Both the Washington Redskins and Washington Nationals (my home teams) prohibit longer DSLR lenses from coming into their stadiums without a press pass, with anything white & red-ringed presumptively excluded. I'd like to be able to take longer telephoto shots from my seat, so I'm considering one of the new(er) breed of super telephoto P&S cameras. Does anyone have experience with any of these, preferably who can compare them to the images out of a 20D/30D/40D with better glass? I understand that the images won't be as good, but will they be servicable? For what it's worth I have a Fuji F30 as my dive camera / computer case backup, and consider its pictures to be entirely acceptable for most things.
These seem to be the three main models at the moment. Anyone have thoughts on these or their predecessors? Thanks in advance:
I've toyed with the idea of picking up the 70-300 DO for exactly this, but I've never quite been able to bite on spending $900 or so on a lens that I think I'd rarely use otherwise (particularly given that reviews of the image quality on the DO's is mixed as compared to L glass). I feel like I'd be happier spending $400 +/- on a stand-alone backup camera that, while not giving me the same high quality pictures, is a lot easier to tote around and maybe I end up bringing with me when otherwise I'd leave the big camera at home. Granted the DO should give better results than any of the cameras I'm considering.
warthog wrote:
...and maybe I end up bringing with me when otherwise I'd leave the big camera at home. Granted the DO should give better results than any of the cameras I'm considering.
actually "big camera" is only marginally bigger than those superzooms. considering the disadvantages of the latter (poor high iso performance, less per-pixel sharpness, shutter lag, I wouldn't use them for your purpose)
This is a bit outside the box, but a Four Thirds body with a small tele probably wouldn't raise any suspicions. The 2x crop can really help you here.
Olympus' 40-150 (2.8" long) is about the same size as a Canon 18-55 (2.6" long). Nobody but a photographer would look at it and think it was a telephoto. Sigma makes their 55-200 for Four Thirds as well, and that's still only 3.3" long... smaller than a 17-85. Finally Olympus' 70-300 is 5" long... that might be long enough to trip their trigger, but if you can put it in your pocket and walk in with a little kit lens attached, you'd probably get away with it. And "600mm" effective FL should be plenty so long as you have enough light.
Any of these should give better results than any of the P&S cameras on the market, and if you get an E-410 with its 14-42 kit lens, it's actually a pretty good compact P&S camera overall for times when your 40D and 24-105 are too much camera to lug around. I just bought one recently, and while the files that come out of it don't quite measure up to my 5D, the whole kit (body, 14-42, and 40-150) weigh less than my 5D and a body cap. I'm a happy camper.
The 70-300 DO usually gets quite bad reviews. However, there is the 70-300 IS which is considerably cheaper (about half the price), black with no red rings, and astonishingly good. I have it and am very pleased. Hubsand also gave it a very favorable review: http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/canon_70_300mm.html
A friend recently asked me to get them a digital compact, and so I've just read quite a few reviews from various sources, on all sorts of different makes and models.
I don't recall the specific models you mention, but an overall impression I gained was that the Panasonic Lumix models often disappointed with image quality, some Olympus models had build quality issues (though these could be older models), but overall the Fuji's came out pretty well.
The only "issue" with the Fuji's is that they use more expensive xd, rather than cheap sd cards, not a big problem though.
Sony Cybershot models got widespread really good reviews (and that's what I got for my friend), but I don't think they have the zoom range you're after.
I'll throw in a different plug: the Tamron 28-300 Vibration Control - not as sharp as the the 70-300 Canon but not bad either, very small and unobtrusive, and the Vibration Control is pretty good.
Personally I've taken a 40D with 200 f2.8 L in to a number of games and never been stopped. Its red ringed, but small enough that no one has ever said anything. Nor have they noticed the 1.4X in my pocket. Not a bad little set up.
You definitely got my attention with the Tamron 28-300 VC lens. The balance of price and size may be better than buying a P&S, and I like that it has at least some level of function towards the wider end. Problem is, I could only find one set of test shots out there, in a discussion in the forums on dpreview. Do you have one of these lenses? Can you share any pictures at the 300 mm end?
