Outdoor photography – Lens oops.

[Lynn]

I preparation for an upcoming Alaska cruise with photo excursions, I bought my wife a ‘one size fits all’ 28-300 lens for her Maxim 5D dSLR.

However, being a cheapskate, I bought her an off-brand lens (Promaster). Yeah, I know, it’s all about the optics… So now she has this lens that doesn’t seem to gather light very well.

As I understand it, dSLRs have some capability to adjust for the light (pardon my novicity) and I’m wondering if there is any hope for this lens.

Any suggestions?

 

[Rallyroo]

No matter what, when you view through the viewfinder, it'll be dimmer on the telephoto side with your variable aperture lens. That

Things you can try:
-You can increase ISO, the sensor's sensitivity to light. i.e. Going from 100 ISO to 400 ISO or higher. At 800 ISO and up, grain will be increased though.
-You can use a slower shutter speed. But when handheld and on the telephoto end you'll increase the chance of camera shake. At the 300mm end, hand movements are amplified.

 

[Photog]

This lens is sold under a number of different names. Tamron, Sigma, Sony, Promaster and Quantaray. They may look a little different on the outside, but they are the same on the inside, except for the Sony. The Sony will include some of the propriatary specs of the Sony (Konica-Minolta).

With an aperture of f3.5 - f6.3, there just is not much light getting into the camera. You can up the ISO, so the sensor will react faster; but the image quality will suffer with more digital noise. This lens does not provide crisp images anyway, adding to the high ISO problems. Image quality will really suffer.

The camera will need a certain amount of light reaching the sensors, just to auto-focus. A lens like this, may not allow enough light in to properly auto-focus, in the morning & evening light (the two best times of most days).

You should think about a lens that is priced similar to the 5D camera body ($400-$800) or more. There are high quality lenses made for this camera. Thye will typically have a little less zoom range, and an aperatures close to or at f2.8. Consider 2 lenses: Something like 18-70mm (wide zoom) & 70-200mm (tele zoom).