What do you recommend these lenses for??

[Bugdozer]

Hi,

Please bear with me as I am a novice. I have been trying to learn my dslr camera but my old mind just does not retain information like it use to. I have a trip planned to Disneyland in 27 days and I am going to try and practice everyday. So here is my question. I have 4 lenses that go to my camera. I will list them and could some of you please tell me what they are best used for. I will be taking pictures of the usual things, outdoors, dark rides, parades, fireworks so on. I did buy a tripod that I plan on using a couple nights even if I have to go off on my own. We have 8 day park tickets so I should have lots of time to get pictures but not a lot to learn this camera better. So here is what I have;

Camera- Sony Alpha 100

lens:

Sony 3.5-5.6/18-70

Sony 4.5-5.6/75-300

Sigma DC 18-50mm 1:2.8 EXD

Sigma 30mm 1:1.4 DCD

Which lens is best for what application? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bug

 

[VVFF]

Hi,

Please bear with me as I am a novice. I have been trying to learn my dslr camera but my old mind just does not retain information like it use to. I have a trip planned to Disneyland in 27 days and I am going to try and practice everyday. So here is my question. I have 4 lenses that go to my camera. I will list them and could some of you please tell me what they are best used for. I will be taking pictures of the usual things, outdoors, dark rides, parades, fireworks so on. I did buy a tripod that I plan on using a couple nights even if I have to go off on my own. We have 8 day park tickets so I should have lots of time to get pictures but not a lot to learn this camera better. So here is what I have;

Camera- Sony Alpha 100

lens:

Sony 3.5-5.6/18-70

Sony 4.5-5.6/75-300

Sigma DC 18-50mm 1:2.8 EXD

Sigma 30mm 1:1.4 DCD

Which lens is best for what application? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bug

Sigma 30mm = night/dark rides and action shots
Sigma 18-50 = General Purpose especially in afternoon. Good for portrait shots and action shots
Sony 18 - 70 = General Purpose on bright days, Good for portrait shots
Sony 75 - 300 = Things that are far away....obviously

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

lens:

Sony 18-70
Sigma DC 18-50mm

Agreed with what the PP said. The Sony 18-70 or the Sigma 18-50 will be your best lenses for fireworks with the tripod. They will allow you to get wide shots and zoom to adjust for wherever you set up your tripod.

Do you have an idea of best camera settings for each type of shot?
If you haven't seen them already here's a post with good info for fireworks shots link. And here's a link to the whole thread thread link

 

[Groucho]

I would leave the 18-70mm at home unless you think you'll really need a lighter-weight lens. The Sigma 18-50mm should be a better lens in every regard; the Sony 18-70mm is not a particularly highly regarded lens. The Sigma 18-50mm will also do "OK" in darker areas, though not as good as the 30mm.

The 30mm would be nice if you want more depth of field or in darker areas. I might actually tend to use this one the most and see if you can get the hang of working around one specific focal length.

I don't know that you'd get a lot of use out of the 75-300mm; DL and CA are pretty tightly packed so you usually don't get a chance to see things far away, but you'll probably find use for it occasionally. Probably not useful except in bright light, though.

8 days at DL? That should give plenty of time for whatever you want to do. If possible, bring a laptop and review your shots briefly at night so that you can see what is and isn't working. If it's not working, look at the shutter speed and aperture and ISO and see if you can figure out how to make the shot work, then you can try it again the next day. Also if possible, burn DVDs or CDs of your photos from the laptop, just in case the hard drive decides to fail before you get a chance to back them up another way!

 

[ABell]

I have a very similar question - we will be leaving in about 30 days and I am trying to practice everyday and learn what I can before we leave.
I have the following lenses and was wondering where they would each work best and which ones I should bring...

I have the following for my 20D:
Canon 10-22mm
Canon 18-55mm
Canon 75-300mm

We will be spending 7 days at Disneyland and 1 day at the beach.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Andrea

 

[VVFF]

I have a very similar question - we will be leaving in about 30 days and I am trying to practice everyday and learn what I can before we leave.
I have the following lenses and was wondering where they would each work best and which ones I should bring...

I have the following for my 20D:
Canon 10-22mm
Canon 18-55mm
Canon 75-300mm

We will be spending 7 days at Disneyland and 1 day at the beach.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Andrea

All these are useful as they all cover a different range. The Canon 10-22 is probably the least practical but one of the most "fun" in that it can take photos that are very dramatic if you know when to use it.

 

[Bugdozer]

Thank you everyone for all your help.

I would leave the 18-70mm at home unless you think you'll really need a lighter-weight lens. The Sigma 18-50mm should be a better lens in every regard; the Sony 18-70mm is not a particularly highly regarded lens. The Sigma 18-50mm will also do "OK" in darker areas, though not as good as the 30mm.

The 30mm would be nice if you want more depth of field or in darker areas. I might actually tend to use this one the most and see if you can get the hang of working around one specific focal length.

I don't know that you'd get a lot of use out of the 75-300mm; DL and CA are pretty tightly packed so you usually don't get a chance to see things far away, but you'll probably find use for it occasionally. Probably not useful except in bright light, though.

8 days at DL? That should give plenty of time for whatever you want to do. If possible, bring a laptop and review your shots briefly at night so that you can see what is and isn't working. If it's not working, look at the shutter speed and aperture and ISO and see if you can figure out how to make the shot work, then you can try it again the next day. Also if possible, burn DVDs or CDs of your photos from the laptop, just in case the hard drive decides to fail before you get a chance to back them up another way!

I am thinking I might want to use the 75-300mm the day we go to Sea World and possibly the day we go to the beach. Not really much I need to zoom in on in Disneyland or California Adventure.

I would leave the 18-70mm at home unless you think you'll really need a lighter-weight lens. The Sigma 18-50mm should be a better lens in every regard; the Sony 18-70mm is not a particularly highly regarded lens. The Sigma 18-50mm will also do "OK" in darker areas, though not as good as the 30mm.

Those are the 2 I was thinking of carrying with me on most days. I will bring the 18-70mm with me but will leave in the hotel room just in case. Is the Sigma 18-50mm lens ok to use for everyday outdoor shots? I will change to the other for at night or when going on a dark ride.

I am brining my good tripod this year. Last year I brought my lighter weight one and it just did not cut it. I will pack the good one and maybe take it 2 days when I can have some me time to take pictures. I will read the fireworks thread again as mine came out horrible last time. I got so discouraged I did not even bring my dslr with me to WDW in Nov. I have told myself I need to learn how to use this equipment. I have bought some books and are reading them. Just seems so overwhelming sometimes. I think I got it then I go out to try what I learned and I forget it all. I need so much practice.

I will have a laptop with me so I can check out the pictures. I have a lot of storage so I may not take them off the cards.

I also have to be realistic with my expectations. It is easy to forget that many of you have been at this for years and know what you are doing and use programs to process your photos which I have never done.

Once again thanks for all your help everyone. Maybe someday I will get this all figured out.

Bug

 

[DisneySuiteFreak]

Thank you everyone for all your help.
I am thinking I might want to use the 75-300mm the day we go to Sea World and possibly the day we go to the beach. Not really much I need to zoom in on in Disneyland or California Adventure.
Those are the 2 I was thinking of carrying with me on most days. I will bring the 18-70mm with me but will leave in the hotel room just in case. Is the Sigma 18-50mm lens ok to use for everyday outdoor shots? I will change to the other for at night or when going on a dark ride.
I am brining my good tripod this year. Last year I brought my lighter weight one and it just did not cut it. I will pack the good one and maybe take it 2 days when I can have some me time to take pictures. I will read the fireworks thread again as mine came out horrible last time. I got so discouraged I did not even bring my dslr with me to WDW in Nov. I have told myself I need to learn how to use this equipment. I have bought some books and are reading them. Just seems so overwhelming sometimes. I think I got it then I go out to try what I learned and I forget it all. I need so much practice.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I've been where you're at and it's not fun. But you can learn. I'm still learning! Just take a ton of photos and keep practicing. There's is nothing wrong with using Program mode either if you aren't sure that you can get the shot right or if you're walking around the park and see something interesting. As far as fireworks, just set it to Manual mode, anywhere from f8-11 and ISO100. Use a shutter remote and set the shutter speed to bulb mode. Then click away and see what works. You really can't go wrong like that.

I will have a laptop with me so I can check out the pictures. I have a lot of storage so I may not take them off the cards.

I also have to be realistic with my expectations. It is easy to forget that many of you have been at this for years and know what you are doing and use programs to process your photos which I have never done.

I'm still learning how to do PP (I just started about a month ago!) and just started taking DSLR photos in Oct of 2007. I feel like I don't get enough opportunities to practice... Keep at it, you can only improve as long as you keep trying! When I first started, my DH use to nag at me that I got better results from my P&S cameras -- and he was right! But that's only because I didn't know enough. Again, I think it's a lifelong learning process. You're right, some have been at it for years and are pros (or practically pros) and others are just like you - still learning and trying to improve.

Once again thanks for all your help everyone. Maybe someday I will get this all figured out.

Bug

Good luck Bug! You'll get it; just have to keep trying and keep your chin up!

 

[Groucho]

Those are the 2 I was thinking of carrying with me on most days. I will bring the 18-70mm with me but will leave in the hotel room just in case. Is the Sigma 18-50mm lens ok to use for everyday outdoor shots? I will change to the other for at night or when going on a dark ride.

The Sigma 18-50mm should probably be a better lens in every situation than the Sony 18-70mm, except that it's bigger and heavier.

I will have a laptop with me so I can check out the pictures. I have a lot of storage so I may not take them off the cards.

Not a bad idea - redundancy is key! If you have enough room, I would highly recommend shooting in RAW rather than JPG format - even if you just convert them all to JPGs when done, you'll have the original RAW files in case you feel comfortable doing more post-processing in the future.

Good luck!