# Noob camera purchase question



## Bingo (Jan 24, 2012)

Hi I decided today I'm gonna try a bit of wildlife photography with a decent zoom etc cos I go walking a lot and need a hobby... SO!

What type of camera is available for a couple of hundred quid with a zoom... should I be looking to get a Nikon and spend a bit more? Any advice appreciated!


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## Bingo (Jan 24, 2012)

Thinking of getting a reconditioned Nikon D40...


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## tombowler (Jan 24, 2012)

im no expert but most digital cameras have an awful delay from pressing the button to shooting so i guess you are into the high end digi slr area so i would guess you need to look second hand to get something that shoots fast at this price point, no idea what though.


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## editor (Jan 24, 2012)

tombowler said:


> im no expert but most digital cameras have an awful delay from pressing the button....


Not any more.  Even quite cheap cameras can react fairly speedily to a shutter press.

The Panasonic Lumix TZ10 is a great camera for £210.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-L...A0ZE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327436693&sr=8-1


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## tombowler (Jan 24, 2012)

I am well behind thee times then, when we were shopping for a camera a couple of years back we went for a panasonic lumix dmc-fz7 over a cannon (i forget now) the Cannon was faster but ate batteries and the lumix had it's own battery pack that stilll lasts well


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## Bingo (Jan 24, 2012)

ah cheers I never really considered the shutter delay! I'll check the panasonic...

I imagine I'll need summat with a badass zoom lens or at least the potential to stick one on the front of it?


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## editor (Jan 24, 2012)

A 'couple of hundred quid' won't get you a new SLR with a big zoom.


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## Bingo (Jan 24, 2012)

ok well cheers I'm sort of getting there with info... are the zoom lenses just as expensive as the camera? What do you think of the d40?


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## editor (Jan 24, 2012)

Bingo said:


> What do you think of the d40?


Not a bad camera but it's quite old now.  What's your max budget?


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## Bingo (Jan 24, 2012)

maybe 300 but I'd like to get a zoom too, so probably 2nd hand eh? Been having a gander at ebay


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## Bingo (Jan 25, 2012)

Ok I've picked up a pretty cheap Nikon 40x off ebay, any recommendations for a zoom lens?


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## Bingo (Jan 25, 2012)

is this any good?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sigma-70-...=UK_Lenses_Filters_Lenses&hash=item3f12e51ea4


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 25, 2012)

That lens will do what you want but as it is a used one, I would want to buy from a bricks and mortar shop where  you can look at it and handle it to see what state it is in. Also you can look the seller in the eye and negotiate a deal.


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## Bingo (Jan 25, 2012)

Cheers I appreciate the advice! Gonna keep looking, never been in a camera shop before better find one first...


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 25, 2012)

Bingo said:


> Cheers I appreciate the advice! Gonna keep looking, never been in a camera shop before better find one first...


Give it five minutes for someone to come on and say you will get better value for money on the web and shops are history.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 25, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Give it five minutes for someone to come on and say you will get better value for money on the web and shops are history.


As someone with a fairly recent interest in proper cameras and stuff, it seems hard enough to find the bloody places  Proper ones, as opposed to Jessops and that, who seem more like an aisle in Currys.


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## editor (Jan 25, 2012)

Bingo said:


> is this any good?
> 
> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sigma-70-...=UK_Lenses_Filters_Lenses&hash=item3f12e51ea4


It's rather slow at F4-5.6 .


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## Bingo (Jan 26, 2012)

ok, so what speed should I be looking for?

Really looking forward to getting my camera now!


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## sim667 (Jan 26, 2012)

I think the cheapest way of getting a decent zoom would be to buy one for an old film slr and use it on a dslr, you'd have to be quick with the old manual focus though....

Sigma's are pretty good cheaper alternatives to canon/nikon/whatever brand of body you have.

Mirror zooms get a bad rep, and because of that you can pick them up cheap, but there's some pretty good photos out there taken on mirror zooms, you just need to make yourself well aware of the limitations of them.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 26, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Give it five minutes for someone to come on and say you will get better value for money on the web and shops are history.



Fine if you're buying new, and have full warranty etc, but I totally agree with you about buying 2nd-hand stuff (especially optics with electronics in them) only when you've had a chance to personally inspect it.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 26, 2012)

sim667 said:


> I think the cheapest way of getting a decent zoom would be to buy one for an old film slr and use it on a dslr, you'd have to be quick with the old manual focus though....
> 
> Sigma's are pretty good cheaper alternatives to canon/nikon/whatever brand of body you have.
> 
> Mirror zooms get a bad rep, and because of that you can pick them up cheap, but there's some pretty good photos out there taken on mirror zooms, you just need to make yourself well aware of the limitations of them.



WTF is a mirror zoom? Do you mean a catadioptric telephoto?


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## Bingo (Jan 26, 2012)

aaaagh complicated!


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## hippogriff (Jan 26, 2012)

A lot of Nikon-fit lenses will not auto-focus with the D40x and other similar Nikon DSLRs. The lenses that do will normally have AF-S in the spec. Basically the high-end Nikons have a focussing motor in the body, the lower end ones use a focussing motor in the lens.

The majority of lenses in the price range that you are looking at are likely to be fairly slow - once you are looking at a larger maximum aperture then you are probably also looking at a price that runs into thousands of pounds rather than hundreds (or less). You can always use a tripod, which is often a good idea with a long lens anyway.

Manual focus is the cheapest way to go - there's another Sigma on ebay that's had no bids so far with less than a day to go - but you need to be careful with lenses that are too old. There might be issues with metering on old lenses; even though Nikon have kept the same basic lens mount since the F there are plenty of incompatibility issues to fall foul of.


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## Bingo (Jan 26, 2012)

Cheers thats really helpful!


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## sim667 (Jan 26, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> WTF is a mirror zoom? Do you mean a catadioptric telephoto?


yes. Aka a mirror zoom


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## Bingo (Jan 26, 2012)

thinkin of getting this one any thoughts?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nikon-Zoo...=UK_Lenses_Filters_Lenses&hash=item2ebae933d8


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 26, 2012)

sim667 said:


> I think the cheapest way of getting a decent zoom would be to buy one for an old film slr and use it on a dslr, you'd have to be quick with the old manual focus though....
> 
> Sigma's are pretty good cheaper alternatives to canon/nikon/whatever brand of body you have.
> 
> Mirror zooms get a bad rep, and because of that you can pick them up cheap, but there's some pretty good photos out there taken on mirror zooms, you just need to make yourself well aware of the limitations of them.


The problem with using old film slr lenses on a digital camera is that you have to allow for the 'crop factor' when working out what the real focal length of the lens will be. The practical effect is to increase the effective focal length of the lens by the camera crop factor. Also you need to buy an adaptor which is another expense. I forked out for adaptor on my Olympus E420 but that is because I already had a set of Olympus lenses and with a crop factor of 2 on the E-420 the maths is easy. Of course I have to use manual focus with the old lenses.

Mirror lenses also have the limitation of only having one set aperture. This is because the mirror is in the middle where the variable aperture would have its effect. You are left with using the shutter speed to control light or investing in some neutral density filters. The advantage of mirror lenses is that they are very much shorter than their focal length because the light path is folded back on itself.

Yes Sigma lenses are good and have sometimes been opined to be better than some proprietary lenses for specific models.


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## sim667 (Jan 26, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> The problem with using old film slr lenses on a digital camera is that you have to allow for the 'crop factor' when working out what the real focal length of the lens will be. The practical effect is to increase the effective focal length of the lens by the camera crop factor. Also you need to buy an adaptor which is another expense. I forked out for adaptor on my Olympus E420 but that is because I already had a set of Olympus lenses and with a crop factor of 2 on the E-420 the maths is easy. Of course I have to use manual focus with the old lenses.
> 
> Mirror lenses also have the limitation of only having one set aperture. This is because the mirror is in the middle where the variable aperture would have its effect. You are left with using the shutter speed to control light or investing in some neutral density filters.
> 
> Yes Sigma lenses are good and have sometimes been opined to be better than some proprietary lenses for specific models.



Agreed with all of that ^. Was a suggestion mainly for cheapness, what the op is proposing is nature photography on a budget, and a mirror lens would offer a long range to shoot with on a budget. Certainly not saying they're the best lens for thy, but certainly within the price range it would be an option.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 26, 2012)

sim667 said:


> yes. Aka a mirror zoom



Zoom isn't the same as telephoto, and catadioptric *zooms* are expensive and rare.


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## editor (Jan 26, 2012)

To be honest, for nature photography on a budget, I'd go for a bridge camera like the Fujifilm FinePix HS20 EXR which offers a massive 24-720mm lens with manual zoom. It'll be a lot more fun to use than fiddling about with Ye Olde manual focus lenses.

It's not as good as a proper SLR set up, but it's probably better than a cobbled together collection of second hand lens with all sorts of potential compatibility issues for the price.

Alternatives here: http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/eq...ra-2011-our-top-5-superzooms-of-the-year.html


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## hippogriff (Jan 26, 2012)

Bingo said:


> thinkin of getting this one any thoughts?
> 
> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nikon-Zoo...=UK_Lenses_Filters_Lenses&hash=item2ebae933d8



It's a good lens - depends on how expensive its gets at the end. The Nikon 18-55mm is as good and may well be cheaper. Both are wide/angle - short telephoto lenses - you would be looking for something longer for wildlife, but either of the two are suited to general photography.


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## editor (Jan 26, 2012)

hippogriff said:


> The Nikon 18-55mm is as good and may well be cheaper.


Pretty useless for wildlife though, unless you're photographing elephants from 20 metres away.


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## hippogriff (Jan 26, 2012)

editor said:


> Pretty useless for wildlife though, unless you're photographing elephants from 20 metres away.


True - the 18-70 is much the same. I've got the Sigma 55-200 (on a D40) and even that's not really long enough


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## Bingo (Jan 26, 2012)

so what do I look for for a decent zoom range?


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## sim667 (Jan 26, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Zoom isn't the same as telephoto, and catadioptric *zooms* are expensive and rare.



Well a catadioptric telephoto if you want to be really pendatic about equipment terminology.

Most people would know what you meant by a mirror lens however.


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 26, 2012)

For wildlife you are going to be looking at a 300 plus at the long end. To work it out consider the number of times bigger than a standard lens that you want the image to be. A 300mm lens will give an image six times the size of that of a 'standard' 50mm lens. That is it encompasses one sixth of the area of the subject. A tripod is essential of course because every shake is multiplied 6 times as well.

When you get a zoom lens however, you have not only to consider the long end but also the shortest focal length for when you are using it with close at hand objects or people. 80mm is considered ideal for portraiture for example.

The other aspect is how much time you will be using the lens at each end of its range. If you are mostly doing non-landscape or closer photography it will be a drag carrying around a 300 mm lens that is heavy and awkward. Perhaps while you are learning what you want, a cheapish medium zoom would be better until you know your way around lenses more.


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## hippogriff (Jan 26, 2012)

Agreed, 300mm is generally considered to be the minimum focal length for wildlife, for full frame 35mm. As I understand it, a 300mm lens designed for a 35mm film SLR would effectively have a longer focal length if used on a DSLR; with a DX lens designed for Digital, 300mm is 300mm


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 27, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Well a catadioptric telephoto if you want to be really pendatic about equipment terminology.
> 
> Most people would know what you meant by a mirror lens however.



TBF, most people know that a zoom and a telephoto aren't the same thing, yet you insisted on referring to a "mirror zoom". 

Telephoto lens - fixed focal length.

Zoom lens - variable focal length..


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## sim667 (Jan 27, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> TBF, most people who like photography and are anal about photographic terminology know that a zoom and a telephoto aren't the same thing, yet you insisted on referring to a "mirror zoom".
> 
> Telephoto lens - fixed focal length.
> 
> Zoom lens - variable focal length..



ftfy.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 27, 2012)

sim667 said:


> ftfy.



Face it, if you went into a camera shop to buy a lens, pointed to a Pentax KA f3.5/135mm and said "I'd like to buy that zoom lens", the guy behind the counter would be sniggering into his goatee. If you contacted any of your photographic suppliers and made the same error they'd laugh at you. It's not about pedantry, it's about someone who offers informed advice making a cock-up, and then using the old "you're a pedant" _schtick_ to try and avoid admitting they've made a mistake. 

I mean, perhaps you *want* Bingo to go into his local camera shop and have the staff get a laugh at his expense, but I don't reckon that's the case. So why not be a man about it, hmm?


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## sim667 (Jan 27, 2012)

Have you worked in a camera shop? I have and they wouldnt snigger.

Do you source photographic equipment on a daily basis? I do, and I never have any problems whatsoever.

Even if they did think it was a problem, they wouldnt laugh at you because they want to make the sale.

Go and ask in jessops for a catadioptric telephoto lens..... and see if the saturday boy knows what it is.

I might even try ringing Jessops and record the conversation just for the lulz

I also just asked a photography teacher where I work, she didnt even know what a mirror lens was 

It's a lot more important to know how to actually use your camera than to know the terminology for everything you might ever buy


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 27, 2012)

If you want to be really pedantic,a 'telephoto' lens is a lens which is constructed so that it is shorter than its stated 'focal length'. This is achieved by having a weakly divergent lens element at the camera end of the lens. This takes the focal point further back than it would have been. Before telephoto construction was invented a 100mm lens would actually be 100mm long. It would be accurate to describe this as a 'long focal length' lens because it is larger than 50mm.

By the above definition mirror lenses are telephoto in that they are much shorter than their effective focal length although they use the reflection back from the mirror to shorten the length rather than the 'telephoto construction' described in the second sentence. The term cadadioptric is redundant in a photography context as it just means that it has both mirror and lens in the construction, and all photographic mirror lenses have this. In astronomy however a mirror lens may just have a massive concave mirror as its main lens.


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 27, 2012)

Bingo - don't panic it will take you quite a short time to pick up the basics. Just point the camera and press the button. It costs nothing with digital photography.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 27, 2012)

sim667 said:


> Have you worked in a camera shop? I have and they wouldnt snigger.



Jessops, but I'm not sure they count as a camera shop any longer.



> Do you source photographic equipment on a daily basis? I do, and I never have any problems whatsoever.



I know that you "source photographic equipment on a daily basis", which is why I'm surprised you were stupid enough to refer to a telephoto as a zoom.



> Even if they did think it was a problem, they wouldnt laugh at you because they want to make the sale.



Sounds like you've never shopped at G***s of West*****er, then. My mate got laughed out of there less than 18 months ago. He'd gone in to buy a new f1.4/35mm. Needless to say, they didn't get the sale (just under £1400). His terminological error? He referred to it as a "fixed aperture" rather than a "fixed focal length" lens.



> Go and ask in jessops for a catadioptric telephoto lens..... and see if the saturday boy knows what it is.



Why would I talk to a saturday boy? You're wriggling about in order to make a non-existent point.



> I might even try ringing Jessops and record the conversation just for the lulz



You do that if it gladdens your heart. 



> I also just asked a photography teacher where I work, she didnt even know what a mirror lens was



Perhaps she's never needed to use one, or perhaps she believed they were "mirror zooms" and only wanted to use prime lenses? 



> It's a lot more important to know how to actually use your camera than to know the terminology for everything you might ever buy



Have I said that it isn't? Nah, of course I haven't, so don't put words in my mouth, eh? 
BTW, I've been using cameras including SLRs for ages (4 decades, G-d help me). So I know technique *and* terminology. The two *can* co-exist, even if you're not able to manifest that ability.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 27, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> Bingo - don't panic it will take you quite a short time to pick up the basics. Just point the camera and press the button. It costs nothing with digital photography.



Except the occasional "wtf" moment as you get either an exceptionally good, or exceptionally bad picture. Being able to read the picture data, of course, is very helpful in working out how to reproduce the "feel" of pictures, especially when you're initially using the camera for point and shoot.


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## Bingo (Jan 27, 2012)

Can't wait to get it now, am off to Whitby in 2 weeks so will give Ed a run for his money


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## sim667 (Jan 27, 2012)

It doesn't really matter anyway, I just think its unnecessary to pull someone up on a minor detail. But then I work with students, so a neg carrier becomes know as 'the slider thing for films' and the shutter release becomes 'the button'..... So I guess I just get used to it.

And if I did go into a camera shop and they laughed at me for getting the terminology wrong they'd never get any business from me. Infact I rang a shop the other day and asked for a roller print dryer for rc and they sent me a quote for a print drying rack, I didn't smirk, cleared up the misunderstanding and got on with it (they tried to flog me an untested machine with no mains lead and it was sold as seen, except I couldnt see it. At that point I decided I wouldn't send them any more business.


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 28, 2012)

Bingo said:


> Can't wait to get it now, am off to Whitby in 2 weeks so will give Ed a run for his money



Is it Whitby Goth week, or the Dracula convention, by any chance?


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 28, 2012)

sim667 said:


> It doesn't really matter anyway, I just think its unnecessary to pull someone up on a minor detail. But then I work with students, so a neg carrier becomes know as 'the slider thing for films' and the shutter release becomes 'the button'..... So I guess I just get used to it.



I reckon it's RTFM-fatigue as much as anything. No-one seems to bother reading them any more, so you don't pick up what things are called as easily.



> And if I did go into a camera shop and they laughed at me for getting the terminology wrong they'd never get any business from me.



Which is why my mate walked out of Grays. Why give some piss-taker the commission? He ended up buying a "demonstration model" from a shop in Croydon for £900 which was warrantied "as new".



> Infact I rang a shop the other day and asked for a roller print dryer for rc and they sent me a quote for a print drying rack, I didn't smirk, cleared up the misunderstanding and got on with it (they tried to flog me an untested machine with no mains lead and it was sold as seen, except I couldnt see it. At that point I decided I wouldn't send them any more business.



You couldn't see it, couldn't test it, and they wanted to sell it to you as seen? That's some _chutzpah_!


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## Hocus Eye. (Jan 28, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> I reckon it's RTFM-fatigue as much as anything. No-one seems to bother reading them any more, so you don't pick up what things are called as easily.



I always read the (effing) manual, but usually long after I have started to use the kit. My ex used to reckon that it is a man thing and that women read the manual first.

As for the shutter release being called 'the button', that goes back to George Eastman and his first box camera with film enclosed. "You press the button we do the rest".


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 28, 2012)

"Release" makes it sound like it is going to race off into the distance as soon as you touch it, out of sheer joy of photographic freedom.


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## Bingo (Jan 28, 2012)

No to the goth thingy although I hope there's plenty of lasses in gasmasks and vampires for me hehe! Just going for a weekend away to tide us over til spring


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## ViolentPanda (Jan 29, 2012)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "Release" makes it sound like it is going to race off into the distance as soon as you touch it, out of sheer joy of photographic freedom.



Or cum on your hand.


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