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Lenses at WDW
- Thread starter micdisney
- Start date
dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
I've pared it down lately to a fast lens to any dark ride photos (usually nifty 50), and then a solid walk around (right now 24-105) as camera stuff now has to share space with diaper stuff.
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LSUxStitch
Well-Known Member
I traveled with 12mm fisheye, 35mm 1.4, 50mm 1.8 and 85mm 1.4. The 35mm and 12mm were the only ones to grace my camera during the trip.
Hoping to have a 70-200 by my next trip, but we'll see. If so, the 50 and 85 will be left at home
Hoping to have a 70-200 by my next trip, but we'll see. If so, the 50 and 85 will be left at home
I'm thinking of using the 70-200 for time lapses and the 50mm for the rest of the videos.
We just use our Nikon 18-200 for our main lens. Has always worked great for us. Don't have to switch for something closer or farther away.
YozhikRoth
Active Member
It's more about the speed of your lens as opposed to the focal length. I just bought a new EOS TSI, and found that my some of my older lenses have trouble keeping pace. A friend loaned me his Canon 18-200 lens and it worked amazingly both in daylight and fireworks.
fractal
Well-Known Member
70-200mm on a crop sensor seems way too tight if you're going to be shooting family. 18-55 would be a better fit, especially during the day.
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If your plan is doing lots of video then use the shorter zoom that came with the camera, a 70-200 is going to be bad for video unless you bring a tripod. The more you zoom in with a dslr for video the more it will start looking like a bad Blair Witch movie. Too much jiggering and the video will become annoying to anyone watching.
mousehockey37
Well-Known Member
When I was down last week, I had my 18-55 and 55-250 (Canon) lenses. The only time I needed to use my big lens was in Epcot if I wanted to take pictures across the lagoon. Otherwise, my 18-55 was plenty. I'm looking into getting an 18-135 in the future to get just a little bit better pictures without a huge lens.
Jenngusto
Member
was this for daytime and nighttime? I only like to bring the minimum if at all possible. (-:
mousehockey37
Well-Known Member
Yes, both. The 55-250 was too much for Main St., even from the train station deck. Now taking pictures off my balcony at AKL Kidani of the savanna, and across the Lagoon in Epcot, that was the only success for me with the big lens.
I tend to shoot fireworks as well, and the 18-55 on my Canon T3 (it's old, I know) does Illuminations and Wishes perfectly for me.
So unless you're going for long distance shots, I'd stick to smaller lenses (esp. if you try to capture the little things).
dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
Not 100% sure, but I think the cheap lens would be a 50mm 1.8. 1.4 (at least on the Canon side) is in the expensive line, while the 50/1.8 is usually about $100. The nifty fifty is usually a great lens. Small depth of field that lets in more light to do better in dark areas, but they do tend to be on the slower side when it comes to focusing. So they work well, but when shooting in rides you will almost always end up with more blur than not unless you hand focus, and even then it's pray and spray for most people. But what are you realistically going to be doing? Alot of fireworks shots end up being done around f10/11, and maybe with a ND filter, so you won't necessarily need the DoF in that case, and would prefer sharper glass. If you are just starting off your kit lens may be more than enough for the first few months, until you get to figure out its weaknesses. Especially if you are trying to minimize the gear you bring with you, as they are usually well rounded lenses, just not the best.
NowInc
Well-Known Member
What model Nikon? Typically the 35mm or 50mm (both F1.8) are fine for low light shots (as long as you bump up the ISO a bit), but depending on your sensor size you could maybe get by with a 2.8. Also, what in particular are you looking to shoot?
You can do a 1.4, but it will be expensive and likely not give you the results you want. I've used very fast lenses before and back in the early days they were the requirement to get a decent shot in dark rides, but now high ISO is much better than it used to be so you don't need to spend a fortune on fast lenses anymore. Now if you have a new Nikon it probably came with a lens with an f-stop of 3.5-5.6... That's not going to be working well for you. You need to probably get a lens with a minimum of 2.8, 1.8 would be fine and probably cheap as well. Getting faster than 1.8 for a Nikon will start costing you more than you probably want to spend.
Regardless of what lens you end up using, you should probably get familiar with going full manual to get the most out of your camera. Also shoot everything in RAW so you can tweak it later. Get some good post processing software as it will often let you get the equivalent of a 2 stop increase in the lens speed before it the image starts to go wonky. Also note that if you use the camera metering it set it to spot meter and then set it up for each shot by putting the spot on the brightest thing the shot - if you blowout part of the shot you can never recover anything from that area where as if you are underexposed you can sometimes get some image out of that in post processing.
And before you go, go out and take some picture at night. No amount of books or suggestions from people will ever get your photos to look as good as you can by simply going out and shooting at night before you go. Worst photos I ever took in my life were the first concert photos I ever took because it was with a camera I had never used and wasn't familiar with - I paid the price by having mostly duds when I got the film developed so do yourself a favor and experiment before you get to Disney.