bigtruckguy3500 said:

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For taking group photos or portraits, do you typically try to match the level of the camera with the average height of everyone? Or go a little above?

I have seen a lot of shorter people take photos, and in my opinion they just don't look right because they take them from a lower angle, or sometimes even taller people take it from chest high. Not sure if it's just a me thing, or what.

Thanks

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It really depends on the look and the background. If you are too high or low, it can change how everyone looks and the proportions can be off.

That may be what you want, like this wide angle lens portrait of Clinton by Platon.



Or Putin



You will see the camera angle changed in movies to show power. Higher angle makes the subject smaller or weaker. Lower angle makes them stronger and bigger.






A typical or neutral one is going to be like an 85mm about eye to lip level for a headshot. But it is worth playing around. Some minute changes make a big difference.

Guitarsoup said:

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Maybe I can take airplane pics as good as Dubi or wildlife pics a good as btho05 with this.

Celebrating 20 years of full time photography

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Finally got around to playing with it some this week. Really love the lens and it really isn't took heavy to walk around and carry.

https://instagr.am/p/DUwrj9XjF1-

We have an Alaska land and sea trip planned this summer. Last time we went we saw lots of wildlife but some was far away and the camera on the phone didn't do a good job. That was 8 years ago and phone camera have improved but not where I think I can get good landscape and animal pictures.

I did some looking at it seems like the Nikon cool pix P950 is a good option for lots of zoom but can also handle closes up as well. It is a little big but seems like you could still carry it easily on an excursion.

Anyone have a camera recommendation? It needs to be pretty easy to use as we aren't savvy on manual camera settings.

We will be in Fairbanks, Denali, Mt McKinley, Anchorage, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, Skagway, Hains, Juneau, and Vancouver. Expect to see wildlife way up on mountain sides, down in rivers, eagles flying, glaciers calving, whales feeding, puffin, otters, etc. Sometimes we will be moving in small boats, buses, trains, or on foot.

One of those Nikon superzooms is probably your best bet.

Looks like the CoolPix 950 has dipped to $746 on Amazon right now, which is a really solid price. That's about the same price as a used one on MPB.

The other way to go would be to find a used Nikon D7200 to D7500 and get their 200-500 zoom. But you will end up spending more and it will take up more space and you would still need a different lens for the 24-200 range. Go that route and your picture quality would be better, but you probably end up spending 2-2.5K pretty easily. The image quality would be better, but it would be more of a pain to use and less user friendly.

There is a newer CoolPix P1100, which is about $1200, but it uses the same sensor as the P950. It will probably have some nice upgrades elsewhere, but probably not worth the extra money.

If you get the CoolPix 950, I would definitely spend a good amount of time practicing and learning to use stablilization like a beanbag or tripod. The trade off with the long zoom like that is it doesn't let in as much light and you will need to use slower shutter speeds, which introduces motion blur from minute vibrations of the camera. A sturdy tripod or other way to stablize the camera will help tremendously.

Thank you for the input. I think getting a camera and swapping out lenses is not a solution for us. In addition to the added complexity we also are going woth my parents and young children so distractions will happen.

I plan on getting something soon so we have the spring and part of the summer to practice.

I would jump on that Amazon deal right now if you can. It is $100 off and about the price of used ones, but you get it new.