Beyond Phototips

Here’s a post that many long term subscribers will remember. This post here is statistically the most popular post from when BeyondPhototips.com was a blogger.com hosted website. I hope you find it interesting.

by JanneM

Most of you have already seen the lenses that photographers use at sports events. You see them all the time, sitting at the sidelines at every sports event (the photographers with the lenses that is… not the lenses alone), with massive lenses perched atop tripods or monopods in almost any kind of weather…

I’ll be dealing with those lenses and the real reasons why photographers choose, and need, to use these lenses over other – not so big – lenses in 3 sections. Focal Length, Prime Vs Zoom lenses, and Aperture. An additional section on Image stabilisation is included.

Focal Length

by elyuyu

Outdoor sports events usually call for telephoto or super-telephoto lenses, more often Super-telephoto than plain telephoto. Super-telephoto lenses are generally lenses with a focal length of more than 300mm.

If you’ve ever tried photographing a soccer event you’ll know why these photographers use these lenses. A moderate telephoto lens of 70mm or 135mm will give you a rather wide view when photographing a player at the other side of the field and almost nothing if you’re photographing from near the opposite goal post.

Additionally, its usually difficult and/or dangerous to get too close to some of the action. Imagine having to sit 10 feet away from a racetrack to get frame-filling pictures of Formula 1 cars with a medium length telephoto lens! Both dangerous and impractical… also, you’d never get permission from the organisers!

600mm and 800mm lenses help magnify the players/drivers so that they fill up the frame and bring all the gritty action right up into the photograph. Also, if you want to capture the speed of the cars you can use a relatively slow shutter speed and pan your camera to blur the background; Impossible if you are too close…

Zoom Vs Prime Lenses

Sports photographers have to deal with a constantly changing environment. Very often incidents occur so fast that its not possible to change a lens. Zoom lenses are invaluable at these times. Imagine being able to frame a race-car 200 feet away one moment and the next swivel around to take a photograph of a car crash happening 30 feet away and then a portrait of a distressed driver as he walks past you, all without having to change your lens once! Sigma’s 50-500mm f/4-6.3 EX DG HSM Lens could enable you to do just that!

However, do keep in mind that super telephoto lenses are very specialised lenses and their optical design is very complicated. This is why you will find more prime lenses than zoom lenses at this end of the focal length spectrum. Prime lenses offer superior image quality to zoom lenses because they are designed optimally for a particular focal length while zoom lenses strive to offer decent quality at all focal lengths. Many fail in comparison with prime lenses.

Aperture

by hirevimaging

Capturing movement means that many times photographers will need shutter speeds that are upwards of 1/1000 sec. Most sports events are held in relatively well lit areas in the day, but at night, even the brightest floodlights are a poor substitute for the sun.

However, even in bright sunlight, it helps to use a large aperture to blur out the audience or scenery in the background and to keep the action alone in focus. This separation of the sports action from a cluttered background is one of the defining features of these lenses.

Also, lenses with larger apertures generally perform better at two levels:

1. They focus faster and more accurately.
2. They have a higher level of sharpness at their intermediate apertures.

Large apertures are even more important when it comes to indoor or night photography. Light levels are bound to be lower while the action is still at the same pace. Of course, you can compensate by increasing your ISO settings, but not everyone is willing to pay for the trade-off with higher noise levels. In this situation, larger apertures offer the sports photographer an added advantage of a brighter image in the viewfinder, thus making it easier to get better framing and composition.

Image Stabilisation & Vibration Reduction

Image Stabilisation and Vibration Reduction are Canon’s and Nikon’s terms for their proprietary shake and movement reduction technologies. Many of their lenses are now equipped with these technologies, making it inevitable that we take a look at them. I’ll use the term ‘Shake Reduction’ to refer to these technologies though I prefer the term “Image Stabilisation”.

Shake Reduction technology can mean the difference between a razor sharp and blurred picture at the same shutter speeds or the difference between the ability to hand-hold a lens for a photograph that would otherwise have to be tripod-mounted. Some older lenses of this genre do not perform well on tripods and instead introduce shake where there is none. Others have a panning mode for tripod mounted use and corrects shake only on one axis.

Shake Reduction does not fix all your shake problems; rather, it helps you increase your efficiency. If used well, it can be used to really push the limits of hand-held photography.

Wide-Angle Lenses

by ElectrikCandyland

Wide angle lenses are not practical for most sports applications. However, if you’re photographing a relatively low-impact sport (where damage to the photographer is ‘relatively’ low in a worst case scenario), say skateboarding or roller-blading for instance, you could use these lenses for great effects.

Here are some lens recommendations for Canon & Nikon cameras with links to their specs pages.

Canon

1. EF 600mm f/4L IS USM(stats)
2. EF 500mm f/4L IS USM (stats)
3. EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM (stats)
4. EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM (stats)
5. EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM (stats)

Nikon

1. AF-S NIKKOR 600mm f/4G ED VR Replacing the AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4D ED-IF II(stats)
2. AF-S Nikkor 500mm f4D ED-IF II (stats)
3. AF-S Nikkor 400mm f/2.8D ED-IF II (stats)
4. AF-S VR Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G IF-ED (stats)
5. AF Zoom Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED (stats)
6. AF VR Zoom Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED (stats)

You can also find out more about lenses for different kinds of photography at The Lens Resource index post.

This is part of the Beyond Phototips Birthday Special Series. Go here to see all the posts so far.

Have you experienced a Polarizing filter? If you have not, I seriously recommend trying one today.

Yesterday I was contemplating stuff … you know, looking through my memory bank of photographic experiences, when I suddenly stumbled upon a gem! The first time I looked through a telephoto lens with a polarizing filter at the other end … MAGIC! The world was different; the sky was a darker shade of blue, the leaves were a richer green and wonder of wonders, the lake surface I was looking at was clear! That was my first Pola-Magic moment.

Photo by: Aidan Wojtas

The second was a bit more ‘impersonal.’ It didn’t happen to me in person. But that didn’t take away any of the magic. It was on TV. Discovery channel, I believe, and I was watching a program about wildlife. The image on the screen was that of a dolphin (or maybe it was a shark or a killer-whale, I got lost in the magic and forgot what exactly they were following) and it seemed like it was being photographed by some new kind of underwater camera until suddenly it broke the surface to breathe and I noticed that splashes of white foam broke to the sides of the animal. It was magic!

Here I was, thinking for all this time that the animal was being followed by an under-water camera when in fact it was being shot by a cameraman in the air, suspended a couple of hundred feet above the animal (yes, I know its stupid not to recognise the angle of the shot, but did I mention Magic?). The photographers themselves were talking about the magic of the moment, and then the magic was revealed. They were using a polarizing filter on the camera. My second Pola-Magic moment.

Pola-Magic Secrets

Now, there’s something else that I have to mention about polarizing filters, but that involves a bit of a technical discussion about how polarising filters work in the first place. I assure you, it will be to the point and will help you with your experiments with Polarizing filters.

When light from the sun strikes an object, it is naturally polarized. All the rays come from the same source, and as a result the waves are oscillating along the same axis. Now, when they strike an object, the rays scatter, shifting the plane of the waves and scattering light. Polarizing filters work by allowing only light waves that are oscillating on one particular plane to pass through. This means that reflections are naturally removed, because reflections are formed by light rays reflecting off a different surface – and therefore, have a different light ’source’ – and most likely have a different axis of oscillation.

Photo by: neofob

How to use them

Polarizing filters come in two types… Linear and Circular. The linear kind was given up with the advent of auto-focus cameras because of the way that the AF in the cameras worked. The circular polarizer is designed to work with AF mechanisms and still let you have great Pola-Magic moments. They’re neutral filters in the sense that they don’t add any colouring to the image. When used correctly, they increase the saturation and vividness of the colours in your frame, clouds in the sky are better defined, leaves are a richer green and just about everything looks nicer.

Here are some tips to help you when using a polarizing filter:

1. A polarizing filter is a very interactive one. It’s not one that you just screw on and forget about. You need to keep adjusting it to get the best results.
2. Polarizing filters don’t work very well with wide-angle lenses. They tend to darken only certain parts of the sky and leave other parts bright. This could leave you with a patchy sky. Not a good thing, unless you like it that way.
3. Polarizing filters will not remove reflections from mirrors or reduce reflections on metallic surfaces.
4. A polarizing filter is made of two parts. A screw-in mount to attach it to your lens, and a filter housing that is firmly – yet freely turning – attached to the screw-in mount.
5. When using the polarizing filter, first compose the frame as you want it.
6. Turn the filter once you’ve composed the frame until you get the desired polarizing effect. It is most effective at 90 degree angle to the sun.
7. Remember that a polarizing filter typically reduces the amount of light that goes through it by around two f-stops. This makes it a bad idea to use it in dimly lit situations. It also means that if you’re using a camera that does not have Through The Lens metering (TTL), you’ll have to open up by roughly two f-stops. This is a number that you’ll have to arrive at by trial and error.

Find Polarizing filters on Amazon.com. Or, if you have one in your bag, get it out and start shooting!

Do you have some other tips about polarising filters that you would like to share? Do leave a comment or mail me.

by KK+Photojournalism, is that immensely satisfying, yet sometimes wildly dangerous profession where a photographer goes out into the world and documents it’s goings on. Many of us, as photographers aspire to this profession, yet few have the guts and talent required.

The problem with defining lenses for Photojournalism is that there are so many fields of journalism that there is no real “defining set” of lenses. Each kind of journalism calls for a different set of lenses. Take for example, the sports journalist… He would use lenses that fall into the Sports Photography set. I’m going to go out on a limb now, and ‘guess’ that what all you guys want to read about are the photojournalists who have the ‘real’ journalist’s job. The foreign correspondent… The guy who records wars, drought, floods, changes in government and so on. Let’s cut to the chase.

Requirements

Photojournalists do pretty much the same things as regular journalists and then some… They end up carrying their gear around almost all the time when they’re on assignment and land up in places that newspaper journalists need never venture. All this makes it hard for him. His choice of lenses, camera body and other accessories depends on the kind of picture that he expects to be taking. Typically they have a very vast range of gear from which they can choose. Gear needs to be usable for multiple purposes, lightweight, fast, and really, really reliable.

Very often, they choose lenses with large apertures. Large apertures help them focus more easily, because they let in more light. It also gives them the flexibility to shoot in low-light scenarios. The trade-off is in weight. Lenses with large apertures usually have very large front elements made of high quality optical glass… This makes it heavy.

They also have an odd assortment of prime and zoom lenses. Primes for clarity and wide apertures, especially at the long focal length range, and zooms for ease of composition in situations that may demand a quick change from telephoto to wide-angle.

Style and Purposes

Of course, the personal style of individual photographers also plays a crucial factor in the choice of equipment… Whether the style of photography at hand is street photography, or war reportage, or whether its something more elaborate which allows you to set up lights and choose your lens in comparative leisure will also determine what lenses the photojournalist will choose.

However, do remember that some photographers may almost always use a 50mm while others may use a 400mm f/4.0 L at one moment and switch to a 24mm wide the very next… Of course, the subject being photographed also determines the kind of lens being used; there’s absolutely no point using a 50mm while photographing a Formula 1 race (unless you’re photographing the crowd) and there’s no point trying to use a 400mm in a mob… you’ll only get their noses…

So now, with no further ado, let’s look at some lenses. The list is easy… Just list out all of the high end lenses you can think of… The list can also go on and on, so I’m listing here, some of the specialty lenses that you’re likely to find on journalists’ cameras. If you’re interested in any particular type of photojournalism (portraits, for example), do look it up in one of the posts I’ve written in “The Lens Resource.”

Canon Lenses

EF 600mm f/4L IS USM | (Stats)
EF 500mm f/4L IS USM | (Stats)
EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM | (Stats)
EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM | (Stats)
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM | (Stats)

Nikon Lenses

AF-S Nikkor 600mm f/4D IF-ED II | (Stats)
AF-S Nikkor 500mm f/4D IF-ED II | (Stats)
AF-S Nikkor 400mm f/2.8D IF-ED II | (Stats)
AF-S VR Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G IF-ED | (Stats)
AF Zoom-Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED | (Stats)
AF VR Zoom-Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED | (Stats)
AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED | (Stats)

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If you want the sharpest pictures that your lens can give you, remember not to use its largest and smallest apertures. Most lenses are optimised to be used in the f/5.6 – f/11 aperture range and give their best performance when stopped down a couple of f-stops from the widest aperture or opened up from the smallest aperture.

The problem with using small aperture sizes is that light waves are affected due to diffraction and though you have great depth of field, you lose out on sharpness.

Large apertures are great for low-light, but unless you have an exceptional, lens its just too difficult to produce lenses that are razor sharp at it’s widest aperture.

There are always exceptions and some lenses made by Carl-Zeiss and Leica are just as sharp at f/2.8 (or f/1.8 as the case may be), as they are at f/5.6.

Marvels of science, that’s what they are.

Macro Photography

by John Dohrn

Macro Photography is what gets you those magnified, larger-than-life photographs. However, they start off being close to actual size on the camera’s sensor (or frame of film). When these images are enlarged – as ‘most all our pictures are – they become much larger than real life, taking us into a realm where real, everyday objects become surreal worlds . Perhaps this is where our fascination for macro photography comes from, the ability to change our every-day, ordinary world into an extraordinary one by the simple act of switching lenses.

In more technical terms, macro photography involves capturing objects at close to, or greater than 1:1 magnification. For example, a 5mm disc when photographed, would produce a negative where the disc is 5mm in size. Of course, this becomes much larger when enlarged. The same happens in digital photography.

Macro Lenses

Since this series of posts is solely about lenses for various kinds of photography, we’ll deal only with lenses though there are other options available in addition to the specialised macro lenses.

Focal Lengths
When you look into macro lenses, you’ll find that there are some prime lenses that give you 1:1 magnification at 50mm others will give you the same at 100mm or even 200mm.
The difference in the two is the minimum focusing distance, the depth of field and the perspective. While the 50mm macro will make you to go really close while photographing the subject, the Canon EF 180mm L lens allows you to stand far away (about 0.25m) while the Nikon 200mm IF-ED Lens allows you to stand .5m away while still getting 1:1. Big deal, you may say, all I’ve got to do is take a couple of steps forward and its all the same with the cheaper 50mm lens… well, not really.

A longer Minimum Focus Distance means that you get the same magnification without having to disturb the creature you’ve got that lens trained on… and that makes a big difference. It also means that you will have more space to work with artifical lighting.

Going closer than 2X
Usually, getting a magnification greater than 2:1 (which means that the image formed on the focal plane is twice the size of the actual object! Wow!) would involve getting an extension ring set or a teleconverter or a bellows arrangement and possibly using them together. However, the Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro Lens has a magnification range of upto 5 times actual size (5x or 5:1). Now, while I haven’t used this lens, people who have used it report that it is a difficult lens to use, but the results that you get are well worth the time and effort.

For Portraits
No, not portraits of people’s pimples. Many, if not all of the Macro lenses listed here focus sharply upto infinity and many photographers consider them to be exceptional portrait lenses with fast focusing and high contrast.

Other Macro options
Macro photography gives you a number of options when it comes to ways in which you can get 1:1 or greater magnification. Brian Auer at Epic Edits Weblog has recently written a post on the various macro photography options that you can explore. He talks about Dedicated macro lenses, Extension tubes, reversing rings, teleconverters, close-up lenses, and how you can use some of them together.

The Lenses: As usual, we’ll have a collection of Nikon and Canon Macro Lenses with links to their stats pages. Of course, Tamron, Vivitar and Tokina make good Macro Lenses,

Nikon
Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro-Nikkor Lens (stats)
Nikon 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor Lens (Stats)
Nikon 200mm f/4.0D ED-IF AF Micro-Nikkor Lens (Stats) - 1:1 at .5 meters away

Nikon Manual Focus Lenses
Nikon 85mm f/2.8 PC Micro Nikkor Manual Focus Lens (Stats) - Interesting for its ability to double both as a Perspective correction lens and a Macro Lens.
Nikon 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor (Stats)
Nikon f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor (Stats)

Canon
Canon EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro Lens (Stats) - 1:2 Magnification
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM Digital SLR Lens (Stats) - Made for the EF-S Mount
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens (Stats) - Considered by many as an outstanding Portrait lens too
EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM (Stats)

Canon Manual Focus Lenses
Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5X Macro Lens (Stats) - incredible 5X magnification packed into one lens

You can also find out more about lenses for different kinds of photography at The Lens Resource index post.

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That’s a big question! You have the money, do you buy that high quality lens that you’ve been looking at for a year? Your grandma gave you a thousand dollars; do you buy the sophisticated camera that everybody’s been raving about? A loony truck driver crashed into your car and your insurance money’s come through! You figure, you don’t need another car… Should you upgrade all your photography gear?

I’m going to look at these questions from three perspectives, familiarity with your existing kit, your ability (or inability) to learn complex things quickly, and whether you actually need the stuff…

Familiarity

Do you know your gear well enough to work with it in a storm? Can you press the right buttons in the pitch black of a new moon night on top of a mountain without a torch and with only the stars that lit the way up?

Digital Cameras come with a large number of buttons and dials on top, on the back, and in front of the camera body… the VR and IS lenses come with around 3-4 buttons just for them… CAN YOU HANDLE THEM?

If you think you can, and you’re not worrying about your equipment as much as you’re worrying about your photograph, then maybe you should try something new… treat yourself to a new lens or some new accessory.

Learning Curve

Same thing applies for the learning curve… there are a tonne of new things that you’ll have to tackle once you get new equipment. This is especially true if you’re upgrading from consumer digital equipment to prosumer equipment while the jump from film to digital is even greater.

If you’re making the film-digital jump, by all means, go for it! I highly recommend moving to the digital age. It can only enhance the creative value of pictures that can come out your mind and onto the sensor. However, I’d recommend that you go slow and take it easy. Start with a consumer end digital camera with manual controls and slowly move up to the prosumer cameras.

The move from one brand to another is also quite difficult. You’ll have to get used to new positions for controls and new terms for some of the menu commands. Among the cameras that I’ve used, I’ve found that the Nikon D200 has the most comprehensive set of controls on the camera that you can access without going into the menu. I love this interface even though I shoot more often with a Canon 5D (and that’s an amazing camera in its own right).

If you find it difficult to learn things quickly and adapt to new equipment and terminology, I’d recommend again that you upgrade in steps. Move from basic to more advanced equipment and upgrade once again once you’re familiar.

Need

I’m a photographer who shoots for billboards on many occasions and my clients demand high-quality images that are sometimes taken in difficult lighting situations, yet ask that there be low noise in all the images. I NEED a high-end digital camera. I’ve tried a number of cameras and a lot of them just don’t make the cut. Ditto for lenses.

Do you NEED a Nikon D200 with a 10.2MPX sensor and all those great features? Will you ever use them? Will they help you push your photography through the barriers that your current equipment was throwing at you? Yes? Then upgrade… No? Still, do you have the money and inclination to figure out your gear as you take photographs? Then upgrade… No? Then you’ve answered the question yourself…

I’ve already written about photography being something that is defined by the photographer, not the gear, so don’t worry about working with your existing equipment. Use it till you know you’ve reached the limits of what it can do and that you need something better to take your photography to the next level, and when you find that you do need to upgrade, remember to buy the best you can afford.

Related posts:

1. The Lens Resource
2. Zoom out in your mind
3. Photo Projects

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