Equipment progression

[nimo956]

I've had my 40D and 70-200 f/4 L IS for quite some time now, and I'm ready to make my next big photography purchase. However, I'm not sure which equipment to get first. Using the 70-200 on a 1.6 sensor can be difficult indoors because you often have to move far away from your subject, but also b/c of poor lighting. I'm thinking of either getting a 35mm f/1.4L to handle low-light situations, or an off-camera lighting set, complete with 580EXII, tripod, umbrella, and the new pocket wizards. Do you think it's better to build your lenses or other accessory equipment? Also, I have yet to invest in a tripod, but wouldn't an off-camera lighting set pretty much allow you to shoot without one? Thanks for your help.

[KeVancity]

I'm a bit Surprised. If your only lens is the 70-200 , then I would recommend you get another lens as your next upgrade. If money is an issue then i woudl recommend the Tamron 17-50 2.8 - its got great optics for the price and will cover your wider end. I would hold off on pocket wizards, definitely get a tripod. Tripod is cheaper than Flash. But they really are not for the same thing. Tripod lets you shoot in low light or slow shutter speed, flash adds light to a scene, which is not the same thing. Tripod is needed for night time, landscape, time lapse, painting with light, telephoto work (shooting planes, birds, stars) and fireworks. Flash is more indoors oriented, or I should say controlled environment. A 580 Ex II should be in your budget for something to have soon as well.





I will lay out my gear for you and the order in which i purchased it.








Canon 100-300 4.5 (old from film days)


Canon 40d + kit lens 17-55 junk lens


Canon 50mm 1.8 (cheap but sharp + fast)


Canon EF 28-70mm f/3.5-4.5 II (old but very sharp lens) cost me $180


Manfrotto 55 proB tripod (a good tripod will be tall, and sturdy)


Manfrotto 488rc4 Ballhead. (get something decent as you don't want something that will not support a decent amount of weight)


Canon 580 ExII Flash (love it)


Canon 10-22 (needed something wide)


I'm pretty happy with this setup and it has not cost me alot. The only thing I want to replace is my telephoto, and i'm think of getting a 70-200 4L IS, its pricey though, might forgo the IS version for non IS. The 100-400 Is is nice too but possibly overkill on a 40d for my taste anyways.





On my wish list


24-105 4/L IS


100 2.0 Macro


85 1.8

[Sean Setters]

I'm a big advocate of off-camera lighting. Getting comfortable with off-camera lighting is, I think, it's the best way to improve your photography. That said, it's difficult to do alot of things with the 70-200 lens. I own the 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS, and it's fantastic--but it stays on my 1.6 crop sensor camera bout 10% of the time. The rest of the time, my 17-55mm f/2.8 IS stays glued to the camera.


Even with all my off-camera lighting gear, I still fantasize about fast primes (50mm f/1.4 will be my next lens purchase...useful focal length, fast, and decent quality for the small amount you pay for it). If you have even decent glass on your camera, then the lighting makes the image shine.


I think it's a tough call, actually...whether to advice you to get a better all-purpose focal length lens (like the 17-40mm f/4), or to invest in some off-camera lighting.


How about both? The 35mm f/1.4 is about $1200. Don't get that. I'm sure it's a fantastic lens, but for the money, you could get either the 50mm f/1.4 or the 17-40mm f/4 and spend the rest of the cash on light stands, umbrellas, umbrella swivels, CTR-301 trigger/receivers, and Vivitar 285HV, Cactus KF36, or Lumopro LP120 flashes (a 580EXII is a great flash, but if it's off-camera, you don't really need all the bells and whistles..learn how to set your flash output manually, then you won't have to spend so much on the flash).

[George Slusher]

You don't say what sort of photography you want to do and any
suggestions should be strongly influenced by that information. The
other major factor would be your budget.


Having said that, the
35mm f/1.4L would probably not be your best choice for your next lens.
It's expensive ($1180 at B&H) and limited in what you might use it
for. The 35mm f/2 lens is $240 and only one stop slower: is 1 stop
worth $940? (Yes, there are other differences, but are those also worth $940?)


The
17-55mm f/2.8 IS is a bit cheaper ($1030) than the 35mm f/1.4L and
would give you a lot more use. Yes, it's 2 stops slower, but, if your
subject isn't moving, the IS will more than make up for that from an
exposure standpoint. (The f/1.4L lens will give you a shallower DOF, if
that's really important.)


As for lighting, Sean Setters has good advice, if you're most
interested in setting up the lighting in advance and you have the time
and space to set up the stands, etc. If you want to do more
spur-of-the-moment shots, the 580EX II (or, cheaper, an used 580EX--the
major differences are weather sealing and a PC connection) is a very
nice flash. You can use it off-camera (handheld or on a bracket) with the off-camera
cord or remotely with a PocketWizard or the cheaper RF triggers like Sean mentioned. (I paid $41 for a new transmitter and two receivers on eBay. Three PocketWizards would have cost $500+.) You can add various sorts of diffusers, bounce cards, mini-soft boxes, etc. to make the 580EX II more versatile.


For what it's worth, what sort of photography you want to do could even influence the choice of lightstands, umbrellas, etc. I'll be doing some shots of kids and horses (posed) outdoors this summer. I chose a Giottos lightstand because it's heavy and has a wide (50+") footprint, so it will be more stable than the more compact stands. (I'll still have to use sandbags, but those are more effective on wider bases, as well.)


So, decide what sorts of photography you'd like to do (and are willing to spend the time to learn to do, e.g., off-camera lighting).

[Sean Setters]

This is quite off-topic, but I wanted to make a suggestion to George Slusher--sandbags are great, and I use them too. However, there's another great option -- metal tent stakes. I bought 6 of them at REI for not much money, and they work great on just about anything but concrete & pavement. In fact, in heavy winds, I use the sandbags and the tent stakes, and that combo has never failed me. The last time I was shooting in heavy winds, I was actually more afraid of my umbrella breaking rather than the lighstand coming down. Just a thought.

[George Slusher]

This is quite off-topic, but I wanted to make a suggestion to George Slusher--sandbags are great, and I use them too. However, there's another great option -- metal tent stakes. I bought 6 of them at REI for not much money, and they work great on just about anything but concrete & pavement. In fact, in heavy winds, I use the sandbags and the tent stakes, and that combo has never failed me. The last time I was shooting in heavy winds, I was actually more afraid of my umbrella breaking rather than the lighstand coming down. Just a thought.
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Good suggestion. I, too, bought tent stakes, line and line tighteners (more convenient and more secure than the knots I learned to do on the way to becoming an Eagle Scout) at my local REI (Eugene, Oregon) some time ago--for my tripod. I would put them between each pair of legs. (I also bought square furniture casters at a local home improvement store to put under the tripod feet on soft ground, which we have plenty of here during our rainy season (basically, 8 months of the year, October through May). They would work well with a lightstand, too: attach the lines at the first joint and put them between the legs.


In the particular situation I mentioned, though, the stands will be on asphalt. Wind is a potential problem, but not the most likely. (We seldom have summer thunderstorms in the Willamette Valley, though they do happen in the hills--"mountains" to Easterners--around us.) More likely is someone running into a stand. I'll keep them out of the way during the day, then move them into place in the evening. (Our "medallion" classes--somewhat like championships--are at the end of each day of the Fair.) Lines would make it worse, actually: something else for someone to trip over. That's one reason why I went for the cheap RF triggers, rather than using cables (e.g., PC-to-household male, then double-female extension cords, as suggested by folks at the Strobist site), which might be more reliable. (One good thing is that the setup will be very near our warmup area, so there's no shortage of dirt. I toyed with getting "real" sandbags, but figured that plastic trash bags (kitchen can size) would work as well.)