Off Topic

Well this post is about my camera. I use a Canon T3i at 18 mega pixels. I use it for my photos and video. I don't like it for video only because of its limited gigabytes per clip. If I use raw setting it limits me to about 11 minutes per clip. If you don't have a clip timed you will need to restart and continue from when it quits. Really sucks. So right in the middle of a sentence it will cut off. So I try to limit my time per clip. My camera is totally automatic or manual if I want. My lens is the stock 50mm lens. It is good and takes some great images. I can do manual settings or semi-manual and get great results. What I wanted to do however  was to get a nice telephoto lens but did not have one. I then remembered that my wife has an old Pentax camera with a few nice lenses but they don't fit and are not electronically compatible with my Canon. What to do. Well there is a whole world of lens adaptors that allows you to use the old SLR lenses on the new DSLR cameras. Since most film photography is pretty much done it leaves a brazillion old lenses needing some love. Hop onto ebay and pickup some adaptors that have the electronic sensors to allow the camera to continue to adjust the iso setting needed. An adaptor is about $9. I got two and now have a 72-300mm Tele-Photo lens and a good 50mm lens. Not the best but good enough to get some great pics. I also found that there are many excellent quality lenses from the 50s and 60s that use the old M42 screw mount. A simple lens adaptor and world of lenses allow you to pick and choose with out breaking the bank. Once again digging for quarters. Again the Pentax rules. I found locally an old Pentax Spotmatic camera with a bunch of good lenses and teleconverters and tubes and cases and such and now have a nice prime 150mm lens and a nice 35mm lens. Using the teleconverter is not so great. You need a great amount of light as you loose light when using one. If set up properly you can get excellent images. If not you get real crappy images. Many of these lenses only have like 6 blades on the diaphragm. It is prefered to have more for exellent Bokeh. What I want is a nice 50 or 80 mm lens with at least 12 blades on the diaphragm for using in making my videos. I have not yet found that quarter but I did come up with a nice 200mm lens that I can use an extension tube with so I can get closer and get excellent results with my aperture settings. My 150 mm lens has too soft of edges when the aperture is wide open. My small lens has excellent edges. I try to do my images with the aperture setting open wide. My 200 mm lens has 12 aperture blades and is nearly round when not fully open. I may get excellent results with video with this lens and a lens extension tube. I can produce plenty of good light. However I do need to move my studio to a different place so I can set my camera a bit further away than where I sit. Filming outdoors is not going to be a real issue except for the time needed to setup. 

I decided to give my extension tubes a good try and used one to make my 35mm f-3.5 Super Takumar a super maco lens. I needed a good subject to photograph and was having trouble finding something cool and small. Well fate was good that day. Wouldn't you know it, a bee landed on our sliding glass door in the early morning at mid height and just sat there for hours before flying off. What a perfect subject. Got everything set and started to take pics. I needed to do a bunch of adjustments but finally found a good setting. Some images came out lousy, some ok and two excellent pics. I used a number 2 extension tube. Below are the two best resulting images. It really pays to hunt for gems. More quality lenses will follow. 

Just thought you'd like to see what can be done when you marry the old with the new. 

Pete :)