[GreenKeys] off-topic: advice on photography and camera lenses

[gil smith]

Hi folks:

I am looking for some advice on photography and camera lenses -- if 
this is not your thing please pardon the interruption.

After years of missing some good kids' sports shots for various 
reasons (low-light, shutter-latency...), I finally decided to get a 
decent camera.  Not that I am a great photographer, but I want to at 
least get some decent pics of the kids, and the equipment has been 
the biggest drawback.  I am hoping someone is able to answer a few 
questions for me.

My biggest challenge is photographing my daughter's gymnastics meets 
-- sucky light and long distances.  My son's skateboarding is also in 
a poorly-lit gym.  I also shoot outdoor sports (baseball, soccer...), 
so I need low-light sensitivity, immediate shutter response, and 
multi-frame shooting.

Aside from the standard snapshot family stuff, the only real 
photography I did was in high school for the yearbook and paper, but 
I learned the basics.  Had a decent SLR with a few lenses.  Only shot 
B&W as I had to develop and print it all too.

So I recently got a Canon 50D, with the standard 28-135 zoom.  The 
zoom is quick to use, though the focus ring could be bigger for 
manual work.  The 135mm end does not reach quite far enough in the 
gym or soccer field, but it gets the job done.  The 50D has a x1.6 
lens factor, so this is equiv to a 45-216mm lens on a standard film 35mm.

The problem is that it is only f5.6 at the 135mm end which means that 
not only can I not blur out distracting backgrounds, but I have to 
kick the ISO to max to get the shots.  I'm not really complaining 
since I have never even been able to stop the action in the gym 
before, so I am really delighted with the shots.  But they could be 
better.  They have a lot of color noise at max ISO (12800).  If I 
drop to 6400, it looks much better, and at 3200 it looks 
great.  Unfortunately, the shutter is too slow to stop motion at 6400 
or 3200 since the lens is only 5.6.  I can widen the zoom a bit and 
pick up an f-stop to get some shots at 6400, but it is still not ideal.

So I really need to get a different lens, and I was wondering what 
thoughts anyone has.  I'll never afford a fast enough zoom, so I need 
a fixed telephoto that can get down to at least f2.8, so I can drop 
ISO back to 3200 and get rid of most color noise.  This would also 
blur the background a bit which will help get rid of 
distractions.  Getting a lens down to f2 or 1.8 would be great but 
they get pricey, and I'd like to keep the cost reasonable, with the 
economy in the toilet and all.

 From Canon, some fixed-length options are:
EF 50mm f/1.8 II  ($90)  --  cheap and fast, but way too short
EF 85mm f/1.8 USM   ($350)  -- not very long, but decent price -- well-known
EF 100mm f/2.0 USM  ($410) -- not very long, but decent price -- well-known
EF 135mm f/2.0L USM  ($930)  --  pricey
EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM  ($680)  -- starting to get pricey

The 100/2.0 or 200/2.8 are sounding like good choices.  Something 
like a 135/2.8 at about $500 would be even better, but I haven't found one.

And some slower zoom lenses which would be good for non-gym stuff:
EF 70-200mm f/4 L IS USM   ($1000)  --  pricey
EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS  ($650)  --  pricey
EF 80-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II  ($90 used)
EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS   ($300)
EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM   ($500)
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM   ($200)
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III   ($170)
EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM ($300)


So the first questions are about Canon's lenses:  what is the 
difference between EF and EF-S?  I presume that IS means in-lens 
image stabilization, but what is II?  What is III?  What is 
USM?  Does image stabilization really help much for these types of 
shots (aperture wide open, shutter 1/250 or faster)?

What about third-party lenses -- any recommended brands?  Are the 
optics inferior?  Is the autofocus slower?  Reliability?

Any thoughts on lenses would be appreciated.  I am currently thinking 
that anything from 85mm to 200mm would be good, as long as it is at 
least f2.8.  This would let me drop ISO to 3200, and get some clean 
shots with minimal color noise.  It would also blur the background 
with the aperture wide open, which will result in much nicer 
pics.  The 50D is 15Mpix, which helps when cropping a pic shot with a 
shorter lens.

Anyone have a used lens to sell?

Does anyone else have a 50D?  Have you seen Err-99?  I saw this twice 
at the last gym meet, and I needed to R&R the battery to clear 
it.  Word on the street says it may be related to the CF card.  The 
50D shoots about 6-frames a second, and both of the hangs were during 
burst shots.  I am pretty sure that they both happened with a 
standard (133x = 20MB/s) card -- camera's buffer overflowing and 
choking on the pipe to the card maybe?  I have another UDMA-rated 
card (266x = 40 MB/s) and I don't believe it happened when that one 
was in the camera.  Curious if anyone else has seen something like 
this, on any brand camera for that matter.

thanks in advance,

gil





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