Telephoto lens required for filming waders.

[John C]

I am going to try to make a documentary film re Sea and Migratory birds and need a lens to help me fill the frame.

I have a Canon XM 2 camera and a Sony 1.7 telescopic converter but it is not powerful enough. Yesterday in a Hide I leant my tripod to a Chap with a new Canon stills camera with a movie facility and the shots he got with his standard lens were great.

I am happy to buy a second hand lens from a fellow IAC member

Your advice and experience would be appreciated

John C

[Ian Woodward]

By coincidence, I was just about to post a similar request as John's as regards filming wildlife subjects on my Canon XL which has a x22 zoom as standard.

But this is insuffiecient for distant shots of many secretive wildlife species.

Can anyone recommend a lens for such work?

I, too, would be prepared to buy a second-hand lens that is in good working order.

Ian Woodward

[Ian Woodward]

Oops! In my post I left oput a 2 - my camera is a Canon XL2.

Ian

[col lamb]

The current Canon DSLR camera, 550D, 7D and 5D mar II all have the function of HD video (see the current issue of FVM and the next issue for my articles on using a DSLR for video).

With any of these cameras and suitable standard telephoto lenses you will be able to see individual feathers on the other side of the estuary.

Its not going to be cheap.

[John C]

Ian,

Maybe we could share instead of having an Auction !!!

KR
John C

[Ian Woodward]

I suspect, John, that once we set our mind to it there'll be loads of second-hand lenses out there (not to mention new ones) suitable for our respective purposes!

I just haven't had the time yet to get down to it.

Maybe I should make that my resoluition for the coming year. I've certainly been thinkng about it for long enough.

Col, thanks for your advice - even though, by the sound of it, the sort of lens John and I need isn't going to be "cheap as chips"!

Ian

[chrisk]

The XL2 has an interchangeable lens mount whereas the XM2 is fixed, so the XL2 is much more flexible in the choice of lens adaptors. Either camera can take a front mounted telephoto adaptor such as this 2.2 x :
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/72mm-TELEPHOTO-Le ... 2a04f93b6f
but at £16.95, I doubt if it is the best quality, but maybe worth a try!

The XL2 already has a wide range zoom as standard, going from 5.4mm to 108mm focal length. When the XL2 is in 4:3 mode, this is equivalent to a 51.8mm to 1036mm still camera lens. For longer lens use, I use a Canon extender on my XL2, this goes between the lens and camera mount and multiplies the focal length by 1.6, to give an equivalent of a 1650mm long lens on a 35mm camera.

Another way is to use an adaptor to take other camera lenses on the XL2. Canon supply an adaptor to take Canon EF lenses, and this retains some of the automatic features. Alternatively, adaptors are available to take Nikon and other lenses, but can only be used in the manual mode. Using such an adaptor, a typical 300mm camera lens would be equivalent to a 2800mm lens when on the XL2.

Chris

[Ian Woodward]

Thanks Chris. I have three Canon camcorders and for the XL2 I use, like you, a dedicated Canon XL 1.6x lens. At £396, with p & p, it cost a little bit more the 2.2x lens at £16.95 from ebay! But even so, with the extender fitted, it is not really powerful enough for big wildlife close-up shots. I shoot exclusively in 16:9.

Also, with the extender added, as I discovered to my disappointment after a day’s filming some “great shots” (not so great as it turned out), zooming during filming results in blurred images.

I’ll certainly give some thought to the Canon EF adapter XL. It does seem to be the answer. A quick search suggests the adaptor costs around the £400/£500 mark; on top of this, of course, would be the lens price, so I suspect the total cost would be well into the four-figure mark.

Chris, do you use an EF adapter and, if so, how do you find it?

You mention a 300mm lens, but what would the biggest lens size that the adapter would be able to accommodate in user-friendly, in-the-field terms?

Ian

[Dave Watterson]

Is it my Scots heritage or just that I am mean ...

Have you considered (a) telescopic gun sights and (b) telescopes?

Though these are not mainly designed for photography (and wildlife enthusiasts may have an instinctive aversion to the former) they both offer outstanding power for a lot less money than you are talking about. You would need make-shift rigs to hold them in place and adapt them to your prime lens, but that is what modelling engineers do very well.

When the US space programme started some of the best television shots of the day were from just such jury-rigs because there simply were not powerful enough lenses in the camera manufacturers' lists at that time.

My thinking is just that though such systems may be clumsy to rig up, if you are working from a hide that should not matter. Do you really need all the lens automation? That quality of camera surely deserved manual setting and tlc from the photographer.And if there is a risk of kit getting dropped in the water ... I would rather risk wetting a £60 gun sight than a £600+ lens.

Dave

[Ian Woodward]

Sounds ingenious, Dave!

Alas – or maybe fortunately? – I’ve reached a point in my life where I want everything to be fuss-free wherever possible: i.e. go online, order a piece of kit, fit it to the camera, and off we go.

The penalty I pay for that, of course, is that I fork out much more than I perhaps need to.

But the inescapable fact is that I just wouldn’t be up to constructing what you suggest or indeed be knowledgeable enough to commission a specialist to do it for me.

Also, sadly, I never was much of an artisan.

Ian

[Stephen]

if its any consolation

I bought a wide angle and x2 converter for my Z5 from ebay

the x2 converter to try and boost the x20 zoom ... ideally for the likes of wildlife photography
dont waste your money.....all advertised <1000 sobs (second hand) are absolute rubbish...
if you want wildlife photography on your video camera and therefore need to extend the
telephoto range be prepared to pay 000's of sobs

as a keen 35mm geezer in the past it was a simple job to stick a 500mm mirror lens on ... the minumum for wildlidfe stuff!!

no such item exists for us mere video peeps unless you want to pay 000's for a single prime cinematic interchangable lens

there is a Letus extreme DoF gizmo that takes advatage of the gorgeous depth of field and all those lovelee lenses 35mm peeps use <spit> but you need about 3.5K sobs to start the ball rolling

for 1400 sobs you can get a Nikon D7000 with a 55 - 200mm lens as a starter and get a camera setup that takes HD 1920x1080 footage with that oh so magic DoF capability....

thats the root I'm going!!!!!! but don't tell the missus...

[chrisk]

Hi Ian,

I don't have an EF adaptor and have no first hand experience of it. My mention of a 300mm lens was only by way of example and I see no reason why a 1000mm lens or longer should not be used. This would be equivalent to 9400mm in still camera terms. These adaptors have no lens components in them, merely a mechanical method of holding the lens in place with electrical connections for the automation.

I agree with Dave that manual setting can be preferable and maybe a less expensive approach would be to use an adaptor such as this one at about £70.00 and can be used with one of the many Nikon fit lenses that are available:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Adapter-Nikon-len ... 5d2bf8f3de

If you have a telescope, various adaptors can be purchased, but I have not seen one direct to the XL2 mount. I think it would need Eyepiece Adaptor > T Mount > Nikon Mount > XL2 Mount.

Chris

[chrisk]

Here is a useful article showing examples of XL2 fields of view with various lens combinations. I note one example uses both the EF adaptor and 1.6 extender together.

Chris

[Michael Slowe]

I've been reading this thread with interest and waiting for someone to make the suggestion that I expected. An IAC prizewinner (schoolmaster I think) of a few years back, made a film about a Dipper bird by a Scottish river. I was in correspondence with him having admired his film and I learnt that he used the same Canon camera referred to here with a Nikon adaptor which enabled him to use his Nikon still camera tele lens. I think the focal length was about 300mm and he got some very good footage. Two warnings though. Firstly he found that the DoF was so shallow that he had difficulty with accurate (manual) focus and the long focal length required very firm anchorage for the camera.

I'm surprised Dave Watterson doesn't remember this film because it was he who put me in touch with the film maker concerned.

[Ian Woodward]

Chris, the £70(approx) Nikon adapter lens to accommodate the XL2 (among others), seems a very serious option. (So why, one wonders, would anyone therefore want to pay around £450 for the Canon EF adapter?)

The Nikon adapter is incredibly, relatively cheap – presumably, it would usually cost much more than the one advertised on ebay?

You’ve probably noticed by now that you didn’t include a link for the XL2 fields-of-view lens examples.

Stephen, thanks for that – and I promise I won’t tell the missus about your lens ambitions!

Michael, now that you mention it, I remember quite vividly reading an article somewhere by this schoolteacher, and for two reasons: he shared my interest in wildlife and zoology, and he was using an XL2.

I also remember thinking what a marvellous subject to choose: a charismatic land bird of the cinclidae family, genus Cinclus, that can quite happily swim under water.

I’d forgotten, though, about the manual focusing problems, though the advantages seem to far outweigh the disadvantages.

So far, so good!

Ian