prices on these sites (the ones I am about to give you), you need to suspect their honesty.

Ok…here we go:

I love MPEX.com. I have bought from there and they do good business. Here is a link to their used Canon gear. The best price on that list is the 40D for $700. Think about that. If you want a cheaper option, the 40D is VERY close to the 50D, and you could grab it for cheap. The 7D? You really do not get much for the money over a 50D anyway. Oh, and note their used 5Dmk2 price, $2400.

If you bought a camera from there, get the body used, then buy this lens new: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 for about $120. It is a simple lens; it’s cheap and versatile, and he can borrow just about any lens he wants from the department, anyway. Regardless of what camera you buy, I very much suggest you just get this simple lens.

Ok, let’s move on to KEH.com. You can go check out their website directly, but if you go to their eBay store, you can view photos of each item. Once you get an idea of their ratings with the photos, you can just use their direct website. They are a very trusted used gear seller and their ratings are trustworthy too. Anything “excellent” or better is perfectly fine.

What I would suggest, if you do not want to go for the used 40D, is a 5D from KEH. The 5D is a fully professional camera. The quality is excellent! It is old, but still is WAY better quality than the 7D or 50D, no question. You would buy a 7D if you wanted fast shooting and fast focusing (or video). You would buy a 50D if you just wanted a new camera and not something used. If those things do not matter, buy a 5D. There are several used Canon 5D cameras there.

Oh, and you can see a 5D with the 50mm lens I am suggesting for sale there (at time of writing), but I would not suggest buying that unless you just want to throw away $200. I personally suggest their “excellent plus” 5D for $1420. Then buy the 50mm lens just about anywhere for $120, which equals $1540ish, far short of the $1700 for that combination on there, but you can take a look, anyway.

Oh, and as for that 50mm lens, there are actually two of them, an old one and a new one. Either is fine (actually, the older is better and cheaper, but the newer is easier to find): 50mm f/1.8 and the 50mm f/1.8 II. Again, either one is fine.

I see two good options: cheap and less-cheap. For cheap, get the 40D from MPEX.com for $700 and buy a 50mm f/1.8 II lens new from them for a total of $800. For the nicer option, get a 5D (excellent plus condition) from KEH for $1420 and then buy a 50mm f/1.8 anywhere you like…maybe even MPEX, just because they are nice folks.

I already mentioned KEH and MPEX, but here are some reputable stores against which you can compare prices, and hopefully with whom you would do business precisely because they are trustworthy:

• B&H Photo and Video
• Adorama
• Midwest Photo Exchange (MPEX)
• KEH

Cooper

"Ooo, there's the REAL photographer!"

That is not false humility. It seems with every passing “serious job” I do, I realize how far I have to go. Sure, I took some pretty shots, but there were so many shots that I looked at and thought, “Hmph, that one was almost good.”

Funny, I knew so much when I did my first wedding. Maybe the good ones were lost or something, because when I looked back, all those killer shots just were not there. Strange. I certainly knew more when I started…or as some friends quoted to me recently from Bob Dylan, “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

I think to sum up my thoughts about what is limiting me — yes, I am going to blame it on gear…well, and that blasted spotlight at the banquet — I would say a full frame camera would sure be nice for an extra stop of light or two. That really does make sense; I will explain. I want to go a little wider, but I lose a stop or two getting a wider lens so it ends up where I want it on my crop sensor camera.

Example: I am shooting a 35mm f/2, which is acting like a f/2 50mm. I just lost a stop of light from the 50mm f/1.4 basically because of my cropped sensor. You have to blame something. Then, if I wanted to shoot at 35mm, which I do, I would have to go for a 24mm f/2.8, and I have just lost another stop of light.

Maybe on Nikon’s (and now other companies) new high ISO, low noise cameras, this would not be an issue, but I will tell you what, on my decrepitly aged D100, you notice plenty of grain just moving from 200 to 400.

I think to really say it more clearly, I would not say it is just that I need new gear to fix all my problems. It would be more accurate to say this: I feel like my eye is seeing a full frame view, but that blasted sensor keeps cropping my vision…but a little less grain would be nice for an alternative solution. Seriously, any full frame camera with the Ai-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.4…that would be great.

As it turns out, I think I do not have flare and will not get flare. I kept trying different approaches: putting the sun in the photo, just on the edge of the photo, just out of the photo, and maybe a little further out. Nada. No flare.

It is one of those methods or little tricks that pop in my head every few days, when the sun it up and nothing else seems to be happening, and I try a few more shots out. I can never get any flare. I simply wanted to be able to control it, meaning, if I wanted it in a photo, what is the trick to making that happen. Or, conversely, if it is sunny and I want to avoid it, how do I do that.

Then, something came back to me. My walk around lens is a Nikkor AF 35mm f/2 D. I remember reading something a while back (actually, while reading info on my coveted lens, the Ai-S 35mm 1.4): that lens has almost no lens flare. Oh. Oops. So, I guess it is time to stop the experimenting and just be thankful for a lens that seems to be very well built.

And speaking of lens flare, in a slightly awkward ending, I love the tribute to lens flare in the Wall-E opening sequence. You have a computer animation which has lens flare. That is just cool. And it is proof that lens flare is cool, which I guess makes my lens a little less cool. Bummer. I bet that old, 1.4 would be cool!

My Boy Roaming the Streets

Since we were talking about LensBaby lenses yesterday, I was inspired to put mine on the camera tonight when we went out for dinner. I was outside running around with my son as the adults were talking inside, and had some fun shooting while he explored the surroundings.

Some of you will know and will have used LensBaby lenses, but many of you will not, as can be seen in the comments in yesterday’s post. The lights in there are just obviously not from a normal lens. They would just blur into big spots, where with a LensBaby, they blur into big, oblong spots. Hmm, words just do not help much, sometimes. It is the feel of it all.

The other thing I appreciate about my LensBaby is that I can set aside my tack sharp tendencies. Especially without any aperture added in (funky, I know, but you manually put the aperture in there) and running with the base f/2, most of the shot is going to be out of focus most of the time. I like the general lack of clarity in this photo. I am freed to just enjoy the whole scene instead of being forced to a focus spot.

Yes, you can browse through many different examples of LensBaby photos in places like the LensBaby Flickr page, but given yesterday’s brief mention and the folks who did not quite know what it was, I wanted to give another example here.

My first pieces of gear will be sunscreen and a hat if I can scrounge one up. I will take my backpack full of all kinds of gear, but will most likely need to leave that behind and carry a small choice of essentials. most likely, if it is like all the other days recently, the day will turn very bright and sunny. So, instead of uselessly cursing the brightness, I will embrace it as my friend and let it add to the feel of the day’s shooting.

So, what gear will I actually take?

It is not like I have a plan in my head for such and such a situation; I am just thinking this through here, in case it is of use to someone else out there. Regardless of lens choice, I will certainly take my lens hoods!

I will probably take my 35mm lens (so shooting close to the standard 50mm on a film camera). Wider would be nice, but that is as wide as my bag gets at the moment. Sad but true. One, I have my cropped sensor working against me. And two, I would have bought I wider lens, but going below 35mm, the f/stops were increasingly …um…un-bright. 35mm was the happy medium. It would be a happier medium if I had a full-frame camera, but this is all another topic. I will move on.

I might take my flash and one of my groovy handmade straw grid snoots. The flash would come in handy simply because it will be a bright day with nasty shadows, and I could fill those in if need be. I will use the snoot if I want to darken everything down a stop or two, then focus the flash on a specific subject, thus using light to draw the attention where I want it.

Oh…how will I trigger the light? I have some radio triggers, but they are el cheapo and too unreliable. If I go with my optical trigger (built into the flash unit), I will have to use my camera’s pop up flash to trigger it. Actually, now that I think of it, usually the pop-up flash affects the photo too much, but on a bright day, I most likely will not have a problem with that. So, I think that is my choice. That is also a great choice because it means minimal gear.

Honestly, what I would really like to take along, but do not yet own, is a Lumiquest SoftBox III. That is a portrait miracle maker. Basically, I could have a handy softbox for individual portraits and softly fill all those nasty shadows. I would not use it for every shot, mind you, but for a nice portrait (which I am sure folks will ask me to take for them), it would be grand to have along.

I have not mentioned much gear, I know, but this is going to be the kind of shoot where I want to blend in and be forgotten (well, ignored will work too). To be honest, that is my primary mode of functioning. And if you think the flash is not so subtle, if it is as bright as I think it will be, I bet even the flash will not be noticed unless they happen to be looking at it when it fires.

I will mainly be shooting that one lens. I will probably keep my Lensbaby handy to add something unique to some of the shots. Most likely, though, I will stick to the 35.

Oh…and the battery in the camera is almost dead. I guess I should go switch the batteries and charge that while I still remember.

[My wife] got the D40, it was an eBay buy. I wish that we had a better lens, it came with a lower end model. We are saving up and hoping to get a better one soon, they are all just so stinking expensive. It has been great, though, being able to catch those moments with [our kid] that you normally wouldn’t because of the slow shutter speed on the point and shoot digital. I know there are some ways to tweaking the camera so you can get a little better shot out of it, but I haven’t had the chance to play with it enough.

What new lens should my friend buy? Are there some not so expensive lenses out there for amateur photographers on a limited budget? I have just the answer.

Since we are speaking of a Nikon D40 (and the D60 would be the same answer), I would highly suggest a lens that Nikon just came out with a few months ago: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 G. That is techy gibberish to many of you, so I will break that down and tell you how that applies, but first, I will give the simple explanation.

The “standard” lens for 35mm film cameras is a 50mm lens, and it is standard because it gives a perspective very close to what the human eye would. That standard is dependent on the size of the film or sensor, though. Most digital cameras out there (except for some of the pro-level ones) have a smaller sized sensor, and the stardard length of lens is no longer 50mm. On the smaller-sized-sensor digital SLRs out there today (regardless of brand), a 35mm lens is going to give that standard perspective. Basically that standard perspective is not too telephoto (long) nor is it too wide angle (short). It is in the middle and great for wide variety of everyday shots.

So, that Nikon lens mentioned above is made specifically for the smaller sized sensor cameras. You get that standard perspective, with a very wide open aperture (that is the f/1.8 part), at a very cheap price ($200). That is a steal.

Nikon and Canon also have out cheap 50mm prime (fixed focal length, non-zoom lenses) lenses with a nice, open aperture: AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D and Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. And when I say cheap, I am talking $100 kind of cheap. (note: See the comments below; Nikon D40, D40x, and D60 cannot auto focus with the 50mm f/1.8). It is a great addition if you just need more light than that cheapo kit lens will give you. The only downside is that 50mm on a smaller sensor is a little too long of a lens for many situations. Just set your kit lens to 50mm all day and shoot around and see what you think. Do the same at 35mm and see which you like better.

I talk a lot about aperture because it is really the most important part of the lens choosing process. The smaller that number, the bigger the aperture (hole), the more light the lens will let in. If the aperture is more open, that means either shutter speed can increase taking care of your blur problem or your ISO (film speed) can decrease thus keeping grain out of your photos. Lens prices are basically set by the aperture…just look for yourself.

The prices are great on these lenses, and you really get great quality for the money. More than likely, you will find yourself using this fixed length prime lens much more than your zoom lens. Once you get used to that wide open aperture, it is hard to go back.