I hope your photos are better than your jokes. Well boys and girls, looks like the paymaster has been doing her job, so I think a purchase is looming. I have a sneaky feeling that I might end up with the Sigma pseudo-macro lens - cheap and cheerful. My wife will probably get bored of photography after a few weeks for all I know.
Hi folks, Thanks for all the advice on choosing a body and lens. In the end, I came away with: Canon EOS-600D + Canon Lens Ef-S 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 IS + free tripod = $1,305 Add a lens protector, 8Gb disk, and extended warranty for a total of $1,450 - so $450 over budget. Let's see if I get some cool photos. I mean my wife. Yeah, it's her Valentine's gift, but I have to test it to make sure it works ok right?
Of course you do! Wouldn't want to give her a broken camera, right? Sounds like you got a pretty good deal there. I hope you, er, I mean your wife enjoys her new camera
Sulphur crested cockatoo in my back porch yesterday taken with the camera and lens. (Yup, it's autumn here in Melbourne.)
Very cool. I can't imagine what it would be like to live somewhere that you were able to see wild birds like that. Arizona used to have wild thick-billed parrots, but they're only in Mexico now. Same with Jaguars and Ocelots, although they've been spotted in Southern Arizona in the past couple of years.
Thanks. Glad you like the pic. Just for you, I shall take some more pics of the other parrots that I see in or from my back porch. (I can hear galahs chirping at the moment outside.) I don't just see parrots where I live - did I mention that I hand-feed the cockatoos? Thick-billed parrots look awesome - a shame that they might disappear in our lifetimes. I have been following the jaguars and ocelots recolonising the US in the Wildlife forum on this site. Fascinating stuff.
Here are the noisy culprits: galahs fully zoomed in at 200mm compressed, plus a full size crop of the group.
Thank you. That is very sweet! No, I don't think you mentioned you hand-feed the cockatoos. No wonder they come to your porch! A little over a year ago they did a story on the news about how someone had seen an Ocelot up a tree because his dogs had scared it. Took pictures. Fish & Game came out and allegedly verified it was an Ocelot, but when they showed the pictures on the news, you could tell it wasn't an Ocelot but rather a spotted domestic cat. If anything, it might've been a Bobcat, but even that was doubtful. 2 months later they photographed a cat at night and that was definitely an Ocelot, so they have been seen.
I think I read that story - probably here - that it was a hunter and his dog that spotted the cat. I think we commented that it was nice of the hunter to not shoot it, but to choose to report it. I think it was in a thread that also mentioned the border security fence. Have a look on the Wildlife thread and you may be able to find it. In the mean time, if I spot any more species of parrots in my backyard, I will post pics. I have seen yellow-tailed black cockatoos, sulphur crested cockatoos, long bill corellas, short bill corellas, eastern rosellas, crimson rosellas, galahs, rainbow lorikeets, musk lorikeets, and maybe one or two other parrots that slipped my mind.
@azcheetah2 - It is most definitely an ocelot, NOT a domestic cat. The photo was taken at close range in broad daylight and there is no question. I have a copy of the photo from Game & Fish that I use in my monthly wild cat talk at Reid Park Zoo. The other (more obscure) night photo was taken several months before this (not after) by a remote trail camera on a project run by Sky Island Alliance. The UA Wild Cat Center (with which I am loosely affiliated) is the group that has been given a federal grant to do an extensive camera trap study of a wide area of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. That project is just getting started, but it will be the most exhaustive survey of border jaguars (and other cats) ever done. Very exciting stuff!
Well, all I know is what I saw in the pictures and what the paper said about the 2nd photo. The cat in the tree did not look like an ocelot at all to me. Especially when compared with the cat in the camera trap photo. But that is my opinion. Besides, I said it looked more like a domestic cat, not that it was a domestic cat.
I hadn't heard that it was a hunter that had seen it, just that a guy heard his dogs barking and looked up into the tree and saw it. I'm glad, too, he chose not to shoot it. I saw my first yellow-tailed balck cockatoo in December at the San Diego Zoo. Until then, I didn't even know there were any black ones. I'd seen galahs at the Phoenix Zoo a long time ago and possibly a crimson rosella, but never a black one. It was pretty neat.
Yeah they are amazing birds. The red-tailed black cockatoo is extremely gentle and makes a great pet. Have a quick look at this link, and maybe click the hyperlinks to see pics of al the species of cockatoos. I have only seen about half of them. [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockatoo]Cockatoo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
Hi folks. I am thinking of buying a portrait lens for my Canon camera. I already have an 18-200mm lens, so which portrait lens should I get? Cheers.
The ideal portrait length is considered anything in the neighborhood of 85mm to 135mm. Of course you already have that range in your current lens. The only upgrade would be single focal length (non-zoom) with a larger aperture. 85mm f/1.4 is a popular choice. The Canon version is actually f/1.2, but it costs two thousand dollars US. I recently purchased the Sigma f/1.4, which is a good lens, but even it is one thousand. The Canon 135 f/2 is another good choice around a thousand I think. If you are not able to spend that kind of money then I am not sure any purchase would be much of an advantage over what you already have. If you do not need autofocus, there is a highly rated manual focus 85mm f/1.4 made by Rokinon that you can get in a Canon EOS mount. It is under four hundred dollars US and is sold under various brand names: Rokinon or Bower or (I think) Promaster. Basically, if you buy a second lens (and use it for portrait), you want a slightly telephoto length with the largest aperture you can afford.
I've seen some great portraits made with Canon EF 100mm f/2 USM and Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lens. Most people here prefer Sigma because of lower price and comparable quality.
These are from an Australian Camerashop (with really good prices). The first two are the two Canon's Arizona Do0cent mentioned, and the third and fourth are the pair callorhinus referred to. Canon Lens EF 85mm f/1.2L II USM - Digital Camera Warehouse Canon Lens EF 135mm f/2.0L USM - Digital Camera Warehouse Canon Lens 100mm EF f/2 USM - Digital Camera Warehouse Canon Lens 100mm EF Macro USM - Digital Camera Warehouse I have the 100mm Macro and although I don't do portraits with it, it is a great lens for the closeups. Hix
