[zhenya]

Hey Mike, I know what you mean about the L lenses...

As far as corals go, I lost all of my sps corals to something. Don't really know what.
I think I'll take a break from keeping acros and such and stick with LPS type corals for a while. I had a few in my tank and they were not affected at all. All of the "sps" corals got pale and after awhile started to lose tissue, first at the tips and slowly the entire colony would die a slow death. Not pretty to watch, believe me.

[smidoid]

Me too. I'm trying to coax one off a friend of mine (the guy at www.mikekipling.com) but he won't part with it... selfish SOB. ;-)

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by smidoid

Me too. I'm trying to coax one off a friend of mine (the guy at www.mikekipling.com) but he won't part with it... selfish SOB. ;-)

Thanks for the link,Marc! There are some beautiful images in the galleries and I can see why he won't part with his equipment...

[zhenya]

Mike,

Here are some shots from the tank( what;s left of it).

First, some sweepers action on the Fivites.Those suckers are at least 5 inches long...


shot of the Blastomussa that was not affected at all by whatever was killing my Acropora corals and other, small polyped stonies(except Montipora)


and I'm sure you remember this fish.., it loves to play peek-a-boo.



The only shot I'm not happy with is that Blastomussa shot, overexposed I think. I was too lazy and was shoting in Av mode, the rest were in manual exposure.

[zhenya]

Just a couple more shots before I leave this thread for good.

[smidoid]

Neat Gene. Real neat! ;-0)

[zhenya]

Hey guys,

Did anyone ever had an opportunity to use Canon's EF 70-210mm f4 lens?
My neighbor here let me try it today( and I know this lenses are discontinued) and I'm thinking of buying it from him( it;s dirt cheap ).He used it on his 35mm camera and swears that;s very goodand sharp lens. I don't know, it doesn't look all that sharp to me but I suppose for the price alone I should get it?
Here's a quick trial shots I took with it in manual exposure.

PS. It has this weird macro setting on the lens itself( the swich where you switch from manual to AF).

[smidoid]

Hey Gene, Canon optics (even the old ones) are usually pin sharp. If you're not getting sharp pictures either the lens is in need of work, or you're not sharpening the output from your camera. The 10D (and 20D IIRC) for example, produce soft pictures anyway, on the assumption that you can always sharpen later.

If you normally get good results and this lens is dubious, I'd be considering if it were worth it. What's it look like on manual focus for instance. At F4-5.6 a lens like that isn't going to be all that sharp anyway, you'd need to close the aperture to perhap f8 or f11 before you start seeing nominal results - this applies to pretty much all lenses that normal mortals can afford.

[Poseidon]

Marc made some excellent points Gene, I agree with what he says. With that being said however, I would still not recommend that lens. It certainly is not terrible, but it is a long way from good.

Did I send you a "pshizzy2" action set for Adobe? There is a 100% crop action in there that comes in handy for comparing lens apertures. I don't know if I still have it or not, I had a hard drive crash and have not re-installed everything yet.

[zhenya]

Thanks for the input, guys, it's appreciated.

having said that, I think I will keep this lens, at least for sentimental values since it;s not being produced anymore.

Marc, I haven't had a chance yet to shoot in the tighter apertures but in that flower shot I liked the bokeh this lens produced. It is very smooth in the full resolution as well. That shot was taken at f4, BTW.

Mike, I just got your email with the action and will install it tomorrow or later on tonight and let you know how it went. As well, I wish you luck and speedy learning curve with the MAC OS. Should be fun, too. I often wondered if I should switch from inventor of Internet Exploder myself...
Regarding that lens, I think I need to practice just a bit more and get a feel for it, maybe I can produce some nice images with it after all. It;s construction, however, leaves you speechless.That's how flimsy it feels, but eventhough it feels flimsy, I had dropped it already and it's still kicking just fine. I guess I have to keep it now anyways.

Here's another, unprocessed imaged, just resized using PS CS2.

[zhenya]

Hey Mike,

Hope you visit this thread again and give me your opinion on this particular shot. I used this very lens (70-210mm) in manual everything. Picture is cropped a bit and resized, sharpened and colore are adjusted to be more closer to what this fish really look slike. I used on camera flash, so everyhting is a bit distorted but close enough that I could fix in PS CS2.

[cichlidfort]

Nice lens

[Poseidon]

That is impressive! Looks like you have been working with that 70-210 lately. My only nit pick is that the tail is gone, but I know you posted for sharpness and color critique, not composition.

Most lenses are much sharper 1-2 stops closed from wide open, then they are at max aperture. Max aperture exposures are why L glass is so expensive, but it looks like you are very good working that old beasty to get what you want.

[Poseidon]

Gene, I checked EXIF on that image, it says f8, which explains the sharpness, but also get a shutter speed of 1/20th @ a focal length of 210mm. The 1/20th of a second shutter speed is what has me confused, do you often use such a slow shutter, in combination with flash to freeze the camera shake? I'll bet if you tried an exposure of 1/60th, f8, 400iso there would not be much difference.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by Poseidon

Gene, I checked EXIF on that image, it says f8, which explains the sharpness, but also get a shutter speed of 1/20th @ a focal length of 210mm. The 1/20th of a second shutter speed is what has me confused, do you often use such a slow shutter, in combination with flash to freeze the camera shake? I'll bet if you tried an exposure of 1/60th, f8, 400iso there would not be much difference.

Mike, I had but one problem with this particular lens. It will overexpose everything if I try to shot in Av, so I need to shoot in manual all the time. Pain in the butt if you ask me, but I'm learning...
I agree, it would probably produce even better results with your settings but I was just shooting with various shutter speeds and apertures and not messing around with the ISO all that much. In lower ISO settings this lens has pretty decent bokeh. I have couple of images of flowers that I shot at f11 and f4 and I was impressed with the bokeh it produced at both f numbers. I need to learn a whole lot still about this lens but I think I can make it work for my needs.( And it was real cheap... )

[zhenya]

Well,

I stopped at the LFS today and got me a new clam, and while they were busy baggin it I took some shots of the fish and stuff.., even some fresh water discus shots...
Well, enjoy!

[zhenya]

Few more...

[zhenya]

Tired yet? Ok then, here are few more.

[zhenya]

Ooops, fogot to add picture of my new clam...

[almostdiva]

God... I LOVE discus....

They are just so cool... even if they are FW. When I was a kid, we got our tropical fish from a guy who kept tanks in his garage. He sold freshwater tropical to finance his discus breeding efforts. That's when I fell in love with them....

I keep toying with the idea of setting up a second aquarium in my bedroom. Keep dithering between discus and a seahorse/pipefish tank. I'm NUTS...

Great pics as usual Gene. That store looks like it has some pretty cool stock. Third set, third in from the left (next to the clown trigger...) is that a starfish??

Rebecca