Be Excellent To Each Other

From my experience Manfrotto make very good tripods and that seems very reasonably priced. I doubt that will be particularly light. The main problem with lighter tripods is the clamps that hold the legs getting worn out or coming loose and not locking the extensions - you can easily tighten these clamps with a small socket set.

There are a few principal reasons for having a tripod
1: that the camera you're using is too heavy to hold by hand for periods of time
2: slow shutter speeds.
3: taking panoramic or multiple bracket exposures for HDR blending where the camera has to be locked off in a position that you can accurately control.
4: you want to be in the shots and there's no-one to fire the shutter.

there are of course others you may think of but I'm not creating a list of diminishing reasons for why you need a tripod

My main point is this. Do you really need one? True, a Manfrotto tripod will hold it's value very well so you can view it almost like an investment. However, you're camera doesn't fit point one unless you strap a fucking huge lens on the front and even then a monopod would do, as it would do for point two - unless you're shooting lots of very slow shutter speed shots - a monopod would work fine down to about a 1/4 of a sec.

I suspect you'll soon tire of carry a heavy hard lump around "just in case".

As for carbon fibre, unless you're shooting video and consequently need a tripod that would weigh a fucking ton, then bear in mind that the heaviest part of a tripod is the head you attach the camera to making the weight gains of the legs a waste of money.

I bought a tripod to try and do some lovely slow motion waterfall shots. I then got far too close to the waterfall, and have some excellent shots of water all over the front of the lens. Doh!

Wouldn't one of the larger gorillapod type things do you for most stuff Z? There's usually a table or a fence or something you can put it on.

The big Gorillapod was stable enough for my camera with the 10-22mm on, which is a big lens.

Mine came with a tool to do this, and I presume all modern Manfrotto ones will. It snaps to the leg, so no need for a specialised socket set.



Isn't, surely. It's quite a tiny lens, by lens standards.

It's wide and heavy, if not long. I've been told that's what women prefer.

We chaffed a rather old Slik tripod from Lady T's Dad. We've not had much use out of it really, most of the time I can't really bothered to carry it about. I've thought about a monopod, but it's pretty far down on the list of things and I'm not sure we'd get much use out of that either. I'll probably just get a gorillapod for now.

Although - we did get some rather nice photos around London during a nighttime photogragy walk, having the tripod then was absolutely vital, as we were trying 15-30 second exposures.

Pfft. It's the same width as any other lens, and it's not long. The ladies are just trying not to hurt your feelings.

After lugging my Pro Touch 5 on the train to Scumdon yesterday, I am seriously considering carbon fibre. I need a better head anyway as weight wise I'm pushing the capability of what I have.

Thanks for the response Snappa. I'm beginning to think that I wouldn't get much use out of a tripod, at the moment. Like you say at that price anything is going to be a burden to lug around material wise. The VR lens combined with the shooting speeds of what I've been taking so far means that there's nothing I've needed a tripod for yet.

It's the birthday money that I have that's making me all spendy so I'll stick to my original plan of getting another lens.

I'm looking at getting either a 35mm lens for portrait shots:
http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/76070/show.html

or this what I have only just stumbled on which would be great for when out walking for wildlife:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-55-200MM-F4-5-5-6-VR-Black/dp/tech-data/B000O161X0/ref=de_a_smtd

I'll get both eventually, but which one first...

Yeah, there's always those too.

Assuming the camera you have has a 2x focal length factor for sensor size I'd be inclined to go for the prime as a working focal length of 70mm is a nice aspect for portraiture and if that lens supports close focusing like a lot of 35mm then all the better. My feelings on zooms are that they're too compromised unless you spend serious bucks on them. My principal three lenses I use are all zooms but the cheapest is £1200 and you can buy a lot of primes for that.

Have a rummage round http://www.dpreview.com to see if they have reviews for those lenses.

I thought all crop body SLRs were 1.6x?

I think you're probably right.

OK, buy a fast 50mm then

I've looked at reviews on both already, all favorable for the price. I think I will go for the 35 prime as it was my original intention to get one.

Not exactly, but around about that number. I think there may be some 2.0x ones around, possibly.

If only he'd bought a Canon, then he could have got the lovely super-speedy and super-cheap f/1.8 50mm.

Nikon do a cheap 1.8 50mm prime as well, don't they? Pretty much identical to the Canon one, too, from what I remember.

Well I did consider the 450d but it's the user base that really put me off.

Well yeah, but that doesn't help me annoy Zardoz, does it?

Yeah, £109. From what I've read it seemed to me that the 35mm I linked to would be more ZOMFGy though.

It does.

You do that by breathing.

*Inhales deeply*

*ducks under popping buttons*

Get the 35mm one I reckon. Make sure your camera can do AF though, some of the Nikon D's, mine included, only do AF-S.

Then you can tell me how swell it is and I can salivate with jealousy! I'm saving money up currently for America in September, but after buying a Green Man ticket I reckon I may if careful divert funds to the lens!

Yeah, my D5000 does AF-S and AF-I. I'd be going for the 35mm DX lens (£169) rather than the manual focus only 35mm (£109) I think.

Hmm I'll weigh up some more reviews and see if the AF/Image/build quality is worth the extra £60.

Pete, I'll buy you that lens if I can hide in your luggage in September.

I got a £30 Jessops voucher as a late prezzy from workmates last night, so along with my birthday money, and some cash from some Wii games I've recently sold I've enough now to buy that 35mm lens I was after.

Nice.

How big are you? Do you mind losing limbs?

Oooh - getting it tomorrow, eh? Sweet. I be jealous. This month I'll be spending my money on bond, agency fees and bills. Bah.

Work have asked me to choose a couple of cameras that we need. Obviously I'll be able to take it home at weekends to 'practice' with but it also needs to have reasonable point and shoot capabilities for the rest of the team. So the question is how do modern entry-level DSLRs fare in that respect? Could I get say a D3000 or D5000, set it to auto whatever and it'll take ordinary snaps as well as a fairly decent compact?

Yes, but you might as well get one of the top-end compacts frankly.

No I mightn't, because I want a SLR to play around with. Also there's a possibility that the flexibility of an SLR might very well come in handy.

They have auto modes, and they're usually perfectly competent, yes.

TBH any cheap DSLR is going to be better than any compact at everything other than size.

Even expensive compacts such as the Lumix GF1, Canon G11 and Pentax EP1 are not going to do anything better than equivalently priced or cheaper DSLR. Pretty much all of them have better sensors and program or auto modes which are the direct equivalent or better than most if not all compacts.

Get a DSLR unless size is a serious issue.

If you primarily want it for point and shoot? Most of them come with a zoom that'll run from 20mm up to 300mm - that means you're paying £300 instead of £400+cost of whatever lenses you might need.

So you need a couple or you need to give your boss options to choose from?

They're on about getting a couple of cameras. I guess we could always get an SLR as well as a decent compact.

My Nikon D5000 is awesome, I imagine if they wanted to spend less then the D3000 or Canon 1000D would both be great choices. There's always the Sonys and Olypuseseses DSLRs that are cheaper still, but are for scrubbers and belmers.

They can buy me a nice Macro lens while they're feeling all spendy too for that work I did.

I do keep mentioning that. There might be some more work soon, though.

Zardoz, do you do much random poking around Flickr outside of matey contacts? There's stunning stuff out there that is inspiring me somewhat. I just wish you could search back further than 100 pages, as I want to give the neglected a chance out there. The stuff marked 'Interesting' is indeed interesting, but I get the feeling that it sometimes unfairly damns lost treasures. Been getting excited about all the hits my space capsule one is getting, by the way. If someone types in Neil Armstrong's name and the enginneer of the capsule's name, my photy is on the first page! Get a few hits every week through Yahoo Image searches. See also the Gold Hill Hotel, Virginia City. They should owe me money for the free ads they're getting through me!

It's hard to think of interesting keywords to search on though. On the other hand, I guess 'belmer' might yield interesting results.

DSLR >>> Compacts

Though you can take great things with compacts if you're canny with the light, DSLR's allow you to get something good in almost any condition. And c'mon, the argument is that you don't need to buy lenses? Don't you see the immense leap in optical quality? It ain't What Hi-Fi bullshit, it's REAL.

Hell yeah, I've trawled through for hours.


It's great when strangers leave comments, I've only had a few but it makes my day.


True but I'm now NEVER without my Fuji F30, I certainly wouldn't be without a compact even though I love my DSLR.

Cool. Cash up front now though.

Or an X-Ray machine!

I notice it's been a while since you updated your Flickr stuff Pete.

Was it your goodself who organised the picture theme threads a while back? Might be nice to resurrect that idea.

Back to the old compacts/DSLR talk I've found that getting to grips with the manual side of an SLR has helped me understand and appreciate what's going on with my little point and shoot. I also found myself raising my Fuji F30 up to my eye when I last took pictures of the swans at the dock. It only has an LCD screen.

"What is the best camera" wasn't the question though.

Apart from a polarising filter, which I can see the obvious benefits of using what else is handy? From what I've seen of the coloured filters it seems to me that the same effect can easily be achieved in photoshop. So what else, if anything are you fine folks using and why?

Yeah from what Mark wants for work a DSLR might very well be overkill but it's a great way for him to get his mitts on one.

For the stuff I imagine his work requires the camera for (Portraits of Staff / room & building shots) a nice compact would probably be enough. He may not need the aperture and shutter control to get the most out of his subjects unless he's getting in the thick of it in theatre or the morgue.

A polarising filter can also be useful for reducing the amount of light getting in if you're shooting on a bright day - I find it takes you down about two stops.

Uh - what else. I usually carry a UV filter if I can't avoid shooting towards the sun, to reduce lens flare. Hoods for all my lenses. Oh and I made a diy macro light ring out of LEDs.