Canon EOS Beginners' FAQ. A really good, detailed FAQ; I just picked up a Canon EOS 400D (aka Digital Rebel XTi) and I’m figuring out what I can do with it. It looks like I’ll need something better than the kit lens for wildlife photography.
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British wildlife, I hope :)
You'll probably want to be looking and lenses in the 400mm+ range for wildlife. Let us know if you fancy an expedition!
Have fun with it, it's a great camera!
Charles Darke - 17th January 2008 21:06 - #
Priority at the moment is New Zealand wildlife - we're off for four weeks at the end of January! I don't really want to spend more than £200 on a telephoto lens, but that's pretty restrictive. Might just go for the bottom of the range 300mm one (£106 on Amazon) for the moment as we need to be able to pay for the actual holiday...
You can always get a cheapo 28-300 lens. Since it's probably going to be bright and sunny it will be lighter and perform just as well as an expensive lens.
Charles Darke - 17th January 2008 21:44 - #
Hey, I just bought that same camera a couple of weeks ago! I finally got to go out and use it last weekend and took 200 shots which I'm now sorting through to find a couple to put up on Flickr.
I got myself the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. It sounded like a great starter lens from several forums I read and the recommendation of a friend. I had a lot of fun with it last weekend, seems like it will do a lot for me. At 1.8, you can do some really fun depth of field stuff.
The f/1.4 USM version is clearly nicer, but at $75 vs. $300 (US dollars - Amazon), the f/1.8 is a great deal.
I'm going to pick up a bigger zoom lens eventually, but I imagine I can learn a lot with just the 50mm.
Oh, and thanks for the link, looks like a lot of stuff there.
Cool, make sure to update and let us know how that lens works out for you. Looks like the USM version is about £40 more. That might be worth it if focusing speed matters to you. I got to try out a friend's 50mm f/1.4 which is USM, and it definitely focuses noticeably faster than the non-USM f/1.8. If you're shooting stationary objects, it probably won't bother you much, but it if the £40 isn't a huge difference to you, it might be worth it to go with the USM version.
I've used the 75-300mm lens you posted and, for the price, I don't think you can go wrong with it.
I've got a 70-200 f/2.8 but for the NZ wildlife, I'd probably still opt for the cheaper lens since it will be lighter and stopped down, the quality difference will not be huge.
Charles Darke - 18th January 2008 09:47 - #
I've been thinking about getting one of those for ages! I got to the checkout before I remembered I don't go outside enough to warrant it...
Let us know how you get on with it!
Camera Price Buster is a really useful site for finding the best online prices (although it seems they've not currently picked up on that Amazon bargain). They also have coupon codes and various other deals - so worth checking out.
http://camerapricebuster.co.uk/