canon 1.6 xtender

[George Goltz]

any feed back on this adaptor?

how does it perform in low light situation as far as focus and does it reduce light gathering to xl1s

[Jacques Mersereau]

I have the 1.6 and it does a pretty good job, BUT
it is softer than without (worst at full zoom) and when fully zoomed in,
the quickest the 16X can do is F.4, so you lose a couple
of stops.

Is it worth the $400? For me, YES.

[B. Moore]

Hello,
I've found the 1.6 works better with the manual lens ( the 14x 5.7-80mm f/1.6)

This improves my lunar shots.

I'm originally from north Jersey Denville, Parsippany area, how about you?

Bruce bvmprod@quik.com

[Ken Tanaka]

Hey, Bruce,

You mentioned "lunar shots". Assuming that you meant that you are shooting the planetary moon <g> have you had good luck getting some surface detail and, if so, what settings / tips can you offer?

Thanks, in advance, for your advice.

[B. Moore]

Ken,
Yes THE moon, not derrieres. (For those I use 35mm)

1) I first go to extreme telephoto,

2) center the moon, take my reading, set f/stop rather high, some times f/16 or even higher, only clouds passing by can put it F/5.6 - F/11

3) always use manual,

4) set moon beyond lower left out of EVF,

5) sometimes I watch the arc the moon will create by coming back to the camera several times( it takes about 9 minutes to leave the right side of
EVF. This way I'm sure it will go from outside lower left and exit upper right.

6) record it with camera set a daylight and or indoor - one gives you a blue moon, the other an orange moon,

7) firewire it into iMovie, speed it up 5X, = 1min. 36 secs.

8) add Bach's toccota and fugue D minor sound track

REALY IMPRESSIVE

the sound track is royalty free, artist Henrik Behrens

[Rob Lohman]

Where can we find this royalty free music? Always nice to
have some free music lying around.

[B. Moore]

Hi

Went to googles, put in bach's toccta and fugue in d minor royalty free

You might also try Henrik behrens royalty free

or bach royalty free music


I realy don't remember exactly where but let me know if you find it.

Bruce

[John Klein]

I've been shooting with the 1.6x with the newer 16x auto lens and have been pleased with the results.

1st: It decreases your f/stop by 1.2 stops according to the manual, but is off by a hair. Wide, I get f/2.4, full-tele f/4.0, and one click off of full-tele, I get f/3.7.

So you lose just over one stop which isn't so bad as you also lose light just by zooming in with the normal lens anyway. If you didn't need to zoom to the extreme, you will be losing less light from the lens itself stopping down (on its own), so it sort of self-compensates, but you will lose some light.

One thing to remember if you shoot in manual exp.: assuming you will zoom in 100% and f/4 will be your widest available continuous f/stop, use f/4 and the lens will always be at f/4. If you use f/2.8, as an example, the lens will begin to bottom out and shift its f/stop to f/4 as you zoom in all the way. Thus giving you different exposure during the zoom.

2nd: I love that the extender is between the lens and chips. No flare from having an extender sitting off the front element and picking up stray light hitting the glass! Frankly I don't believe in UV filters unless I really thought I was going to get the lens messy (then I'd consider do I really need this shot if it's going to gunk up my baby?). All glass will degrade the image, particularly glass getting hit by stray light. If crap gets in past the lens hood, I guess I'm in for it, but what's going to do that?

3rd: It will aid in making sharper delineation of what's in or out of focus. The longer you zoom, the narrower the plane of focus. Could be a curse or a cure depending on who's using the camera.

I'm sure it is a bit softer, but if you compare the lens only at full tele, then try the lens/extender combo and achieve the same focal length, I wonder how they compare as the lens itself will be much less "zoomed" and therefore sharper than at its extreme? Again, sort of self compensating.

Pricey? yeah, but worth the tradeoffs. Should be had for around $375 online. Shop for it as my local maroons wanted something close to list price! You know I'm willing to pay a small premium for something local (as I LOVE to support local biz) but if they think I'm going to overpay for the "convenience" factor, sorry, you lose.

PS...I am a fan of heavier sharpness control than some of you. Could be a factor.

[George Goltz]

Thanks for the detailed post on the 1.6 extender, I think its a winner.
one other question how do you deal with very soft focus in low light situation,
did a fashion show for a local high school, xl1s with 16xlens in auto focus due to the fact that the models were walking down the runway stopping at 3 locations , i was positioned 90 degrees of runway so there was no way to lock in focus,
well video came out pretty awfull, camera was focus hunting a lot, could not use manual focus as there was no time to focus as models were moving over a 40 foot runway.
Just wondering how you would have handled situation.
also had to do a lot of zooming between very start of runway and very end ect.

[John Klein]

In that situation, I'd pre-focus in a couple of areas. You've got to find an area of equal distance as the subject. It might be off a bit but you could try the edge of the runway or people in the very near vicinity. Just point at them, hold pushAF for a bit and release, then reframe the subject (who's on the run) and shoot; go to the next subject area and repeat from point a to point b to point a...... Probably best to keep the cam rolling and cut it out in post.

What you had were subjects that the cam didn't like between focusing on them or the background. It's a tough situation. The real thing is to do two cams and each one only has a small area to focus on and makes the cuts well.

Yeah it gets noisier, but dial the sharpness to +5. It's not so soft anymore.