New DSLR for my birthday - opinions please!

[BUFF]

What does APO actually mean/do?

Apochromatic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apochromat

[stroberaver]

what's the difference between the APO version and non-APO version (apart from about £80!). And is it worth spending the extra money over a) the normal Sigma or b) the Tamron.

The APO version has better glass to reduce chromatic aberration. I've not used the non-APO version, but my airshow pictures were all taken with the Sigma 70-300 APO DG. Chromatic aberration was remarkably little on nearly all of the hundreds of pictures I took that day - only the Lynx helicopters needed any correction. On that basis, I'd say that the APO enhancement has got to be worthwhile.

Regarding your original lens choice, you've got some significant overlap in terms of focal length. The Sigma 17-70 and 70-300 would make a decent pair imho. The Tamron 18-250 is an impressive lens, but like BUFF I've read on more than one occasion how slow it is to focus. Accurate focus, but seriously slow. It's also pretty slow in terms of light (i.e. small aperture at full zoom) compared to having two lenses to cover a similar range.

I'd hesitate before splashing out on other things at the moment, tbh (unless you're minted, of course ). I got into DSLR photography last year, and got hooked on my compact camera for a couple of years before that. Before investing in tripods, accessories, and so on, wait until you have a feel for what you actually need. e.g. a lightweight highly collapsible tripod or a sturdier, heavier, longer tripod? Which to choose depends on what kind of photography you find yourself liking, how far you'll travel from your car boot, and so on. Same applies for filters, camera accessories, bags, etc. Buy everything at once and you might find yourself wishing you'd got things bit by bit as you needed them, and understood what you needed and what would benefit you most.

[planetgong]

Cheers for the responses guys. Think i am going to go for the two sigma lenses and see how i go with them. What is the advantage of having say a fixed 50mm lens for portraits. Wouldn't the 17-70mm cover this range anyway?

[stroberaver]

What is the advantage of having say a fixed 50mm lens for portraits. Wouldn't the 17-70mm cover this range anyway?

The advantage of a fixed/prime lens is usually a much larger aperture, allowing you to use it in lower light conditions, and which also gives you a shallower depth of field. Image quality is supposed to be superior on prime lenses, and they're also smaller and physically lighter than a zoom lens.

For instance my kit lens is a Minolta/Sony 18-70 which has an aperture of f/5.6 at 50mm. But my 50mm prime can go to f/1.7, which is a LOT of extra light into the camera.

Prime lenses also make photography more challenging, I find they force you to think more about composition and getting yourself in the right place since you can't just zoom accordingly. As a result, my I'm often happier with the prime lens shots simply because I was forced to put more effort into them.

[planetgong]

Thanks again for the reply. I think I am starting to understand more what people are talking about now, which is a start!! I am going to get myself a couple of books to read up on, so I can get to grips with the basics a bit more. I know this sounds really geeky as well, but I'm dead excited about getting my camera and starting to have a play!!!

[stroberaver]

Nah, I was well excited too when I got mine last year, got a selection of photography books for xmas which were useful reading. One thing though, if you're planning on shooting raw rather than jpeg, buy hard drives. Lots of hard drives. Ideally, lots of big hard drives. Unless you move everything across to dvd when you're done with it, but then it's not accessible or editable. Not sure about the 400D, but on my camera (A100), the jpegs are about 2-2.5 MB, the raws are 10-12MB. The total of 400gigs on my pc (which also has to accomodate Windows and all my other apps and documents) didn't stand a chance.

Oh, and for portraits, photographers like a large aprture to give a small depth of field and to defocus the background as much as possible. The defocussed area is known as "bokeh", and some lenses produce nicer-looking bokeh than others. What lenses are best for this on the Canon mount, I'm afraid I have no idea.

[Bobster]

you need to work on your workflow if a 400GB HDD isnt enough!

and it all depends on what you're shooting against for aperture size chosen its not as easy as saying oh yeah i'll have f2.8 and just shoot on that..

the amont of zoom also affects the DoF on a photo..

[stroberaver]

you need to work on your workflow if a 400GB HDD isnt enough!

You mean I need to delete things once in a while?

It's true, my workflow isn't very efficient yet, I'm very much still learning as I go, but I'm loathe to delete perfectly adequate shots just because another similar shot is better. Never know when I might want to call upon that image! I do need to get round to deleting the definite rejects, but... well, it's boring.

I also ran out of storage because I keep my photos mirrored (not a RAID set, just manual backup) on another physical drive. Which I've now got a NAS box for, and have freed up a lot of space on my internal drives.

[Bobster]

www.pixort.com << fastest app i know for selecting keepers and chuckers

it has, as all these kind of apps have 1-5 rating, but u have to be ruthless.. i have 1 for keep and 2 for chuck - 3-5 don't get a mention!

[GBDarkAngel]

My advice would be to buy the camera, kit lens and save up your pennies. Once you are familiar with the settings then go buy yourself a Canon 70 - 200mm L F/4 or better still a Canon 70-300mm IS Lens.
No point in going for cheaper options if thats the type of photography you want to do m8.
As for portrait the kit lens will be fine until you learn the camera then buy the "Nifty Fifty" Canon 50mm f1.8.
If doing portraits consider a decent flash. Canon 430 EX should be more than adequate for your needs.

Filters - These are a bone of contention. The problem you have with filters is that you are putting another piece of glass between the lens and subject therefore degrading the quality.
I personally dont use filters not even for protection as simple physics tells you that if you bang your lens and the filter breaks then that will damage the glass on the lens more than the plastic lens cap would: Glass on Glass v Plastic on Glass. No Brainer tbh m8.

On the point of workflow and picking your keepers. I merely bring them up to 100&#37; in a Raw Viewer and do my auto stuff and sharpening. If its not sharp then its binned.

[fuddam]

remember with the filters: if you live by the sea, and you get sea spray on your lens, you may as well throw it away. eats into multi coatings like mad.

re the banging: I've dropped a heavy 2.8 zoom on to concrete pavement - thanks to the filter, was able to throw away the filter away but keep the lens (thanks, B&W, for saving my life )

[Butcher]

I find a hood is more useful for preventing impact damage than a filter (and about the same cost).

[Rhyth]

Gear Selector from UK Digital Photo & Practical photography Mags :

http://images.emapsite20.com/images/...tor/index.html

[Hans Voralberg]

Bottom line is, if you could live with a filter, then do so, I use both hood and filter, and while I have never dropped my lens, one of my m8 dropped his 70-200 2.8 IS and the filter saved it, not even one scratch on the lens surface

[Rhyth]

If your spending hundreds on a lens it would seem silly not to spend a little extra towards a UV protection filter and lens hood. If you have a lense hood I'd just leave it on whenever you can as it will protect against the potential nock/scratch senarios you'll inevitably come across.

Better safe than sorry.

[merdat]

Those uv's are quite expensive nowadays but still worth it for lense protection .