Lens Lineup

Before I sell two of these lenses plus the Kenko TC to pay for the newest one, I thought I'd post a photo of them all.

From front to back and from left to right they are: Kenko Pro 300 1.4X DG; EF 1.4x Extender; EF 50mm f-1.4 USM; EF 17-40mm f-4L USM; EF 100mm f-2.8 Macro USM; EF 200mm f-2.8L II USM; EF 70-200mm f-4L USM; EF 70-200mm f-2.8L USM and EF 400mm f-5.6L USM.

Focal Length Benchmarks

As an exercise, I took my lenses out this morning and took photos from the same position with zooms at their extremes, primes and some primes with 1.4x extender. The focal lengths I ended up with range from 17mm to 560mm. On a crop sensor Canon camera, the apparent focal length of the lens is 1.6 times longer than it would appear on a full frame or 35mm camera. The focal lengths are the real focal lengths of the lens or lens extender combination.

400 plus 1.4x (560)



400

200 plus 1.4x (280)

70-200 at 200

100

70-200 at 70

50

17-40 at 40

17-40 at 17

I was going to use the towers you can see at 50 and 40mm for the center of the images but it was too hazy to adequately resolve them with the long lenses. These were taken from Peebles Island looking toward the city of Cohoes.

Friendly Heron

It's been my experience that Great Blue Heron will generally take flight if they catch sight of you 100 yards off. Interestingly enough, it seems it's usually when you stop walking that they take notice.

Yesterday at the Vischer Ferry Nature Preserve, I had the unusual pleasure of meeting a heron that didn't seem too fazed by my presence. It was very near the main parking lot, which was a good thing because the mosquitos were ridiculous.

I saw this heron and stopped, probably only 20 yards away. For the next half hour or so I was able to change lenses, move the tripod around, swat mosquitos, all in plain view of the bird.

At one point, it walked out into the water, toward me (I had to take off the teleconverter to fit it in the frame) and into a spot of sunlight filtering through the trees.

You can see these photos and a couple more in the Birds and Insects Gallery of the zenfolio site at http://trulandphoto.zenfolio.com/birdsandinsects.