Photography

I was extremely pleased to receive another Sigma lens for my camera this week. I have been enjoying using the telephoto 135-400 lens but it is way too long for most day-to-day photography. As a result I’ve been relying on a Nikkor 18-55, but I’ve found the results to be very ‘soft’. Don’t get me wrong – they are perfectly adequate, but lack a degree of sharpness that the Sigma lens has got.

So, how does it compare?

First off, the sigma lens has a metal case which the Nikkor lens doesn’t. The added weight is somewhat reassuring, actually, but it is considerably heavier. If you are thinking that a lighter lens is better, stop reading now 🙂

It comes with a petal shaped hood, but when this is in place it is tricky to get the lens cap on and off, since the release clips are at the very edge of the cap and not recessed into the centre as the Nikkor is. I find this a nuisance and much prefer the Nikkor system. However, the hood is easy enough to remove and does fit back onto the lens in a reversed position (whereupon the lens cap is easy enough to operate).

In use, the Sigma lens responds well. It focuses quickly and responsively, and at the shorter lengths really does give a nice crisp image. At the longer lengths, certainly over 150mm, the image quality tends to fall off very slightly. It isn’t dreadful, by any stretch, and even at 200mm it is producing some nice results. There just seems to be a hint of vignetting… maybe it’s me being overly critical, but you should check it out for yourself to see if it is OK for you.

Overall then this lens is a good piece of kit to have in your bag. It performs well throughout the range but is better at shorter lengths. The weight could be a factor for some, but the images are more crisp than the Nikkor ‘kit’ lens that comes as standard on a D50.

I recently purchased a Sigma lens for my Nikon D50 so that I could take some extreme telephoto shots. This was a bit of an impulse buy, but I am fairly pleased I did.

The lens is a 135-400 telephoto which after factoring in the magnification results in a 600mm zoom. This is pretty good going, but what about the lens quality?

First off, the lens is heavy – weight is not an issue for me at the moment, but be warned that this puppy has a significant mass! If you use this lens without a tripod, beanbag or monopod then you’ll need a very steady grip – if the zoom factor doesn’t blur your images the fatigue of holding it up will!

The images I am getting from this lens are more than acceptable. They are pretty good (I imagine a better lens would give me sharper results) at all lengths and for most purposes will be fine. Of course, if you make your living out of photography then you’ll no doubt be using a different 400mm lens, but for those with a strong interest then this is a good lens to start off with.

The focus speed is quite good. It isn’t excellent, however and at times is downright sluggish. If you have a need for a very fast focus (for sports photography, maybe) then you might be disappointed. However, for the price this is possibly a compromise worth making. On my D50 this lens needs to be set to maximum aperture in order for the camera to work (lock it in place) but when done it allows all of the features of the camera to work.

I have taken about 400 or so images with this lens since I got it, and I am reasonably pleased (OK – very pleased) with the results at all lengths – the longest length seems to introduce a slightly softer look, but it isn’t something for a beginner to worry too much about… it is a slight softening and acceptable, in my opinion.

My only concerns with this lens are that when it is fitted to the camera, and carried ‘nose down’ the barrel slips out to it’s full length (hardly surprising… the force of gravity on a lens this weight…) and since it is a long lens it is tricky to find a decent enough bag to carry it whilst attached to the camera. I ended up with a Lowe Pro ‘Slingshot’ bag, putting the camera and lens in lengthwise instead of across the bag. My only other concern is that with the lens hood on, and the lens out at 400mm it does look a tad comical!

I was lucky to get this lens second-hand. As ever, when buying in this way be sure to check out the lense for chips, dents, marks, mould and so on. This one was spotless and at ��150 below retail price it was worth a chance.

Overall, I’m pleased with it. For the price it has to be a leading contender in the market and I would certainly consider other Sigma lenses on the strength of my experiences with this one. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has been using it, or any other non-nikon lens in their photography.

I have been trying to decide on a half decent digital camera for a long time now, and I narrowed the choice down to a Nikon D50 or a Canon EOS 350D. The original list also included Nikon D70s, Olympus E500 and a few others. By and large my budget was for about £500, but for the right deal I’d have gone higher.

So what did I look for?

First and foremost I do not consider myself to be a ‘pro’ photographer – I am fairly experienced around cameras, but probably still have a great deal to learn. My major prior experience is with Canon video cameras such as the XL1 and GM2(both of which I love using, by the way), so I bring no preconceptions to this – except possibly that Canon cameras are great! What I wanted was a camera that would take different lenses and would take rock solid pictures time after time, with enough room for me to ‘grow’ into it.

I read a lot of reviews online and in camera magazines. In nearly every case (but not all), the Canon came out just slightly ahead of the Nikon, largely because of the greater resolution (8 Megapixels instead of 6.1). I was particularly interested when it came to image quality and, despite the greater resolution, the Canon didn’t seem to be so favourably compared… the Nikon seemed to have the edge – clear, sharp images with few artifacts, etc.

So I went to a few shops and tried them out. My very first impression was that (looking at them) the Canon appeared so much more than the Nikon – nicer style, I suppose. However, when I picked them up, the Canon felt small in my hand – the little finger of my right hand seemed to slip off the bottom of the grip. When I held the Nikon, it felt so much better – a full grip and a great texture to hold. With the Canon I’d have ended up paying another £100 for a grip to make the body a bit larger…

I don’t actually have large hands, so I was a little surprised to find the Canon so small. I guess that for a lot of folk, compact is good – but for me in this case I was less worried about that aspect.

Next up came the cost. The Canon is more expensive at every store, and online. I found a couple of places that would do the Nikon for a little over £400, but it was bare bones stuff. Ultimately I didn’t want to wait four days for a camera to arrive from a dealer I had never heard of before, but equally, I didn’t want to pay over the odds just to get it immediately. The answer came from Apple who were doing a package deal of the Nikon D50 plus a 1Gb SD card for £479 (The deal seems to have gone now – 6th April… sorry!). This is about £60 cheaper than Dixons, for example, including lens.

As luck would have it I was walking past Dixons in Chelmsford and decided to pop in to see what they could offer me as a deal. I got talking to the salesman (for once, a grown up, and one who knew a little bit about the subject i wanted to talk about!) and he told me their best price. I asked for a discount, but he was sure he couldn’t match the Apple price for the camera and memory card… until the manager walked up. I happened to say that if they would match the Apple price, I’d pay there and then… and that is exactly what happened. Dixons in Chelmsford, 10am midweek is not too busy, and I felt well cared for as a customer… plus I got the camera I had my eye on there and then at an online price. You can’t ask for much more than that, really.

So, having had the camera for a few days now, what is it like? Well, I really like it! Each time I pick it up I feel like I want to take pictures. I am more than able to find my way around the controls, which fall in to really comfortable places – my fingers fall right onto them even when I am looking through the eyepiece. The on-screen display is informative, the LCD screen large enough and the feature set is good enough for a beginner like me… in fact, probably too good at the moment. The images I have taken are very sharp and shooting in RAW has been a revelation as well – all of the image information is in there just as the CCD captured it, instead of using a JPEG which has had some compression applied. It captures in JPEG as well, if I want, and I am switching between the two formats from time to time until I settle on the one I want to use constantly.

The battery seems to last an age as well – I have had the camera ten days or so as I write this, and have taken probably 300 shots in that time. The charge indicator hasn’t dropped at all, which has surprised me. When it starts to go down, I bet it drops very fast!

The flash seems a bit weedy to me – perfectly adequate for indoor casual stuff, but it gets a bit lost outdoors on a dull day I think. It won’t be long before I buy a larger flashgun… Having said that, it isn’t a problem and as the histogram shows, the camera is capturing the right amount of information each time.

The more advanced tools are still a bit lost on me – but I am learning. Shooting in manual mode seems a bit hit and miss, but the pre-sets in the camera are well tuned as far as I can tell.

All in all I am brilliantly happy with the camera. Ultimately, the decision came down to two things – firstly, the Nikon feels so much better in my hand and if I am going out day after day I wanted a camera that wouldn’t irritate me by feeling wrong. Secondly, Dixons matched the online price Apple were offering – I felt this was a very decent offer and thoroughly recommend you go and ask for a deal like that yourself!

Finally, I want to say thanks to a small camera shop in Cambridge, just off the market square called Campkins Camera Centre (no website I can find, but here’s the phone number:01223 364223). The staff in there are so patient, knowledgeable and helpful – I asked all I could ask and they were polite right through to the end. I kind of wished I had bought from them, but ultimately it was a budget thing!