A wildlife video forum would definitely be the fastest-growing one on the website. Every professional monkey-show video jockey would participate. You could expect to see links posted to some spectacular video clips.
Perhaps digital wildlife still-photography could be integrated into it, as many of us pack both kinds of equipment.

Done! See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=111

This thread has been copied over to the new forum...

regarding EOS lenses
 

ok, this may be a stupid question, but what the heck. i'm soon to purchase a canon XL2. i understand i can get it w/out the basic lens. would it make more sense (ie, be cheaper) to do it that way, get the adapter and put some EOS lenses on it? i was going to get the adapter anyway.

are there disadvantages to the EOS lenses? are the zooms better or worse? focusing problems? i'd like to play around a little with some super wide, "Gilliam-style" lenses, as well as slow shutter speeds, ala Christopher Doyle. with the adapter i can put every single EOS lens on it, right? or should i just not mess with it? am i asking too many questions?

You'd save about $500, but to buy the 20x lens later would cost nearly three times as much. An XL-2 body only and EOS adapter together would save $80 off the price of a standard XL-2 setup. If you already have some EOS lenses, and have no intention of using any kind of wide-angle shot, that may work for you.

Hi Benjamin. There are several disadvantages to using the EOS lenses on the XL2, no motorised zooming for a start. And if you want wide angle, the multiplication factor (roughly 9 times) of the EOS adaptor will be the real killer though, every EOS lens will be telephoto on the XL2, even the wide angle ones. Chris Hurd has a page on the XL2 watchdog that explains all this in detail. I suggest you read it very soon and make sure you buy your XL2 with a good understanding of what the whole package is.

Richard

the 20x stock lens is quite good for most applications. i have six EOS lenses and view them as supplemental to, rather than replacements for, the 20x lens. the EOS lenses are only operational as fully manual--manual zoom, no AF, no OIS. i would not buy the XL2 without having access to some sort of video-specific lens, the 3x, the 16x, the 14x, etc. even if i had EOS lenses, unless the only thing i was interested in was wildlife or surveillance, the two most common applications for EOS lenses. you're probably better off with one of the video lenses and doing lensing effects in post or else purchasing effects-specific adapters (fisheye or whatever) for your stock lens, than trying to create effects with EOS lenses--not saying it can't be done, just saying that those are expensive experiments, unless you already own the lenses. i would say that i have not found an EOS lens which replaces the 20x.

on the other hand, while i would not buy a body-only XL2, i would buy the H1 body-only because i *have* the 3x, the 20x and a bunch of EOS lenses which could be sufficient, to mitigate the cost, but that's a different story and a different price point entirely.

EOS lenses aren't really cheap as well - good ones are 500.00 and up, some of which do have image stabilizers.
As mentioned previously, you won't be able to get wideangle coverage using them, but they are awesome for wildlife and other applications where you need to get really close.

EOS lenses are not very useful for anything but sports, wildlife, etc. As mentioned the multiplication factor is HUGE. All lense are unuseable at less than 20 feet away, and that will be a headshot with the lens at its widest. The 20X is fabulous, take some getting used to but great glass.



ash =o)

on the other hand, while i would not buy a body-only XL2, i would buy the H1 body-only because i *have* the 3x, the 20x and a bunch of EOS lenses which could be sufficient
Is Canon selling an XLH1 body kit, like they are with the XL2?

Common knowledge seems to be that the older XL lenses are performing unexpectedly well on the H1 ?… which makes me wonder.

Likewise, has anyone strapped the H1’s lens on the XL2?

no, there is no body-only H1 option--that was merely wishful thinking on my part. and thus rumors are born!!

and thus rumors are born!!

Exactly... and now that I think about it, they have no reason to market a body-only kit, as they only have one lens designed for the camera. So, silly me.

I assume that if they make a new 3x, etc... we may see this wish granted.

This begs an interesting question, though. How much would this lessen the H1's price?

ok, so if i've got this straight then, there's no real reason to buy EOS lenses at all? shouldn't i do fine with the XL2 zoom lens? and what's the difference between mechanical and manual zoom?

thanks!

sorry, one other thing. is there an EOS or third-party fisheye i can get? 'cause i'm thinking that even with the multiplication factored in, a fisheye should still give me a super wide angle.

Benjamin

NO a fisheye would NOT give you a super wide angle. There simply isn't an EOS lens that won't be a telephoto when mounted on the xl2.
(The multiplication factor is 7.2 I believe. Thus, an 11mm Fisheye would become a 79.2 mm equivellant)

A "mechanical' zoom is a zoom with a motor/servo attached. The 20x and 16x both have variable speed servo's attached. You can turn them off to go 'manual'.

A manual zoom means you have to zoom in or out, manually - by hand. By twisting a zoom ring or pulling on a zoom barrell.

See Chris' rundown on lenses http://www.dvinfo.net/canon/articles/article58.php#f12x

With around 7.2 X magnification factor of all SLR lenses via an adapter (except of course with mini35 or P+S) - Canon, Nikkor, Sigma etc, even the widest lenses will still become medium telephoto lenses...even an 8mm ultra-wide full format Nikkor, or fish Eye Canon will be transformed into a 50mm lens...not a wide angle. So a wide-angle converter, such as the Red Eye, Optex, Century etc., would need to be added to any lens to provide a wider view.

the real reason to buy EOS lenses, as several people have pointed out, is because you do a lot of close-up work--sports, wildlife, surveillance are the common applications. i use mine primarily for wildlife and outdoors. it is a revelation, actually, the amount of detail you can capture with these lenses, far superior to the 20x or even 20x with 1.6x teleconverter.

for wide angle, the 3x is pretty dang wide.

i think what folks are saying here is, you can go ahead and experiment away with a range of lenses, but unless you already own them, it'll cost you to do so. but to say there is "no reason," seems to kind of ignore the reasons you've already been given.

tell you what--within the next coupla days, i'll stick my 15mm EOS fisheye on my XL2 (usually keep it on my Rebel XT) and post the results. i've been wanting to try this anyway, out of sheer curiosity, just haven't got around to it. i don't think it'll be pretty, but i'd be happy to be proven wrong.....

Meryem

Thats a good idea. Take a shot of a subject with the lens on the Rebel, then capture a frame grab from the same spot with the lens on the Xl2. Might help some people BELIEVE in the arithmetic.

thanks guys. this has been very helpful. what i know about lenses could fit on the head of a pin. looking forward to the fisheye pics...

ok, so i popped the 15mm on the XL2 and guess what? there is no fisheye effect. it's eliminated by the magnification factor. just a somewhat narrow field of view in a plain rectangular image. also, even though the lens is a prime, the image looks very soft to me. i would probably not use it. i have not taken any footage, since the weather here is bad (70mph chinook winds here in the foothills means i'm not going outside today, a good day to edit). but that's my preliminary report. if you really want to see images, i'll post images another day, but there's not much to see. 15mm on digital rebel still cam = sharp, sweet fisheye and wide angle. 15mm on the XL2 video cam = soft, bland rectangle and narrow angle field of view.

if you're looking for lens effects, benjamin, you're better off looking into the vast array of post-production tools or else adapting the 20x with WA or fisheye converters or filters, rather than EOS lenses.

okay, if you want a really cool lens, get the 100mm f2.8 macro! just popped that on and it can do intense close-up work! it's pretty cool.

i have a set of close-up achromats, and the 100mm macro works way better than adapting the 20x with achromats. i'm very surprised by this result, actually...it's exciting, really.

once again, this works great in the wildlife and outdoor category, but i can imagine some wicked cool applications. i'm off to shoot my dog's eyeball, if she'll let me....

(should be editing, dang it....)

Hi Meryem, out of curiosity,
why is the 15 mm soft on the XL2? I've never tried it, but since the Rebel is much higher resolution than the XL2, shouldn't it be just as sharp on the XL2?
thanks

most 3rd-party lenses are softer than the canon, and my fisheye is a sigma. it seems plenty sharp on the rebel. but even among canon lenses, there is a range of sharpness. lauri kettuinen did a sharpness test on the canon 70-200mm on the H1 and it was considerably softer than the 400mm prime, for instance. there's a lot of sharpness/softness variability among lenses and there seems to also be variability among how they function on specific cameras. beyond that, i can't explain it, only reporting what i see. the 15mm seems softer and a bit noisy (at least in the VF, i didn't output footage because if it's noisy in the VF, it's a pretty good bet it'll be worse in the footage....). also, the EF adapter adds more glass, so a soft lens gets softer, which is why you want to begin with the sharpest possible canon lenses to use with it.

hope this helps....

wow, i'm surprised about the fisheye lens. dang. so i guess there's no way to get the fisheye effect on the XL2? well, i could screw a fisheye adapter onto the stock lens, but wouldn't that cause vignetting? (i currently have an old sony TRV900, and pretty much everything i add to the front causes vitgnetting) (i guess this is a question for a different forum?)

I'll all for widlife video forum.
Stan

Is autofocus retained, with Canon's EF adapter? If not, why are there apparently electronics in it?

The electronics are there to tell the camera that a lens is connected.... none of the EOS lense I have used were controllable with the camera controls.



ash =o)

Bill;
The electronics and battery in the adapter are used to provide power to the motors in the EF lenses to control aperture. The aperture is changed by using the aperture control on the camera. There is also info transfered to the camera viewfinder from the lens.
But, as Ash say's, autofocus is not retained and the lenses are manually controled.

ok (if anyone's still reading), what about macro? will that work, or will the adapter multiply it too much? anyone?

a good macro will cost you $500-600. or you can get these for 80 bucks:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ughType=search

my 100mm macro lens seems to work pretty nicely as a macro with my XL2, as i already stated. the +4 diopter is too close to resolve with the XL2, and you can't actually stack the diopters for close-in work, as they claim. +1 and +2 work fine, though. up to the +4 works with the FX-1, but again, once you start stacking, i guess you need a higher resolution lens, at least for very close work. i find a +4 is so close that the object itself is generally unrecognizable. very cool textures, however.

XL2 with EF Adaptor and Sigma 600mm mirror?
 

Hi,

Was wondering if anybody ever tried using Canon XL2 with EF adaptor in conjunction with Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror lens (for Canon)? I recalled very vaguely that when I mount the mirror lens on the XL1 (not XL2), something was flashing in the viewfinder - I thought at that time that the rig was faulty and did not experiment it further on.

Of course, no AF, and no auto exposure as well. Have to set XL2 to either manual mode or Aperature priority (using f/8) - if it works.

Needing all the reach I can grab to do birds video ....

Thanks,
TS

You'll need a tripod made out of reinforced concrete to stop the wobbles. You're shooting at something like 4500 mm focal length with an f/8 maximum aperture - it sure will make things slightly difficult.

tom.

The Sigma should work OK, although you'll need to control light via the shutter speed and ND filters etc (The aperture is fixed on the Sigma mirror lens). I'm not sure how bad the doughnut rings will look on your clips, especially on background leaves or water reflections.

The 600mm length on an XL body tends to be too extreme for most fast moving subjects, especially small birds, but is OK for static subjects or when the birds remain in frame (don't try to pan with it!). You'll achieve far better footage if you frame the bird and then lock-up the tripod, or allow the birds to move in and out of a fixed frame.

I've found that you'll achieve better footage by getting as close as possible with a 16X lens and then waiting, or using a 300mm lens (still more than 2,100mm on an XL body).

I sometimes use my 600mm f/5.6 ED-IF, but as Tom explained, you'll need a good tripod head and sturdy tripod legs to prevent any shakes - my tripod system is very heavy.

Sigma 300mm f2.8 + 2.0 extender
 

I tried to attach the Sigma 300mm f2.8 + 2.0 extender together with my XL-2. The results was nice when, as Tony says, framing the object. You can see my rig at:
http://www.video-film.no/galleri.html (sorry but text is in norwegian).

I also put a divX-file online showing the moon passing with the extreme telephoto (appr. 4680 mm on a 35mm system!)
http://www.video-film.no/snutter/maane.avi (please right-click and save as... the file is 11.0 MB in size)

I found that the smallest shake will put the target out of the frame, so I think this is something you can't do any pan or tilt with?

- Per Johan

here's a parallel discussion on this issue, going on in the wildlife forum...might be worth a look.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=62242

Well, thank you for all the nice replies. I come to realise that a 600mm is way too long for tracking birds in flight. Now considering a Canon EF 100-400 IS USM zoom. I have to push the 20X standard lens by using 1.6X teleconvertor (about 1700mm in terms of 35mm). The 100-400 would work out to be about 1000mm to 4000mm, which is very good for my purpose. Will borrow one from the shop and test it out over the weekend.

(I am talking of 4:3, not, 16:9 - hence, the multiplication ratio is about 10X).

Tripod is a Vinten with Manfrotto Video head. It is probably heavy enough to nail the XL2 down provided the ground is of rock or something solid. I have found that 20X with 1.6 teleconvertor can induce shakes if the tripod is placed on soft ground ... prevalent in mangroves or shoreline regions. I hope the Canon IS is up to scratch to prevent shakes. Of course, I have to turn off IS if I am tracking flying birds - so far, with little success.

EF lens adaptor
 

Hi there

I am about to get a Canon 30D stills camera and am wondering what kind of performance I would get with my XL2 if I also purchased an EF adaptor. What EF lenses work best? and what kinds of uses would they have. For example would the Canon EF 300 f/4 produce better results than the 20X and how would the Canon EF 10-22 F3.5 wide angle work for nice wide outdoor shots.

I would love to know it any one has had any experience of using these or any other EF lenses with their XL2.

Hi Eric. You need to be aware that the EF lenses all become mega telephoto when stuck onto the XL2. There's a crop factor due to the XL2 CCD being smaller than the 35mm frame that the EF lenses were designed for. This gives you an effective magnification of around 9 times (roughly) so even the widest EF lens will be telephoto on the XL2.

There are quite a few posts on this already, so you might want to do a search. I think most people who use the EF adaptor are into wildlife photography and need the long reach.

Richard

here's a current discussion worth a look:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=66301

if you're after wide angle shots, you are better off purchasing the 3x lens. or a wide angle adapter for your stock lens. i'm not even sure that the 10-22 will mount on an EF adapter because i think its mount design is similar to the canon's EF-S lens series, which are not compatible. in any case, at 10mm x 7.2 crop factor (or thereabouts), you are still talking about 72mm range at the lowest end. not wide angle.

as richard mentioned, a search on this topic will cough up a ton of info. the wildlife forum has many discussions, since wildlife is the most common application for super telephoto.

EF adaptor
 

Thanks for that guys.

It's true that the lenses are magnified by the EF adapter. It can be great for wildlife shots.

However, it is an excellent way to hook your camera body to telescope or microscope (sans lens) where you can greatly vary the magnification with eyepiece projection (just a little or a whole lot).

I have yet to try my night scope!

I have an example or two here of the EF in action:

http://www.geocities.com/amjoyce2004