Morning gents. And a belated Merry Christmas to you all.
On Christmas Day, the missus bought me a Canon EOS M3 mirrorless camera. As it doesn't have a viewfinder, I've bought one from a shop in London. And that's it.
Primarily, I'll be using it in the pit at music venues, I usually have access to the front. So the question is, what lens(es) and other equipment do I need? I'm also off to Iceland next month, so any recommendations for filters etc. I thought I knew my stuff on things photographic, it was all so much simpler back in the day when i had an Olympus Trip & a Nikon FE! The camera's been sat here for nearly a week, all I've done is charge the battery & registered it!
Any help would be gratefully appreciated!
Thanks
Adam
And Merry Christmas to you too. I'm not familiar with the cam itself, but in a nutshell, I'd imagine for gigs you would need fast (1.4-2.8f) glass, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm, or 24-70mm 2.8f. Have a look at Canon L series. For Iceland I'd add 24mm 2.8f prime - great for landscape shots, or stick with 24-70mm and add 70-200mm 2.8f for wildlife and things afar.
Fas est ab hoste doceri
Mirrorless cameras are great - I went from a big, bulky Nikon to a Fuji XT10 and its a revelation. Granted its not as fast on the autofocus as the Nikon, nor as accurate sometimes, but for the general uses I have it works really well.
When I went to Iceland a few years back, I remember using the 24-80 (or something like that) most of the time. It was useful to have a longer zoom as well as sometimes you want to get in close to the details, or the landscape is so vast you just want to frame it more tightly.
Can't help with specific lenses as don't know the Canon range.
I'm a Fuji user too, but I've done some gig photography. I'd look at the m mount primes: the little f2 pancake should give you good wide shots, and the 50mm equivalent f1.4 might be good too. But I'd probably buy the pancake and use an adapted 85mm f1.8 ef mount lens, which would be great for tight shots and is cheap used. If you get 3 songs the pit I'd start with the wide lens and change after the first song. Have fun.
Bought a Nex7 a few years ago.
Will not be looking at SLRs again.
I recently got a Sony A6000 mirrorless with the standard kit lens and the 55-210mm tele lens.
It a photography expert but I loved the fact that it was fairly small/compact and that i could easily swap lenses. Took it with me on safari to the Masai Mara back in June and it took some great pictures though I was still learning how to use it.
Word of advice, if you’re new to photography then take some time to use the camera so that you can learnt about it and its features so that you can be prepared.
Most of the old rules for lenses will still apply. 2 tips I would recommend getting your head around are crop factor as your m3 has sensor that effectively multiplies your lens focal lengths by 1.6x so a 50mm lenses behaves more like a 75mm on an old school 35mm film camera. The other is auto ISO which adds a totally new level of flexibility. There’s some great trutorials and info on the Cambridge in colour website https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/
Kev
The EOS m lenses are not as good as the lenses for the SLRs but are OK. I use them on an M5 which has a built in electronic viewfinder. You can use standard EOS lenses with an adaptor but that rather negates the reason for having a compact camera in the first place.
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As others have said - best recommendation is to get out into the real world and try getting used to your camera before heading off to Iceland - you could miss some amazing chances of pictures trying to get to grips with the camera controls.
I see the M3 has a factor of 1.6x which will help with reach at concerts but won't get the true wide-angle of FF.
As far as lenses go - depends on your budget and also weight / size restrictions on the flight for carry-on bags - here is canons recommendations for a start point.
To cut on weight try going for a few choice fixed focus rather than heavy variable focus lenses.
https://www.canon.co.uk/lenses/
It looks an amazing piece of kit - do you already have canon lenses, else you could be in for a very big expense!
Martyn
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Last edited by MartynJC (UK); 31st December 2018 at 18:49.
Got to agree with the above and it can get expensive very quickly. As I mentioned above I purchased a 55-210 zoom, which is the cheapest zoom available but on safari I found it didn’t have enough reach so I’m on the lookout for something with a better zoom, these lens cost around 1k
YouTube will tell you everything you need to know but will require a lot of searches and study and there are no short cuts; you'll need to practise and practise and for theatre concert photography will need to learn to use the camera in Manual and semi-Auto mode and use RAW … and learn how to process RAW images … and have a spare battery. Lens choices have already been hinted at in answers to your WTB. EOS M lenses have the same 1.6x crop factor as EOS EF-S lenses.
dunk
"Well they would say that ... wouldn't they!"
I fit an adapter on my lumix and use my old chinon 50mm lens manually.
Amazing, same pictures as I used to take with the chinon 30 years ago!
Everything is very slow...
BUBI 0_0
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