Trying out an old lens

Ah I understand now -our colonian cousins- I thought it might have been an oblique reference to Ni-Ca.

Anyway in answer to your original post I hadn't done any research on any other site , but since your posts I have followed your links and am happy that the lens (originally at least) was one of the best.

So thank you for your enlightenment - much appreciated.

I could never have got that shot (blurred as it is these days) using my X300 film camera-That was tripod only.

regards
Bernard

On work pc now, but sure when I checked exif last night on the pigeon shot that focal length was showing as 800mm. Did you input that yourself?

The 800mm seems to be included because I set the antishake for 800mm (it seem the best option for a 500mm lens from 35mm days)

regards
Bernard

You should always set the anti shake to the *actual* focal length for best results - in this case 500mm. The whole crop factor & 35mm equivalent thing is irrelevant. A 500mm lens is a 500mm lens...

No, Bernard, you still use 500mm I presume that if you use 800mm it will try to overcompensate

Thanks guys,

I was working on the premise that as the 500mm (35mm) lens is equivalent to 750m (digital) then 800 was the nearest - ie it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I didn't find anything to disuade me of that in the manual (I did look but didn't find).

So I'll take your comments onboard (sorry for the business babble) and try the lens again with 500mm set.


regards
Bernard

Another thought: if it takes rear filters like mine does, do you have a filter in there? Mine (a Makinon) is very clear that it requires that 1 is aways present for correct image quality.

[ I did catch the 800 bit, but thought you were lucky enough to have one of the 800's that a few manufacturers put out. ]

There is a small filter fitted labelled :-

Tamron dia 30.5 Normal Japan

And as it was brand new when I bought it (1984 with some redundancy money but not enough for a bigger one) It's still as is.

Blythman did point out in an earlier post that the lens focused past infinity that might acount for my slightly blurred image of the moon but thinking about it it might also have been a bit of alto-cirrus.

Snag is the moons at its highest at present at about 4-5am (and not to high at that) and I'm far to lazy to get up at that time unless there's a once in a lifetime event

Bernard

Yep, that's the puppy.

Have 3 filters that came with mine: Skylight, 2xND and 4xND. Got mine about 5 years prior to that, in Canary Islands. Couldn't believe the price at first, but then he said that the filters were extra (but only in his shop) - and pricey. But combined still a lot cheaper than UK price. Probably not much more than it's worth now, although few have heard of it. Pecking order is supposedly Tamron by some margin over Olympus, and then Makinon following it up fairly closely.

IIRC reason for focusing past infinity wasn't just manufacturing cost, many/most have stop adjusters under the grip apparently, but because they are affected more by temperature than a normal design of lens and you could lose infinity if there wasn't 'slack' built in.

I suffer from myopia so using my binoculars Hoya 10x50 tends to be a problem as they seem to just get to infinity so with my specs on they're fine but without-not a chance. I have another pair, Mirander 8x40, and they're fine either way.

Spent lunch in the garden still experimenting. I thought I'd add my extention tubes and from several feet away got the following :-









I got a lot of blurred ones as well (there is just enough breeze) but you probably don't want to see those.

These were all taken with the AS set to 500, but AS off and tripod mounted. None are cropped, only resized tp 800px

regards
Bernard

How does that work, then? What is beyond infinity? I think if this lens does that it may have upset the present laws of physics. If you can work out how it does it, you might get a Nobel Prize