What is a good tele on a budget?

[misotuz]

Hi all,

First time posting here. Ok, I recently purchased the Nikon D3100 and got the kit with the 55-200mm. Well, that lens just will not due. I live just outside of Yellowstone Park and have soooo much to shoot. Today I shot photos of a sandhill crane, black bear, elk, buffalo. They all are terrible. I can take great shots if I am not too far away but for example, the black bear was 30 yards away and I was not happy with any of the photos. Slight blur and the color is just not vivid enough. So, I assume I need a faster lens and more tele. Do I have to use a Nikkor lens? Is there another brand that I can use with my Nikon D3100? I am no pro, probably just above beginner. I do use all the different scene options and such and I love to learn.

Help please. I hate coming home thinking I may have a few nice photos and they all are disappointing.

[Shokinen]

Couple things you could try before spending more money.

Try selecting a specific focus point instead of relying on the camera to choose one. The way focus system works is with color contrast and it's easy to get a very sharp tree beside your slightly blured subject. It's even worse when your subject is far. It's you keep it half-press after your subject is in focus, you can recompose your picture. This way you can focus with the central point and still be creative. It's much easier that way.

As for the color, lot of it goes with proper white balance. You can choose a specific setting such as daylight, cloud, shade, etc. OR ! start improving your pictures using softwares. There is not much photographers these days that are not retouching their pictures afterwards. This is where you will make your picture pop. You can improve color saturation, sharpness, mid-tones, crop to better frame / get closer, sky is the limit !

Hope this helps

[misotuz]

Thank you!

I have been studying up on the camera. I do press the shutter half down and look to see where the "red dot" is to try to make sure my subject is in focus. I have also tried manual focus but not enough. I think my issue with the black bear was that he was moving so I probably should have used the "sports" mode. But the crane was perfectly still (as they always are) and I don't like the photos. More practice needed! I need to look to see where the options for "daylight or cloudy" etc are located and try that.

I have Photo Shop Elements I use to edit my pics. It that good enough?

Thanks so much for the reply!

[IABoomer]

A sample image would be good, but my gut says that the shutter speed was a bit too slow, especially if you're shooting at 200mm. The typical rule of thumb is to not let the shutter speed go slower than 1/focal length, so anything slower than 1/200 in this case could account for some hand-shake and blur.

Longer faster lenses aren't going to be cheap by any stretch of the imagination, so you'll want to make sure your technique is spot-on before investing in something like that.

[misotuz]

Ok, here is a shot I took last week. Not cropped just shrunk to post here. From far away it looks ok, color is weak, but when I cropped it I the blur shows up

[misotuz]

Here is one I took yesterday. I didn't not zoom in so you can see I was not that far away from them. Oh, I have a circular polarized filter on it too. Bright beautiful day and the sky was so blue, new spring grass so green but not in the photo.

[misotuz]

2 more examples from yesterday. The crane, good color this time. And a robin that landed next to me, she is in focus! So the distance is an issue I think. So, I need to set the shutter speed?

[inkista]

Originally Posted by misotuz

Ok, here is a shot I took last week. Not cropped just shrunk to post here. From far away it looks ok, color is weak, but when I cropped it I the blur shows up

Looking at the EXIF, I'm seeing:

Exposure Time 1/125
F Number 5.6
ISO Speed Ratings 450
Focal Length 200

So, you have three problems here.

1) First of all, you're at the end of the lens. Consumer zoom lenses tend to be weaker at the extreme ends of their ranges. Backing off a little might possibly get you a little more sharpness, if you're hypercritical. But this isn't that big of a deal.

2) You are shooting at f/5.6: wide open. All lenses, consumer or pro, tend to be at their softest when wide open. Stopping down at least one full stop tends to get a sharper image. With consumer-grade zooms, you want to be shooting at f/8 at the very least.

3) This is the biggie. Your shutter speed is only 1/125. With good handholding technique (and no stabilization), the rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed of at least 1/focal_length or faster to mitigate camera shake blur. In this case, that means 1/200s. If you had VR turned on, you should be ok, but that assumes you know how to handhold a telephoto properly. Check your grip. Check your technique.

4) [possible problem, can't tell for sure] You might simply have a misfocus. Check to see if anywhere else in the frame is sharply in focus, and see if you missed your target. Using a single AF point can help if the camera just chose to focus on the wrong thing.

I'd say start out with your iso set to 800, and work from there. Also, imho, the shot looks a wee bit underexposed which is probably going to add some noise to the image. You might want to consider spot metering, and learning back-button autofocus.

And yeah, with a longer lens, it just gets harder. I shoot with a 400mm prime that isn't stabilized, and I have to get 1/500s or faster all the time.

Given that you're shooting larger wildlife, and not tiny little birds for the most part, you may be better off if you can suck it up and plunk down the cash on a AF-S 70-300 f/4.5-5.6G VR. There's also the Sigma 400mm and 500mm lenses, but they're considerably more expensive.

[BuddhaPi]

FYI - that crane is actually a Great Blue Heron...I'm glad inki has chimed in , cause she's a plethora of knowledge!

[nemesis256]

Originally Posted by misotuz

I live just outside of Yellowstone Park and have soooo much to shoot.

I'm so jealous! I was just there last week, and had the best time ever! I took 7000 photos, about half of them being wildlife. Which town do you live in?

For wildlife I have a Sigma 50-500, the one with optical stabilization. it's a little slow, but it's a great lens when it works right. I say that because the autofocus on it failed about a month ago, and I had to send it to Sigma to get it repaired. The repair note said the main PCB was replaced. Also, while I was in Yellowstone, I was sometimes getting an error where the lens was reporting an aperture of f/0. It seems to mostly happen in low light, but it did also happen a couple times midday. I haven't figured out or researched this problem yet. The optical stabilization on it is very good as well. I'm able to get sharp shots at 500 mm at 1/200. So I do recommend this lens due to the great range and optical stabilization it has, but be prepared to have a backup lens (mine is the Nikon 55-300). The price is about $1600.

Outdoor photographer recently had an article about lenses for wildlife. At the end it had this useful list comparing many different lenses. You should probably take a look at those. Since you have the D1300, you'll have to keep in mind that you need to get a lens that has internal autofocus. Since you'll mostly be shooting big-game wildlife (lucky you), you can also probably get away with 400 mm. There's not a big difference between 400 mm and 500 mm anyway.