Good Camera for Corals & Fish

[tcnguyen]

I'm in the market for a new camera but unsure which will be best for fish, and corals.
I was thinking about getting the CANON EOS REBEL XTi body and looking for lens. Anyone got any suggestion? what do you guys think about the Canon EF 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Lens?

Well the budget is about $1000-$1200.

 

[Balgie]

I have and am looking to sell that lens. I got it with my 40D as a kit. It is a good lens. Rather than having one lens I already got a telephoto 70-200 L and am going to get a wide angle. With your budget I think this lens would be good for you. If you are interested let me know. I got it for christmas and has barely been used.

 

[Reefugee]

TC -

The Canon EOS Rebel XTi (aka Canon 400D)is a very nice camera (got one for my wife for Christmas). However - if I were you, I would hold off a little bit. Canon is releasing the 450D soon. Basically - these are the major improvement:

1. 12 megapixel. (Honestly - not a major improvement over 10 megapixel)

2. LiveView - basically you can use the LCD to view the picture your are going to take. You won't have to look through the viewfinder anymore. This is the one feature I really wish my XTi had.

3. Larger LCD Screen (2.5" vs 3")

4. New digital processor (probably results in faster autofocusing and better low light focusing).

As far as lense. The 28-135 f/3.5-5.5 IS USM Lense is an ok lense. Nothing spectacular about it - but nothing bad either. If you get a nice lense - the lense can easily cost you $500 - $1500. I got my wife the Sigma 18-200 f3.5-6.3 DC OS. Once again - just an ok lense for general purposes.

Minh

 

[reefer334]

I have a Nikon D40X and I love it!!

 

[jtarmitage]

Mihn makes a good point about waiting, but I like it for a different reason. If you don't need the latest and greatest, buy the XTi when the new model comes out and it will be much cheaper. I bought the XT when the XTi came out. As I didn't really need the upgrades, just a good all around camera, I ended up saving a couple hundred dollars.

 

[FunGuy]

I think it's pretty hard to go wrong with most of the newer DSLRs out there... nikon or canon. The more expensive it is and/or newer, generally the more bells and whistles it includes. A very important key would be getting the right lenses to suit your needs.... oh and a Tripod of course

 

[ahullsb]

^^^ I agree. And the lens choice should depend on what you are going to use it for. I don't know too much about Canons, but it sounds like a few people above do. If you start looking at Nikons I might be of more help!

 

[Nuuze]

I have a Nikon D80 I like very much. I'm using a 18-200mm VR lens for an all around lens and have a 105mm VR for macro shots. I couldn't decide on Canon Xti or Nikon D80 at the time of purchase so i bought both with the same/similar power lenses. Both are good camera's but the Nikon felt better in my hand with the button layout. I kept the Nikon.

I think Canon is about to release the 40D also while Nikon just released it's D300.

 

[mike1962]

I agree with what everyone has said here. If you are looking to buy any of the SLR digital cameras, whether Canon or Nikon, you're going to be getting a decent camera. In the last 3 to 4 years the quality has really improved in the digital camera realm.

The real key to getting a crisp, sharp image has a lot to do with the lens. As Minh said, good quality lenses are not cheap. I personally pine for Canon's 600mm image stabilized behemoth to take pictures of wildlife, but can't justify the $7200 expense! While I don't take many pictures of my tank as it is small and still new, I have read in the photography section of RC that many Canon owners like using Canons 100mm f/2.8 Lens for tank shots. It sell for around $450. A cheaper option is to buy a sigma lens equivalent, which while not quite as good as Canon lenses is still quite good, and usually quite a bit cheaper.

Also, as Funguy suggests, you will need a tripod because most of your tank pics will be at exposures longer than 1/60 of a second. I recommend getting a remote switch as well, as this will prevent any unwanted movement of the camera while it is on the tripod.

 

[jtarmitage]

^^ Yeah, what he said. And a tripod is a must, thanks for mine Mike1962 It gets lots of use.

 

[Doahh]

I use a Nikon D70 with telophoto lense from across the room for close up shots and a who knows what lense for every other shot

 

[Nuuze]

I have a tripod and remote for my D80. It's good to use the 3-5 second timer with slow aperture shots if you don't have remote.

 

[tcnguyen]

I was looking at this as well but what do you guys think of the lense? I know its cheap but just some inputs should be great.

What quality will i get with the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-f/32 zoom lens?

Compares to the
Canon - EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Telephoto Zoom Lens
or the
Canon - EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens

 

[Balgie]

Those lenses are hard to compare to each other because they all do different things. You need to pick what you want to do with your camera, figure a budget then go from there. A lot of people say "L" lenses are the only way to go. It sounds like you don't want to pay for "L"uxury though. My lens is on a list that Craig made if you are interested.

 

[tcnguyen]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11792032#post11792032 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Balgie
Those lenses are hard to compare to each other because they all do different things. You need to pick what you want to do with your camera, figure a budget then go from there. A lot of people say "L" lenses are the only way to go. It sounds like you don't want to pay for "L"uxury though. My lens is on a list that Craig made if you are interested.

What are you talking about? I was just asking for inputs, and those lenses are ok in prices. I mean there are lenses that are well over $2000 but those are 500-600 lenses.

 

[Balgie]

I'm saying those lenses you listed are all completely different and hard to compare. Also, I was letting you know how a lot of people feel about canon lenses. They will say any lens that in not an L class is just so-so. Are you familiar with L lenses?

 

[Nuuze]

The 18-55mm lens is a good all around lens. 55+mm is a bonus...

The 100mm 2.8 is a very good macro type lense. I sometimes is my 105mmVR for portraits too but have to move back some.

70-300mm if you do a lot of distant shots...

 

[Reefugee]

TC -

All the acronyms EF IS USM F and so on can be intimidating to beginners. I am going to try to give you some basic on the lense.

EF-S vs EF lense. Crop camera vs Full Frame Sensors:
EF-S lense can only work on Canon DSLR that has cropped sensors. The crop sensors are only available in digital camera (usually the lower end lines). The high end cameras (professional lines) have full frame sensors. The EF-S lense will ONLY work in cropped sensor cameras (Xt, XTi, XSi, 30D and 40D) but not in the full frame camera (5D, 1D, 1Ds). EF lense will work on ALL Canon DSLR (crop and full frame) and Canon film camera.

Another thing you need to know about crop vs FF is how it affects your picture. When you buy a lense, it has a zoom range (lets say 18-55mm). If you have used film SLR, you know what an 18-55mm lense can do. If you have a FF camera, the focal length remains the same. However, crop cameras usually have a multiplier . In case of the Canon, the multiplier is 1.6. So your 18-55mm on a crop camera is the equivalent to a 28.8-88mm (multiple 18-55mm by 1.6).

Image Stabilization
The IS stands for image stabilization. Basically - when you are holding a camera, there is some shaking in your hand. The image stablizes uses mechanism to compensate for your shaking. This is important when you are shooting images at a large focal length (100mm or higher). Also - a general rule of thumb is that if shutter speed is less than 1/60 of a second, you should use a tripod because you can hold the camera still. With IS - you probably can hold the camera down to 1/30 or even 1/15 of a second. http://web.canon.jp/imaging/lens/index.html

Ultrasonic Motor - USM
USM - this is canons Ultra Sonic Motor. Ultrasonic Motor are quieter and faster than the non-USM.

F Stop
Aperture (f stop). If you look at the Canon EF 70-300mm f4-5.6, it means that the largest aperture (smaller F stop) is from 4 to 5.6. At 70mm, it's probably F4. At 300mm, it's F5.6 The smaller F stop is better because you are more likely to be able to use it in low light. For example, my wife was taking some pictures of elephant seals at dusk with her lense at 200mm F5.6. Even with optical stabilization, the pictured turned out blurry. A friend of ours shot with a 200mm F2, the picture turned out sharp. But the difference is that his lense cost over a $1K.

Unless you are extremely picky, the quality of any of those lense would be good. Can I ask what type of pictures are you thinking about taking? Will it be mostly landscape, portraits, macros? What will the lighting condition be like?

BTW - since my wife didn't know what type of photopgrahy she wanted to get into, I got her a "general purpose" lense. It's not great at any one thing, but it's good at a lot of things. It's a Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 DC OS (the OS means that it has optical stabilization and the DC means that it's equivalent to the EF-S). The lense is about $450.

Anyway - give us more info and maybe we can give you more advice.

Minh

 

[sumyungviet]

if you are really looking into canon .. join photography-on-the.net they have a canon dedicated forum . with tank pics you most likely will be taking macro shots of your corals, so i would recomend as others have , to get the 100 macro lens. i started with the xti and it is an awesome camera. just because the new XSi is coming out, doesnt make the XTi obsolete. you want to spend more on glass, not the body. And if you browse on the forsale section of POTN, thers some deals to be had. Goodluck!!

 

[mike1962]

Minh, You are right. It's true that there is quite a bit of terminology that we tend to sling around, and forget that others may not have graduated yet to all of the acronyms and so forth. Excellent descriptions and definitions.

TC,

Were you looking for an overall general lens to shoot with, or are you talking specifically about getting a lens to take tank pics with? There many different lenses for different types of photography. As a result, someone like myself who takes photography as a serious hobby, will have multiple lenses for different photo situations. If you are looking to only buy one lens, you will want that lens to have some variability (i.e. zoom such as the 18-55mm or 24- 70mm) to maximize the use of that one lens for as many possible photo conditions. As a general all-purpose lens I would stay away from the larger telephoto zoom lenses (like the 70 - 300mm). They are alluring because they give you farther reach, but they have their drawbacks too. For starters, most of them have minimum focus distances around 5 to 6 feet. Which means that you must be at least that far away to have your subject in focus.

Lenses that aren't variable, such as the 100mm f/2.8 are called Prime lenses. Prime lenses are higher quality lenses because the physics of the lens is optimized for that particular focal length and thus also have lower f-stop values (which allows faster shooting times in lower light situations among other things). Minh's example of the elephant seals is a good case of this situation. Primes do cost more than their zoom counterparts however.

Someone mentioned L lenses. Yes, Canon makes a line of Pro-level lenses that are of extremely high quality. The L series. These lenses are often 3 to 4 times the cost of similar lenses not in the L category. This doesn't mean that non L lenses are bad or poor lenses. You can tell if a lens is an L lens because it will be advertised as something like 70-200 f/2.8L. Physically, most all L lenses have a red ring on the outer part of the lens. Unless money is no object, or you are ready to jump into photography as a serious hobby, I don't think you will need to buy an L lens to satisfy your needs.

Hopefully we haven't bombarded you with too much info. As Minh requested, if you could tell us more about what kind of shooting and under what conditions, we should be able to steer you to a lens that will work for you.



Note: Just caught Larry's post. He is correct, POTN is an excellent place to learn all about Canon gear, and photography. I have been a member of the site for eons, and have garnered much technical and practical information from the website from enthusiasts that are obsessed about Canon gear and photography much like we are obsessed about everything SW.