Lens Envy

Taken ten days ago on Huntington Beach CA. Had a great chance to chat with these guys and learn about how to photograph surfers (which was completely new to me). I felt embarassed with just a 70-200, but it was great to spend some time looking through a 600mm lens. Neither of these guys shot RAW, only JPEGS, and both have done two page magazine spreads shooting JPEGS.

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nice...lucky you!

Wow...those guys have seriously big sticks.

Lenses like these often make me stare in wonder, but not in envy. At my current stage in photography, I don't want to lug something like that around, nor have it lying in a dry cabinet at home.

Actually, if you want to go the budget way, a 100-400mm lens on a 350D, 20D or any other 1.6X crop camera would probably do the trick as well, seeing that such photographs will probably be taken in good lighting.

Sweet lenses, but really for specialized use. I don't do any long telephoto photography like that, so I'm not envious. I'm just glad I don't have to lug those monsters around.

Mark

PeterGriffin wrote in post #2193711
I hear about more and more pros going jpg...

I wonder why..

Time Consumption?

Well if your white balance is stable and you get the exposure right shooting jpegs saves a hell of a lot of time and to my eyes the end results given the above look indistinguishable...

I wouldn't mind having a lens like that lying around, I'm sure I'd find some use for it.. shooting surfers would be a good one

Luckie8 wrote in post #2193781
I wonder why..

I asked them the same question and the answer was that they dont have time to do the post processing. They try to do as much 'in camera' as possible by using white balance settings that boost saturation (i.e. using the cloudy WB setting most of the time) and the long lenses provide very tight crops. They also said they shoot so many frames the RAW files are simply too big (and they are shooting at 8.5 fps).

I had some lens envy when I went to the Richmond Airshow a few weekends ago. So many people with white lenses... sigh.

What lenses are those in the picture? 500mm or 600mm?


Andrew.

I think most pro's who shoot events/sports/news shoot in JPEG b/c of time/labor issues with deadlines.

mcminty wrote in post #2193823
I had some lens envy when I went to the Richmond Airshow a few weekends ago. So many people with white lenses... sigh.

What lenses are those in the picture? 500mm or 600mm?

Andrew.

They are both 600's but the one in the back ground is an older version. The one in the fore ground was brand new.... 600 f/4 L IS USM

sugarzebra wrote in post #2193844
They are both 600's but the one in the back ground is an older version. The one in the fore ground was brand new.... 600 f/4 L IS USM

Ok, I thought so.

Andrew.

PeterGriffin wrote in post #2193711
I hear about more and more pros going jpg...

A lot shoot jpg + raw though, if its for higher quality print such as Sports Illustrated for example.

is that Vanilla Ice? i swear he looks just like him

Nice.. agreed 100% that it's more awe than envy. My Bigma taught me two very important things 1. Thou shalt not buy what thy cannot/will not carry (latter in my case) 2. My weight limit for a big lens is 1.5kg and below. Probably the limit of my hardware would be 1D-series, with 100-400/70-200/300f4. That's already a six pound setup to handhold.

I am not a static shooter either, so I need the mobility.

No need to feel bad. Feel honored that the working pros found some time to share with you (not to say that a pro should be or usually is haughty, just that some are fed up with n00bs and/or have no time)