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Question Which lens do I need?

Sweet FA

Sweet FA

✪ Three rounds Lord, in my .44 ✪
I've got a (now pretty old) Nikon D40X. I've got the lens it came with - 18-55 and also a 55-200.

Living in Southampton, I've got an idea for a series of photos around the city, something like those Tyneside shots. In Soton, the cranes/ships etc look that big but they're further away from the houses iyswim. I've tried it with the 55-200 but when I crop photos to get the effect I want, the photo quality isn't very good. Is this just user error or do I need a different lens?

1639568554255.png

Or ones of a massive moon against a skyline. Or just clear pictures of the moon tbh.

1639568753934.png


Thanks for any help.
 
You want to try and get the shots to fill the frame so you don't need to crop them. You probably want a longer lens, maybe 3-400mm? Or maybe try a lens extender if there's one that's compatible with your 200mm lens, although you'd probably lose a bit of quality with that. That way you can take the shot from further away which should increase the lens compression to make the ships seem closer. I think :hmm: :D

It's worth noting that the ship in that Wallsend shot probably was more or less at the end of the street though.
 
neonwilderness said:
You want to try and get the shots to fill the frame so you don't need to crop them. You probably want a longer lens, maybe 3-400mm? Or maybe try a lens extender if there's one that's compatible with your 200mm lens, although you'd probably lose a bit of quality with that. That way you can take the shot from further away which should increase the lens compression to make the ships seem closer. I think :hmm: :D

It's worth noting that the ship in that Wallsend shot probably was more or less at the end of the street though.
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Cheers - yes I think I need to take the shot further away but with both buildings & the ships/cranes still in focus. I don't really know what I'm doing (generally tbh) but from what I've read, I need to be further away - is lens compression what the process is called?

There's a similar shot to the Wallsend photo I've got in mind but the ship is maybe 500m away from the end of the street rather than 20-30m.

* goes to check prices of 3-400mm lenses *
 
Sweet FA said:
Cheers - yes I think I need to take the shot further away but with both buildings & the ships/cranes still in focus. I don't really know what I'm doing (generally tbh) but from what I've read, I need to be further away - is lens compression what the process is called?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think the further away you are and the more you're zooming the closer things in the distance appear. Also as hippogriff has mentioned you'll need a big depth of field to keep everything in focus, so you'll need to compensate with a slower shutter, higher ISO, etc.
 
For the sun shot.

To get a relatively big sun.

If you double your distance away from the buildings, they will halve in size in your image, but because you can't double your distance to the sun, it will remain relatively large and especially large compared to the buildings which you have just made smaller by moving double the distance from.

However you will need a telephoto lens to "zoom in" on your scene.
 
Thanks all. I probably need to pull my finger out and actually learn how to use the camera effectively rather than just shooting on auto all the time.

Any pointers for lenses that would be good? Mrs FA is asking for xmas present ideas, so maybe money toward a lens might be a plan...
 
Sweet FA said:
Thanks all. I probably need to pull my finger out and actually learn how to use the camera effectively rather than just shooting on auto all the time.
Click to expand...

You could do auto shutter speed to manually set your aperture to get the shot. Then switch to manual to play about trying again by experimentation.
 
Sweet FA said:
Thanks all. I probably need to pull my finger out and actually learn how to use the camera effectively rather than just shooting on auto all the time.
Click to expand...
This sort of shot will be better in manual, but start off playing around with the semi auto modes :thumbs:

I’m clueless when it comes to Nikon. Go for one with a constant aperture though, some very as you zoom which can be a pain.
 
Sweet FA said:
I've got a (now pretty old) Nikon D40X. I've got the lens it came with - 18-55 and also a 55-200.
..
Click to expand...
Hi Sweet FA I am a Nikon shooter, I can't immediately find your D40X on dpreview so perhaps it is quite old. Do you know if it has an in body focussing motor?

There is a focussing motor in the camera or in the lens or both. Your 18-55 and 55-200 do they have "AFS" in their names? if so they have focussing motors in the lens. If however they have "AF" in their names then the focusing motor is in the camera.

Why does this matter? It matters because it determines which Nikon lenses can work on your camera. Well AFS lenses will work in any case, but AF lenses may or may not work, they require a focussing motor in the camera body to focus.
 
Actually just found Nikon D40X Review

Auto Focus only for AF-S or AF-I lenses​

As with the D40 the D40X doesn't have an built-in focus drive motor which means it can auto focus only with lenses which have their own drive motor (AF-S and AF-I lenses). The lack of a drive motor can be seen by the missing mechanical focus drive pin on the lens mount (see images below).
Click to expand...
 
The D40X doesn't have a very large sensor (physical size or pixel count), so you definitely don't want to be cropping in much - especially as you'll probably need to be shooting at 800-1600 ISO. I'm guessing the night shot was taken on a 400-600mm lens (275-400mm on APS-C).

There's a lot of second-hand 80-400mm Nikon F mount zooms on eBay from £200-£500 (you might have to manually focus these as most aren't AF-S), but new the best bet is probably something like the Sigma 745306 150-600mm F/5-6.3 DG HSM Zoom but it's about £850. Anything Nikon at that focal length will be £1000+.

You're definitely going to need a decent tripod if you want to duplicate that photo.
 
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If you want to plan a shot like that, working out the size of the disc of the sun or moon is easy. Hold your arm out straight with your thumb sticking out. The sun/moon will be about the same size as your thumbnail (about 0.5°).

E2A: The moon photo above is roughly six times the width of the moon, measured on the diagonal, so to get that angle of view (3°) you'd need an 800mm lens (≈500mm APS-C).
 
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Sweet FA said:
Or ones of a massive moon against a skyline. Or just clear pictures of the moon tbh.

View attachment 300898
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
You might like to look at The Photographers Ephemeris which can show you the sun and moon's position at any point in time. It can help when planning shots like this. It is available on the apple store and android app store, it isn't free but I don't think it is very expensive.
 
I'm not sure about the converter, but the other two have variable apertures so the largest setting will change as you zoom in. That probably not a huge issue for the shots you're talking about, as you'll be probably using a smaller one, but it might be for other stuff.

Other than that I'll defer to the Nikon users :D
 
Focusing will be critical with any of these long focal length lenses.

The first one might be worth a punt if you don't mind not having autofocus, but AF is useful when your viewing screen doesn't have any focus assist aid like they used to do in days of old (split prism or micro-prism focusing spots in the centre).

If you are happy with manual focusing then this might be a better bet.

Nikon Zoom-Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 D VR AF ED Lens | eBay
 
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