Which Canon DSLR Lens to buy?

Q. I am going to purchase the Canon EOS 60D, and I'm not sure whether I should purchase the EF-S 18-55mm lens or the 50mm/1.8 lens. Primarily, I'm going to use the 60D for filmmaking and of course photography as well, I'm trying to decide on these two lenses as they are within my budget. Which lens has more range/which is more appropriate for filmmaking?

Advice from photographers and filmmakers are gladly appreciated.

A. First, lose the word "film" from your vocabulary. Digital cameras shoot video NOT film. You want to be a videographer.

Although the EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 zoom will offer you more versatility its not a good lens for use indoors. Its a slow, variable aperture zoom that does fine outdoors on a sunny day but indoors you'll have to use a very high ISO and a high ISO means increased digital noise - not good for your videos.
You'll need a lot of light to successfully take indoor videos with a lower ISO.

On the flip side, the EF 50mm f1.8 is more suitable for indoor use IF you're in a large space. The problem indoors is the narrow angle of view of the 50mm lens on your Canon 60D. The 50mm lens is great for portraits with your camera though.

Although more expensive a better alternative would be the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 zoom. Its a much better lens than the 18-55mm and more suitable for indoor videos. Since its a constant f2.8 from 17mm to 55mm the shutter speed stays the same - unlike the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 which will cause a decrease in shutter speed as you zoom from 18mm to 55mm.

At B&H - http://www.bhphotovideo.com - you can buy the Canon 60D body for $799.99 after a $200.00 'Instant Savings' from B&H that ends 02/02/2013.

At B&H the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f2.8 zoom is $1.059.00 after a $120.00 'Instant Savings' from B&H that also ends 02/02/2013.

This site will show you the narrow angle of view of a 50mm lens on your 60D.
http://www.sweeting.org/mark/lenses/canon.php

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Can most digital cameras now all do full hd 1080p video recording?

Q.

A. Most of them do 1080p HD video. However please be aware that most compact cameras, or smart-phones like iPhones, are not good at video recording. If light is good, they do an okay job. When light is dull, they are almost unusable. If you zoom in and do video, there can be lot of shake. You may be better off with iPhone or some digital camcorder that offers 30-40x zoom.

Read this article- it will provide you some relevant info:
http://photography-with-any-camera.blogspot.com/2013/03/video-recording-with-dslr-is-it-worth-it.html

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Digital Camera for wildlife photography help?

Q. I am planing a couple trips in the next year. First trip is to go up to Alaska or Canada and I want to try and get some nice Polar Bear and Musk Oxen shots. Then I am going to be going out to Yellowstone to try and photograph wolves and finally I will be taking a trip to Australia and New Zealand and am hoping to get some great landscape and animal shots. But now I have to figure out what is going to be the best camera for me to get. I have a budget of around $3500.

Right now I am looking at the Nikon D 7100, Nikon D 7000, Cannon EOS 7 D, and Sony Alpha SLT-A77.

I am also then figureing on getting either a 300mm or 400mm lens then buying a 2X teleconverter. I'm trying to do all this for $3500 or less I know its going to be tough. Obviously I can not afford the real nice lenses in the 300mm zoom so how much is this going to affect my quality if I get a little bit cheaper lens? My goal is I want to have nice enough pictures to where I could blow them up and hang them up around my house with out the image getting grainy or fuzzy. I'm looking at blowing them up to 24 x 36 and maybe bigger for landscape shots.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for your time.

A. You might get to see these animals, but don't get your hopes up too high. The Nikon D7100 with 18-105mm could be a good choice of camera for most of your shots. A super duper great telephoto to get the kind of shots you are dreaming of will blow your budget. For less ambitious but pretty good shots you could get the Nikon 70-300mm AF-S VR (the good 70-300, not the cheapo). Forget about a 2X teleconverter. The 70-300mm lacks a tripod collar, and it will be front heavy. You will want to bring a tripod. You need to think about what day pack you will carry it in, as the tripod must fit. There are some decent travel tripods. However, the light duty ballhead on some of these may be barely adequate with the 70-300mm. You need to assemble something with a good medium duty 3 way pan head, like maybe the Manfrotto 804RC2 or the Induro PHT2. BTW, if you want to point a panhead higher than about 30 degrees, the trick is to put the quick release plate on backwards.
Which brings us to, when do you expect to do this?
Winter, aurora watching?
You will need serious clothes.
http://www.martingrumet.com/yellowknife01-30-2013-02-2000.jpg
Carry your camera in a padded case with several handwarmer packs. Have an extra charged battery in your pocket. Two layers of glove liners with handwarmer packs inside can probably give you adequate dexterity without freezing your fingers.
Also have a clean, dry cotton handkerchief in the bag to wipe off condensation.
Getting focused in the dark could be a problem. You might be able to lock on autofocus on a distant street light, and switch to manual. Or you could spend more money on an older style AF-D prime lens like a 20mm or 24mm, and be able to dial to infinity in the dark.
For aurora shots set white balance to daylight. Practice with your equipment at home before you go on your trip. Maybe ISO is 800. More gets noisy. Exposure time maybe 20 seconds. More shows star trails. Also the aurora is dynamic, and more exposure makes it look blob like.
http://www.martingrumet.com/yellowknife02-05-2013-01-2000.jpg
http://www.martingrumet.com/yellowknife02-05-2013-02-2000.jpg
About midnight to 2am is often best activity, although not always.

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