les_gyug1

I've found for my work (a biologist doing animal surveys) that the IS helps a lot from the chopper. You are usually shooting wide open to get the fastest shutter speed possible. 1/500th is a minimum for any lens, and even faster if you are using a 70-200 or some such zoom. Even at those speeds, IS does help get more keepers. Shutter speed is much more important than lens stop/depth of field (unless it is so dark that you really need f2.8) because the lens focus distance is just about always at infinity. I'm not familiar with the helicopters you'll be flying, but if you try to use a wide-angle lens, then you end up taking a picture of the door frame and window frames instead of the subject.

 

My favourite lens was a 135/2.8 on film cameras (set to infinity focus and f/2.8, or the widest aperture that would let me keep at least 1/1000th for a shutter speed), but now use the approximate equivalent (the long end of the 17-85 zoom wide open at f/5.6) on a 1.6x digital camera, but let the camera do the autofocusing and speed setting.

 

The most important thing is to take the picture through an opening, i.e. not through the plexiglas. Plexiglas does awful things to pictures by changing colours, adding reflections, and adding lots of flare, especially if it is a curved window. Autofocus also tends to go haywire if trying to focus through plexi (too many reflections keep catching its eye). Depending on the configuration in the chopper, any opening may not be particularly convenient to stick a camera out of, and to keep your eye on the viewfinder at the same time. It would be much easier if your SLR had live-view mode and an LCD preview screen that you could move to any angle (like on most video cameras, and some older Point and Shoots), but I don't think such an SLR beast currently exists.

This is classic IS-searching that occurs with the 28-135. This is why you're advised to turn the IS off when on a tripod--if the IS does not detect any motion, it goes crazy (slowly). That IS is the original and (now) "ancient" technology that evolved before they figured they ought to include the "lack of any detectable motion" sensor. You can also see it happen if you set the thing down horizontally on a tabletop--so it's not zoom creep.

If you are thinking of some of those old "Spiratone"-type slide duplicator tubes that mostly came with t-mounts, then think no further. The results will not be better than a slide scanner. In fact they will be much worse. The optics of all those cheap old beasts were truly awful. You can probably pick them up easily (and really cheaply) from anyone who has one. Scanners that have 4000 dpi seem to have dropped incredibly in price in the last few years, and dedicated film/slide scanners with even higher dpi are not that expensive anymore either. Probably the most important thing is to get the digital retouching (anti-dust spot) software.

 

You could try projecting the image with a slide projector, and then using any digital camera on a tripod. I don't know how that would turn out by comparison (probably not as good as a 4000 dpi scanner).

Canon posts this sort of information in tables that should be available with a quick search somewhere on the net.

 

The closest I have here in paper form is for the 70-200/2.8 (not the IS version). The 1.4x extender increases the magnification from 0.16x to 0.22x. The table does not give info on actual focusing distance with the 1.4x. That is about one-quarter life-size, which is not even close to real macro of 1:1, so don't count on this solution to do much macro work.

 

Cheers,

Les

Since you are in Vancouver, there are some easy local sources. I purchased a few spare knockoffs (cheaper imitations) from a source in Richmond last year and they have served very well. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly what that source was because I had them mail them to me. However, I found it by googling, so it shouldn't be very hard to re-find (there can't be too many battery specialists in Richmond).

 

Cheers,

Les

I use my old (1978) contax 135mm f2.8 on my XT with no problems. Mainly used for indoor sports events (my son's hockey) where f2.8 really helps, even though the manual focus slows the picture taking rate down somewhat from the Canon 100-400 f4-5.6 zoom I use for outdoor sports.

 

Les

If you don't have access to a window seat you are going to have problems. You will get the back of other people's heads, their shoulders, their hands etc. You really think they are going to sit back out of the way and not stare out the window?

 

The seats in the back of an A-star are not great for photography--period. Even if you have a window seat. Taking pictures through plexiglass is like putting on several plastic bluish filters--i.e., it does not matter how great your lens is. If you take these pictures for a living, then you take the door off. If this is just a sideline to the real nature of the trip(s), then try to get a front seat with a small sliding window that you can open and shoot out of. Unless there is some special back door in your A-star that has a sliding window. A-stars also do not have the bubble windows in the back like the old Jet Rangers, so I find them less than ideal for viewing much of anything on the ground if you are stuck in the back seat.

 

I've used my old 28-135 IS and found it just about right (but again, sitting in the front seat, and sticking it out the small sliding window). I think any just about any lens will work because technique (i.e., don't rest against the window or airframe-use your body as the shock absorber) and the lack of plexi in the way are more important. I've also used handheld video cams (just the cheap MIniDV ones), but again, by sticking them through that front seat window portal. IS really works wonders, both for video and for still. I started doing this many years ago when there was no IS, and then the trick was to keep shutter speed above 1/500 sec. IS lets you go much slower than that, and will even let you shoot useable video handheld.

 

Cheers,

Les

I always found male-male filter rings to work fine since the 50 mm lens is not that heavy. But then I haven't used that method for years because it was just so awkward.

 

The answer to 2 you can find yourself by just putting the lens in place stacked on the other, hold it with your hand, and fire away. It is really that simple. In fact, you can try any lens stacked on any other lens to look at the results that way. Some combos will be useful, and others will be quite useless. And you can check out the possible range of magnifications in advance before you spring for any other equipment.

 

You can't answer 3 that way, because you will not be able to hold it shake free, so the shake alone will induce degradation.

 

Cheers,

Les

The BP-511 battery that came with my Canon MiniDV camcorder in 1999 is still working 7 years later. However, now it only lasts for about 30-40 minutes instead of the full hour or more that it did when new. It has not gone through a lot of cycles because I mostly have used the bigger replacement battery (BP-522) I bought within the first year.

Cheers,

Les

A google search will turn up a lot of software. I have started using Autostitch for producing the photos (freeware) which is absolutely painless--no marking any points or doing any work at all, and it even recognizes which of the photos in a directory it ought to use. And I use FSPViewer (freeware) for viewing the panoramas on screen and rotating through them.

Cheers,

Les

I've done this using the nail through a card and lining up against a vertical line on the wall method, and then rotating the lens around a fixed point until they matched by trial and error. The method can be found at several web sites. Try googling Panosaurus.

 

Results: For the Canon 10-22 on a 350D at 10mm, nodal point was 10.6 cm in front of the film (really the sensor) plane, 14 and 17 mm were 10.4 cm from sensor plane, and at 22 mm was 10.6 mm from sensor plane. Therefore I just set it at 10.5 and leave it there. The results should be the same on a 20D since it should be independent of the body. Notably the results for the 17-85IS were all over the place because the lens front physically changes length, which it doesn't in the 10-22, making the 10-22 much easier to use for panoramas without moving the camera mount.

Cheers,

Les

I'm a wildlife biologist and end up doing lots of aerial surveys. The 28-135IS was my lens of choice from a chopper (has since been replaced by a 17-85IS for my dSLR). The 100-400IS was just too long, too heavy, too hard to point where you want it to point, kept bumping into the window (or sides of the window when shooting through the tiny little part that you can slide open), and when you zoomed was too hard to keep the subject in the viewfinder. Especially since this was just a sideline and not the intent of the flights, and I had no intention of flying around with the door off like you would if you were serious about the photography.

 

Usual procedure was to start with the zoom on wide so you could see where you were and the subject was, and then zoom in with the lens to where you wanted to be. 135 mm was usually plenty since you could also zoom by flying closer. 70-200 might have worked, but I don't have one of those, and did appreciate the wider angle for shots when you are within a few hundred feet of the ground.

 

Using video cameras was the same, rarely did I use them on maximum zoom because there is too much shaking and moving going on, and you lose the subject too easily if you zoom in too tight. Better to crop later than not even have the subject in view. As soon as you look through the viewfinder you no longer know for sure which way the chopper is headed or turning, so you cannot pan the movement of the camera to keep the subject in the frame as simply as if only the subject was moving and you were at a fixed point. This is slightly easier from a plane because the range of possible vehicle movements are more limited and more predictable.

 

Cheers,

Les

I hadn't used the 500D on my 100-400 since I got the Rebel XT last spring. I just tried it out, and the horizontal field of view at the long end (400mm) was about 30mm--which would be close to 1:1 but not quite (given the APS-C size sensor). At the short end (100mm) the horizontal field-of-view was about 85mm which is not really close to 1:1. I must admit that the thing is a handful at 400mm (heavy and lots of extension), and is not very comfortable for a lot of macro work, and I can't say I ever made much use of the 500D, even when shooting film.

Since you are interested in ants, do a google of some of the ant-dedicated sites (myrmecos.net for starters). A lot of the photos posted of species are taken with the Canon 65 mm. It looks like it may be the ideal lens for this purpose. (No, I don't own one so can't comment specifically.)

 

Cheers,

Les

Ron,

I have been using one since last spring, both in my work as a biologist, and in casual hiking. I wondered the same thing about durability and weatherproofing. I generally just stick it in an outside pocket (a big pocket) on my cruiser's vest. The pocket now has an extra velcro strap to stop it from falling out--which it did once right onto a rock, cracking the LCD protective cover. It still works fine even with the big star crack in the cover.

 

Anyway, a week of field work in Manning Park this fall when the weather was anything but nice (in fact it was really wet), and the camera still works just fine. I was using it daily even in the rain. On the final day of work there was continuous heavy rain, and I was crawling up avalanche slopes and gullies through brush, but the camera kept on working even though covered in raindrops. Eventually I stopped using it and put it away in my pack because the front of the lens kept fogging up in the ugly conditions, and I did not want to stoop to continually using the sleeve of my raincoat to keep it fogfree.

 

I kept using it for the next 3 weeks for at least 1-hour a day for stream documentary photos where the weather was often rotten and the camera got wet on the outside, but at least I managed never to dump it into any of the streams.

 

As they say, results are not guaranteed, but the camera has worked just fine for the typical abuse I put it through. I used point and shoots for a year (Olympus Stylus weatherproof) which also did fine, but was not good for the murky conditions that I usually find myself taking pictures in that usually require ISO settings of 800+ and IS just to take decent shake-free documentary photos (since I am not usually going to drag a tripod anywhere).

 

Before that I used an ElanII which did fine for 5 years, and before that a succession of the cheaper Yashicas and Contaxes for 20 years, about 3 of which simply disintegrated in the kind of use I give them.

 

Cheers,

Les Gyug

Shawn,

I switched from Zeiss to Canon in 1998, but kept some of the Zeiss lenses and one body. Earlier this year I bought the adapter and now can use the Zeiss lenses on Rebel XT. Unfortunately, I did not keep the 50/1.4 but only the 45/2.8, so can't do a straight comparison for you, and have never owned a 50mm Canon. The 28-135 that I used as the "normal" lens since 1998 was never quite the same as the Zeiss 50/1.4, but then I wasn't fully expecting it to be. Colours always seemed slightly washed out compared to the Zeiss.

 

I find the 17-85 I now have so useful, that I only use the Zeiss lenses on the XT if there is a real reason to. I basically only use the 45/2.8 when I want a really small set-up (not as small as a P&S, but smaller than 17-85), and 135 when I need 2.8 (which isn't very often, since one can just boost the ISO on the XT). And since I have a pocketable Olympus P&S for when I really want a small camera, I find I almost never use the 45/2.8 on the XT.

 

Out of interest I just took some shots of the geraniums out the front door comparing the Zeiss 45/2.8 and 135/2.8 to the Canon 17-85. It's pretty much a toss-up. The 17-85 wins in straight-out-of-the-camera usefulness (darker, more immediately pleasing to the eye), but after photoshopping, they look pretty similar in colour/ resolution/contrast. That isn't really the comparison you were looking for, but that's all I can do for the moment.

 

Also remember, that switching that lens adapter is not particularly quick, so you need a lens adapter for every lens, otherwise it takes too much time and trouble to make lens switches.

 

Cheers,

Les Gyug

(les_gyug@shaw.ca)

I bought a Rebel XT about 2 months ago, and purchased one of the ill-fated cards at the same time. For every download of about 50 images, one might randomly disappear (no-image message) and one might download as only half an image. This appeared to be completely random and was not reproducible. I just put it down to electronic gremlins. I have had no such problems in the last 2 years of point-and-shooting with xD cards.

 

When I saw the first e-mail warnings about Lexar CF 80x cards (May 21), I thought the card type sounded familiar, popped the card out, and it was such a card. I put the card back in, and it has never worked again. I didn't want to try a reformat since I didn't want to lose the images still on the card, but since I have to send it back to Lexar now, I guess I will be losing those images anyway.

I have since bought some cheap SanDisk cards that work flawlessly.

 

Cheers,

Les

I think what you will be looking for in the Vancouver area are Bigleaf Maples that turn yellow. It's been years since I lived there, but I remember burning up some film on them. I remember Stanley Park, Burnaby Mountain, and North Shore (Deep Cove), but there are probably many other places as well. The alders and other assorted deciduous city trees (of numerous species) do not turn predictably any colour but brown almost straightaway. Vancouver is just not the place to look for the reds of autumn.

 

Nearest large stands of western larches are in the Okanagan Highlands. That's where I live now, and they don't turn for another month at least. Manning Park may have some alpine larches turning now. Try phoning the park lodge (the park service has no real people answering the phones anymore).

 

Les

My ElanII would not drain in a couple of days, but if there was a film roll left in the camera, it would drain in about 2-3 weeks because the LCD stays on showing the frame number even when turned off. However, if no film was left in the camera, the battery would stay good in storage for a long time because the LCD turns off. Not sure if that is your problem or not.

Depends on how it is sent, but almost all carriers including Canada Post now will charge GST + PST (or HST if you live where it applies) plus a customs broker's fee. This is $5.00 for Canada Post but considerably higher for all other carriers (e.g FEDEX, UPS etc). If it is a small item, $25 (or more) in broker's fees make the difference between buying across the border or in Canada (either locally or by mail/courier).

As one person already wrote above, only you can answer whether or not it is a good deal. And you can do so by trying it. Take a few pics (slides, digital, negs, whatever you have) in challenging situations (low shutter speed to test IS, into an off-centre sun to test for flare and scratches, etc), just outside the front door of the store, (assuming they will let you, and if they don't, then get a 30-day money-back no-questions guarantee), and if you are happy with the results, then the lens still works just fine. Then you can decide if the price is right for what you want. That's what I usually do for lenses that may even be much cheaper than this one.

"In other words, each micron (0.001mm) of the AF sensor's error corresponds to 2.5mm of misfocus amount." (From the test methods).

 

OK, so I had to do some checking into what was actually being measured (never having seen a measurabator in action before). So 50 microns of focus error at the sensor's plane equals about 125 mm of misfocus at the actual target which is at a 1:50 ratio, or about 2.5 m distance for a 50 mm lens. So the focusing would be out by 5" at 8 feet with a 50 mm lens. Now, those are real world numbers. If Canon's design specifications are +/- 65 microns, then he has just made the case that Canon's AF system is within their design specifications (or else they made the specifications to fit the system they had just made).

 

Now, for my real world. I don't have a 10D. But, for all I know, my Elan is probably not much different. I have never noticed a problem with it, but if I tried the measurabator test, all I would do is waste film, so am not about to.

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but an offset of 50 microns is pretty damn small. Remember, 50 microns is 0.05 mm, or less than a hair's width (more or less).

 

In other words, if I take a picture of a hair (a single hair), the camera is not likely going to be able to focus on it (forget about whether it can pick up somthing that narrow for the moment)--the actual focus point might be in front of or behind the hair. It seems that 50 micron differences might count in flat-field or microphotography but taking most other pictures, it won't matter that much at all. If we were talking 50 mm (2 inches), then that is a big difference in focusing precision, but this is 50 microns (2/1000 of an inch).

 

Again, if I am missing something here, please correct me.

Mosquitoes in the Cdn Rockies are never as bad as on the prairies or in the boreal forest. I base this on having worked and lived a number of years in both places. But their numbers in the rockies in any given year are related to the depth of winter snows and how long it takes to melt. When there is little snow at low elevations, and it melts quickly, and the snowmelt pools dry up quickly, there are few mosquitoes (but there are always some around permanent swamps and marshes). More snow, and slower melting means more mosquitoes, but still never, in my experience, as many as on the prairies. Some years you can spend all summer waltzing around in just a t-shirt (on days that are warm enough) and some years you need to cover up a lot more or slather on the DEET (which ends up melting plastic pieces on binoculars and cameras, so I tend to avoid it).

 

So, on the prairies or boreal forest, it seems every year is a bad year (with some really bad) but in the mountains it is much more hit and miss. Sometimes they can definitely drive you to distraction, but other times they are hardly noticeable.

 

Les Gyug

House Sparrows often nest in cavities, which is why it will be really hard to take pictures of the nest/eggs/nestlings because they are usually concealed inside things. Nest photography of cavity nesters usually requires lots of planning so you can put a camera somehow right in the nest, or behind glass on a removeable side of the nest where you can take pictures while you are in a blacked out blind so that the nest does not look like it is now open.

 

House sparrows are also very tenacious, and often a pest, which is why they have successfully spread over virtually the entire globe. They are not on any "protected species" lists, and are often on local pest lists. A pair tried to commandeer the bluebird box in my backyard this year, and only after I emptied the nestbox of material for the fifth time (they never got to the egg-laying stage) did they give up.

 

So, if you can figure out how to take pictures unobtrusively, you can probably do so with a clear conscience.