Wedding Lens/NASCAR Lens
Hello All! This will be 2 questions in one, with 2 totally different answers. I am just getting into the photography scene. Mainly just experimenting round the house and takng my camera where ever I go. My friend is having a wedding in a couple of months and I am doing some pictures for it for fun and wanted to know what inexpensive lens would be good to use for the event. The actual wedding is outside on the beach. 2nd question is that I am a huge nascar fan! And my hubby and I are attending an evening race this year and wanted to know the best lens for this. We will not be incredibly close to the action and might not be able to take a tripod, way to make things difficult, i know i know. Anyway, advice is much appreciated. Oh! Also, for the wedding, if there is a good, inexpensive small digital camera that I can have my hubby hold and be in control of, please let me know. Thanks so much!
Kara
Kara
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I see from a previous post that you have the Nikon 40D.
What lenses do you have now?
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Eric
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Do try to get the to the scene before the wedding and determine what, if any, fill light is required of your flash. Practice on any willing subject.
If the ceremony is during true daylight your flash with a "scoop" modifier would probably work best if you need more dominant flash lighting. I don't think your camera supports an "FP" flash mode so you may need to get a neutral density filter to help attenuate ambient light.
If the ceremony is late in the day consider the use of filters for the flash to approximate the ambient WB.
As for an inexpensive digital camera for your husband, in good light there is an abundance of fairly nice P&S cameras on the market. Look for something with a fairly short shutter lag for best results on candids. Sony "W" and "T" series cameras are reported to have short lag times and the Canon Powershot "S" and "A" series are not too bad.
Once the light goes down, I would almost rather use a simple film camera than many digital P&S cameras.
For Nascar you need a very long lens unless you can get positioned closer to the action. AF may not be fast enough, especially for the D40, so you may need to pre-focus and time your shutter release to when the cars hit the focus point.
A Sigma 50-500mm, f/4-6.3 EX APO DG HSM "bigma" would probably make a pretty good auto-race lens. I would see if you can use a monopod for stability.
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You might consider a 50mm prime lens. Both the Nikkor 50mm, f1.8D and the Nikkor 50mm, f1.4D are very nice, albeit manual focus on your camera.
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Alternatively, you could stretch your budget a titch and get a 12-24 sigma ex lens.
Here is a wedding website I created for a customer as a value-add. Comments appreciated.
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Not wanting to discourge you.....but simply.....I would opt to sell that 55-200 and start looking for a Sigma 70-200f2.8.....now you may even find that you can manual focus faster than your D40 will autofocus....I have been a manual focuser for a very long time especially at weddings where the clothing doesn't have much contrast for the focus points to grab on too.......and I have been using a Siggy70-210f2.8 for over 20yrs in various incarnations (minolta, nikon and now again Konica Minolta..soon to be back with Nikon).....but if you are the least bit serious about shooting weddings then I suggest you need 2 lenses (both siggy or Nikon equivs when the money is there....) something like the 17-70 f2.8-4.5 and the 70-200 f2.8macro ......one of the lenses should be a macro for ring close ups and such.....those 2 lenses will do a perfect job for weddings and the 70-200 will do good for Nascar......how is the D40 for low light high iso......you may need a noie removing software like Noise ware or Noise Ninja for removing noise from nighttime Nascar.....just a thought.............