dbp5458

[dbp5458]

Hi all, I am trying to get into photography, just on the level of taking pictures for fun. I work seasonal at the MN Twins, and would like to take some pictures.
I tried to follow what I could find about max focal length and how that might relate to object magnification. I found somewhere that a max focal length divided by 50 gives the approximate magnigication of an object. No such luck, it seems to be more like divided by 100. In other words a max focal length of 800mm would be about 8x of object magnification.
ANYWAY: It was the end of the year. I bought a Nikon Coolpix L22. When holding an Orion 10x42 monocular to the camera it seems to get the same distance effect as a 15x optical zoom camera. Though it's not easy; 2 handed, camera shake, other various problems.
I was hoping for anyones ideas.I want to be get facial features at several hundred feet. 300 to 500 feet (if possible). There are MANY possibiles. Like most people, I can afford to buy something ONCE, so I want to make a good choice.
Here's some possibilities.
--- A spotting scope and digital camera attached together to created hand held digiscoping (tripod is out of the question). I can steady a camera with walls, fences, and my cane.
---A 35x optical zoom digital camera. This MIGHT do it, but hate to buy a camera and find out it won't work to take facial features at 300 feet.
----A DSLR with different lens and/or teleconverter. I don't need the extra picture quality, but this might work also.
--- A digital camera with a teleconverter that fits on the end of the lens (I think this exists).

***** Picture quality is not as much a concern as being able to get the facial features at several hundred feet. Once I get that figured out, then I will improve on the quality of the pictures. If you have any ideas on what might work, please give me a yell.

THANKS

[PowerPix]

Hello,

If you can spend the money, go for a DSLR. It is something that you can grow with and allows you the greatest flexibility (quality,lenses, accessories, etc) .

For what you are wanting to do, you can drop some big $$$$.

[Biomech]

Or a hybrid/bridge camera. First upgrade I had was a Fuji F6500fd. Picked it up yesterday and couldn't work it it was so far behind my DSLR - yet when I got it, it did so much more than a compact.

To work out the relative magnification of a lens you divide the max focal length by the min focal length, so a 70-200 would be 200/70 = 3x and an 18-250 would be 14x.

I don't know how accurate it would be but I believe the focal length of the human eye is 17mm. So I guess(?) you could take the max focal length of a lens - say 300mm divide it by 17mm which would give you 17.6x magnification. Of course you need to take into account crop factors on APS-C sensors etc, so a 300mm lens might be a ~450mm equiv........ :P