Classic British Flight Sim

Do the EF-S lenses actually fit ont oa full frame Camera? I had a feeling they didn't. They have the white square on the bayonet for locating them in addition to the red dot and I had a feeling they were somehow designed so they wouldn't fit on.

Anyway, that wasn't Paul's question. Dave B is right, focal length multiplier is 1.6 for such a camera. Therefore my 300mm becomes 480mm which is pretty handy for airshows, but down the other end, the wideangles become standards.

The only thing I'd say regarding lenses is that occasionally bolting an old Canon or Sigma lens onto a new body may kill either the body or the lens or it might focus very sluggishly, mainly due to minor incompatibilities of the chips. I've had one old 100-300mm zoom die after pronlonged use with my 350D and I have a 20-35mm and a 28-135 that operate beautifully with my old EOS 5 that hardly work at all with my (now also old) 350D. Sometimes a rechip is possible with the manufacturer. I'm not utterly convinced of the optical properties of the 55-200mm and I might be inclined, if I had a certain budget, to maybe save a little on the body and retain a bit more budget for the lens. I use a 75-300mm iS USM, which is still a consumer model but not bad. I do plan to upgrade to an L series at some point but that's a LOT more and obviously it depends how seriously you are taking photography and what you hope to get out of it.

Nikons I can't comment on because I don't use them. I have played with a Nikon belonging to a friend and it wasn't too bad. Main annoying difference is the zoom ring operates in the opposite direction! It was also lacking a couple of useful features my Canons had but at this hour I cannot readily bring to mind what they were. I think the "pros" are fairly evenly split between the two brands so I think you can't go too far wrong whichever you go for. Would be interesting to hear from any Nikon users on this forum or indeed, anyone who has extensive experience of both brands.

This is the sort of thing I want a new camara for. Taken with a friends Canon EOS 300D this morning at Deepcut

I have been using Canon's since 1996 and never looked back.
I switched over to digital with the 300D or 'Rebel' as the Americans here like to call it in 2004 and then onto a 40d four years ago. I agree with the comments here that pairing up with older lenses is not always the best and non Canon lenses have left me with less than happy results. I plan at some point to move up to the 5d Mk2 to achieve that full frame shot and new features, but considering resolution sizes these days unless you are planning road side billboard size photos the crop sensors are more than adequate and there are plenty of wider lenses out there manufactured to combat that crop.
On the discussion of prices I travel a lot for work between Japan, Hong Kong and the USA and without a doubt the USA is the best place for prices, I picked up the 100-400mm L series zoom last year and it was $400 cheap here than HK and $800 cheaper than Tokyo, plus it has values warranties for the region.
The one thing I don't Iike is since moving to the US and getting a better camera I am not hugely interested in what I see at Air Shows to shoot! Anyhow here is a pic I shot at Land Ends back in June during my first trip home to Blighty in four years, taken with a 40d & 100-400mm L, the clarity with the L lenses although painfully expensive are great.

Well, I've done the deed, after being pro-Canon in my first post I've gone and bought myself a Nikon D5100 with a 18-55mm kit lens and a 55-300mm telephoto.

After reading lots of on-line reviews, I found dpreview.com very good, I plumped for the Nikon as apparently haveing fewer MPxl's on the same sensor area means each pixel can gather more light, in the extreme this results is less noise on the image at high ISO's. Other than that, there wasn't much in it between 5100 and the Canon EOS 600D. The Nikon is a little bit cheaper so I could put what I saved there into the lens.

It's first test will be at 10:30 tomorrow at Winchfield when the Dorset Coast Express drops in for water.

Here's a couple of shots from a few weeks ago. The problem with shooting southbound trains is you can't help but shoot into the sun. The northbound trains come back late in the evening

Well done Paul. When I bought my first Canon (having been an Olympus user for years.. OM10) I'd gone into the shop convinced I was going to buy a Nikon (we're still talking film here) but the salesman.. an American (in a camera shop in Lakeside!) swayed me to go for a Canon so I ended up with the EOS 50e. I've been happy with all the subsequent Canon's I've had but I guess I'd be equally happy with a Nikon.. should a new one fall my way

ATB
DaveB

I've only just stumbled across this topic and wanted to add my two cents, but I see that you've already bitten the bullet and spent your cash.

I'm a Nikon user myself, I've got a D70s with 18-70 and 70-300 lenses. For some reason Canon's aren't my thing but since you already have experience with them my suggestion would have been to go for the Canon as it's the easiest transition. You've got a good camera in the D5100 too though so you've lost nothing there. I agree with your argument about the pixel size, it's one of the reasons that I'm still happy with my 6Mp D70s, although the high ISO performance of newer Nikons has caused a severe itch to get something newer. My better half would not approve though.... I need to work on that proposal a bit more.

I like the D5100s rotating screen, I used to have a compact with that same feature and it can really help out sometime, as well as make you consider different perspectives.

The 55-300 lens looks like a good choice (I hadn't heard of it yet). I've got its big brother, the 70-300, my main reason for choosing this lens was fast autofocussing when shooting moving objects (planes and birds). If you can live with the AF speed of the 55-300 then you're all set.

Enjoy!