Type of lens for doll photos?

regular SLR & DSLR are very similar in operation. Just the newer ones are more automatic. I still have my regular SLR camera. There are some options for getting closer to the subject. one, buy a 'macro' lens for the camera. Or find some spacers that you can use between the lens and the camera body. You could then still use the 50mm lens you have. The spacer changes the focal distance of the camera.

As for lighting, find some bright 'daylight spectrum' bulbs. A good place to look is a pet store. They are a light blue in color and are called daylight bulbs, but are quite white in brightness. Or look at your local hardware store for lights for plants. Once you have that, you may want to get some cheese cloth, this will act as a diffuser to prevent hot spots. but keep it at least a foot or two away from the light

Hope this helps you get going in the right direction.

 

I bought a 85-300mm lens which is great for portrait photography because you get that great blur behind the subject. It's also a telephoto lens, so it would be good for macro shots as well.

 

Ian-KunX ~ You ask such HUGE photographic questions!

Yes, a slr is like a dslr, just not as much fun! Mmmm...that's obviously an opinion but essentialy they are similar. A point-and-shoot digicam has many good things going for it as well and there are so many GOOD ones out there that it's almost like comparing apples to oranges. However, there are some very nice dslrs being packaged in wonderful kits that are truly affordable and if you are wanting to delve deeper into the wondrous mysteries of photography, that's proabably the way to go.

So, you have a film camera but you need some lenses...well, the glass is really one of the most important aspects of photographic equipment and can be expensive! It's doubtful you would be able to purchase a lens for that old of a body that you could then use when/if you upgrade to a dslr. Older lenses are affordable, for the most part, but you may find that it's going to be more economical to save up for your digital camera rather than paying for ebay lenses and film and developing.

You've gotten some good tips here so far. A telephoto lens or a zoom lens is fun but you may learn more if you purchase a "prime" lens, something "fast" and something you can get in close with - 28, 50, etc..

Are you going to be scanning your prints or getting digital copies with the developing?

 

What you have is the old Canon manual cameras. If you are going to buy lenses, make sure that what you are buying is an FD lens, not EF! FD/EF are the types of lens mounts that the camera would use.

I'm with Zagzagael...you will learn more with a prime lens than with a zoom.

 

I also agree about the prime lens. I started out with my kit one, and learned alot from it.

 

It's funny, I don't think the SLR and DSLR's are similar. One thing that annoys me about DSLR is that if the camera doesn't like the conditions you've set for it, it simply refuses to take the picture.

Obviously that doesn't happen with an SLR; and for that reason I personally find them more agreeable in that you have more control over them. SLR cameras I've used in the past have taken interesting shots my DSLR simply won't - it doesn't like low light conditions (and I've come to see this is a common complaint, unless you are paying $1000.00 or more for your camera), it's also not a big fan of contrasts or the colour purple.

If you're looking for a good closeup lens, the Tamron 90mm is good and fairly cheap for the non-digital variety. You may have to wait a while for a non-dig one to come up on ebay and also you will need to make sure it will be compatible with your camera.

 

I figured I'd bump this up since my dad has almost the exact same camera. His is a Canon AE-1 Program, 1984 edition. He has what I'm guessing was the kit lens as well as a macro lens. So I'm looking at the lenses, especially the macro one and going, what's all those numbers mean! Some I could figure out like feet and aperture. But I'm also wondering how all those numbers line up to....work? o.O Something else I've also been wondering is when people talk about a 30mm f1.4 or a 50mm f1.4 lens, does the XXmm refer to how far in/out the camera can zoom, focus...something?

 

The XXMM refers to the length from the camera sensor to the end of the lens. (So basically a 50MM lens is 50MM long.)

In standard usage, this is the usage for each range of lenses(based on the MM length). These numbers aren't exact and are just around for what I use them as.
Short (35MM and below) wide angle, so good for landscapes. Creates distortion on up close subjects.
Medium(50mm-85mm) best lenses for taking photos as your eye sees them. Portraits look great in this length. Great for BJD photos.
Long(200mm, etc) for far away subjects like birds and animals. The longer the lens length, the less the sensor picks up camera shake. :] That's why all the sneaky paparazzi use such huge lenses.

Of course, fstops work a huge amount into how lenses actually work, but I don't want to go all crazy lecture-like. XD

 

Just to add a bit of info to that, a bit more lecture-like, in case you find it helpful:

The 50mm, 35mm, etc is what is called the focal length of the lens. As Akiou says, it is basically a measure of how narrow a field of vision you get projected onto the sensor (or film frame, in this case):

• Short lenses are called "wide angle", because they give a wide angle of vision in the image.
• Medium length lenses are called "normal" because, as Akiou noted, they closest reflect the normal vision of the human eye
• Long lenses are called "telephoto", because they bring you close to far off subjects, like a telescope.

The characteristic of a zoom lens is that you are able to change its focal length by turning the zoom ring. A prime lens has a fixed focal length.

The longer a lens is, the greater the magnification of the subject. Unfortunately, that also means any movement, such as camera shake, is magnified to an equal degree. The paparazzis' penchant for long lenses has therefore more to do with getting good shots at a long distance from their target than with avoiding the effects of camera shake.


The f/1.4 is the maximum aperture of the lens. The aperture is a mechanism that regulates the amount of light that enters the lens. The tricky thing about aperture is that the smaller the f/ number is, the larger the aperture! An f/1.4 aperture will therefore let in more light, and therefore be more useful in low light conditions, than e.g. an f/3.5 aperture.

Turning the aperture ring on the lens varies the aperture setting for the shot, but the number printed on the front of the lens states the maximum, which is what photographers tend to be interested in knowing.
FYI, on the scale of things, f/1.4 is quite a big aperture.

Another effect of aperture is the depth of field (or DoF) you get, i.e. how narrow the sharp focus range is in an image. The larger the aperture (smaller f/ number), the narrower the DoF. A narrow DoF is what you use to get boke, or "bokeh", the effect where the image background is all just dissolved into a lovely, indistinct blur.


On the lens's focus ring, there are some numbers printed: "XX m/ YY ft", type of thing. Looking at the smallest number on the ring gives you an inkling of how close you can focus with the lens.


If you search in this subforum, you should be able to find several posts on the subjects of aperture and focal length and the many and amusing uses thereof.

 

Thank you both. I had read another post you made Dragon that talked about aperture and depth of field that really helped and made me appreciate my now 6 year old point and shoot. But me being silly I got the impression that the XXmm was somehow tied into how large or small the aperture could go, so thanks for clearing that up for me. I was also able to find the manual for this old thing(thank you internet) which also helped to clear up what some of those other numbers meant and were for. Now off to do more learning.

 

Please let me know which post that was, and I'll try to clarify it!


But to address the issue a little bit (back in lecture mode):

In theory, the focal length has nothing to do with the aperture.

However, in the practical reality of the less than horribly expensive zoom lenses, the maximum aperture varies with the focal length, so that the maximum aperture is only available at the very widest focus, and the largest aperture you get gets increasingly smaller the closer in you zoom.
Hence, many zoom lenses are listed as something along the lines of "18-200mm f/3.5-5.6" where in this case, the maximum aperture of f/3.5 is only available at 18mm focal length, and at 200mm you can go no wider than f/5.6.

There are zoom lenses where you have a maximum aperture of e.g. f/2.8 that is available throughout the entire zoom range of the lens, but these tend to cost anything from $1,500 and up.

Edit: One might also mention that there is a slight correlation between focal length and aperture, in that it is much easier to make a short lens with a wide aperture than a long one - the front element of the lens gets bigger the longer the lens is for a given aperture. Hence, one can find quite reasonably priced 35mm or 50mm prime lenses at f/1.8, or even f/1.4. Telephoto lenses (or larger wide angle - 24mm or less) at similar apertures ... well, to whatever extent they can even be made, can cost many thousands of dollars.

 

Ah, sorry Dragon, it wasn't so much a post that you made, just me drawing bad conclusions from varying information. But thanks so much for clearing that up for me. That does explain why when I saw people had bigger zoom lens they tended to have a smaller starting aperture. Which I think aided in my confusion of relating the XXmm with the aperture size. I was thinking that the smaller your XXmm the bigger your maximum f/stop and vice versa. I doubt most of us would be buying a 1,500$ lens, especially when we could buy dolls with that.