Had a word with the burd from the school, her zoom lens was only F2.8, fixed throughout the whole range tho. She said her Canon 5D was playing a big part in the extra exposure too tho She said the 50mm F1.8 wouldn't have helped much at the school, as i was too far away, but get it for at home anyway for portraits...
this is what im getting on payday http://www.jessops.com/online.store...ony/50mm f1.4 A Standard Lens-35805/Show.html
"Fast" is a relative term. You'll struggle to get any zoom that's faster than f/2.8, where as primes will go as quick as f/1.2, f/1.0 and ever larger. I'd guess that the girlie with the 5D probably had a 70-200/2.8 IS - was it big and white? The IS (Image stabilisation) would probably help her a lot in this situation too. Without over-complicating things because the 5D has a larger sensor (35mm "full frame" rather than APS-C 1.6 crop) it's more sensitive so can be run at higher ISOs without wrecking image quality.
Canon don't make grey lenses, but their L-series Zooms are a dull white. Creamy in some lights, dirty white in others.
Most likely it was. Did it look a bit like this? (possibly minus the hood) Ten pence says it was a Canon 70-200
mm, that's what I thought it would be, a mate of mine has one of those. He can't take pic's for s""t though.
That's the kiddie. We were stood together, she could take perfect shots of the kids school play without flash and at a reasonable shutter speed 1/80 at ISO 400. MIne were worthless on the D40 with 18 - 55mm f3.5 - f 5.6. Flash was ineffective, and they were too dark even on a high ISO. You could see from the LCD hers were normal brightness and mine were dark. She had no tripod, so she obviously wasn't going that low on shutter speed, although i guess that lens has some sort of VR/image stabilisation to help her get lower than me...
Thought so - that lens on a 5D makes a very capable tool for that sort of work. Sounds like the whole event was pretty well lit if she could get away with 1/80 @ ISO 400 indoors. If shooting at the wide end of the lenses' range she'd get away without IS.. would need 1/200 at 200mm but with three stop IS could go as low as 1/25 in theory. Flash can be a lifesaver but as you've found the on board units are never usually that great, and it can also strip the mood from a shot compared to using ambient light alone and fast lenses. Not sure what Nikon offer (sure there are equivalents), but if you're after longer fast primes Canon do an 85/1.8 and 100/2 which are cracking lenses, and at about 300ea. won't require the house to be remorgaged..
