Crazy Hobbies
What am I looking for in a lens for airplane photography?
I am looking for a good DSLR and Lens to start off my aviation photography hobby. I will be spotting at Imperial Hill at LAX mostly and some near airports like Las Vegas and San Franscisco, etc. I was looking at a 70-300mm lens but wondering if I need image stabilization. The Nikon, Canon? Which one I am looking at just does. Budget is around 800-900 dollars. I also wouldnt mind getting a kit with the 18-55mm lens. Ebay has Great deals but Which camera? Nikon D40 with 18-55mm, D50, D70s Canon XT Kit, XTi
Public Comments
- The Canon XTi is slightly better than the Nikon D40 because it has more features. I personally don't think the body is that important. I'd rather get a cheap body and a good lens. I've seen some awesome photos taken by the original Canon Digital Rebel (300D). I think the lens with the combination of good composition (framing) is more important than a camera body. If you have the budget to get a 70-300mm with IS, that would be awesome. It won't help if you can find a lens with IS because you can always use it for other things, such as candid people shots. IS will also help on overcast days if you need to use slower shutter speeds or for those 300mm long shots. You can check out http://pbase.com/cameras for real world samples. You can lookup by lenses and bodies to see samples.
- In my opinion, the D50 is a good body for you. I am using D50 and feel comfortable with it. I will tell you why this is a good choice in above selections. The D40 and D40x (coming up!) is the newest camera released by Nikon about 1 or 2 months ago. It has light weight, compact size and contain several of important functions. However, one thing that people (enthuasiatists and semi-pro, amateur) do not like this camera is because it does not support non AF-S lens. The AFs lens is the lens with a motor inside for autofocusing, and it doesn't need the mechanism on the body to help it focus. As a result, D40 was produced to fit with these expensive and new lenses. There is a number of lens that was made long time ago, with the excellent quality of course, which don't have the AFS system. Therefore, using D40 will not support those lenses. When we attach these lenses (without AFs) to our D40 body, the lens will become manual focus! Which is a definitely uncomfortable point for us, especially when shooting aviation, the lens have to chase the planes with really high speed. As a result, i recomend D50 and D70s. However, the D70s has a worse Noise Reduction system. As you can search from the photography forums online, i am sure that hardly anyone refuse this statement. Other feartures are good. D50 was introduced later than D70s, and therefore it has a better Noise Reduction system, which can compare with the D200's. Therefore, in this point, D50 is a better point for you. I don't know much about Canon's lenses and bodies. The teléphoto lens you will need to use with this body (D50) to maximise the ability to shoot aviation, i think, are the lenses that have the focal length (maximum) from somewhere between 300mm and 400mm. Sigma has a APO 70-300mm and a 135-400mm which has a good quality of picture. Both of them have the "ED" glass inside to avoid some light distortion (i think this is the right term :D). However, at the range above 300mm in these 2 lens, the picture is quite shoft, well, it would be bad luck without a monopod or a tripod. Those are two lenses that have the long focal length and will be suitable for aviation photography. My friend is interested in this area, and he's using a 135-400mm of Sigma, with a tripod. Lenses with IS or VR are qutie expensive, and i think you can afford a Nikkor 70-300mm VR ED, which is around $600 to $700 (i think). This lens has a VR system, which you can low your speed to 1/25 or 1/25 seconds without having everything in blur. Everything's fine with this lens, from 70mm to 300mm. I think this is a good choice as well, which won't damage you too much. If you have more than that amount of money, try to buy the Nikkor f2.8 70-200mm VR. You won't have anything to argue with this lens. everything's just perfect with this lens plus a Vibiration Reduction system works efficiently in low speed. Therefore, it would burn you pocket with $1900 USD one. That's all i can say with the hope that can help you get through the problem. Hope you can buy a new good lens for you aviation photography. Cheers
- If you are taking pictures of airplanes, you probably want long tele lenses. If so, see if one of the pro-sumer P&S digital cameras fits your bill (they are a lot cheaper than dSLRs). Another avenue might be the 4/3 system from Olympus (and others). A couple of those have built-in (in the camera body) image stabilization, and with the appropriate adapter (available on ebay and lots of other places) you could attach an exisiting or used 35mm film SLR lens. Given the smaller sensor size, the tele effect gets doubled. For example, if you attach an 80-200 mm zoom (from your favorite 35mm SLR system) to the 4/3 system, you get effectively (i.e. in 35mm terms) a 160-400mm zoom... BTW, (true) image stabilization is an absolute must for long teles. Also, the "kit lenses" that typically come with dSLR cameras are pretty sorry (optically speaking), so don't expect too much from them...
