One day photography course - Scotland

[Skyedriver]

A few weeks ago my Son & i did a one day course at Loch Visions, Ardfern, Argyll.
Our first attempts at "real" photography rather than picture taking, it concentrated upon macro & close up wildlife.using a Nikon D50 body & a Sigma Macro 70-300mm lens supplied.
Here's a few from the day, we're now on the lookout for a similar camera / lens combo (Nikon or Canon?) probably second-hand due to cost.










May well do one of Philips other courses in the future aswe enjoyed the day so much.

[Turtle Shed]

Nice images indeed.

The Nikon D50 is a very old model, plenty available for about £30.00 on MPB.com, but if you can stretch to perhaps £60/70 you could buy a D3100, not a new model by any means, but certainly a step up in performance. A D3100 is all the camera many people will ever need, with a D50 I think you would start to fell you wanted something a bit better, in terms of resolution and low-light performance, fairly quickly.

What the D50 does have though, which pretty much every lower end Nikon since does not have, is a focus motor in the body. This may or may not be something you are aware of, but it is important to know. With a focus motor in the body, every lens you can buy for it will focus, without one, and as a general rule, only the newer AF-S Nikon lenses will autofocus. This isn't a big limitation, Nikon have been making AF-S lenses for years.

Anyway, happy snapping.

[Simpo Two]

Skyedriver said:

A few weeks ago my Son & i did a one day course at Loch Visions, Ardfern, Argyll.
Our first attempts at "real" photography rather than picture taking, it concentrated upon macro & close up wildlife.using a Nikon D50 body & a Sigma Macro 70-300mm lens supplied.
Here's a few from the day, we're now on the lookout for a similar camera / lens combo (Nikon or Canon?) probably second-hand due to cost.

May well do one of Philips other courses in the future aswe enjoyed the day so much.

Well done and congratulations on entering the world of macro, which opens up all sorts of new picture opportunities, along with new technical challenges. Turtle is right about the focus motor in the body, and it's worth having if you might be buying older lenses.

The D50 is a fine starter camera; the main advance of later bodies you'll benefit from is a higher ISO capability. This can help you get the correct exposure in low light when you're on max aperture and can't use a slower shutter speed for some reason, eg the subject is moving or you haven't got a tripod. That said, you're unlikely to use max aperture in macro as you'll see sod all

So, camera aside, for real macro I would look for a s/h 105mm macro lens because that gives you some working distance, and a tripod - because for decent depth of field you'll need small apertures which can give long shutter speeds which create camera shake.

Note that the Sigma 70-300, or any 70-300 for that matter, is not a true macro lens. Marketing people put 'macro' on it because it looks good, but true macro is a magnification of 1:1. In visual terms, that roughly means you can fill the frame with a postage stamp. A squirrel on a branch is jolly nice but isn't macro, it's telephoto.

If you can decide how much you want to spend, I'm sure you'll get useful recommendations. Enjoy the challenge

[jingars]

1. Some lovely pics there; nicely done.

2. I didn't know that red squirrels wore wristwatches - every day is a school day.

[Skyedriver]

Thanks guys for the complements and comments, some pics were mine, some Tom's.
Yes the macro bit was in the morning,, close ups of leafs, grass, moss etc.
Thanks for the advice re camera bodies and lenses, as a novice all info is useful