Getting a Bigma. Stick with tripod or go monopod?

lifesdisciple

I just ordered my Bigma yesterday and was wondering about a monopod. I have a Manfrotto 3012BPRO tripod that i lug around everywhere and now since I will have the extra wieght of the Bigma should or can I use a good monopod? Will mostly be shooting wildlife and birds. And also.. could someone recommend a good ball head for that tripod. I have a tilt/pan Manfrotto 3030 now and I don't like the restrictions of the tilts but have heard somewhere that some ball heads are very stable. Is this true? Thanks for your time.

Scott_Quier

Consider that at 500mm, you are shooting an effective 800mm. That's a level arm to keep steady. And, there's no IS on this lens. Carry the tripod. Use the tripod.

As for the ballhead, check out this site.

http://www.acratech.net/

I have the "version 1.0" and love it. I have read where others on this forum have V2 and love it as well. Very nicely engineered piece of hardware. If I were in the market for a new ballhead, I think I would get the V2 model now. The folks at the company (and, it's a small company) are very easy to deal with. When I bought mine directly from them, I ordered the wrong QR plate (it was for a different camera), I called them up. The cross-shipped the correct plate. It is an exaggeration to say that I got the replacement before I got the first one in the mail, but not by much! Very easy people to deal with.

BigAl

I have mentioned this before on DGrin, I use a monopod with a monopod bucket:



I have gotten some really good shots with a Bigma, monopod and monopod bucket combo. Look through this gallery for pics with SdP in the caption.
http://bigal-sa.smugmug.com/gallery/1545869

Nikolai

Scott,

Scott_Quier wrote:

Consider that at 500mm, you are shooting an effective 800mm.
...

With all due respect, the crop factor has zero effect on image stabilization, as well as on pretty much anything else EXCEPT the image size...
All the optic-based guidelines are still based on the true focal length, not the crop-induced one.
So, holding-wise, Bigma is still 500mm lens on the tele side...
Just my 0.000002 of the f/stop.
HTH

BigAl

Nikolai wrote:

With all due respect, the crop factor has zero effect on image stabilization, as well as on pretty much anything else EXCEPT the image size...
All the optic-based guidelines are still based on the true focal length, not the crop-induced one.
So, holding-wise, Bigma is still 500mm lens on the tele side...
Just my 0.000002 of the f/stop.
HTH

Not sure I agree with you. Consider the Panasonic FZ range: the crop factor is 4.73x, and has a maximum focal length of 88.8mm. Because of the sensor size, the 35mm equivalent focal length is 420mm. You're going to get quite a bit of shake with this if you try handholding with the IS off at too low a shutter speed. So, the crop factor does influence stabilization...

Nikolai

BigAl,

BigAl wrote:

Not sure I agree with you. Consider the Panasonic FZ range: the crop factor is 4.73x, and has a maximum focal length of 88.8mm. Because of the sensor size, the 35mm equivalent focal length is 420mm. You're going to get quite a bit of shake with this if you try handholding with the IS off at too low a shutter speed. So, the crop factor does influence stabilization...

All the optics-based guidelines consider the conventional lenses.

Imagine you have a regular 50mm lens and you put a tiny 1mmx1mm CCD behind it. You'll probably get 100x or more crop factor "magnification".
But would you seriously consider this contraption a 5,000mm focal length camera?
I personally would not..:-) It would be still a 50mm camera, you'll be simply getting a tiny portion of an otherwise bigger possible image. Optically it's 50mm. DOF is 50mm's DOF. Same as shooting FF and then chipping out a small rectangle from the center.

HTH

gus

Scott_Quier wrote:

Consider that at 500mm.

Off subject for a bit..bigmas are not true 500's are they ? I remember reading they are 440 or 460 or something

BigAl

Nikolai wrote:

All the optics-based guidelines consider the conventional lenses.

Imagine you have a regular 50mm lens and you put a tiny 1mmx1mm CCD behind it. You'll probably get 100x or more crop factor "magnification".
But would you seriously consider this contraption a 5,000mm focal length camera?
I personally would not..:-) It would be still a 50mm camera, you'll be simply getting a tiny portion of an otherwise bigger possible image. Optically it's 50mm. DOF is 50mm's DOF. Same as shooting FF and then chipping out a small rectangle from the center.

HTH

The problem is why should 35mm format be regarded as convention? Put a 50mm lens on a medium to large format camera, and it's a wide angle lens. So to carry your argument further, any lens on a 35mm camera is only a crop of that same lens on a medium to large format camera.

Where the problem comes from is we all think we have a feeling for what magnification we are getting when we talk about an x-mm lens on a 35mm camera, so everything gets brought back (rightly or wrongly) to 35mm terms. If the crop factor turns the lens into a telephoto lens, you must be aware of camera shake, which I think is what Scott was alluding to.

marlof

Nikolai wrote:

All the optics-based guidelines consider the conventional lenses.

Back to what Big Al stated: does this mean you think you can handhold the 420mm equiv FOV of the FZ with 1/60 or 1/125 and get the same sharp results as you get with a 90mm on a FF camera? I don't think so.

BigAl

gus wrote:

Off subject for a bit..bigmas are not true 500's are they ? I remember reading they are 440 or 460 or something

Gus, I've seen varying focal lengths between 460 and 495mm for the Bigma, but nothing definitive. For that matter, I've also seen the Canon 100-400mm reported as 380mm max.

Scott_Quier

Nikolai wrote:

With all due respect, the crop factor has zero effect on image stabilization, as well as on pretty much anything else EXCEPT the image size...
All the optic-based guidelines are still based on the true focal length, not the crop-induced one.
So, holding-wise, Bigma is still 500mm lens on the tele side...
Just my 0.000002 of the f/stop.
HTH

I don't think so. The rule of thumb is based on the actual, experienced viewing angle produced by a lens on a camera body. In FF terms, someone produced the rule that 1/focal length was a good place to start. This rule had, built into it, certain assumptions about the viewing angle produced by the lens on the camera body.

Now we have the crop factor. This doesn't have any effect on the "true" focal length of the lens, but it does have a huge impace on the viewing angle experienced by the combination of the lens on a crop body.

Consider this as a way of thinking about the issue:

• Mount the lens on a FF body.
• Mount the combination body/lens on a pan head
• Pan at constant rate
• While panning, expose a frame

Now, do the same thing but mount the same lens on a crop body (but be sure to pan the camera at the same rate - measured at the camera, not by what is seen through the camera - because we are trying to measure the effects of camera movement, not the effects of subject movement through the frame).

Compare the resulting images. Which do you think will be more blurry? I suggest to you that the crop body image will be more blury as the subject is scanning across the sensor at a faster effective rate. Just as the image is magnified, so too are all the optical effects that go with it.

Steve Cavigliano

gus wrote:

Off subject for a bit..bigmas are not true 500's are they ? I remember reading they are 440 or 460 or something

Gus,
I think the Bigma is like 463mms and the Tammy 200-500 maxs out at 473mms.

I agree with Big Al's suggestion. That set up looks great Stable yet, not a PITA to move/carry around. Not to mention, that the results he gets using it speak for themself.

Steve

Jeffro

Scott_Quier wrote:

Just as the image is magnified, so too are all the optical effects that go with it.

The image is not truly magnified. The sensor is just picking up less of what the lens sees. A teleconverter will magnify.

Think of it as taking a picture with 35mm film developing the film, and then cropping a photo out of the original picture. Your camera shake will show up better in the cropped photo, but the crop had nothing to do with your camera shake.

Will camera shake show up more in the final photo on a 1.6x crop factor lens? Yes. Did the crop truley have anything to do with it? No. Your shake was there anyway, you would have just had to blown up the full sensor photo bigger to see it.

So if you shoot with a 300mm lens on a full frame camera, use at leat 1/300 (to be safe) while hand holding. If you attach the 300mm to a 1.6x crop factor lens 1/300 will give you the exact same results.

2 more cents....

BigAl

Jeffro wrote:

So if you shoot with a 300mm lens on a full frame camera, use at leat 1/300 (to be safe) while hand holding. If you attach the 300mm to a 1.6x crop factor lens 1/300 will give you the exact same results.

You don't seem to have looked at my Panasonic scenario above, nor have you answered Marlof's question...

Nikolai

Jeffro,
"...may those with ears, hear..."
Amen, brother

Jeffro

BigAl wrote:

You don't seem to have looked at my Panasonic scenario above

Yes I did.

, nor have you answered Marlof's question...

Use a monopod if you're going to be on the move, and a tripod if you aren't. I take both.