MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Questions for serious photographers

> first, what's your opinion on this lense?
> Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 DG APO OS

It's not very practical. It's longer than you'd want from a tele zoom most of the time, and it's a slow lens (small aperture. You'd be better off with a 70-300mm lens. On the bright side the optics are pretty decent, and it has a nine-blade diaphragm. The stabilisation on that lens is pretty decent, too

> Second, What's the best big(ish) camera out there that's Less than or close to $1000?
> I'm thinking of grabbing a Canon T5i or Nikon D5200. I tend to see a lot more kinds
> of Nikon lenses and stuff than I do Canon, so I'm kind of leaning towards the
> D5200...

I seriously wouldn't bother with a Canon T5i - it's overpriced. The Canon equivalent to the D5200 would be the 60D or something. But I'd be wary of the Nikon D5200 as well. It has relatively poor low light performance, and it won't autofocus with lenses that don't have an integrated focussing motor. This means you won't get autofocus on either the DC-Nikkor portrait lenses, the 50mm f/1.8D, or many older lenses. The D90 is still in production. It's cheap, can autofocus on the older lenses, and has great low-light performance. Or maybe you should consider stepping up to a full frame camera like the D600.

> My *big* camera is currently a Rebel EOS XTi, with the original lens. I find myself
> wanting more...
> If it helps, I am always most disappointed with night shots on any camera I've had,
> and I like zooming in as much as I can on bugs and stuff (but I don't own a macro
> lens). On the other hand, I also enjoy taking landscape pictures, even from far away
> and I'm stoked about taking my own pictures of the moon with that lens listed up
> above...(comes in Sony, Nikon, and Canon flavors at my local NEX right now). Oh, and
> of course portrait pics. I guess whatever camera I get, I really should have at least
> 3 different lenses, huh?

Well the general rule is you buy a shitload of lenses, but carry no more than three overlapping ones at a time: wide zoom, fast normal, tele zoom. If you really want to photograph bugs, the Canon 100mm macro lens is better than Nikon's 105mm macro. The lens you're talking about is really too slow for taking pictures of the moon, though. You need a stupid expensive fast tele for doing that.