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Forumbusters: Don’t Hate on AF-S

So, if you own both a computer and a camera, there’s a better than average chance you’ve encountered one of the many online gear forums, where people discuss camera equipment. And, while a lot of useful information can be learned from these forums, they also rival the Mos Eisley cantina for biggest dens of inequity going, and I’ve lurked on them long enough to notice there are several popular fallacies that seem to never go out of style, which is sad because they frequently stand in the way of better customer satisfaction.

So, we’re going to start addressing a few of these as a respected dealer of equipment, with all our insider knowledge and decades and decades of experience with camera equipment over the ages.

And first up is AF-S. AF-S is Nikon’s designation for lenses with an integral ultrasonic motor for focusing, introduced in 1996. Now, if you’re new to equipment, you may not know that auto-focus cameras used to use a body-based focus motor and screw drive system. Nikon’s AF-S comes under fire because starting with the D40, they started leaving a body-based motor out of their cameras, forcing users to buy AF-S lenses if they wanted autofocus. This gets decried a lot as a shameless attempt on Nikon’s part to force new lens sales and cut-off the used market. AF-S gets a lot of hate.

Of course, never mind that Canon switched entirely to in-lens focus motors when it created its EOS system and EF mount in 1987, making it’s entire FD line-up completely unusable with new cameras. Or that Olympus and Sony’s DSLR systems also use only in-lens AF systems. Or that in lens AF systems are faster, quieter, and more accurate. Obviously such technological improvements must be bad, right?

Simple answer: if you’re a new DSLR customer and can afford it, go AF-S. Even though the more expensive bodies still support the body-motor, in-lens focus motors have been the future for the past twenty years. They might cost you more than the old used ones, but they’ll continue to work going forward on all Nikon bodies. Plus, don’t forget that focus motors aren’t all that’s improved in the past twenty years: lens coatings, exotic lens elements like aspherical elements, and even basic lens formulas have all continued improving and the newer AF-S lenses will yield more than just a focus motor for your money.



Universal Truth (pt. 1)

You got your toy for the holiday. Now you want extra stuff to make your toy more fun. The toy probably works to some extent just the way you got it, but that extra stuff, now that’s gonna make more useful. More fun. This is how it was with Hot Wheels, G.I.Joes, Barbies, you name it as we were growing up.

This is how it is with the toys we use as adults (I hesitate to say grown ups) too.  Let’s say you got a lens shutter (point and shoot) digital camera for the holiday. (I waited for you to say it, did you say it? Say it NOW or I won’t continue.) That was to easy, NOW buy every thing that I recommend in the post. NO? Can’t blame me for trying.

So you got your new point and shoot digital. Is that it, are we done? No so, a mini tripod from Trekpod, or one of those Bogen Manfroto tripods or a way cool Joby Gorilla pod will give you so many more opportunities to exorcise your inner Ansel. An accessory case or bag can add safety and protection to your memory maker, and piece of mind to you. Extra batteries will double your next urban safari time. A car battery charger can insure that when you arrive at Aunt Tilly’s Cotillion you can capture every terpsichorial treat. Lastly do I even have to mention memory cards? Stock up our SD memory cards, and Flash Memory cards are still at holiday prices. Since you will have extra memory, get a Memory card reader so you don’t have to tie up your camera for downloading.



Canon Rebates

In an unfortunate turn of events, Canon’s rebate processing company has filed for bankruptcy during our Canon Days celebration. Roberts would like to assure everyone that this is definitely not a fault with Canon, and, actually, we already have new rebate forms up for the video end of things (well,for the professional camcorders anyway) available in our Rebate Center. So, if you’ve been eyeing the Canon GL2 or XL2s over the Sony HD camcorders, you won’t have any worries now with going ahead and getting yourself one.

On a more positive note, tomorrow is Canon day itself, so if you’re in the Indy area be sure to stop by and try some equipment live and in person. I know I always enjoy it when we have all the exotic L Canon lenses kicking around here.



Mirror Lenses, Apparently Not Dead

Sigma 200-500mm f2.8It’s been a series of odd coincidences around here lately. First off, Nick was taking an order for one of the more exotic of Canon lenses, the 800mm f5.6, so we were talking about exotic lenses in general and the big giants, like the Sigma 200-500 f/2.8 (a piddling 34.6 lbs for over 2 feet of lens. It needs its own battery. No, really) and my favorite big honking lens of all time, the Canon 5200mm f14 (pictures and a copy of the brochure page here, here, and here). Supposedly it had a working range of 18-32 miles and came with spotting scopes. Nice. This sucker reports to have been a very pocketable 220 lbs and 75.6″ long. Now, a lens taller than most adult men might sound massive, but if you stop to do some quick math and figure out that a 5200mm lens should be around 17 feet long, you might not find 75.6″ so bad.

It was a mirror lens, using mirrors in addition to glass elements to ‘fold’ light inside the lens, by first sending it to the back of the lens, then back up to a small mirror in the middle of the front element, and then finally sending it back to the sensor.

Then, the day after that, Jody was surprised to hear new announcements for mirror lenses (which have no aperture controls, you get one fixed aperture and need ND filters past that).

500mm f8 ReflexThen, today, I was reviewing the current Sony instant rebates, and saw the 500mm f8 Reflex sitting down in our Sony lenses. Apparently, if you buy Sony Alpha cameras you’ll find yourself in the unique position of having an available autofocus mirror lens, giving a fieldof view equivalent to a lens three times longer than it actually is.

Will it rival that $11,000 Canon for quality? No, but hey, for under $700 bucks and for it’s tiny size (well, compared to optically formulated 500′s), it’s going to be hard to beat. Don’t forget on any Alpha other than the A900 you’ll have a 1.5x crop making it a 750mm lens which is only about 5″ long.



Cream of the Crop

Bokeh Episode IV (A New Hope)

OK, this next bit is lengthy so we’ll split it into two posts. We’re going to talk about crop factor. For those of you who already know what this is, feel free to skip this post and check back the next one when I go into why this matters for bokeh. For the rest of you, read on!

OK, so. Way back in the bad old days of photography people used all sorts of fun and exotic stuff to capture images on. Most of these were big, and I mean really big, and had to be prepared by hand and used chemicals you’re probably not allowed on an airplane with these days. Eventually, these things were replaced by film, which found it’s most popular form by far in the 35mm negative. Then, near the end of film’s rule as king, and right before the dawn of digital, there was a format called APS-C (the history of which I’m not going to get into) which was somewhat smaller than the frame of a 35mm negative. More or less, and for various reasons, this smaller format became popular with DSLRsand we’re only now starting to see a resurgence of 35mm-sized sensors. But, alas, APS-C isn’t the only smaller sensor size, and for a whole slew of reasons you’ll find that pretty much every camera maunfacturer out there uses a different sensor size, most of the time smaller than 35mm.
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