Terry,

The first time I tried it I used a 300mm Nikkor ED 1:4.5 left over from old days of still film photography. This is a pretty sharp lens. I just think the seeing was lousy that night because it always is when the weather is warm. Last night I tried an AF VR-Nikkor 80-400mm zoom 1:4.5-5.6D which isn't probably the sharpest lens Nikon ever made (it was their first shot at AIS and not generally considered a great success) but I thought it might do with the AIS turned off (which it is definitely going to be when the lens is mounted on an XL2!). I definitely had trouble finding the best focus (though stopped down to f/22). Too lazy to haul a monitor out there which would have made focusing easier. Guess I'll keep trying.

A.J.,

Okay on the Nikkor lenses and your poor viewing condition.
My Canon 600mm with 2X extender was fairly easy to focus
in. I even opened up the eye piece on the XL2 and just looked at the
LCD to focus in. I was thinking of adding in my 1/4X
but decided 2X was good enough for what I was trying
to do.

Good luck on your next go at it!

Happy Holidays,

-Terry

I was using the XL1 (not my present XL2) with EF convertor with a 600mm mirror lens and 2X teleconvertor = 1200mm x 7.2 = 8000mm) from Everest Base Camp (on Tibet side) to the summit of Mt Everest - back in 2001.

I could catch leading sherpas (2 of them) summitting Everest - being the first folks for the 2001 (spring) season.

Straight line distance from EBC (Tibet side) to summit = 23 miles.

Comparable to a Celestron telescope :-).

TS

Good deal TS.

Do you have any captured footage of this event posted
on the internet?

-Terry

Unfortunately, no Internet (yet). Only on DVD. If you are interested, I could extract a portion of the entire DVD (just this scene) - encoded it into Divx and send it to you? It is "shaky" - not because of camera, but, due to air movements between the camera and summit of Everest on that early morning.

TS

It's okay TS.... I thought maybe you might have it
on the internet for viewing... Happy New Year
and good shooting!

Aloha

-Terry

For more stability with your XL series vidcams, check my website at www.ronsrail.com. For some reason, I was not able to view your moonscapes, But, I have done the moon with reasonable success with some of the setups shown on the site. quite impressive.

Hi Ron,

Saw your goodies for sale at ZGC.COM. Looking great. However, you need a super heavy video tripod to hold the rig too. I am investigating the entire loading on my existing video tripod - but, I don't think it can bear the load as such. Thanks for crafting a good piece of metal - will think about it when the need arises.

TS

is it me or do ya'll get the desire to howl & grow hair really, really fast?

Thanks TS, for your compliments.
For quick capture of your subjects, take a good look at the RONSIGHT. At $25.00 a second for video clips, you'll pay for it in 10 seconds with the quicker "lock on" time. Those people shooting surfers will really benefit!!
Best;
Ron

Ron,

Tks for your website information. I looking over all the
goodies!

Mahalo!

-Terry

Hi Ron,

Since you are on this discussion list, your RONSIGHT ... does it suffer from "parallex" problem? Since the mic axis doesn't align with the lens axis and there is a vertical displacement of 3" to 5". Or it is used as crude alignment then you go and view the image from viewfinder?

Thanks,
TS

Sure there would be parallax so what you would have to do is put the red dot on the sherpa's coat's top button to be sure the lens was aligned on his middle button.

I reckon, at a certain shooting distance and beyond (yet to be established - because I don't have the RONSIGHT yet) ... the parallax is so small that it can ignored.

I shoot wildlife (birds in particular) and when using EF convertor and a 35mm telephoto lens (like 600mm), it can be an exercise of frustration ... because you don't even know where the lens is pointing to ... if I use a zoom lens, that helps - because you can zoom out, position the camera and lens accurately, and zoom in. A fixed focal length telephoto don't afford me with that facility.

Need to do some experiments with the Ronsight once I have it in my hands.

TS

P.S. Hi DeLange, you mounted a Nikkor AF lens on a XL2 camera? Using EF adaptor? How?

Hello. I used an OpTex adapter (which I got from ZGC though I think they are actually made in the UK). I too have shared the frustration of watching an interesting target wander off while I fiddled around trying to get it into the field. I remember asking here a while ago if anyone knew of a mount for a rifle scope for the XL1s but this thread is the first I've heard of the RonSight. I'll certainly be ordering one soon.

And yes, that was the point I was trying to make about parallax. If you are a respectable distance away from the target parallax should not be an issue. For example 6" would give an angular error of 0.57 degree on a target 50' distant.