300 mm lens

[OldBoy]

Whilst good advice given above I don't agree with the crop factor bit. A 300mm lens on a full frame gives the same reach as on a crop factor camera. The only difference is field of view. I've taken photos with a 300mm lens at 1/30s handheld without problems but it depends on the situation. As a general rule I keep my shutter speed at 500s, but that's because I walk around looking for wildlife and you may not get the chance to adjust the speed if something suddenly appears, so be prepared.

[Morthin]

thanks for that >.. it was what happened to me I was walking the dog and saw an otter cub , so with the excitement etc i forgot to check the settings on my camera so my image was not as sharp as i would have hoped for but as you said if i had it on 500 it probably would have been an excellent shot !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6316477...in/photostream

[rbarry]

The crop factor will affect your ability to get a hand held image sharp because you are effectively increasing the focal length of the captured image that falls on the sensor, not the focal length of the lens which obviously can't change.

See advantages/disadvantages of full frame and cropped frame sensors here

[Morthin]

Thanks to all for your comments & thoughts

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by OldBoy

Whilst good advice given above I don't agree with the crop factor bit

Originally Posted by rbarry

The crop factor will affect your ability to get a hand held image sharp

I've seen this discussed loads (here and elsewhere).
The short answer is that a crop factor does make a difference sometimes.

Many people can hand hold for longer than the reciprocal of the focal length (as OB has already said). I can comfortably handhold and shoot wildlife at 1/150 without any stablisation so, for me anyway, the crop factor makes no difference.

However, if you struggle to get sharp shots at faster speeds like (say more than 1/200) then you probably do need to take the extra magnification into account when using long lenses.

[cosmicma]

wildlife is a different kettle of fish anyway because your photographing something thats alive and completely oblivious to the fact your trying to get a good photo
in other words it's not going to sit still and pose for you
and the movement of the subject should also be taken into account for example something like a coal tit seldomly stops moving and if it does it's for a couple of seconds at best where a robin will sit still for quite some time
blue tits will sit still for a short time but there head rarely stops moving a slow shutter speed handheld or on a tripod will give you motion blur even if the camera is perfectly steady with some subjects

there's no strict rule i have had pin sharp shots of birds at below 1/60th of a second and blurred shots at 1/500th

[ap4a]

If you put a 300mm lens on a 35mm camera, shoot hand-held and print the photo, then also crop a copy to APS-C dimensions and print that, there's no difference in the image to just shooting on an APS-C camera. It's just a crop, the image is the same just minus the edge data. So if it's steady and sharp at 1/300s on 35mm then the same is true for the cropped version - whether or not it's cropped by having a smaller sensor or if cropped in Photoshop. So if you need 1/480s for a steady shot on APS-C then you'll likely need the same on 35mm.

However, if there are motion blur issues in the image then they will likely be more noticeable in the cropped image (when viewed at the same physical dimensions, after printing) because you're magnifying the central areas of detail by cropping.

[rbarry]

Perhaps it's time to agree to disagree.

But for further reference see here:
http://dpanswers.com/content/tech_crop.php
see "handholding"

"The reason you need to figure in the crop factor is that an image projected onto a physical DX-format (cropped) sensor need to be magnified more than an image projected onto a FX-format sensor for any given print size. As part of the process, camera shake blur is also magnified, and the increased magnification must be compensated for by using a faster shutter speed."


and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_factor
see "secondary effects"

"The extra amount of enlargement required with smaller-format cameras increases the blur due to defocus, and also increases the blur due to camera motion (shake). As a result, the focal length that can be reliably hand-held at a given shutter speed for a sharp image is reduced by the crop factor. The old rule of thumb that shutter speed should be at least equal to focal length for hand-holding will work equivalently if the actual focal length is multiplied by the FLM first before applying the rule."


Chrisp wrote
"Many people can hand hold for longer than the reciprocal of the focal length (as OB has already said). I can comfortably handhold and shoot wildlife at 1/150 without any stablisation so, for me anyway, the crop factor makes no difference."

No offence chris, I respect your right to disagree with me. You don't say what focal length you can hand hold at 1/150th or what sensor size your camera body is, but I will add (and this is only if you accept that the crop factor should be taken into consideration like I do) just because one person can hand hold steadier than another doesn't mean that the cropped image sensor has no relevance. It would mean that the full frame sensor body owner would be struggling to capture sharp images when using a cropped sensor camera at shutter speeds close to the limit of their normal hand held ability when using their full frame body. And of course the opposite would be true if the roles were reversed.

[Cathus]

I tihnk whatever the science the thing to do is take your lens out on your camera and see what speeds you can comfortably hand-hold at and use that as a guideline.

[rbarry]

And there speaks the voice of reason.

No more droning on from me!