I did look at that one (along with every other Canon prime in the 20 - 35mm range) but some of the reviews I saw were less than favorable - particularly mid-frame performance. It fell off my list pretty quick based on head-to-head comparison shots I saw.
don't most beginners like primes better (convenience)?
Quite the opposite. Anyone coming from a P&S camera is used to having zoom (optical and digital) to frame the picture the way they want.
Honestly, the main folks I see recommending prime lenses for beginners tend to be the same folks that suggest starting with a manual film body as well. I understand the notion of of learning the basic mechanics of photography, but it mostly smacks of old codger'ism... We didn't need no stinkin' auto-focus! We placed the photons on the negative by hand in the dark, and we LIKED IT!!
Give beginners the tools they need to enjoy photography with the opportunity to learn the rest as they become interested. Let them develop their artistic eye for composition and make it cheap and easy to experiment.
Jay
Edit: BTW, not accusing you of being one of the old codgers. Just a pet peeve of mine that I see a lot in photography forums when folks are asking about what to get a beginner.
Did I say primes?!? Sorry, I totally meant zooms. That's what I was talking about with the convenience thing, they are used to P&S zoom. Sorry about that, I must've been busy today!
Yes, I too notice it's usually guys from the film era who opposed AF that now favor primes. You know, those photographers that use MF film and take like 20 photos per wedding....;~) And the whole argument of whether video should be on DSLRs reminds me of when AF started to appear. Not insulting the non-video people, I can see their point: camera companies have put huge amounts of R&D into video, and they haven't been very busy with still-related innovations.
No, I totally agree with you...
Did I say primes?!? Sorry, I totally meant zooms. That's what I was talking about with the convenience thing, they are used to P&S zoom. Sorry about that, I must've been busy today!
Yes, I too notice it's usually guys from the film era who opposed AF that now favor primes. You know, those photographers that use MF film and take like 20 photos per wedding....;~) And the whole argument of whether video should be on DSLRs reminds me of when AF started to appear. Not insulting the non-video people, I can see their point: camera companies have put huge amounts of R&D into video, and they haven't been very busy with still-related innovations.
No, I totally agree with you...
I didn't get into photography till after auto-focus was common and accepted. What were the arguments against it, leaving aside the concerns that the early AF mechanisms were probably not as reliable or precise as they are today?
What I said when I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time: "The wide ain't wide enough and the zoom don't zoom enough!"
I want to take good piccutures!!!!!!
I heard this line "I want a camera that takes good pictures" countless times but my spouse doesn't even know how to upload pictures to her computer even with iPhoto. My opinion is that cameras help us to take "better" pictures but they "do not take pictures" we do take pictures.
haha does this make me a young (under 30) old codger? I love my photon brush
Not everyone who suggests MF cameras etc is suggesting it because theyre old fashioned, there are other reasons. I learnt using cheap MF gear because at the time I hadn't the money to buy expensive gear, as a result I learnt a lot along the way about how to control the camera to achieve the exact result I wanted without the camera having enough control to mess it up I am all for it being fun, and it is important not to bog people down in complexities, but sometimes it is understanding those complexities which allows people to actually overcome their frustrations rather than avoid them. There is a balance somewhere between the extremes The mf route worked out very well for me, it probably would for others, it probably wouldn't for some Its just an option, and when people ask for opinions people tend to give them lol
No arguments there. To me, it's all about understanding:
* where they are coming from?
* what they want to do?
* do they have someone to help them learn or are they on their own?
* how much they want or are willing to spend (budget)?
* how much are they willing to carry around?
More often than not, I guide them away from DSLRs because it is overkill for them. Sometimes even when a DSLR is exactly what they need (sports), they aren't willing to haul the kit around.
The "what camera should I get?" answer is about the same process I go through for the "what computer should I get?" question. The rig I get for photo/video editing + gaming is overkill if all you want to do is surf the Internet and do e-mail.
Another factor is what is defined as cheap. Cheap in the short term or cheap in the long term. Whilst having something is often better than nothing, sometimes it is better to buy something that does less better and that will last longer than buy something that does lots worse and won't last as long. Again there is balance to be found
Oddly enough, when I said "cheap and easy to experiment", the cheap part didn't refer to the startup costs of the equipment at all. I had in mind after you had the equipment, then it was cheap/easy to experiment
I grew up doing photography. Full manual bodies built like a tank where having any sort of built-in meter was still a novelty. For all that I enjoyed photography back then, including working in the darkroom, it was my first DSLR that really ignited things for me and made me love it.
The last film body I had was a Canon EOS Elan. Thought I was in heaven with all the features in it. Just a mid-range body for the time really, but a big step up from my previous cameras. For all that it was a great camera, the first digital P&S we got relegated the Elan to special occasions.
The shots from an early P&S were certainly nothing compared to the photos from the Elan, but removing the shackles of film was a huge deal. No more having to worry about the cost of every shutter click. No more long waits to see the results as I waited to get prints developed. Took me a while to get used to the novelty of being able to experiment freely.
Fast forward a few years and my oldest son was about to start playing football in middle school. I wanted good pictures of him and I knew better than to even try with my P&S. The lenses I had for my Elan weren't going to cut it either, so I started shopping for a new lens. Very quickly settled on a lens I'd lusted after for years (70-200 f/2.8), but also realized that I had zero desire to mess with film anymore. Ended up getting a 40D to go along with the new lens.
I knew what I'd be able to get quality-wise from the camera and I understood the ability to experiment freely once I had the kit. What came as a huge surprise was the beauty of EXIF data embedded in each image!
The dual feedback loops from on-board image viewing + histogram and embedded EXIF data really unlocked my ability to learn and improve at a MUCH faster rate than ever before. No need to take meticulous notes after each frame when I was in learning mode... Every frame tracks that for me so I can see exactly what I did wrong when I missed the shot. Beautiful!
Wow, apparently I'm more long winded this morning than usual even...
Many many moons ago my wife asked the same question. I want a new camera to take photos of the family can you pick one for me. Well i didnt know where to start because like you have read in this tread what does she want.
I knew i could not ask her this question because one look from her and your will stiffen with fear. I dont pretend to know how a women thinks but i know how i do. My answer lay in my nextdoor neighbours house. My neighbour wilbour has a great fasination with photography. Often my wife would be getting ready for bed and see wilbour looking through his camera at the stars late at night. So one late august evening i called to his door and asked him the same question. He scratched his head and said come in. We sat and talked for about an hour and agreed that he was going to help my wife out. On return from work one evening my wife showed me her new camera. I was dissapointed to see that she had bought a second hand 40d with a 300mm lens. I did not understand why she needed such a long lens for taking photos of the kids and myself in the house. She said that wilbour had brought her to the local camera shop and showed her the various cameras that would suit her needs.
Well i tried to tell her that the lens would be no good for taking photos inside the house but she carried on regardless. Special occasions came and went. I cringed when she took our family photographs especially great aunt maud who died several days after. Finally after 9 years and 200 8gig memory cards afterwards, it was decided to get a computer to look at the photos. This time i told her to see wilbur and sort it out herself. Afew weeks passed and i came home from work to find a computer set up in our spare room. It didnt look new so i did not ask any questions. My dear wife is great at budgeting for our family needs. At last i could see what torid out of focused pictures she had taken over the last 9 years. God they were bad. Very bad.
I did not know what to do and again i went to wilbur who luckily was just setting up a new computer of his own.
Unfortunatly he agreed that there could have been nothing one could do to save the badly taken photos. He showed me some of his work and it was ok. I noticed that 40d was written on his computer screen beside some old photos he had taken and asked him was it the fault of the camera instead.
No he said i have a 1d about 9 years now testament to how canon built their cameras and it is still working fine. Pity now that i look back and see the mistakes that were made and what could have been. But i plucked up the courage one day and asked my wife why she had bought second hand to which she replied no i bought new. Apparently our neighbour had gone to the camera shop 9 years ago and picked out a Canon 1d with a 300mm L lens for my wife to buy. Then he told her to practise on his 40d with his old 300mm lens until she became proficient in the art of photography. The same story with the computer. Well what could i say.
I told my wife she had taken the most beautiful photos i have ever seen and could not believe the skills she had with a computer. She was very happy and we spent the evening looking at photos of the stars and some of our house i thought my wife had taken. Oh Oh, this is wilburs computer and its not right to be looking through his pictures. No problem there. I frogmarched my wife to wilburs house and recovered the new computer and the camera he swindeled off my wife who by the way still takes those crazy pictures.
The lesson i learned was to keep my opinoins to my self and just tell her to go to the shop herself.
If you believe that you will believe anything.lol Just bored for 20 minutes. Hope everyone here has a sense of humour. lol
My wife did asked me similar question. Without telling her what to buy, I picked up the Tough 8000 all weather camera for her. She complaint it was too heavy, but I said it is durable, she could drop it to the ground or into water without problem. she said it was big, I told her it is easier for her to find from her big hand bag. She told me it was complicated, I explained to her that is hi-teach, multi-function, computerized and .....She happily carry it every trip.
When I want to "borrow it" as backup camera for extreme weather or those dirty sports, I told her to use the camera function on the smart phones, the photo would be as good under the good lighting.
The morale of the story is to be a good salesman, tell you client what they want to listen, not necessary the whole truth. Selling them one product only, not the whole shelf.
Comments
It can be done with an off camera TTL cable.
flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/
Quite the opposite. Anyone coming from a P&S camera is used to having zoom (optical and digital) to frame the picture the way they want.
Honestly, the main folks I see recommending prime lenses for beginners tend to be the same folks that suggest starting with a manual film body as well. I understand the notion of of learning the basic mechanics of photography, but it mostly smacks of old codger'ism... We didn't need no stinkin' auto-focus! We placed the photons on the negative by hand in the dark, and we LIKED IT!!
Give beginners the tools they need to enjoy photography with the opportunity to learn the rest as they become interested. Let them develop their artistic eye for composition and make it cheap and easy to experiment.
Jay
Edit: BTW, not accusing you of being one of the old codgers. Just a pet peeve of mine that I see a lot in photography forums when folks are asking about what to get a beginner.
Yes, I too notice it's usually guys from the film era who opposed AF that now favor primes. You know, those photographers that use MF film and take like 20 photos per wedding....;~) And the whole argument of whether video should be on DSLRs reminds me of when AF started to appear. Not insulting the non-video people, I can see their point: camera companies have put huge amounts of R&D into video, and they haven't been very busy with still-related innovations.
No, I totally agree with you...
I didn't get into photography till after auto-focus was common and accepted. What were the arguments against it, leaving aside the concerns that the early AF mechanisms were probably not as reliable or precise as they are today?
I heard this line "I want a camera that takes good pictures" countless times but my spouse doesn't even know how to upload pictures to her computer even with iPhoto. My opinion is that cameras help us to take "better" pictures but they "do not take pictures" we do take pictures.
Gool luck with your search.
No arguments there. To me, it's all about understanding:
* where they are coming from?
* what they want to do?
* do they have someone to help them learn or are they on their own?
* how much they want or are willing to spend (budget)?
* how much are they willing to carry around?
More often than not, I guide them away from DSLRs because it is overkill for them. Sometimes even when a DSLR is exactly what they need (sports), they aren't willing to haul the kit around.
The "what camera should I get?" answer is about the same process I go through for the "what computer should I get?" question. The rig I get for photo/video editing + gaming is overkill if all you want to do is surf the Internet and do e-mail.
Oddly enough, when I said "cheap and easy to experiment", the cheap part didn't refer to the startup costs of the equipment at all. I had in mind after you had the equipment, then it was cheap/easy to experiment
I grew up doing photography. Full manual bodies built like a tank where having any sort of built-in meter was still a novelty. For all that I enjoyed photography back then, including working in the darkroom, it was my first DSLR that really ignited things for me and made me love it.
The last film body I had was a Canon EOS Elan. Thought I was in heaven with all the features in it. Just a mid-range body for the time really, but a big step up from my previous cameras. For all that it was a great camera, the first digital P&S we got relegated the Elan to special occasions.
The shots from an early P&S were certainly nothing compared to the photos from the Elan, but removing the shackles of film was a huge deal. No more having to worry about the cost of every shutter click. No more long waits to see the results as I waited to get prints developed. Took me a while to get used to the novelty of being able to experiment freely.
Fast forward a few years and my oldest son was about to start playing football in middle school. I wanted good pictures of him and I knew better than to even try with my P&S. The lenses I had for my Elan weren't going to cut it either, so I started shopping for a new lens. Very quickly settled on a lens I'd lusted after for years (70-200 f/2.8), but also realized that I had zero desire to mess with film anymore. Ended up getting a 40D to go along with the new lens.
I knew what I'd be able to get quality-wise from the camera and I understood the ability to experiment freely once I had the kit. What came as a huge surprise was the beauty of EXIF data embedded in each image!
The dual feedback loops from on-board image viewing + histogram and embedded EXIF data really unlocked my ability to learn and improve at a MUCH faster rate than ever before. No need to take meticulous notes after each frame when I was in learning mode... Every frame tracks that for me so I can see exactly what I did wrong when I missed the shot. Beautiful!
Wow, apparently I'm more long winded this morning than usual even...
Jay
I knew i could not ask her this question because one look from her and your will stiffen with fear. I dont pretend to know how a women thinks but i know how i do. My answer lay in my nextdoor neighbours house. My neighbour wilbour has a great fasination with photography. Often my wife would be getting ready for bed and see wilbour looking through his camera at the stars late at night. So one late august evening i called to his door and asked him the same question. He scratched his head and said come in. We sat and talked for about an hour and agreed that he was going to help my wife out. On return from work one evening my wife showed me her new camera. I was dissapointed to see that she had bought a second hand 40d with a 300mm lens. I did not understand why she needed such a long lens for taking photos of the kids and myself in the house. She said that wilbour had brought her to the local camera shop and showed her the various cameras that would suit her needs.
Well i tried to tell her that the lens would be no good for taking photos inside the house but she carried on regardless. Special occasions came and went. I cringed when she took our family photographs especially great aunt maud who died several days after. Finally after 9 years and 200 8gig memory cards afterwards, it was decided to get a computer to look at the photos. This time i told her to see wilbur and sort it out herself. Afew weeks passed and i came home from work to find a computer set up in our spare room. It didnt look new so i did not ask any questions. My dear wife is great at budgeting for our family needs. At last i could see what torid out of focused pictures she had taken over the last 9 years. God they were bad. Very bad.
I did not know what to do and again i went to wilbur who luckily was just setting up a new computer of his own.
Unfortunatly he agreed that there could have been nothing one could do to save the badly taken photos. He showed me some of his work and it was ok. I noticed that 40d was written on his computer screen beside some old photos he had taken and asked him was it the fault of the camera instead.
No he said i have a 1d about 9 years now testament to how canon built their cameras and it is still working fine. Pity now that i look back and see the mistakes that were made and what could have been. But i plucked up the courage one day and asked my wife why she had bought second hand to which she replied no i bought new. Apparently our neighbour had gone to the camera shop 9 years ago and picked out a Canon 1d with a 300mm L lens for my wife to buy. Then he told her to practise on his 40d with his old 300mm lens until she became proficient in the art of photography. The same story with the computer. Well what could i say.
I told my wife she had taken the most beautiful photos i have ever seen and could not believe the skills she had with a computer. She was very happy and we spent the evening looking at photos of the stars and some of our house i thought my wife had taken. Oh Oh, this is wilburs computer and its not right to be looking through his pictures. No problem there. I frogmarched my wife to wilburs house and recovered the new computer and the camera he swindeled off my wife who by the way still takes those crazy pictures.
The lesson i learned was to keep my opinoins to my self and just tell her to go to the shop herself.
If you believe that you will believe anything.lol Just bored for 20 minutes. Hope everyone here has a sense of humour. lol
Sounds familiar.
My wife did asked me similar question. Without telling her what to buy, I picked up the Tough 8000 all weather camera for her. She complaint it was too heavy, but I said it is durable, she could drop it to the ground or into water without problem. she said it was big, I told her it is easier for her to find from her big hand bag. She told me it was complicated, I explained to her that is hi-teach, multi-function, computerized and .....She happily carry it every trip.
When I want to "borrow it" as backup camera for extreme weather or those dirty sports, I told her to use the camera function on the smart phones, the photo would be as good under the good lighting
The morale of the story is to be a good salesman, tell you client what they want to listen, not necessary the whole truth. Selling them one product only, not the whole shelf.
flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/