CRASH Course on 30mm F1.4!

[mom2rtk]

Well, I gave up on renting lenses for our trip. In the end, I'm just too cheap to spend the money and have nothing left when I'm done...... I decided instead to buy the Sigma 30mm F1.4 for my Canon Xsi. After all, if I need the cash back, I can always resell it later on Ebay.

Figment has already been very helpful with some tips for using it, and it got me wondering what everyone else had to say.

We're going to MNSSHP and I really want to get some good shots of the parade. I also want some good shots of the Villains stage show, and hope to get there early and stake out a close spot. And I've never done well on the dark rides, but I've never gone with the better lenses.

I also have my 50mm f1.8 and my Tamron 18-270 VC.

Sooooo....... any tips on which of the lenses to use for which situation?

Is there a steep learning curve with the new lens? I really won't have much time to practice before we go. I'm working around the clock to catch up on my Halloween costume orders before we go.

 

[VVFF]

Well, I gave up on renting lenses for our trip. In the end, I'm just too cheap to spend the money and have nothing left when I'm done...... I decided instead to buy the Sigma 30mm F1.4 for my Canon Xsi. After all, if I need the cash back, I can always resell it later on Ebay.

Figment has already been very helpful with some tips for using it, and it got me wondering what everyone else had to say.

We're going to MNSSHP and I really want to get some good shots of the parade. I also want some good shots of the Villains stage show, and hope to get there early and stake out a close spot. And I've never done well on the dark rides, but I've never gone with the better lenses.

I also have my 50mm f1.8 and my Tamron 18-270 VC.

Sooooo....... any tips on which of the lenses to use for which situation?

Is there a steep learning curve with the new lens? I really won't have much time to practice before we go. I'm working around the clock to catch up on my Halloween costume orders before we go.

Check it out for front focusing or back focusing before you go. The quickest and easiest way to do this is aim the center point at something of high contrast at a low aperture setting and verify that what you aimed at was in focus. Make sure it's large enough that it exceeds the dimensions of the center focus square.

Other than that, for dark rides shoot in Av mode and force the aperture to 1.4. Focus carefully though and realize that the depth of focus isn't going to be that large so careful choice of focus is required(aim at people's eyes).

 

[scoot241]

At night, I'd go with either the 30mm or the 50mm. The biggest difference betweent the two is the focal length. One stop of light will make some difference perhaps, but probably not a huge difference.

I had some success shooting dark rides at ISO 1600 with the Sigma 30mm. It takes some trial and error, but I found shooting in Tv at 1/50 of a second with -2/3 exposure compensation made for some nice pictures on Pirates:



There are a few more Pirates pictures on my Flickr stream. I'm nowhere near going through the pictures from my last trip yet.

I had some Spaceship Earth pictures that came out well; I believe I used similar settings to Pirates.

I tried a few shots in Haunted Mansion, but most of those came out way too dark.

I took some others, but I'll have to look through them to get any idea of how they came out.

Hope this helps!

 

[WDWFigment]

I didn't realize you have the XTi when I gave my advice. I advised going with Av and auto ISO, I would add to that advice that you should set the exposure compensation at around -1.67 on the darker dark rides. You have better high ISO capabilities than I had with the D40, but that camera may still want to do set the shutter speed at something ridiculous, like 1/2 second or 1 second for portions of Haunted Mansion, SpaceShip Earth, Pirates, and Peter Pan's Flight even at your maximum ISO.

Taking it to -1.67 should help with that, and you can always increase the exposure in post processing (if you don't mind doing that). You can't edit a picture to take it from blurry to sharp because the camera chose a poor shutter speed.

Honestly, on those attractions, with the D40, I would just set it to manual mode, go to ISO 1600, 1/15th of a second shutter speed, and f/1.4. At 1/15th of a second shutter speed, you'll have plenty of blurry shots, but around 25% should turn out okay. Just take a lot of pictures and delete later.

As for the MNSSHP, I am in the same boat as you, but from my experience, Main Street is the brightest area for the parade (at least from pictures I've seen). Frontierland and the edge of Liberty Square towards Frontierland (or the bridge to Liberty Square in the hub area) are the darkest and worst areas. Don't expect a shot of the headless horseman if you're in the darker locations. Use the 50mm if you want closer shots of characters, and the 30mm if you want entire floats. I'd go with shutter priority for the parade, and maybe 1/80th of a second or so for all of the floats besides the headless horseman, 1/160th of a second for him.

 

[mom2rtk]

I didn't realize you have the XTi when I gave my advice. I advised going with Av and auto ISO, I would add to that advice that you should set the exposure compensation at around -1.67 on the darker dark rides. You have better high ISO capabilities than I had with the D40, but that camera may still want to do set the shutter speed at something ridiculous, like 1/2 second or 1 second for portions of Haunted Mansion, SpaceShip Earth, Pirates, and Peter Pan's Flight even at your maximum ISO.

Taking it to -1.67 should help with that, and you can always increase the exposure in post processing (if you don't mind doing that). You can't edit a picture to take it from blurry to sharp because the camera chose a poor shutter speed.

Honestly, on those attractions, with the D40, I would just set it to manual mode, go to ISO 1600, 1/15th of a second shutter speed, and f/1.4. At 1/15th of a second shutter speed, you'll have plenty of blurry shots, but around 25% should turn out okay. Just take a lot of pictures and delete later.

As for the MNSSHP, I am in the same boat as you, but from my experience, Main Street is the brightest area for the parade (at least from pictures I've seen). Frontierland and the edge of Liberty Square towards Frontierland (or the bridge to Liberty Square in the hub area) are the darkest and worst areas. Don't expect a shot of the headless horseman if you're in the darker locations. Use the 50mm if you want closer shots of characters, and the 30mm if you want entire floats. I'd go with shutter priority for the parade, and maybe 1/80th of a second or so for all of the floats besides the headless horseman, 1/160th of a second for him.

Oops...... sorry to ask for info with WRONG info........ I just got my Xsi....... I'll go update my original post so I don't mislead anyone else. I'm just a bit distracted..... I have to finish 3 Mary Poppins costumes before end of day tomorrow.... Somehow singing Mary Poppins songs just isn't getting me through Mary Poppins boot camp!

 

[WDWFigment]

Oops...... sorry to ask for info with WRONG info........ I just got my Xsi....... I'll go update my original post so I don't mislead anyone else. I'm just a bit distracted..... I have to finish 3 Mary Poppins costumes before end of day tomorrow.... Somehow singing Mary Poppins songs just isn't getting me through Mary Poppins boot camp!

The advice is still basically the same for the XSi. Unless you have usable ISO 3200 with it. Then I'd still probably do exposure comp of -1.

 

[ukcatfan]

At night, I'd go with either the 30mm or the 50mm. The biggest difference betweent the two is the focal length. One stop of light will make some difference perhaps, but probably not a huge difference.

It is actually not a whole stop difference, but can make a little difference. It might be worth stopping down the 30mm f/1.4 to f/1.8-2 to get it a little sharper and expand the DOF a little. I try to do that with my 50mm f/1.4 when possible.