If you’ve never played with any old-school manual focus lenses, specifically Nikons, you are missing out. Lenses like this are magic and they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to. This thing is small, unexpectedly heavy and ROCK SOLID. The focus ring is as smooth as butter, and the shots… well here a few quick samples.
Photo credit NikonUSA.com
If you’ve seen my flickr recently, you’ve probably seen some ultra-wide shots I’ve taken recently with a friends Sigma 10-22mm. I really enjoyed using it, so I was pumped to have this lens in the Nikon kit. Fisheyes are fun, and this one is especially nice being a prime with a maximum aperture of f/2.8. Here are a couple samples:
No, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. What you see above is Nikon gear and a LOT of it, courtesy of a friend (thanks Scott!) who had the whole kit basically sitting in a closet collecting dust. Yes, I know, sacreligious to let this much gear to sit idle, so your friends at CameraPorn have come to the rescue! Kit breakdown after the jump…
Continue reading ‘Nikon Gear CameraPorn? Hell Must Have Frozen Over…’
After much delay, and lots of threats on my life from friends who really wanted to read about the Average Joe Kit, we are back with the third part of our "Ultimate Guide" series. If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 before continuing.
And so we begin Part 3: The Average Joe Dream kit. This kit was put together as a well-rounded mid-range option, some may call it pro-sumer as the camera and lenses are more feature rich and of higher quality than entry-level consumer bodies and lenses. Like all three of the kits we are recommending, it contains the following items:
Continue reading ‘The Ultimate Guide - Part 3: Getting Equipped - The Average Joe’s Dream Kit’
Finally, I’m back with part 2 of our “Ultimate Guide” where I will begin to break down three different kit suggestions spanning three different affordability levels. Originally, I planned on presenting all three kit options in one post, but due to the ongoing harassment 
from readers to get Part 2 posted as well as the surprising amount of time it takes to put these posts together, I decided to go ahead with the post to include only the first of the three kits, focusing on a low price range option to start. To make sure everyone has a good fix of CameraPorn, I’ll include a list of the items to be included in the next two posts. Parts 2 and 3 will focus on a mid-range and high-range priced photo kits. If you havent read “Part 1: Getting Prepared” we suggest taking a look before continuing.
Before I begin, I will again reiterate that no one, not even the gear-obsessed wackos that run this site would expect the average DSLR newbie to buy everything we suggest for a kit all at once. What I’m suggesting are well rounded kit options that contain items that cover the needs of most hobbyist photographers. In reality, all you need to get started is a camera, a memory card and one lens. You will also notice, all the cameras and lenses are from Canon. There are off-brand lenses such as Sigma and Tamron that offer quality and sometimes lower-cost alternatives to what I will be mentioning below, but what can I say, I’m a brand-whore. No, but seriously, aside from off-brand lenses Canon is not your only option. Nikon offers perfectly suitable alternatives to the DSLRs and lenses below at similar price points, but personally I love and use Canon gear, so thats what I’ll be suggesting.
Continue reading ‘The Ultimate Guide - Part 2: Getting Equipped - The Po’ Man’s Dream Kit’
After multiple suggestions from friends and readers in combination with the fact that today a friend joined us in our DSLR obsession with his own shiny new 30D and corresponding accessories, I was inspired to share my thoughts on the most effective ways to get started on your own fanatic DSLR journey. Being that my goal is to make the the “ultimate” guide, this post will be part one in a series of three. I’ll start out in part one by discussing what it takes to get started as an educated DSLR consumer, including shopping and research resources. In part two, I will discuss different equipment options broken down into three categories, corresponding to small, medium and large budgets. Part three will focus primarily on getting the shot, mentioning basic tried and true techniques as well as an outline of the best sites and blogs I frequently use for learning and reference.
Before jumping into it, I’d like to preface the whole deal with the statement that these are merely suggestions, and come from my own experiences becoming a DSLR-aholic. As much as I wish I was, (Canon, where you at?) I’m not being paid, endorsed, yadda yadda yadda for any of this. The choices I’ve made are the choices I feel I would or should have made if I was properly educated prior to jumping into photography. I’d also like to say that it is no coincidence it’s all Canon based. I happen to be a “Canon guy” only because its where I started based on suggestions from friends and it is the realm in which I can most effectively make suggestions. At this point I’ve used both Nikons and Canons, and though I definitely have no ill thoughts toward Nikon, my preference is generally with Canon products. Why? I think we should leave that one for a whole other post. All that said, lets get to the cameraporn… Continue reading ‘The Ultimate Guide To Starting Your Own DSLR Obsession - Part 1: Getting Prepared’
This was the first lens I got when I started getting into the world of SLR photography. Like rygood, I am shooting with a Canon 30D. It’s a fantastic camera to learn on, but one of the things you always have to be mindful of is the 1.6 multiplier on the 30D you have to apply to focal lengths to get the equivalent to a full frame camera. Since my good friend Peter pointed out that a 35mm focal length is roughly what the human eye sees, making it a great length to start shooting with since it’s nice and familiar, this 28mm lens gets me pretty close that that 35mm effective length after applying the multiplier. Rock!
Continue reading ‘Canon 28mm 1.8 EF - Like the ex you just keep going back to’
There isn’t much I can say about this lens that hasn’t already been said. It’s been called “the best lens Canon makes” and “favorite” more times and by more respectable photo people than I can count. Just search google and see for yourself. The day this puppy was handed to me by the UPS guy, my little "photo hobby" became an obsession. Why, you might ask? Lets see, this is my first “L” lens. Anyone out there who can relate to this, please chime in. Yes, I had briefly used L’s before, but this one was mine, I finally got that red ring around the lens I had been craving. But, it’s so much more than just a red ring…
Continue reading ‘Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS - Once you go “L” you never go back.’
Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, it doesn’t get much better for a moderately priced walk-around zoom lens for non full-framed Canon D-SLRs. At a bit over $500, this lens gives you an excellent zoom range, better than average image quality, and Image Stabilization (IS). I picked up this lens about 3 days after getting my Canon 30D, because the 18-55 kit lens that came with the camera provides pretty shoddy performance (I suggest staying as far away as possible from the standard 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 that is packaged with many of Canon’s low to mid-range DSLRs, it’s pretty crappy). As soon as i started using the 17-85 IS, I began to understand why a decent lens makes a world of difference in overall picture quality, and that’s when my obsession with photography and photography equipment started to fester inside me like a bad oyster.
Continue reading ‘Canon EF-S 17-85 IS, wide and tight in all the right places’
Yes, when I say fast, I mean like lightning. With a maximum aperture of 1.4, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 lens makes easy work of any low light situations, and if you’ve never used a lens this fast before, you will be instantly hooked. If the combination of price, speed and image quality on this lens doesn’t wet your appetite, I don’t know what will. Its made this lens a staple and favorite of many photo hobbyists and pros who dont want to pay over $1000 more for the 50mm f1.2 L.
From OnTakingPictures via Thomas Hawk, photographer Bill Wadman goes into why he would take a quality lens and cheap camera over expensive camera and cheapie lens in any situation. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve had this conversation with people when they ask me for advice on what camera or lens to buy.
He is pretty much spot on with everything he is saying and this quote about says it all: “I saw a girl with a high-end Gitzo tripod, 5D body, and some crappy consumer level zoom lens on the front. Honestly, I almost pushed her over the edge.” …as you should have! Check it out here.
Found from our friends over at Digg, there’s an excellent post at Lifehacker that you really, really want to read if you own a Canon point an shoot. I won’t spoil everything, but the short of it is that there’s free, non-volatile, hacked firmware that can add tons and tons of useful features (RAW shooting, to top the list) to your kit. You really want to read this. Like now.
Via Photography Bay, it seems Canon’s German site posted some information for a short period of time, and though its in German, looks like 16 MP and due in June. We’ve been expecting an announcement around April 22nd or 24th from other rumors. More details as we get them. Check out the story and more screenshots here.
Update: Obviously nothing happened on either the 22nd or 24th… I’m not at all happy about it… I want my 5D Mark II dammit! We will of course keep you updated with any new developments.
Via Engadget, Crunchgear and DPReview… it seem some super code geniuses have dissected the just-released Nikon D3 firmware update and found some information that led them to believe that a 24.4 Megapixel camera, presumably the D3x is on the way.
