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Extending Your Reach: Telephoto |
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distances are expressed as 35 mm equivalent The H-Series cameras don't really need an add-on telephoto adapter. Their native 31/36 mm to 432/465 mm lenses are already more "telephoto" than many of the other cameras on the market. But the H-Series zoom spoils you. Inevitably, there will come a day when you zoom all the way in - and your H-Series camera stops just short of what you want to shoot. This will be unexpected - you've gotten so used to zooming in on whatever you want that you won't quite believe that you can't zoom all the way to infinity. That's when you'll decide you can't live without a telephoto add-on lens for your H-Series camera. Note: Telephoto add-on lenses are also known as "telephoto adapters", "tele-adapters", "telephoto converters", "tele-converters" and "TCON"s. How Telephoto Add-on Lenses Work Telephoto add-on adapters work by multiplying the focal length of your lens.
Figure 11-1 Maximum Telephoto Reach Note: Although each of the calculations in fig. 11-1 was based on the H-Series maximum zoom, the tele-adapter multiplies whatever the current focal length is on the native lens. If you've zoomed to 200 mm on an H-Series lens, a 1.7X tele-adapter will yield a focal distance of 340 mm. Which Adapter? The H-Series camera is not a telescope. 2X adapters and 3X adapters get you into a range that no digicam can support. A good quality 1000+ mm lens costs many thousands of dollars. You're not going to duplicate that quality in a $100 US add-on lens, no matter what the manufacturer claims. In my tests, 1.7X seems to be the maximum effective telephoto adapter you can use on an H-Series camera without running into image quality problems. You'll find a slew of bargain-basement high-power tele-converters on eBay, and each costs less than the other. But each produces more distorted images with more chromatic aberration. Low-end conversion lenses are no bargain unless you don't care if your images look like a kaleidoscope with heavy purple highlights. That's not an exaggeration. They really can be that bad. It's a minor miracle that the H-Series lenses produce crisp, undistorted images at 432-465 mm. You're tempting fate when you add on a lens whose quality and capability are not up to the standard of the Carl Zeiss-engineered lenses on the H-Series cameras. I'm sure there's a number of legitimate tele-adapters that will work reasonably well with the these cameras, including some by Olympus and Raynox. But none of them are as well-matched to the H-Series as Sony's own. Sony makes two teleconverters: the VCL-DH1758 for the H1, H2 and H5, and the VCL-DH1774 for the H7 and H9. Tip: The DH1758 can be used with the H7 and H9 with a simple 74-58 mm step-down ring readily available from Pemaraal for only $10 US. The smaller adapter lens works fine with the larger "adapter ring" that comes with the H7 and H9 only because we're dealing with telephoto. The more you zoom toward the telephoto end of your lens, the smaller the field of view. As a result, the size of the lens (only 58 mm) doesn't interfere with the image circle, which is much smaller than the maximum 74mm required at the wide-end of the zoom.
Figure 11-2- The VCL DH-1758 Telephoto Adapter Lens On The H1
Figure 11-3 DH1774 Telephoto Adapter Lens On the H9 Both 1.7X lenses are optically excellent. They produce images almost as clear and crisp as the H-Series lenses do without the adapter. Its coatings match the coatings on the H-Series lenses perfectly. Coatings affect chromatic aberration, distortion, contrast, flare and other factors. A mismatch in coatings can result in off-color shots, chromatic aberration of all kinds, lens flare and other unpleasant side-effects. Furthermore, with its plastic housing and extreme light weight, these lenses don't alter the feel or balance of your camera nor put undue stress on its adapter ring. Tip: I've compared both tele-adapters in many tests and, quite honestly, can't tell which lens produced any given test shot. They are very well-matched. If you already have a DH1758 and bought an H7 or H9, keep the adapter lens and spend $10 for the adapter ring. If, on the other hand, you have an H7 or H9 but don't yet own a telephoto adapter, get the DH1774. You won't be disappointed. Both lenses can be purchased in the US for around $100 at Amazon.com. The Benefits Of The Telephoto Add-on Lens I don't mean to gush, but the benefits of the Sony tele-adapter on the H-Series cameras are truly remarkable. You can get shots you never dreamt of getting, or get the same subject much closer and with more detail. You can get some shots (such as sports in a stadium) that look like TV close-ups and other shots (such as birds in flight) that are normally barely visible to the human eye. The tele-adapter on the H-Series cameras is not just for distant subjects. It can be used, to great effect, on subjects far, nearby and very close. You can even do macro-like photography with the tele-adapter.
Sony's 1.7X teleconverters can make a huge difference in shooting distant subjects. Where a building or animal may be only a dot on the horizon, the tele-adapter, combined with the H-Series' 432 - 465 mm telephoto zoom, can put your viewer right into the picture, as though they're feet away instead of miles. The same goes for all kinds of nature photography. There are places that are relatively inaccessible, yet beautiful or interesting in their detail. Using the tele-adapter, you can get in close to something that you just can't get to physically. Here's a few examples of the reach of the Sony teleconverters, most using full zoom plus adapter: The first example is a shot of downtown Binghamton, New York taken from a hot-air balloon 1000 feet in the air and about 1 mile south of the city.
Figure 11-4 Taken at Approximately 380 mm Without Adapter
Figure 11-5 Taken at Full Zoom with the DH1758 Tele-adapter (734 mm) The following two pictures are of the same building, but taken from a hilltop 4.1 miles away.
Figure 11-6 Taken Using the H1 at Full Zoom (432 mm) Without Adapter
Figure 11-7 Taken at Full Zoom With Adapter (734 mm)
Figure 11-8 Crop of Preceding Photo The last picture in this series (Fig. 11-8) is a 50% crop of the top of the tower taken from the preceding photo. Look at the detail, particularly the antennas on the roof of the State Office Building. I checked, and these antennas vary from 6" in thickness down to 4" - and even less for the smaller ones. Think of it: an H-Series camera, with the Sony tele-adapter mounted, captured a four-inch tube from more than four miles away!
There are a couple of relatively minor issues you'll have to deal with when shooting very distant subjects. Easily rectified in Photoshop (or other image editing software), you should, nonetheless, be aware of them: Color Please note the wildly divergent color casts of the two sets of pictures above. This is not a failure of white balance. The first set (the aerial series) was taken in the summer, under very different light than the second set, which was taken in Winter. But more important, just as mountains grow purple with distance, high-distance telephoto shots will exhibit more muted, bluish color castes than closer shots. In figures 11-7 and 11-8 above, the brush in the foreground has much more green and red than the hill behind, which looks quite blue. This is caused by refraction of the light through haze and dust in the atmosphere. The same effect that turns the sky blue will turn your distant landscapes blue. You may find yourself doing a little custom color adjustment in post-processing when shooting over large distances. Foreshortening These images also provide an excellent demonstration of foreshortening. Look at the tower in the first two pictures. The plaza at the base of the tower looks much deeper in the first photo than the second. The buildings across the street also appear to be much farther. The higher the focal distance for any given shot, the more "compressed" distant subjects become. This is called foreshortening. In the last picture (Fig. 11-8), the homes on the hill above the tower appear to be directly behind it. This is not the case. If you look at Fig. 11-4, you can see that the hill behind the tower is actually another 1 - 2 miles beyond it. The homes in Fig. 11-8 are actually close to 6 miles from the camera position!
For the kind of subjects I shoot, I find that the tele-adapter is even more valuable in the middle distance than it is at long-distance. At long-distance, the tele-adapter allows you to peer at subjects far away. At middle-distance, the tele-adapter lets you get a different perspective on subjects that are not as far away. In the middle-distance, the tele-adapter can be used for a wide variety of useful shots.
The first picture that follows was shot, from across the street, with just the native lens, the second with the tele-adapter attached:
Figure 11-9 Without Tele-adapter
Figure 11-10 With Tele-adapter
Figure 11-11 Shot at approximately 160 mm without adapter
Figure 11-12 734 mm (Using Tele-adapter)
Wildlife The problem with shooting most wildlife is not that you have trouble framing or tracking, though that can be challenging too. The problem is getting in close enough to the subject without spooking the animal or insect. Most wild animals (especially birds) are skittish and wary of humans. A noise or a scent of the photographer and they may well be gone long before you get your shot. The tele-adapter allows you to get the same shot you'd get if you were close to the animal but from a comfortable distance. The combined focal length of the native lens and the tele-adapter (734-790 mm) is an ideal focal length for shooting wildlife. Just enough to fill the frame with your subject but far enough to keep you from spooking the animals. The following shot was taken using a 1.7X Sony tele-adapter from about 60-70 feet away. A chipmunk is a very small animal, so even shooting at full native zoom from that distance would not fill your frame the way the subject does in this shot.
Figure 11-13 Chipmunk at 734 mm (with Tele-adapter) Birds, especially birds in flight, are difficult to shoot. Because of the distance required from photographer to bird and the speed of the bird's motion, you need to develop a set of strategies and skills to capture them. For birds, the tele-adapter is not a luxury, it's a requirement. Shooting Birds Here's a few basic suggestions for shooting birds: Pre-focus Even
with the most sophisticated cameras and lenses, auto focusing on a distant, moving target - especially one coming
towards you or away from you - can be slow enough to allow your bird to leave your frame before you get the shot.
Pre-focus on a few throw-away shots, then go for the real ones in manual-focus mode. So, don't try to shoot fast-moving birds at dusk or in shade. You may succeed, but it will be difficult and, more often than not, you may be less than happy with the results. By the same token, shooting birds at high-noon is not a good idea either, as the bright sun may cause detail-robbing blown highlights. The light immediately after dawn and in mid-to-late afternoon generally work the best.
The H-Series cameras can be suprisingly good for getting bird shots. Their long reach (particularly with a tele-adapter mounted) and low shutter lag work really well to help you acquire these difficult targets. The H7 and H9's amazing burst mode with predictive autofocus is a real boon to bird photographers. On the other H-Series cameras, autofocus is probably not recommended, but with manual focus, they're quite fast enough to capture most birds in good light. Here's a couple of particularly difficult shots. I've made a bit of a hobby of photographing sparrows in flight. These little speed-demons appear to go from dead stop to full-speed nearly instantaneously, making it very difficult to get good captures. But the H-Series cameras have done well for me with these most-difficult-to-shoot birds.
Figure 11-14 Sparrow Taking Off (with Tele-adapter)
Figure 11-14 In Full Flight ( Hand-Held With Tele-adapter) Note: In Fig. 11-13, note the beautiful, soft DSLR-like bokeh of the background blur. The H-Series produces a lovely bokeh when shooting subjects like these at a middle distance, which is highly unusual for a consumer/prosumer digicam.
The Sony tele-adapters can open up a whole new world of opportunities to the H-Series candid photographer. Their greatest advantage is their reach. For a shot to be truly candid, the photographer must not be part of it. He or she should not influence the shot with his or her presence. We all know what happens when someone realizes they're about to be photographed - posing. Or even worse, mugging, hands over the face, tongues stuck out or sometimes, even outright hostility. With a teleconverter attached, you can shoot a subject from hundreds of feet away and capture moments that might be lost (or at least altered) by proximity. Tip: The H9 is particularly good for candid photography. With its tilt LCD, you can compose photos at waist level, or even above the heads of a crowd. This is a devoutly-desired feature for serious candid photographers. Tip: I've recently read a fair amount of argument about whether it is ethical to capture someone's image unawares - whether it is an invasion of privacy, whether you need to seek permission first. Legally, as far as I know, there is no problem - with the sole exception of celebrities and others whose image is considered their "trademark". Personally, I'm not sure there is any ethical problem. Capturing the human condition is one of the best and most important uses of photography. It has always been thus, ever since the advent of photography. If it is unethical, then many of the greatest photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries were unethical. Crowds One of the fun things you can do with the tele-adapter is grab pictures of individuals in unguarded moments out of a crowd. Where the crowd may uninteresting, individuals within the crowd can be fascinating. Candid photography is not my specialty, but here's a shot I took out of a crowd of more than 100,000 at an event called Spiedie Fest:
Figure 11-14 Candid shot with tele-adapter Children Children are wonderful as candid subjects. It's so easy to catch them in unself-conscious moments. The photo below was taken from quite a distance, through the opening of a tent. It's not a technically great photo, but considering that it was shot in dim light on-the-fly, I'm pretty happy with it. The look of concentration on this pretty little girl's face is priceless. And could not have been captured without the tele-adapter.
Figure 11-15 Another Candid Shot with Tele-adapter
Sports If you ever attend professional sporting events, you've probably seen all the photographers at the sidelines with their huge, long lenses. The pros shoot with lenses from 500 - 1000 mm in order to get in close to the action. You can get very close to the same reach with any H-Series camera and a Sony tele-adapter. At full zoom, it puts you right in the middle of that range (734-790 mm). Your camera will not be as fast as many of these expensive pro cameras, but your aperture is comparable (or better) at f/2.8-3.7 and your reach will be similar. Shutter lag can be reduced by pre-focusing or by using the Predictive Autofocus and burst mode of the H7 or H9. Like shooting wildlife (or any other moving target, including children), you'll need to practice panning and anticipating the shot. At first, you may not get many keepers, but with practice, you should be able to get some excellent sports shots with the H-Series cameras under good lighting conditions. Shutter Speeds The major difficulty of sports photography is the light. Under ideal conditions, you should have more than enough light coming into the camera to allow you to use the higher shutter speeds (such as 1/500th) you need to stop fast action. Stadium lighting is notoriously bad for photography. Though the field looks bright to the eye, it often, in fact, reflects relatively low light. Raise the ISO to 200 on the H1 (400 on the H2 through H9) if you have trouble getting a good exposure at sufficient shutter speed, or shoot it a little dark and lighten it up later in post-processing. Just remember that it's always better to get it right in the camera, if you can.
The best thing about the Sony tele-adapters is that they cost no light. Most tele-converters, especially those made for DSLRs will drop the light coming in to the sensor by 1-2 full stops. That means that a lens normally capable of f/2.8 will only be able to open up to f/4 when the teleconverter is attached. This is a high penalty when you need to shoot at faster shutter speeds. I have tested it fairly extensively, and as far as I can determine, there is no light penalty for using a Sony tele-adapter. You get f/3.7 with or without the adapter attached. This is a testament to the quality of the Sony lens and its compatibility with the H-Series cameras as well as the fact that the lens is attached at the light-gathering end of the lens rather than between the lens and camera body as it is in DSLRs. The tennis shot in fig. 11-16 was rather interesting. I was at the far end of the court. Nearby was the photographer shooting this event for the magazines. He had a 600 mm f/4 Canon lens. It was about 18" long (almost 24" with lens shade), seven or so inches around, weighed in at about 12 pounds (lens only) and costs about $7000. He started with a monopod, then switched to a tripod when he got weary. I, on the other hand, was hand-holding a camera that weights less than 2 pounds (adapter lens included), with a 734 mm reach at f/3.7 Now admittedly, his lens is undoubtedly sharper and has less chromatic aberration (there wasn't much on the shot below, either - just a fine line at the top of the net). I don't think he was too thrilled when he saw some of my pictures. Advantage: the H-Series camera and its smaller sensor. Teamed with the Sony tele-adapter, it can deliver remarkable shots in good light at a very reasonable price.
Figure 11-16 dBI Tennis Challenger (579 mm)
Figure 11-17 Chris Thater Bicycle Races (696 mm) The Chris Thater bicycle races were a great workout for the tele-adapter. I was constantly mounting it and removing it. I was stationed about a block away from a 90 degree turn. Without the tele-adapter, I could see the whole peleton, including bicycles and spectators. Why the tele-adapter? It gave me the faces, as in the picture above. For me, that's the drama of the race, and the huge advantage of a tele-adapter when shooting sports. Note: The H7 and H9 may be two of the best consumer sports cameras Sony has ever produced. Between their 2.2 frames/second burst rate and the surprisingly effective Predictive Autofocus, they can capture many sharply-focused shots even while the athlete is in motion or moving directly toward the camera - with the tele-adapter mounted.
You wouldn't expect it: a camera with a long telephoto lens that gets a well-earned reputation as a first-class close up camera. But it's true. Things change. In the past, closeups were shot using macro lenses based on wide-angle to moderate telephoto focal lengths. The H-Series cameras still do that, and when you want lots of detail and deep depth of field, that's the way to go. But a more esthetic style of closeup photography has evolved in recent times, with the subject isolated and the background beautifully blurred. This requires a shallow depth of field, and the more telephoto you have to work with, the easier this is to accomplish. Higher focal distances coupled with wider apertures and shorter distance-to-subject result in shallower depth of field, and more blur closer to the subject. Getting Close The H-Series cameras have good, wide-open bright lenses (f/3.7 to f/4.5 at full zoom), and telephoto to spare. But what about getting close to the subject, the third leg of getting photos with great bokeh? They're pretty good, at about 34" - 41" at full tele, but that's just not good enough for real close-in macro photography. For that, you'll need to use a close-up add-on lens like the Canon 500d or the Sony VCL-M3358. It's even more difficult to get in close with the tele-adapter attached. With the adapter mounted, the minimum subject distance is up to 10-12 feet at full zoom. So why shoot up-close with the tele-adapter? Two reasons: distance and magnification.
Normally, when shooting close-in, you have to get physically close to the subject. Right on top of it, in fact. Often bent over in uncomfortable positions, you bob and weave to acquire focus. If the subject is not easily accessible, the shot can't happens.
You can get some idea of the perspective of the two tele-closeup options from the images below.
Figure 11-18 Close-up with Native Lens at Full Zoom, No Tele-adapter at 36"
Figure 11-19 Close-up with Tele-adapter at Full Zoom From 10' Because of the larger distance-to-subject, you can pick up a bit more detail with the tele-adapter - the depth of field is slightly deeper. On the other hand, the far background becomes a beautiful blur that isolates the subject well. A little crop brings the subject back up to the same perspective as the shot without the adapter.
Figure 11-20 Same Shot as Fig. 11-19 with Crop Magnification As you can see from the previous examples, you can actually get more closeup magnification from the H-Series without the adapter because you can get physically closer without it. However, there is a simple compromise that gives you the benefit of the additional magnification of the tele-adapter without the drawback of the greater minimum distance: a close-up adapter lens.
Figure 11-21 Stacking Lenses on The H1 Stacking is the process of combining more than one lens or filter to achieve an effect not possible with any single lens or filter. You can stack the Sony tele-adapters with any high-quality closeup lens to achieve stunning results. Here's the Asian lily with the Canon 500d (2 diopter) close up lens:
Figure 11-22 Close up with Canon 500d and DH 1758 And the same shot using the Canon 250d (4 diopter) close up lens.
Figure 11-23 Close up with Canon 250d and DH1758 Notice the excellent detail on both of the shots. To show you just how clean and detailed these shots can be, here's a 100% crop of a section of the photo in fig. 11-23:
Figure 11-24 100% Crop of Shot with Canon 500d and Tele-adapter I was quite surprised to note that, stacked with the Canon close up lenses, the DH1758 exhibits no vignetting, no light-falloff and no discernible chromatic aberration. The stacked lenses are wonderful to work with. Clean macro images, with the same effect you get with a closeup lens alone, plus more magnification at a more comfortable shooting distance. What more could you ask? For a more comprehensive look at closeup (macro) photography, see the next chapter: Chapter 12 - Extending Your Reach: Close Up (Macro)
Like everything else in life, there are downsides to tele-adapters. Increased Minimum Focus Distance At wide-angle, with macro turned on, the H-Series cameras can focus as close
as 1-2 cm - almost touching your subject. At full telephoto with the native lens, minimum focus distance is approximately
34-41 inches. At full telephoto, with a 1.7X add-on lens, the camera must be at least 10-12 feet from the subject
in order to acquire focus at full zoom. Fortunately, the H-Series cameras don't have a major problem with purple fringe compared to their ultra-zoom competitors, so the tele-adapter probably will not have a huge impact on chromatic aberration in your photos. But you should expect to see noticeable purple fringing around the edges of blown highlights, such as the glint of the sun on a car bumper or a bright reflection on water. Live with it. It's really not a big deal. There are many programs, some of them free, which will remove purple fringing with little effort.
There are two kinds of vignetting. The first is when the lens, due to its construction, actually casts a shadow on the light coming into the lens. The second kind of vignetting is light falloff. This is the kind of vignetting you're most likely to see, even at zoom ranges that don't produce shadowing without the tele-adapter mounted. You're gathering light from way out in the distance (some of my samples are of subjects that are, literally, miles away). The most direct rays are the brightest. The more oblique rays captured at the edge of the lens are significantly darker, and they are visible in your photos as dark corners. Vignetting is easily fixed in many image-editing applications, including Photoshop CS3 and dedicated applications such as PTLens, a free download from ePaperPress.com.
Figure 11-25 Typical Vignetting with the Tele-adapter
Figure 11-26 Vignetting Fixed Using PTLens. About 3 Second's Work Difficulty Acquiring Subject Think of your lens as a huge lever. At a 1:2 ratio (very close to the camera), raising the camera 1/2" raises the field of view of your subject 1". When you're miles from your subject, moving the camera 1/2" can move your field of view hundreds of feet.
Figure 11-27 Camera Movement Over a Distance Very slight movements in the camera can cover huge chunks of real-estate at distant points. This can make it difficult to find your subject when the subject itself is not hundreds of feet in size. The other problem is the limited field of view. As you zoom in on a subject, the field of view covered by the lens gets progressively narrower. Using the tele-adapter on a distant shot, at full zoom, a large object (up close) can become a tiny object at a distance. You're no longer focusing on a big building, you're focusing on a small lamp in the small window of the big building. Taken together, the amplified movement of the camera at distance and the small field of view can make it extremely difficult to compose your shot. Don't be surprised if you have to hunt around for a while - even to find that high-rise we mentioned. You will have even more difficulty composing if the camera is not in focus. You may see nothing but a distant blur. Monitor-mode autofocus can help with this, but it sometimes can't keep up as you pan around the horizon looking for your subject. So, you might just want to half-click the shutter button from time-to-time just to "get you into the ballpark" as you seek out your target. Tip: Shooting a distant bird in flight is the perfect challenge for a lens with such a long throw. Some professionals actually use gun sights mounted on their cameras for the initial acquisition of subjects. If you plan to shoot small, moving targets, you need to practice aiming your camera as though it were a rifle, but without looking through the "scope". This gets you into the general region. You can refine your aim through the viewfinder once you're sure you're pointed in the right direction and at the right location. Difficulty Focusing Focusing can sometimes be a challenge with the tele-adapter mounted. However, I find that the H-Series autofocus - even at great distances - is fast and, invariably, accurate. The secret is contrast. If you point the camera at a clear blue sky or a white wall, your H-Series camera (like all digicams) will have trouble acquiring focus. Autofocus depends entirely on the camera finding high-contrast edges to analyze - no contrast, no focus. One of the better features of the H-Series cameras is that, even if the camera fails to acquire immediate focus, it will default to a perfectly usable calculated focus. It will just take time to "hunt" before it gives up and picks its own focus point. If your intended focus point doesn't have much contrast, use the acquire/focus/recompose strategy. Aim your camera at a point near your subject that does show contrast, half-click the shutter and hold it. Recompose the picture and then complete the click and take your shot. Tip: My favorite manual focus setting when using the tele-adapter for distance is infinity. Anything over a few hundred feet away is "infinity" as far as the camera is concerned. So, for distant low-contrast targets or for moving targets (like distant birds in flight), just change the camera to manual focus and set it for infinity. Now when you take your shot, it's virtually instantaneous - no autofocus lag. You'll be able to see the far-off high-rise or the bird in flight as you compose your picture, and your picture will likely be in good, sharp focus. Camera shake The same lever that amplifies your every move while acquiring your subject also amplifies
any unsteadiness in your camera. Camera shake is a much more serious issue with a tele-adapter onboard. It's easy
to exceed the limits of the built-in image stabilization. Tip: Ignore the "shaking hand". Sony provides this icon in the center of your display to remind you that you are at risk of a blurry image from camera shake. But it's not very effective because it's grossly insensitive. It does not take into account the camera's image stabilization, it doesn't know if you're on a tripod, and it hasn't got a clue about a tele-adapter. So, generally, ignore it. But be aware, at all times, that the risk of camera shake is much greater with the tele-adapter mounted and that, if you're not careful, you may end up with a great long-distance shot that's buried in blur. Experiment until you get a good solid feeling for when you need a tripod and when you don't.
As we discussed at length in our overview of add-on lenses, adapter lenses were never meant to be permanently affixed to your camera. You have a perfectly good native lens which will give you the best possible image throughout its range. Adapter lenses should only be used when you need to exceed the limits of the built-in lens and removed when you return to a less extreme focal distance. So yes, this lens will cause major, dark-black vignetting (the shadow kind) when you zoom too far back towards wide-angle. This is not a defect. It is intentional. Why would anyone want to use a tele-adapter lens in the wide-angle (or even medium) range when the built-in lens does it better? The Sony tele-adapters start to vignette pretty seriously at about 114 mm. Remove the adapter lens before you zoom back that far. The overall effective zoom range of the H-Series lenses with a tele-adapter attached is 114 mm to 790 mm (depending on the camera) - a significantly larger range than the native lens alone. It should be plenty.
Are you a candidate for a tele-adapter lens? If you've read all the preceding "downsides" and you're still interested; if the cost, and the annoyance of screwing the lens on and off your camera as needed doesn't deter you; if you feel a passion to increase your reach with your H-Series camera, then you are definitely a tele-adapter candidate. Read on.
The H-Series cameras have a menu option (Setup/Camera 2) called "Conversion Lens". Using this setting, you can tell the camera you've got an adapter lens mounted by selecting from Tele, Wide and Close-up. But should you use it? It's a bit of a pain to go back and forth to the Setup menu every time you mount or remove the tele-adapter. It does have a benefit. It limits the zoom of the built-in lens to match the add-on lens. Not only does this prevent you from accidentally zooming too far in the wide-angle direction (thereby vignetting your shots), it also makes it easier to focus as the autofocus system doesn't even bother to check the range that's excluded by the setting (31-114 mm). This is less travel for the lens, less work for it to do, and may result in faster autofocus. Personally, I don't bother with it. One advantage of live preview is that you can see if you're about to ruin the shot with a bad zoom before you take it. And in my experience, The H-Series cameras seem to focus just fine with the adapter mounted - without using the camera setting. But if you are indeed having trouble acquiring focus or you're not comfortable limiting your zoom range yourself, by all means use the Setup Menu's conversion lens setting. As far as I know, it won't hurt anything.
Image stabilization is a luxury. You pay dearly for that feature in DSLR lenses. You get it for free in the H-Series cameras. Use it. So often, I've heard photographers complain that their camera isn't "sharp enough", when the only thing that's not sharp is the tiny camera-shake that takes the edge off their images. Unfortunately, there's no icon to tell you that image stabilization is turned on - there is one that tells you if it's off. If you see a "shaky hand" icon with the word "OFF" over it in the lower portion of your display, your IS has been turned off. On the H1-H5, hit the button at the top of the camera (next to the LCD/Viewfinder button) to toggle it back on. In the H7 and H9, click the menu button, find Steady Shot and change the setting. Note: I'm not usually a fan of moving options off buttons and onto menus, but this is one time I think Sony got it right. Image Stabilization is not a feature you often change during a shoot, so having it on a menu, instead of a button is no hardship. It even solves a problem. The Steady Shot button on the H1, H2 and H5 is quite close to other controls and I found myself unintentionally turning it off while changing other settings on these cameras. Having this option on a menu, as it is on the H7 and H9, prevents any accidental changes to Steady Shot. Summary If you don't want to bring distant subjects closer and you don't want to see more detail of closer subjects, and you don't want to take advantage of the convenience of comfortable shooting distances for macro shots, then you really don't need a tele-adapter with the H-Series cameras. On the other hand, it seems to me that the DH1758 and DH1774 give you more of a very good thing at very reasonable prices and exceptional quality. The Sony tele-adapters are not only versatile, they're a bargain. I recommend them highly. I will leave you with the obligatory H-Series moon picture. Moon pictures are almost as much a requirement for H-Series photographers as duck pictures. It seems that almost everyone points their camera skyward as soon as they get their first Sony tele-adapter. This shot is not one of the best - moon shots are much better when the moon is not full. The shadows on the edges of a partial moon cast the craters in dramatic three-dimension. The full moon looks rather flat. Figure 11-29 - Full Moon: H1 with DH1758 In the next picture (taken a few months later, when the sky and the moon cooperated), you can see much more of the topographical features of the moon, and better appreciate the power and detail of the Sony teleconverters:
Figure 11-30 The Moon: H1 with DH1758 (Cropped) Shooting the moon requires a tripod. Even the built-in image stabilization will not handle the hundreds of thousands of miles to the moon (just under 240,000 miles). Even a slight jitter in the camera might be off by 500 miles or so.
It's quite amazing to see the detail this camera renders with the tele-adapter attached. Let me assure you that that's not normal. Teleconverters are notorious for lowering image quality and robbing light. These seem to maintain image quality and pass every bit of light through to the main lens and sensor. They are a brilliant addition to your H-Series camera bag. If you hope to do any serious telephoto photography, I recommend you get a Sony tele-adapter as your first add-on. It will expand your possibilities enormously. Next: Chapter
12 - Extending Your Reach: Close Up (Macro) |
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