gregory_rogalsky1

I used to own a 800 f4 pentax. I feel your pain. The best solution to get sharp photos is sell your lens to some one else and get a 300 F 2.8 L . . Really , super telephoto photography in Medium format is a waste of time. As far as I can tell the problem is that damn mirror even at 1000 of a sec, and huge tripod. If you want sharp super tele shots get a 35mm

Ha Ha . It funny . I can't stop laughing. Keep selling your FD gear . I Im a focus God.

Iv been shooting semi pro for 15 years. I have blow my 35mm film coler neg, slides and b+W up to 6x4 feet . If you want prints shoot neg. While possible to get good prints from slides(4x5 interneg) I have found its more trouble than its worth. My secret is to find a good lab and work with them to get the best from your negs. Im lucky , my lab prints all my work full frame, with the edges of the neg showing . If they dont know how dark or light to make a print , or what color correction to do they print more than one. These prints are a good starting point for custom hand printing(burning, dodging, ect) if needed. If you want to make prints shoot neg,and be sure to expose it right. OO

A few points. 1.I think its more Important to protect the photographer than the gear. 2. From my experience hoods are far better at protecting lens from damage than filters.3 Under backlit conditions filters cause flare. 4. Going in and out of cars and doors, as well as having cameras and lens banging into one another cause more wear and tear than anything else. 5. Scratches on the front element matter little. However, scratches on the rear element will cause some unwanted reflections. 6. Who cares what moose or anyone else puts in front of there lens. Its still the guy or girl behind the camera that makes the difference. OO

It nice to hear that Im not the only one who thinks that autofocus isnt all its cracked up to be . Under real world conditions ,I tried it, it didnt work . Perhaps one day, but Im not holding my breath. The good part is many people are dumping there perfectly good manual focus lens which I can buy on the used market.

I have been working on some long lens 300-420mm night time photo,s for a little personal project of mine. The results have been fantastic. typical night time exposer are something like 5-20 minutes at f22-32 with 400 coler neg. I could shoot slow slide film but dont feel like standing around for hours waiting for one picture to be exposed. The deph of feild is incredible, and sharpness is fine as far as I can tell. Whats funny thing is that some times Im shooting from overpasses and when people walk by the whole bridge shakes , but since some of the exposers are 20 minutes or more there is some bluring from traffic lights but the rest of the photo appears sharp. Several years ago I took a shot of toronto,s younge street with a 300 f2.8 with a 2x converter with kodachrome 25 at night . I stopped down all the way with my old sp tamron 3002.8 so f stop was f64 and exposer was about 3 hours. Cool slide ,one of my favorite,s. The depth of feild is incredible, with hours of traffic flow in one frame. My advice is to break some rules and burn some film . Let the sharpness snobs sit at home and do math . Get out there and start shooting OO

Several years ago I photographed a small mushroom with a Nikkor 24 f 2 with a exstention tube. The photo came out really wild .The small mushroom was really close to the lens. With this set up I was able to shoot underneith the mushroom at f 22 at about 8 seconds with tech pan, to cool. Im into a Canon FD system right now, with several wide angles and a fisheye. 20 f2.8 24f1.4, 15f2.8 . Im looking for some thin exstention tubes so I can play with exstention tubes and wide angles some more . When I get it together I will let you know. I will tell you one thing , you dont need a very big exstention tube to get close focusing of an inch or two.

Thanks for the responses, good tip on Arther Morris. I have been to his web page several times and liked what I saw for the most part. My background is in photojournalism so I come at it from a little different direction. Beileive it or not, but I like to shoot B+W , fast film and moterdrives. Im pretty good at follow focusing shooting, lots of practice . I wonder how I will do with the 800 5.6 L ? Has any one out there used a Wemberly head with supertelephotos. I Really think one of those those heads might be the ticket . Anyway thanks for the tips so far. Oh ya Any one out there use Carbon fiber tripods with super telephoto's? I read somwhere that carbon fiber tripods reduce vibrations? I used to have a 400 2.8 pentax with a 2X coverter , but never did get really sharp pictures out of the unit. Im thinking vibration and to much coffee where the culprits. I won't make that same mistake again. Who knows I might even get steady enough to shoot KR 25 . Later OO

Im thinking about buying a 800 5.6 L Canon super telephoto. Has

anyone out there got one of these monsters? I want to shoot birds as

well as people. Is anyone out there using this lens out there? I

understand that I will need exstension tubes as the closet focusing

distance is 45 feet or somthing. Im thinking of getting a wemberly

head . I will be shooting with a T-90 and F1n.

My experience with off brand lens has been really good so far. I have owned a couple of Tamrons 17 f4 and a 300 f2.8ED . When I was shopping for wide angles ,I compared the nikon 18f4 againts the tamron 17f4 and the tamron had less flar than the Nikkor, go figure.As for your situaion , if you can test both lens at a camera store and compare for your self. These way you can see for yourself. Its funny I just bought a used 20mm f2.8 manual focus and Im about to buy a 24mmf1.4L for my canon system for far less money than a new canon wide angle zoom. As for slow wide angle zooms I would stay away. Its hard to beat fast wide angle primes for sharpness and ease of focus.