I have the RRS B91-QR flash bracket for the 600 II, although I picked up the extender to get it a little further off axis.Originally Posted by HDNitehawk
I got the package for collared lenses (B-150B rail and LMT riser with clamp).
I really like RRS gear, but their macro flash solution doesn't seem nearly as flexible or useful as the Wimberley F-2 brackets.
I've been looking at the StackShot system, too - might get one of those at some point.
Congrats to everyone on all the new gear!!
Hmmm...now if I would have only bought a bunch of boxes of Hostess twinkies at the grocery store yesterday I would be able to buy alot gear on my Christmas list!! One box of twinkies is going for a few hundred bucks on ebay!
Wow, a lot of new gear going down right now.
I heard the words from the other half that i'm sure everyone here wants to hear at some point... "I don't mind what you buy, as long as we can still afford food and the mortgage".
Well, i'm still $1k up every month after mortgage and bills, so maybe I should be looking to invest in something new one of these days. (not counting the Cosina/Voigtlander Bessa L i just snagged off ebay for $100, all i need now is a 21mm Skopar for it and i've got my lightweight hiking/landscape kit sorted).
Or maybe take neuro's advice and go for macros. On saturday I was cleaning out the farm that i've been housesitting this year, collected quite a few dead bugs and things to macro, there shouldn't be that many Centipedes and European Wasps inside (at least they were dead).
An awful lot of electrons were terribly inconvenienced in the making of this post.
Gear Photos
I bought FoCal, since I thought it would be a good time to because I had to check out the new 24-70mm.
I just ran the new lens through three sets of tests. In all about 12-15 cycles at each length and I repeated the test three times.
Tests had the same lighting, right at EV 11 with around 1/350 shutter speed.
With the 1D IV I have the following results;
24mm 0
35mm +4
50mm +4
70mm -1
I could discount the 24mm as it dropping off will not hurt much. The drop from 50mm to 70mm with a difference of 5 bothers me.
I think I will ship it back and try another copy.
Any one think the camera could be a problem?
The 5D II had similar results only not as exaggerated. It makes me think the 1D IV AF tunes to a finer edge than the 5D II.
Does it have a visible effect on the images? That doesn't sound like a camera problem to me and it may fall within the factory specs for the lens especially considering the 24mm and 70mm are so close. It might be worth trying another copy but if the images are good I would not send it back.
That is what I have been debating. It feels prime sharp, but I didn't get a chance to set it up on controlled test for sharpness yet. I was able to shoot several hundred shots Saturday morning and was fairly impressed. The lens seems very sharp, but I did notice that some of the shots were a bit weak. I should go back and see if they were primarly in the mid range. Maybe do some more testing, it wouldn't matter if I send it back today or tomorrow it would still be next week before I get a new one back.
I'd be concerned, and sending it back makes sense. You could pick reasonable AFMA values, maybe W = +2 and T = 0 or +1, and use FoCal to run a single-AFMA aperture sharpness test at 50mm and 70mm, to see how they compare.
I have something similar with my 28-300L - it's around +4 at 28mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 300mm, but around -2 at 200mm. If I'd bought it new, I'd send it back (I bought it used for around 60% of the current new lens price, and while I like it, I'm not sure I like it enough to keep it, may swap it out for the 24-70 II, actually, or perhaps the 50L). As it is, looking over my EXIF with the lens, only around 10% of the shots are between 150-250mm, and it's f/5.6 at that point so AF errors aren't as critical as with an f/2.8 lens like yours.
Last edited by neuroanatomist; 11-19-2012 at 03:40 PM.
John,
One of my concerns is of course this is the first time I used foCal.
If you wouldn't mind can you see anything in this description that sounds as if it may have caused an anomaly.
I bought the pro version.
I used two 200 Watt incandescent bulbs for lighting.
I ended up with an EV between 10.8 and 11.2.
I printed the target on an 8 1/2 x 11 plain paper. Didn't have an inkjet available at the time.
According to FoCal the 8 1/2 x 11 should be scaled correctly and I shouldn't have to measure and enter it.
50x focal length for each setting.
I had a shutter speed of 1/350 ISO 100 set at a temperature of 5200.
The actual color temperature if you shot this situation would be lower, probably 3800 or there about. I tried both ways 5200 was more consistent results.
Target acquisition I verified the target each time and checked to make sure the circle spot was on the crosshair. Then got the green check mark. Being a bit excessive I rechecked this with each individual run.
My results were in a range of 3 places, for instance the +4 looked something like this 2@ +3, 2@ +4 and 2@ +5. I reset up and did 3 runs of tests from 24 to 70mm with an average of 5 tests each time. They were very close and all showed the exact same thing.
The chart they produced were fairly pronounced with steep curves.
The two things that concerned me are the target and the temperature.
Any thing you see I might have missed?
Thanks
Rick
Rick,
FoCal seems to pick the 5200K for me (also incandescent), too, so it sounds like that's something they think is optimal and I'd not worry about that. They do warn that printing the target on a laser printer may lead to higher reflectivity, so I'd possibly be concerned about that. I print mine on heavy matte paper on an inkjet. But you've got plenty of light and it sounds like you're getting consistent results, so I think you're good.
John
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