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#21
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On 04 Oct 2004 16:10:34 -0700, Phil Stripling
wrote: (street shooter) writes: Or you could move three steps closer with the 50. Neither always possible nor desirable in Africa. You're right. In Africa, taking 3 steps forward might violate my puckerbrush rule of always trying to keep someone else closer to nasty critters than I am. Back to photography, I take a look at photos from my medium format and then look at the prices of digital slrs that have some chance of producing very clean prints, and I'm thinking I simply can't afford the gear I want. This might sound like heresy to this newsgroup but I'm beginning to think I might be just as well off buying something like the new Nikon Coolpix 8800 (ED glass, image stabilization, 10X optical zoom and 8mp). The price of that wouldn't get me even close to the dslr camera and lens I'd like. And the heft of the camera would be suchthat I'd actually tote it along. And I'd be unlikely to misplace the lens, not that I've ever done anything like that. |
#23
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#24
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#25
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I would suggest a back up camera of some kind. I know you've budgeted your trip, but my budgeting process differs from others. The trip is the most expensive part, not the camera, not the film. If the photos are important, saving money on an inexpensive camera that fails and leaves you cameraless is what I'd call false economy. YMMV, of course. Funny you should mention an inexpensive camera. For almost every trip I've made into tropical rainforests I've carried an Olympus Stylus, the cheap one without the zoom lens. I've taken about 30 rolls of film on each trip. Never had to replace the battery. Camera worked all the time. And I got adequate snapshots. Good enough to make into 4X6 prints that I gave to the others on the trip. Good enough to trigger all the necessary memories. I once got within about 3 feet from a very small flycatcher and took a couple shots of it. Photos showed something but no one would know what bird it was. But that wasn't the point. The point was that I carried the camera all the time. It fit in my shirt pocket and was smaller than a cell phone. Don't think even the P/S cameras that I'll be considering will be that small but they might be small enough take. It's tricky carrying binoculars and a camera because the binos have to be ready at a moment's notice. For me, the camera will only be used after I've seen the critters with binos. An interesting thing occurs with many people who take high-end photo gear on wildlife expeditions, at least from my observations. They often miss the bird entirely because they prioritize a photo instead of an observation. But their photos are often wonderful. Can't have everything, I guess. Thanks for your comments. |
#26
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"Phil Stripling" wrote in message ... writes: This is highly subjective but suppose I want to enlarge a portion of a photo taken with a premium-quality 50mm lens to equal that of an image area taken with a premium-quality 80mm lens. I think there are other variables. While they all can be eliminated, on a practical level I think nobody actually would. For a few examples, I think most people would handhold the camera with both a 50 and an 80. (I had an old Nikon rangefinder with an 8.5cm lens on it -- I never used a tripod.) I also think most people would use full automatic exposure, and that the camera would use different settings for the two lenses. If I were using the two lenses on my FM2 and were unaware I were making a test shot, there's no guarantee I'd use the same aperture and shutter speed. Given the different lenses, I suspect I'd take too many things into account -- blurring the background, using a faster shutter on the 80 to take into account the longer lens -- to be able to judge whether the differences were the lens or me. I've read the answer to this, but I can't remember it: If I enlarge a segment of an image taken with a 50mm lens to match the unenlarged image from an 80mm, is the depth of field affected? I get confused about perspective and whatever else changes. If DOF isn't changed, I think determining whether the image quality is the same becomes more judgmental. If you remain at the same distance from your subject, in this case the DoF _on the print_ will be the same. DoF relates to aperture and degree of enlargement, so with the same aperture and distance but two different lenses the DoF is less on the longer lens, but blow up part of the shot taken with the shorter lens to get the same end image size and you also blow up the circles of confusion: end result, same DoF _on the print_. Any effect of camera shake due to handholding will be magnified in exactly the same way too: in effect the impact of shake relates to the degree of image enlargement too. Peter |
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