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I have a 80-320MM lens that is a f/4.5-5.6. Is it overall enough for aviation photography? I'm sorry if this is a stupid silly question. I'm quite new to photography.

Thank you

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Not at all a stupid question.

It is alright, perhaps a little too slow for my taste. As I have said in past threads, I, myself prefer fixed focal lenses as opposed to long tele-zoom lenses.

But you should be able to get some nice pics with practice.

Thomas

I know, fixed focal lenses have better quality than zoom lenses. However, zoom lenses are much more convenient. Also, the quality difference is quite little these days with modern zoom lenses. I understand your point though. In the future (2-3 years) I'm planning on purchasing a 50MM f/1.4 lens for the extreme close ups.

Thanks for you help!

C'mon! Am I really the only one with a f/4.5-5.6 lens?

Hey

I used to have a F/4-6.3 ! That's right, 6.3 at 300mm! Yet I still managed most things... it all boils down to the money of course. If you want to spend $1500, I'd recommend any F2.8 70/80-200/210mm lense. These types are what most of the serious photographers use. I have taken over 3000 photos with my trusty Nikkor F2.8 since last August, and I have been pleased ever since. If you're into aviation photography as "something to do", then any 35-200/300mm will do, preferably at F/4 or faster, but for every stop faster, the price triples.


Click for large version

Photo © Rob Rindt
This was shot with an 80-200mm F2.8, on Kodachrome 64 with an F90x, at F/8 at 1/500th-600th. This is why I leave the Kodachrome fuzz border so you can see the whole slide, un-touched.

It's hard for me to talk positively about my old 28-300mm lense, but for me the slow-speed wasn't too much of an issue, but more of an edge sharpness issue. If you take a perfect slide with an F2.8 lense, the slide will be crisp, and sharp edge to edge, and around the 4 corners, even if open to F/4, and even F2.8. On a cheap lense, the first thing you will notice is the 4 corners becoming blurry... this is when you project it and look at it very closely, and also, you may suffer from what I call "perplexing vignetting". It's when you see any edge become more "black" or darker than the rest of the slide... sometimes it happens in one corner, sometimes two, and sometimes all four!

Here are some examples of what I am talking about...
Click for large version

Photo © Rob Rindt
This slide suffers from everything... edge blurryness AND vignetting. I would give anything to shoot it again with my F2.8. Also, as you may know, F/8 is the sweet-spot on all lenses. Vignetting and edge blurryness occurs most often when the lense is wide open, in your case, F/4.

Hope this helps you take some better pictures, and gives you some insight. Feel free to ask away... I hope I am qualified enough to help...  

Regards,
Rob

I recently purchased a 28-300mm 3.5-6.3 Sigma lens. While true that it's a slow lens, I recently started to fix the f-stop at 8.0 and let the speed ride, in order to defeat vignetting. So the low speed of the lens is no issue.

With K64, you might not be able to get away with this, other than static shots. I usually use Provia 100F, which gives a little more speed, and recently started using Provia 400F, which has amazing color and grain for a 400 speed film. With that of course, f8 or f11 is no problem at all.

I'm still experimenting with these processes, so I'll update when I get some characteristic results.

Charles

Thanks for all the replys! So I shouldn't have any problem with a 80-320MM f/4.5-5.6?

No, provided you are shooting in full sun so you can shoot at F/8 with ease. I was very risky with my old lense... I'd shoot at F/5.6 at 1/60th and 1/125th a lot of the time... I don't recommend it, but it is possible. Then again, I'm always using KR64 which is a very slow film.

Regards,
Rob

Thanks for all the replys. Well I don't plan to get a f/2.8 because of the high price. A Pentax 80-200MM f/2.8 costs $1800 cheapest! Also, 200MM isn't enough for me, I will require the extra 100MM. Maybe when I get older, and I become a real professional, I'll start buying high-priced equipment. But for now, this equipment is fine.

Kind regards.