Lens Talk

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Here's a quick gallery of images shot in a parking lot area just to give you an idea of the range this Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 has. Everything is hand held with IS on, from a Canon 5D Mark II. These are the JPEG's not the raw, no post processing except for resizing the image for web. I possibly even had my sharpness turned down for video mode on the profile, but you can see it's a pretty sharp lens zoomed in or zoomed out.  You'll find related images when i'm zoomed out and zoomed into an object standing at the same spot. More video samples will follow soon..

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Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS (Image Stabilizer) USM Autofocus Lens

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This is project 'overkill'. This is the setup for those who might feel a bit inadequate with their camera body and need to throw on some type of intimidation factor. LOL. The Sigma looks huge on the Canon T2i and there's a battery pack on. Imagine what it would look like without. Someone wanted to see what this would look like, it's crazy. It's so forward heavy, I wouldn't be able to shoot with this thing if it were on the T2i. It does take some awesome photos with great range http://cheesycam.com/sigma-50-500mm-quick-test/

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Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO Autofocus Lens

Update on the Sigma and Canon Lens
I screwed up big time talking about reviewing the Sigma 50-500mm vs. the Canon 100-400mm. The Sigma is in a different class, and I was confused by the price. They both sit around the $1600 dollar range. In fact the lens that I really should be comparing to the Canon 100-400mm is the Sigma 120-400mm F/4.5-5.6 that has the same aperture range and costs only $900 dollars. I'll see if I can return this Sigma 50-500mm and review the other. It won't be anytime soon though, so for now i'm not going to do Lens vs. Lens, i'll just review them seperately. I did get to shoot with the Canon 100-400mm on the 5D Mark II and is there such a thing as 'love at first click?'. I'm blown away by this lens on how fast and sharp it is. The colors and contrast that come from a lens with this range is amazing. The optical stabilization works awesome, I was able to do some handheld video at 400mm with decent results. Imagine if I had a Tripod. Next article post will be around the Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6.

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Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS (Image Stabilizer) USM Autofocus Lens

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Sample Wide and Zoom shots with Sigma 50-500mm, click any image for a slighter larger view.

Wide shot of Hotel and then zoomed in to the moon.

Wide shot of bay and then zoomed in on some visitors

Wide shot of the bay and then zoomed in on the feeding bird

Stupid me, didn't have a tripod with me in the car to test the massive Sigma 50-500mm Lens. I can shoot handheld since this lens has optical stabilization, but forget trying to do video at 500mm. Sorry no video samples yet, but here's a look at the range this bad boy can pull off on a Canon 5D Mark II. This is a watch spot around Burlingame close to the San Francisco Airport. There wasn't parking so I jumped out, took a few snaps, and then drove off. These are unedited quick jpegs resized for the web, nothing fancy, just images to show the range you get to play with.

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Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO Autofocus Lens

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Two new items came in today. One you can see has a crap load of stamps, so you know that's an overseas item. It's a neat thing that i'll show later on. The other brown box might look familiar to many of you, for anyone that's placed an order from bhphotovideo.com and guess what's peeking out....reviews to follow soon.

Relative size next to iPhone 4
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Monday's mail bag contains my two Sima L Brackets referencing this article I posted not long ago http://cheesycam.com/double-l-bracket-configuration-alzo-t-pod/. I went with the Sima as it was cheaper than the Alzo L Bracket. It feels real solid and has the dual shoe mount. I'll have more information on what I plan on doing with these when I get my aluminum flat bar cut out.

Here's an image of the Canon T2i with Sima L Bracket next to my Zoom H1 Portable Audio recorder.
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Sima Video Bracket with Handle + 2 Accessory Mounts

Next up, received the package from bhphotovideo.com . No it's not my Zoom H1 Portable Digital Audio Recorder, that's coming in the mail tomorrow. This box contains some very special lenses. I recently shot at the Craigslist Foundation Boot camp, and was requested to shoot the conference event speeches with DSLR's. Normally I would have opted for a Sony EX1, or Panasonic HVX for longer running video clips, but we were able to shoot with the Canon 5D Mark II using multiple camera angles and overlapped recording. The only problem we ran into was the range of the lenses. Shooting off to the side and wanting the closest possible headshot, my Canon 70-200mm F/2.8 on the full frame just didn't cut it. With the Canon 2x Teleconverter on, we got closer, but the aperture minimum now up F/5.6 (the converter does this) plus the dim lit theater combination had us up to ISO 1600 at the least.

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So after every shoot I think about what lenses could make this so much easier and provide better quality, still keeping in mind it has to be at an affordable price. Having a telephoto lens is important for this type of coverage, so prime lenses would be out of the question. I needed to zoom in and zoom out for wider shots as they traveled the stage. For low light, I needed something that had at least a comparable aperture of F/5.6. So I narrowed down cost + functionality to two lenses. The Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6L with IS & the new Sigma 50-500mm F/4.5-6.3 with optical stabilization. Yes the Sigma stops down to 6.3 at the longest 500mm, but as a comparison i'll see if I can get 5.6 at 400mm with the Sigma. Both priced roughly around $1600 US Dollars i'll have the lens vs. lens comparison up this week......
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Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS (Image Stabilizer) USM Autofocus Lens

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Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG OS HSM APO Autofocus Lens

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Lightcraft workshop, probably best known recently for it's Fader ND Variable Neutral Density Filters, but also produces high quality optics for other types of filters is entering the Loupe Game. The new 'BiGeye' LCD Viewfinder for DSLR's is coming in under $140 for the complete setup. Yes, it's weird but they are selling parts of the loupe individually possibly if you happen to damage it, you can cheaply replace small pieces. Cheaper than the Original LCDVF viewfinder, but offering a 'diopter' I think it's priced very nicely. It's not the most beautiful design and I'm not a fan of the name nor the product images they display in their store, but I'm sure they've got the whole optics thing down and that's really what counts. Thanks to Paul Kondo for this tip, you can find the new LCW BiGeye LCD Viewfinder at this link.

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Was just reading an article from Timothy Allen explaining some TimeLapse tips and techniques. At the end of the article you'll catch this video (above) of a behind the scenes documentary on some insane TimeLapse planning and rigs. Switch to HD for best quality. I love how they built their own Ladder dolly, used a bike wheel and some string as their motion controller. True innovation happening here and definitely masters of their craft. Here's the link to the Article: https://timothyallen.blogs.bbcearth.com/2009/02/24/time-lapse-photography/

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Talking about new stuff and pre-orders, looks like Fuji is not giving up on their Real 3D line of digital cameras. The (soon to be available) new W3 will be offering 720HD video shot with nicely spaced dual lenses for that Sterescopic setup. Looks like a fun camera, and would be quite interesting to see the 3D effect when playing back on a big screen.

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YouTube does support 3D playback in a variety of different ways including the cross-eyed method if you don't have a pair of Blue and Red Captain EO glasses. This new HD video model has been redesigned and still photos will also have an option for fancy 3D Prints. I'm on the look out for any videos that will be posted onto YouTube or Vimeo and i'm curious to see if we'll be able to enjoy it on the Internet with those funky glasses.

If you're wondering if this is already possible with DSLR's, I posted an article a while back about some different 3D options for DSLR's found here.

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New Pre-Order Auctions

So many new product announcements this month, and still more to come. Rumors are Canon will make some really big announcements this month, maybe in a few days, regarding new camera lineups. I'm excited for that, but who knows if it's going to be products that are as affordable as the Canon T2i. There is supposedly rumors of a Canon 60D, which will sit in the middle of the T2i and 7D. Not sure what features would make this Canon 60D fall 'in between', the video features of the T2i are already so close to the 7D. It's possible it could be more Photography enhanced features.

The Zoom H1 is 'supposed' to be released in 3 days, but there's been a lot of speculation. I've emailed Samson a few times and they've always nailed down the August 20th release date. Even if it is released by August 20th, it will be a rare item to find 'in stock'. There's a new auction on eBay taking pre-orders for this item and there are quite a bit of sales. I can't wait to start testing this with different LAV microphones. Certain times the whole Wireless LAV setup is overkill, more expensive, requires extra gear, and possibility for more things to go wrong. There are many situations where this tiny recorder could be mounted as a body pack for getting close up quality audio from your subject. I placed my order long long ago, but we'll see what comes about in the next 3 days......