Quote:
Originally Posted by TurboFan
Now lets say you are shooting with the lens zoomed all the way to 200mm. The rule of thumb says 1/focal length is your minimum shutter speed to not show camera shake for a hand-held shot. If you have VR in the lens, it allows you to hand hold down to a slower shutter speed without showing shake, assuming good technique.
There are other ways to make up for not having VR. The newer DSLR's are able to shoot at amazingly high ISO values with no evident noise. If you can shoot indoors at ISO 1600 on the D300 or D700, you may not ever need VR on an f/2.8 lens.
You can also do what we've all done for years, and just get a tripod.
|
Here is a shot that I took of my daughter playing basketball indoors. Lighting was very difficult, and combined with slow glass, meant I had to run at ISO 3200.
Body: Nikon D300
Lens: Nikon 18-200 VR
ISO: 3200
Shutter: 1/100
Aperture: f/5.0
Focal: 52mm
Full size image here:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3111/...b84759d2_o.jpg
I'm not showing this as an example of a great picture (it isn't), but to highlight the tough lighting conditions. Even at ISO 3200, I was barely able to get 1/100th shutter speeds due to the slow glass. That isn't fast enough to freeze action, thus things are blurry like my daughter's fingers.
With glass able to run f/2.8, I could have bumped up the shutter speed to 1/250 at ISO 3200, or dialed the ISO back down to 1600 and shoot at 1/160.
When I was closer to the action (this shot was taken from a walkway above the court), I might have been able to use a flash to improve lighting conditions. But I didn't want to use flash (distracting), and right now I've only got the weak built in flash and not something like an SB-600 or SB-900.
For the next game, I think I'm going to rent the 70-200 VR f/2.8 and also play with the autofocus settings. I was shooting in single point AF mode, which may not have been the right choice.
Quote:
|
You can also do what we've all done for years, and just get a tripod.
|
I've got one (Bogen 3021), but I'd really like to get a Gitzo CF to get the weight down. I find that I don't bring the tripod along because it is relatively heavy....